You make some very valid points about any attempt to create an all-encompassing fictional religion - it would probably be a disaster. However, that's not at all the approach I was thinking of. My (very incomplete) idea was more of a 'none-encompassing' religion with nothing obviously in common with established religions and suitably unrealistic and cartoony. Like, ummm, Followers of the First Plumbot, who gather in plumbot factory rabbit holes to honor their deity. And it would have no connection with morality, because why would it?

But at this point tsyòkawe's observation comes into play:

This I think illustrates Tsyòkawe's point nicely... even the idea of gathering in a given place to honor a deity already gives it quite a bit "in common with established religions", but only in common with some of them. It would immediately emphasize that notion of religion and how it's observed -- at the expense of those that have more to do with a right way to live, or spiritual practices that don't require a group. Yet people who do recognize their own practices in it could well object to the caricature. So in all, I think it would unnecessarily alienate a lot of people of faith without adding anything important to the game -- even though the way Cmar described it is pretty close to the way I'd think of doing it, too.

I'm a Bishop in The Church of Too Much Fun. When we kneel, it is not in prayer. *wink wink nudge nudge*

In my opinion it could be made sufficiently light in tone and distant from reality to be acceptable to most players without making every detail perfectly neutral. There would always be some people who'd be offended, just like I'm sure some people are offended by same-sex marriage, unwed woohoo, and probably witches, vampires, and zombies etc. in the sims. You'll never please everyone. Harry Potter seems to have survived all the outrage about devil-worshipping witchcraft.

But in all, I agree with you that it wouldn't add enough to the game to be worth it. Personally it's of no real interest to me and I don't want to sound like I'm advocating for it just because I think it's possible.

Okay so I just had to do a little experiment and I think I have successfully incorporated religious practice into my game.
It all started with the stained glass windows and the need to hold a funeral. Long story short (and if you want the longer story you can visit my thread on TS3 forums here Father O'Malley
So, I wanted to throw a funeral party on location but you can't, so I converted this Cathedral into a residential lot and created a sim to live there and preside as clergy. He uses the Podium from University to deliver sermons. He works during the week as a ghost hunter (The Exorsist, LOL), He gives most of his money to charity and goes around town making friends, brightening peoples day and hoping that when he throws a house party on Sunday morning, a lot of guests will show up to listen to him preach, play the piano and admire the beautiful stained glass. He's got a nice coffin in his inventory for the occasional passing of friends. Havent figured that part out yet since they deceased must be a member of his household. Perhaps when a sim is close to death I can cheat them into his active household.
I just chose a Priest because the outfit and decor for this style build was available. A person cold play in a similar way and customise it to any preference they like. I can imagine a synogogue, evangelical, charimatic ( get a karaoke machine and dance floor in there) a buddhist temple, a masonic lodge...whatever floats your denominational boat.
See, we don't need a mod, just a little imagination.
If we did have a mod I would just like to see one that allows for a meditation or prayer action and possibly a "confess" action would be fun for this particular flavor, since I did build a confessional into the lot. That could be really funny. Imagine if a sim confesses some dirty secret and you preist sim gets a moodlet called, "dying to tell" .
Sims should be lighthearted and let's face it, religion is funny. If a person can't see the humor in it then they have bigger problems IMO.

You can do the same with TS2 as well, because there's a teleprompter, candles, stained glass windows, benches, and most of what you'd need to make a churchy kind of religion. If you get sims to sit down to listen, there you go.

I think that whatever we players do with the game after it's out on the shelves is often better than what EA manages to do. As long as they provide us with the basecode we need, we can change looks on things, and mod as far as the limits of the game can go. The teleprompter can just as well be used for a religious leader of some sort, as an aspiring politician who needs to up their charisma. Religion is one of the least difficult things to set up, and it's possible even with little to no CC. On the plus-side, it can be the choice of the player how to set things up, or if they want it at all.

Real life religions, NO THANKS. I don't want it around me in real life, and I don't want any of it in my game.

A fictional religion with Me as their deity (like Sims Medieval), I would be okay with. There have been many times where my sim will do something autonomously that I think is stupid, and I'll wish I could punish it with a bolt of lightning. I also wouldn't object if they want to kneel before a picture of Me and extol My virtues. Perhaps beg Me to get them their wishes and life want. I can picture it now, a sim kneeling in prayer and you see their life want and wishes as icons in their speech bubbles. Sims could have a spirituality gauge (like a skill). Every time a sim prays for something, the wish gets a "prayed for" mark on it. Every wish granted that was prayed for increases the sim's spirituality. The "prayed for" mark on a wish expires after a certain amount of time, and if not granted, the sim's spirituality decreases. Eventually the ignored sim will get a moodlet, "Feeling forsaken".

