I WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR ALIEN RELIGION THEORIES!!!
My first theories are towards altean and galran religion. (I'm basing these mainly off world religions bc honestly the definition of a religion is so vast that my imagination is going wild trying to figure out what to do with this)
For altean religion, I think the main religion on altea would be something similar to Buddhism.
For people not familiar with Buddhism, it's a religion centred around trying to achieve enlightenment. Until you achieve enlightenment, you are stuck in a cycle of rebirth (it might be called samsara, or that might be Hinduism I can't actually remember). Once you achieve enlightenment (at death. Only the Buddha was enlightened while still living) you reach nirvana, which is, for want of a better phrase, Buddhist heaven. Achieving enlightenment is (actually somewhat similar to aristotles virtue ethics if anyone is familiar with those) about reaching a median in life, not living on excess or deficiency, but having a perfect balance. This is achieved through a hell of a lot of meditation and also various other things that I cannot currently remember.
I think altean religion would be more of a way of life than a belief system; but still with the belief in an end goal (nirvana) and a consequence should you not reach that goal. (Side note Buddhists believe you can only reach nirvana while you're a human, and they also believe there are different realms you can be reincarnated into, as well as being able to be reincarnated as different beings in this world. There's a whole load of stuff about it but I can't remember much, its been a while since I studied buddhism). I also like to think that alteans meditate, because I think it fits with their whole shtick. I think this religion would have a similar thing to buddhism: you can live with everything you need without having excess. I think this would involve giving away things that aren't required (which would explain why allura doesn't seem to have a lot of stuff, despite being a princess, because I feel like she would have at least some stuff on the castleship) which would also contribute to them having a really good welfare state. I like the reincarnation thing (also it's nice bc it slightly coincides with my theories on galran religion) although I feel like since alteans were definitely aware of other alien species, they wouldn't need different realms to reincarnate into since they could reincarnate as literally any other alien species. Also I like the idea that even though their religion would involve things like meditation and have certain rules, they still believe that as long as you're a good person (and don't live in excess), you don't necessarily have to be a believer of the religion to reach enlightenment or whatever their version of nirvana is.
For galran religion, it gets a little more complicated. My altean religion theories pretty much entirely stem from buddhism, but my galran ones are a combination of a few different inspirations.
I think they'd be polytheistic; think Greek and roman mythology, as well as Egyptian, aztec... stuff like that. Gods for different things, so many different gods. But I'm also taking inspiration from Hinduism, so I'm going to say there are several main gods (also similar to the olympians in Greek mythology) and most people worship one in particular (as in every househokd or family will worship a different main god). The other thing I'm taking inspiration from Hinduism on is their theory on the soul and reincarnation.
Most ancient religions (Greek, roman, Egyptian, etc.) Believed in an underworld, or an afterlife. However, Hinduism (despite being the oldest of the world religions) has a reincarnation cycle instead (possibly inspired by other religions at the time in Asia. I don't know as much about mythology and beliefs on that side of the world) which I would really like to implement into the galran religion because then it coincides with altean religion! I also really like the Hindu view on the soul; they believe that the soul, or atman, is the part of you that is eternal, and your body is temporary. Every body is just a house for your soul, your soul is the thing that really matters. I really like this view, and I think again that it coincides nicely with altean religion, since galrans and alteans seem to be at least partially linked canonically so I think their cultures might have influenced each other slightly.
I have other theories for cults and smaller religions but this is really long already so if you wanna ask more specific questions feel free!
