Thoughts on Alignment

There has been a bit of talk about alignments now that Wizards seems to be moving away from the idea. I've played enough non-D&D game that I'm not sure I care all that much what the do, but I thought I'd lay out some of my own thoughts on alignment. First, I think in terms of two types of Alignment.

Personal Alignment - For lack of a better term, personal alignment means the 9 alignment grid. It is a general graph of the character or NPCs personality. There are no alignment languages of this type and a spell can't tell if one is Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, that stuff is for the Religious Alignment. 

Religious Alignment - The term isn't really all that fitting but it'll do. This is the old Chaos vs Law conflict that happens throughout the Multiverse. These groupings allow for alliances for the greater cause. Alignment languages might be a thing, allowing the disparate allies to communicate. Each alignment is marked by their loyalties (or lack of) and a Know Alignment spell would tell you which side they stand on. 

You can't gain Clerical Healing if you are not of the same Religious Alignment as the Cleric and don't expect to be brought back from the dead unless you're the same Alignment and Religion as the Cleric. The hope here is to make it beneficial for characters to get involved in religion beyond just befriending a Cleric to act as a dutiful healer. Also I'd assume there are areas that are Holy or Unholy Ground. These areas will prevent healing and resurrection if one is not of the correct alignment and give a boost to those of the correct alignment.

So basically you could have someone that is Chaotic Evil aligned with Law for whatever reason and nobody would know until they got caught doing something Chaotic Evil. People lie, especially to themselves, that Chaotic Evil bastard may not even really know how bad he is until the opportunity presents. That Chaotic Evil guy couldn't be a Cleric or Paladin of a religion demanding they be Lawful though as the God in question, the one dealing out the spells, would certainly know.

Anyway that's the way I look at alignment, when I do look at alignment which isn't very often.