Death of an Atheist

[Arerano]

Maybe we shouldn't use the term "Religion".

In real life, religion is bound to "belief" but since all are meant to believe IC it must be something different.
Maybe we shouldn't call the "gods" gods either..

What about "Ideology" instead of Religion?

[Parallo]

There are dieties. It isn't an ideology.

[zanzibar]

The simple majority of all characters do not worship the gods at all.

How does this fact aid roleplaying or making the settings come to life?

Discuss:

"All that is not forbidden is allowed" vs "All that is not allowed is forbidden".  Does Atheism hurt roleplaying?  If there are going to be measures taken against it, it must first be shown to be a problem.


In response to Arerano, a while ago I proposed a new description of Atheist for the character generator:

The Old version:

Despite the obvious presence of Gods and Goddesses throughout Yliakum, some deny that these beings are worthy of worship. Most people consider atheists foolish at best and a condemned object of pity at worst. Athests will bear the worst effects of the penalty for dying since no god will grant them succor from it. The atheist does not look outside itself for truth. People attracted to this faith:  People who have had a bad experience with religion, anti-social people, staunch individualists, and the irrational.


The New version:

Despite the obvious advantages of worshiping a god or goddess, some deny that these beings are worthy of worship. Many people consider atheists foolish at best and condemned objects of pity at worst. Atheists will bear the worst effects of the penalty for dying since no god will grant them succor from it. Atheists do not look towards higher beings to answer questions of meaning, self worth, and purpose. People attracted to Atheism:  Those who feel the gods have wronged them, stubborn people, and the young.

Neither don't I understand why people want to tell us that the gods are just ulbermages, aliens or mega-computers from a distant future. This is also irrelevant. The basis of the setting is that there are gods. Period. This is a fantasy game, WITH gods.

It's not that simple.  Vodul, for instance, is a god that our characters weren't supposed to know about.  (That might have change.)

The gods may exist, but whether or not our characters are aware of them is a different question.

If you want to bring OOC into this... the reason Atheism is so popular is one, or a combination of, three things:

1. The player is either atheist or agnostic... [EDIT] AND can't bring themselves to "worship" any "god"...

2. The player is religious OOC AND is refusing to "worship" another "god"... even a made-up god in a fantasy setting...

3. The player is simply rebellious and wants to "go against the flow"...

Seriously... people have an aversion to "worshiping" in-game for one of those reason... As to IC reasons... I hate to say it... but more than 50% of the people I have gamed with over the years (table-top, BBS, MUD... yes, I am showing my age here...) lack the creativity to actually play a character that is significantly different from their OOC nature.

I also think people don't like being coerced.  That's another motivating factor.  (My character worships Laanx, for the record.)

Perhaps we should remove the option to be atheist entirely discuss:

A move like that would have to have justification.

I think picking your religion shouldn't be an option at all at character creation, since characters are known to change religions, and people often want to learn more about each religion from in-game content before making a choice.

What about "Ideology" instead of Religion?

Doesn't work.  I can agree with a god on everything, and still not worship it.

[zanzibar]

duplicate

[zanzibar]

duplicate

[Parallo]

lol, triple post. No wonder your count is so high!

[zanzibar]

Yeah, wtf.    Maybe some posts were deleted. 

[Arerano]

There are dieties. It isn't an ideology.

*deities.

However:
deity
Etymology: From Latin deus ‘god’ + -ī.
->      From Proto-Indo-European *deywós (“‘god/that which belongs to heaven’”), vrddhi derivation from *dyew- (“‘sky, heaven’”), whence also Latin diēs, and the first part of Iu-ppiter. Indo-European cognates include Sanskrit देव (devá) and Old Prussian deywis.

[Parallo]

Ideologies do not have gods.

[Orgonwukh]

CC is character creation.

Thank you. Added it here: http://pswiki.xordan.com/index.php/Players_Guide/Glossary#CC

Religion is a practice of belief, not the belief of the gods themselves. An individual could go through life believing in a god, but never once voice that belief or act in the practice of it. That doesn't mean that they would be unfaithful to that belief. Religions are the rituals and practice of the peoples themselves to express thier beliefs as a way of life.

Nice explanation. Since noone can judge anyone's belief we should restrict ourselves to talk about religion (in a practical sense).

It is not merely personal opinion it was edited by many people discussed among the devs.

