Religion

While this world has all the same religions that ours does, there are some significant differences. We will go over each religion individually after going over one major change common to most of the major religions.

Marriage, Children & Sex

Due to the genetic incompatibility of all the various species, sex never was as big of a deal to religions. Marriage, however, was traditionally only between two people of the same species, and having children outside of marriage was the big taboo that religions shared rather than sex itself.

Christianity

The only major change in Christianity is that there never was a puritan movement. Those that left Europe to come to the New World did so because they were Protestant and didn’t agree with the Roman Catholic Church in much the same way they do now. As such, the whole prudish nature of the Americas never really developed in the settlers.

Judaism

Again, like Christianity there never was a puritan style ethos in the religion. Sadly, many of the problems that affected the Jewish religion in our world still affect them in this world, and they are one of the few religions that has an actual genetic lineage as in ours. If you are curious on this, there is an actual wikipedia article on this, as many Jewish communities retain closely related enough that they have a very distinct diaspora, and this extends in this world to various species as well.

Islam

This is the one major world religion that has the most changes. It is best to explain what happened historically to explain this change. As the crusades were winding down in the Middle East and Europe around the 13th century, there was a great upheaval in the Islamic faith. Many religious leaders who had opposed the aggressions which caused the retaliations of the crusaders began to gain influence, and many of the doctrines of domination and violence that are present in the Qaran and Hadith were de-emphasized by the religion as a whole. By the 1600’s, there were two sects of Islam that had been formed. The one we know today which comprises Sunni and Shia Islam remained in the Middle East in a few countries, mostly the more isolated and backwards ones. But the biggest blow to Islam was yet to come. A group of scholars were searching through old documents in Mecca and found a room hidden in one of the temples. Inside, was a large cache of scrolls. The scrolls appeared to be another version of the Qaran, where much of what was said which people found objectionable (child marriage of Muhammed, encouraging of violence and slavery, vicious punishments, etc.) were all gone. With the scrolls was a note from the scribe who had written them saying that these was the truth of Muhammed, but the spiritual and military leaders who surrounded him wanted this story buried to give themselves more power and feed their depravity. The shock of this discovery, and the verification it was true, sent ripples throughout the religion. The two factions became adamant that their teachings were correct. The softer, reformed Islam began to take over the more orthodox and violent version, but it still survived in many countries. These deeply religious states also were found to have religious leaders descended from those original spiritual leaders that lied to make their own false version of Islam. Many believed that they knew it was false, but refused to give up their power. They reformed their version a political and religious cult, which is now collectively referred to as ISIS. Mainstream Islam, however, wasn’t done changing. Besides giving up all the false words, Sharia law was abandoned as being the cause of much of the problems of their society. Modesty still exists within the religion, but is not enforced. As such, while Hijabs are encouraged, especially for those women who are religious leaders, it is seen as more of a symbol and not a requirement. The barbaric punishments of the religion have been abandoned in all but the most backwards of countries. There also was a separation of church and state as was seen with Christianity. The religion itself became a much more positive force than it is in our world, but the cults of ISIS didn’t die down and are even more dangerous then they are today.