Death of an Atheist

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Closest thing I have to a religion is my loyalty to PS.

[Parallo]

Then what was all of this about? I hadn't brought you into this by name, and don't have a clue who your characters are in-game.

You shouldn't post right after without quoting someone else if you aren't reffering to them. Address thing sto whom they are intended.

[Mythryndel]

@parallo: I thought it was obvious who I was responding to, but I will try to be more clear in the future.

[khoridor]

I wonder why the choice of a favorite god was explicitly added in the character creation, when such question could be answered via religion-related events (there are some already).

[zanzibar]

"Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? I don't see anyone else here, so you must be talking to me."

[Feline Prince]

Maybe we should look at our past?

There was a point where athieism was unthought of. Everyone had to be religeous or was condemed a witch. Albeit it has already been established that this was a different atheism to the PS brand. However, the parrallels still run the same.

You can enforce what characters KNOW through settings but trying to enforce what the BELIEVE is completely irrational. The characters ingame are still people and what it is to be a person is to think outside the box.

Now obviously a character BELIEVING in, and talking about vampires is daft because they dont KNOW anything about them, or bats for that matter. But for them to come up with some concept of a consumer / klyros hybrid that goes round sucking life matter from people... would that be so daft for them to believe? Or at least come up with the imaginary concept of. Along the same lines just because everyone has worshiped the gods for a long time would it be so unreasonable that some spritely young thing would think 'Hey, maybe we DON'T have to worship them?'

An athiest character's beliefs cant be snatched from them through any settings. But the way the world reacts to them can. Prehaps have them treated as they were when our world was more like planeshift, have them burnt on the stake.

And prehaps getting out the death realm wont be easy for them. But in there they can find someone, who knows some, whos brothers best friend knows a way for atheists cheat Dakkru... We've already established she isn't perfect.

[zanzibar]

The thing with atheism in the middle ages, and atheism as perceived by most modern fundamentalist sects, is that the establishment does not distinguish between lack of belief in God and believing in God in an alternative way.  If you don't believe in the exact same faith, by believing in an alternative faith or a variation on the accepted faith, then you are labeled as Godless and atheist.

It's a strange way of thinking to wrap your head around.  Basically, within this mindset, people are divided into two absolutes.  Either you are absolutely correct, or you are absolutely wrong, with nothing in between.

Because we're modern thinkers, we're able to distinguish between a lack of belief in the existence of divine forces, and a variation of belief in divine forces.

How this applies to PlaneShift, I'm not entirely certain, but medieval culture was mentioned.  It actually is a really complicated topic.  This is why it's so important for us to be clear about what we mean by our terms.

[Feline Prince]

Well perhaps Planeshift is just less absolute? The gods have some unknown agenda and agreement in which they involved only the higher level of the Yilakum government because they realised that was a better way of controlling rather than direct intervention? An agenda that if atheism spread among the population would be threatened... Hence the unlikely seeming agreements they have made with each other in an attempt to discourage atheism.

As such the people as influenced by their governors will treat anyone that worships any of the accepted religions as higher than an atheist.

Besides... it is well known that these days politicians that go to church will get a certain religious vote even if its from a different religion.

To what extent are the inhabitants of the Planeshift world forward thinking? To what extent is what they think sought to be controlled by higher powers. Be it mortal or otherwise.

(I'm gonna download me a firefox spell checker... I'm hopeless)  Sorted =)

[zanzibar]

The thing is, the argument (as it's given to us) is really based on logic (like everything else, however logic is merely a process, and you will have different conclusions if you start from different assumptions).

The gods aren't working together. In fact, the gods are fiercely competitive.

The gods (so we are told) will only help their own.

Therefore, not worshiping any god will mean that no god will help you.

This requires us to accept that benevolent and compassionate gods will not be helpful to those who do not worship them.  We do not know why this is the case.

Also, worship for the sake of rewards and fear of punishment is considered by the gods to be true worship.

This is the theology and the divine consequence of not worshiping a god.  The social consequences of not worshiping a god, such as being labeled as individualist and all that, don't fit in as neatly and (in my opinion) haven't been explained except to say "That's just the way it is" (a perfectly acceptable explanation, however not a gratifying one for my personality type).

[Rigwyn]

I know this is an old thread .. but this seems important:

As far as I know there is no reward in game for following/worshiping a god/deity.  There have been a few occasions where a Xiosia blessed a character (gave gift/boosted stats) but I don't think this is a frequent occurance.. (nor should it be) . I could be wrong, but perhaps Talad, and Laanx  and Dakkru should be reaching out too ?