Perhaps we should remove the option to be atheist entirely discuss:

I think, the term 'atheism' is causing the confusion, since it cannot be interpreted in game, as it is interpreted in real life. I propose to use 'not practising' instead. This would use the separation of religion and belief as jaycol proposed, and leave the player the freedom to choose their char's attitudes. Mythryndel's proposal of 'undecided' is another idea.

[Lokter Tarvitz]

While we are on the topic of ingame religion should there not be an option for those who wish to worship a number of god's equally?

That might possibly remove some of the atheism problems, as i have noticed a number of supposedly atheist characters who have chosen atheism as they did not want to choose a god. They werent sure what to do, there wasnt an option for "Undivided Worship" and so they saw Atheism as the closest alternative.

The CC option makes people choose, before they know what they are getting into. Either change the selections in CC to reflect the sort of mindset peole in Yliakum are supposed to have, OR remove it entirely and add more religion related quests that will sowly guie a person along the path of a religion

EG. Lokter gets a quest from a Laanx priest to find some artifacts, upon completion of this quest it removes the possibility of doing a Black Flame qust for the same reward.

This will be a lot of work from settings, But it will help people get into religion slowly, for those who want to be an Atheist thenthey will have to follow a different, more difficult route to get the same reward. this could be justified IC by saying the religious Characters had the blessings of their selected Diety.

[zanzibar]

Characters are able to worship all the gods equally, but the gods won't be impressed.

Characters are able to believe gods don't exist, but they'll be treated by society as crazy.

Characters are able to worship none of the gods, but they'll be treated by society as evil.

[khoridor]

The problem remains: how to distinguish between a pious and a religious character through mechanics? Or even how to spot a liar, although the latter is not so important.

Current quests don't fit that purpose, because working for a temple (as in recovering an artefact) doesn't mean one follows their rites; it's often just for the material reward. Faction points reflect a personal relationship with a temple, with the priests and their followers.

On another hand, faction points may very well be enough, if what matters is the appearance of piety, not the piety itself. After all, the temples are intermediates to the gods, ensuring that worship is done properly and enough. Gods are probably not keeping individuals under personal scrutiny. Not even close: a Black Flame follower can pass as a worshiper of something else, and gets away with it.

In the same way, people who insult a god will be dealt with by the religious crowd, if not by society directly, for their foolishness constitutes a danger to all. The temple will fulfill its duty as divine intermediate into worship affairs. If lousy worship spreads to a large scale, an entire city maybe wiped out by a resentful god.

The intermediate role works both ways. Priests worship in the name of the people, leaving them the time to do physical work. People's most common form of participation is sacrifice, often achieved by donations of money and goods. That leaves supported priests time to worship for the people, but most of the sacrifice is given to the gods (if not, in this case, the gods would notice and not be happy). So worship can also be checked by a donation mechanism, and all temples can be donated to.

Whatever way it's done, the favorite god is out of character creation, except for priests. Maybe something like this would replace it:
- I'm a priest of Talad
- I'm a priest of [...]
- I'm a priest of Lannx
- I'm a small village priest and take care of the rites to all the gods.
- I'm not a priest.

The latter doesn't force people to choose how much they worship per day or per year. It is left to RP, and to evolve.

As for the original topic of the DR, if you implement a donation system, or a prayer system, or whatever, that counts for the petitioning. And if someone never worships in any way, maybe give that fool a small chance that the portals won't work for him. Eeeever, ah ah. Stuck for good in the DR, or true death; with warnings at character creation, of course.

[zanzibar]

Personally, I think the best solution is to remove religion from the mechanics of the game.  Direct experience with the gods, even subtle directness, should be extremely rare and special and never entirely certain.  If religion is kept to the lore of the game, delivered through books, NPC dialogue, and quests, religion will remain as something people can use to develop their characters.  But things would be a lot smoother if there wasn't any focus on enforcing worship and punishing the absence of worship.  Instead, gods would simply be "out there" and would only be thought of as objects of worship by a minority of the populace.  The gods don't have an obvious and direct role in the affairs of mortals in the game, and the devs have stated that they don't want the gods to do anything like appear in the plaza or prove their existence or anything like that.

Really, the Octarchy should be opposed to worship of religion.  Worship implies the redirection of resources, and the Octarchy has been written to have a supreme value for efficiency and militarism.

[khoridor]

Really, the Octarchy should be opposed to worship of religion.  Worship implies the redirection of resources, and the Octarchy has been written to have a supreme value for efficiency and militarism.

Now this is the epitome of nonsense.
Since when is the octarchy an atheist government?