I like the idea of having the sims worship me. And they can worship different aspects of me: the War God aspect, where they feel drawn to the Military career and like starting fights and conflicts; the Artistic aspect for well, artists; the Evil God side to watch over criminals and burglars; the...ah, Fertility God aspect, for sims who like to spend time on their knees; the Good side, for sims who like helping others; etc.

And whichever side you display most often - for instance, zapping sims with lightning increases your Evil God aspect - is the one more sims will convert to. And if you do nothing to display your existence, the number of atheists and/or agnostics in the town will increase.

Well, it's kinda hard to have "traditional" religion, so my Sims are just generally moral.

Master Controller/Story Progression is of help here. I just tweak it the way I like it.

Presumably meant just "feel"? But interesting typo all the same! :P

Dammit! The Snail God aspect must have slid through my post.

I don't think this one will be praying to me anytime soon...

Well, certainly not after you gave her that hairstyle. God, what were you thinking?

Hey, you smite your sims your way, and I'll smite mine with horrific EA hair.

Wait, what's the difference between a cult and an organized religion?

I've kindof wondered about religion and the Sims too. They must believe in a higher power, because every time they get stuck they yell and wave at the player to help them out. But it's that ambiguous sort of faith where you don't need to go to church or pray regularly. In Sims 2 there was a meditation skill, which could be interpreted as Buddhism.

If you like it, it's a religion. If you don't and it doesn't have a lot of followers, it's a cult.

Which is why you, the player, most likely human, are the higher power they appeal to. Hence, you are their maker, their ruler on high, and source of life and even the afterlife of your sim subjects (with a little automated help from Grimy). Introducing other forms of religion will only confuse your loyal sim followers, and undermine your own, admittedly puny, position of power and adoration.

Which is probably why monotheistic religions get really upset with all those polytheistic religions out there. Too many cooks in the kitchen, and way too many meetings to attend day in and day out just to negotiate which god gets first crack at the Sunday paper's magazine section.

I am all for incorporating religion into the game. Could EA do it? Yes, they could since they already did in TSM with the fake Protestant and Catholic religions. But will they ? Probably not for Sims 3. I think a mod is our best bet. Religion has always been a significant part of my life (born Jehovah's Witness then converted to mainstream Protestant Christianity and now mostly just spiritual, have a Christian faith but not very religious) and would like to have that theme in my sim world. Despite the headaches and heartache my former JW religion caused in particular I would like to be able to have religion in my game because it would make my sim world more “real” to me personally. I would love to have a diversity of religions in my game even atheists (which to me is still a religion/belief system)! However, even though your idea was very well thought out, I think based on the responses received so far no one would be up for the massive undertaking that you proposed for religion alone.

What I think might appeal to more people is an expansion of the social groups which doesn’t need to be limited to just religion. There can be basic religious interaction like pray together, study the Bible (or another religious text) together. There can be new “hang out” lots like the Groto but instead Church for the Christian social group, Mosque for the Muslim social group, Synagogue for the Jewish social group. If I could Mod (which I currently cannot but do want to learn) I would just start with what I am familiar with and do a Christian social group. Hopefully that would inspire others to represent their religion and put forth the effort to create a new social group.

As for offending people??? Yes, people will be offended because that is part of life and the annoying part of human nature. However, I personally could not care in the least. If someone doesn’t want a mod in their game then quite simply they do not have to install it in their game! Problem solved! People really need to get over themselves. It is a game and we should be able to tweak it the way we want. I find it quite disturbing that we can have murder mods in our game ( i.e Dexter the Bear and other weapons systems) but not religion. In the Sims 2 there was even a rape mod! But people want to get all up in arms over religion!?! Really?? Smh

Anyway sirz345 you have my vote. Could there possibly be a Social Group Expansion Challenge?

What

It's true, unfortunately.

Well, that kind of knocks the miscarriage mod that I found a while back off of the #1 spot on my 'Why?' list.

No seriously, what the actual fuck. Where was it even hosted?! Presumably not even here.

MY BRAIN IS FULL OF FUCK.

I found it, after a bit of Googling (which probably landed me on some sort of government watch list). It was hosted on The Sims 2 Workshop, but I won't post the link here. If anyone wants it, I'm not going to enable them.

Seriously though, unless you were using it as a therapeutic tool to work through something, I have no idea why you'd want that in your game. If you're doing some sort of story that involves sexual assault, there's probably a more tasteful way to handle it than installing a rape mod and taking pictures. At least it wasn't usable on children (although it was on teens).

That's by Carrigan and it's been around for years. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good thing to make, boggles my mind. But then I feel the same way about a certain BBQ.

How does that even work? Does it come with custom animations or does it just do the dustball and then pop out a custom memory?