Mixing religious backgrounds

[Lord Rae]

In a world with different cultures (who for the most part get along and have long since mixed with each other) how should you handle multiple religions? Especially in a world where the gods and mythical creatures of at least one religion are real.... or was real.

I thought I had it worked out but the more I think about it; refering to the old gods (who are now dead and gone) seems weird when I try and tie in other characters with other backgrounds and who's gods were different and may or may not be dead or ever actually real.

Is that clear enough? Or do I still have too much sleep on my brain from the Thanksgiving feast? 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

In a world with different cultures (who for the most part get along and have long since mixed with each other) how should you handle multiple religions? Especially in a world where the gods and mythical creatures of at least one religion are real.... or was real.

I thought I had it worked out but the more I think about it; refering to the old gods (who are now dead and gone) seems weird when I try and tie in other characters with other backgrounds and who's gods were different and may or may not be dead or ever actually real.

Is that clear enough? Or do I still have too much sleep on my brain from the Thanksgiving feast? 

I am not entirely clear what exactly your problem is.

I would however commend to your attention various authors doing things that mix different pantheons explicitly and mange to work at all necessary levels; firstly Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword (most of modern genre SF and Fantasy Anderson did firt) and also bits of Sandman and Mike carey's Lucifer spin-off, for examples of ways of doing this that work.

[Lord Rae]

Hmmm I completely forgot about Sandman. I was just thinking of how to rectify other beliefs in a world where one cultures religion isn't a matter of faith but a matter of fact.

I'll have to go back and re-read some Sandman since its been years. I suppose I could also look to Gaiman's book American Gods as I guess that fits the idea really well for what I was thinking of.

Thanks.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Hmmm I completely forgot about Sandman. I was just thinking of how to rectify other beliefs in a world where one cultures religion isn't a matter of faith but a matter of fact.

A fictional world where one religion is palpably right and people who follow others are just plain wrong is also entirely doable.  There are any number of human beings through history who believe things that are just plain wrong, after all.

[The Corvidian]

I had a nice response to this thread, until the website crapped out and ate it.

[Roaram]

You could also write in spin off religions. Religions that your one true religion acknowledges, but focused on different aspects. Like in Norse myths there are the Ice giants, which you can give their own followers.

Or you could add panthe with desginatedd responsibilities. For example your Zeus and his family tend to the humans/greeks or other culture of choice, while Zeuses brother and his decendants look out for somone else.

Or you could do the whole false god bit, and say that the beings of power that your group A worchiped were not legitimate, or were unconfirmed in legitimacy. So rather than having one true religion you have one religion with more circumstacial proof.

all of these will let you incorperate multiple religions, with all the strife it brings.

[AverageGuy]

You can also go with different denominations.  If there isn't a chief god, you could easily have different gods saying different things.  And there can be political schisms as well, ala Sunni/Shiite.