The gods would be much more believable if they intervened with players, guilds, or religions frequently by giving temporary gifts or powers to players or members of observant guilds and religions perhaps. By stepping into the world and asking (or demanding) for certain things, or giving special quests.

What I would propose is to have the game mechanics provide the player with some reward for following ONE god/religion. ( this could easily be enforced easily via factions points )
A player's commitment to a given god could be direct ( as a result of  /pray-ing or doing something ) or indirect ( though association with a religion or religious guild, or by wearing a religious artifact )

To make the religion practical it should have an effect on the character. Perhaps having a certain level of faction with a given god would aid in war, crafting, casting, hunting or whatever...  ( via stat bonus or skewing ones odds when looting or mining etc.. )

Also, if god intervention was more believable/meaningful as illustrated above players might be more inclined to include these deities in their character's lives. ( I hear other players speak casually about the gods in passing, but its usually just "xiosia bless" or some other catchy phrase picked up from a book or quest )

One more thought, if a god's  willingness to participate with players could be influenced (negatively or positively) by the actions of players then perhaps there would be some degree of religious zeal ( perhaps even some nasty religious wars     )

Just food for thought...

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Impatience is untenable in an all volunteer game.

All of the above is planned.

It is much more difficult than anyone has ever acknowledged.

[Grigori]

If to follow current setting, then...

Atheism should have nothing with permadeath, but penalty for death should be greater for atheists.

It can be teleporting to random location (including sky), again death during reviving (fun indeed) or just greater effect of Dakkru's curse - 2 hours instead of 30 min and stat reducing not by x2 but by x3 for example.

The main problem is how to define that character is atheist. Character creation is bad definer. CHARACTER CAN CHANGE RELIGION DURING GAME. Faction points are not good also IMHO - there are many quests for Laanx, and they are all done for reward not for RP but there are few for Talad, and few if any for Xiosia.

Maybe it should be right of players to define who of them is not dedicated enough worshipper? Say, religion guilds ask GMs to set atheism penalty for specific players.

[zanzibar]

If to follow current setting, then...

Atheism should have nothing with permadeath, but penalty for death should be greater for atheists.

It can be teleporting to random location (including sky), again death during reviving (fun indeed) or just greater effect of Dakkru's curse - 2 hours instead of 30 min and stat reducing not by x2 but by x3 for example.

The main problem is how to define that character is atheist. Character creation is bad definer. CHARACTER CAN CHANGE RELIGION DURING GAME. Faction points are not good also IMHO - there are many quests for Laanx, and they are all done for reward not for RP but there are few for Talad, and few if any for Xiosia.

Maybe it should be right of players to define who of them is not dedicated enough worshipper? Say, religion guilds ask GMs to set atheism penalty for specific players.

You have to be careful though.  According to the settings, characters aren't punished for being atheists.  It's just that being an atheist means they won't get any help.  So they don't suffer exaggerated effects, they simply suffer the natural ones.  While characters that please the gods get reprieve.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

My honest opinion:

Leave it to the devs to debate and come up with a decision. We could write Gigabytes of text debating what we think is right, end of the day, their call.

[EDIT: fixed a typo (write was 'right')]

[Koios]

My honest opinion:

Leave it to the devs to debate and come up with a decision. We could right Gigabytes of text debating what we think is right, end of the day, their call.

I agree, but I will say this. For the sake of RP-ing and the Story behind some of the races in the game, all of them can't be religious.
As some of you know, I play a Klyros. I've read the Klyros Lore and the Story written in here as well. Based on that, I believe that any Klyros with a little knowledge of it's own history, would have learned from previous mistakes and run in the other direction whenever a god decides to show up. With Ilgareth (from Klyros Lore), they worshiped her and she was a good god/deity for some time, like Xiosia is right now. But then she changed and nearly killed all and destroyed the world the Klyros originally came from. So they go into the portal and on the other side they meet Laanx, which they now won't worship. Laanx nearly kills all.
The Klyros have every reason to not worship a god. They certainly know they exist and got powers, but that has seemed to be a bit of the problem in the past, so they won't be a part of rising another one's ego.
If now a Klyros would have more negative effects from godly intervention, or absess from it, then I think there would be very few people playing them. They want to RP the race, but since you need to really work to get around the god issues from the past for it to be accepted, they would accept that a god isn't anything for a Klyros anymore, but then they'd get negative effects from it.
Of course, all who wanted to play Klyros could go around saying 'bless this and that' and not mean it, but that just seems stupid. You could put in a 'belief in the Klyros' so that the strength of the race would act the same way as believing in a god, although not with a /pray command, which is a good idea, but aren't people training enough things as it is?

Just my two tria