How could you make magic a fundamental part of religion?

[Sharad9]

Magic is a form of sorcery called weaving , and involves using the unlimited mana of the world around you and bending it to your will. Ritualized magic is essentially passive and formulaic, with the individual "borrowing" the world's mana, feeling it flow through them and guiding it along to perform a spell through a ritual circle. These steps are meant to control the flow of magic into the real world, and coax the energy into a specific form, similiar to cooking.

Reality exists inside of a goddess's body. All things, including people, plants, animals, etc, are parts of the goddess's physical form. The creation mythology*hinges around a goddess weaving the fabric of reality multiple times to create the world. Furthermore, her loom is literal physical manifestation of our world with each of the four major portions of the frame being the boundaries of our universe. First Man and First Woman were woven inside this loom accompanied by singing

Manaweaving was given to mankind as a gift in order to shape his surroundings. Performing a spell, including its steps and using its ingredients, is a way of accessing god's consciousness and communicating with him directly. You are using its power to shape the world, and he is granting it to you according to your talent, raw power, and skill.

Mana weaving is a sacred bond between humanity and their creator, and is a necessary part of prayer. The first weave is a right of passage, kind of like a bar mitzvah. One is entering communion with God with every subsequent use, and is the basis for every religion on earth. Now, when the individuals weave, this is viewed as an echo of the the creation of the world and their loom is in effect a copy of the goddess. Aka, weaving is a very, VERY spiritual act yet also quite mundane.

Can this be a good way of tying magic and religion together? What should I expand on?

[Xuc Xac]

Other than D&D's artificial distinction between "arcane" and "divine" magic, magic and religion are already linked. Historically, the only difference has been a matter of Us vs Them:

"Our medicine man speaks with good spirits. Their witch doctor summons evil spirits."

"Our holy man performs miracles. Their sorcerer uses black magic."

"Our priest talks to angels. Their warlock consorts with demons."

"Magic" is the stuff that Magi do and Magi were priests.

[Avigor]

Magic is a form of sorcery called weaving , and involves using the unlimited mana of the world around you and bending it to your will. Ritualized magic is essentially passive and formulaic, with the individual "borrowing" the world's mana, feeling it flow through them and guiding it along to perform a spell through a ritual circle. These steps are meant to control the flow of magic into the real world, and coax the energy into a specific form, similiar to cooking.

Reality exists within God itself. Everything in the universe, such as plants, animals, people, etc, are a result of god's mind willing these things into existence. Therefore, using ritual magic and performing it's various steps is viewed as a form of prayer, which allows you to access god's consciousness itself. Being able to perform magic is god granting you his power to influence the world around you.

Can this be a good way of tying magic and religion together? What should I expand on?

That can work. Especially if you want to incorporate extreme taboos against misuse of magic, and/or the deity directly intervening against certain forms/ levels of abuse; I believe Faerun does have a certain level of this with Mystra being able to deny access to the Weave.

[jqavins]

Can this be a good way of tying magic and religion together?
As good as any. And Xuc Xac makes an excellent point.

But to my very literal mind, what you've done is an inverse of what the subject line asked. You've made religion a fundamental part of magic, but you asked about making magic a fundamental part of religion. Here's what I mean.

sing ritual magic and performing it's various steps is viewed as a form of prayer.But is it the only form of prayer, or a necessary part of all prayer? You can't do magic without god, but can you pray to god, commune with god, "know" god, etc. without magic?

If you can then magic may not be a fundamental part of religion.

If you can't, then you might want to explore how magic infuses religious life. Some real world religions (such as Wicca) do this by defining magic such that virtually any part of life can bear that label; life is magic, cooking is magic because it is transforming life, and so on. But in a fantasy setting where the effects of magic are tangible and immediate you may want more than this. Here are some possibilities off the top of my head.

All adherents learn magic. Learning one's first cantrip is the major rite of passage; perhaps it is celebrated by casting it in public (basically a bar mitzvah.) Most people will go on to learn one to three more, and the number of cantrips one knows is seen as a sign of piety. A few cantrips are all that most people ever learn, but a special few are able to go a little bit beyond that even without class levels.
In congregational worship services the officiant casts some minor spell, some sort of visible blessing, on every member (similar to receiving communion). For game mechanics, she casts a spell beforehand that allows her to do this (since otherwise it would exceed her spells per day).
The sor/wiz and cleric spell lists are combined; not only may only members of the clergy be wizards (or sorcerers) but all of the clergy [U]must be.
In a polytheistic setting, we are discussing the way of things in the cult of the god of magic. Perhaps the god of magic is the chief god of the pantheon.

[Hugh Mann]

Being able to perform magic is god granting you his power to influence the world around you.

A major use of religion is to explain the workings of the world and there are often deep philosophies formed from religion. A devout worshiper of the religion should know where they stand in the scheme of things. You may want to consider how the adherents of the religion perceive beings with access to more/stronger magic as well as people with less magic. While ritualized magic is like a prayer, would some people consider beings with inherent magic (sorcerers, fey, demons, or anything else that is born with magic) blessed by god? If this is the case, then one might perceive the appearance of one of these beings as a prophet or as a heretic

And if this is a setting with no inherent magic, then you may want to consider how the people with, magic view those who don't know how to use magic. If a group of people with magic decide to massacre some uneducated villagers, are they religiously in the clear because God gave them the power to do so? Can one wizard claim to be holier than another of they have stronger spells? This could even lead to a sort of limit of magical learning in the land. While the religious organization would encourage low level magic, they might keep more powerful stuff secret so that ambitious wizards don't become too powerful and upset the religious doctrine.

To answer these theological questions, you should think of the god's motives (or at least what people believe are it's motives). This way you can decide what is acceptable in this religion and what isn't.