Religion... Yay or nay?

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Re: Religion... Yay or nay?

#76 Post by dramspringfeald »

arachni42 wrote: It seems to me, from this thread, that it's misrepresentation that has the potential to be the most offensive, as opposed to merely mentioning God, Buddha or Allah. That being said... the more I think about it, the more I think the fantasy genre in particular lends itself to stories that involve religious conflict. The religions are often fictional, but also often have a real life corollary.
The Religions are Fictional and most people don't play them. Remember in the "western world" Video games are for children and ignoring a few games that have been rather ignored until recently they children's things. Heck Halo is VERY religious when you think about it. Just replace Covenant (Also a religious term) with Catholic and your golden. Just because they are aliens with funny hats no one outside of a few notice.
arachni42 wrote: As a writer, I like examples. :)

Out of curiosity, have you seen the recent British TV series Merlin? It is a TV drama/comedy. It tells a King Arthur story from a teenager point of view, and definitely plays up a conflict between magic and... well... outlawing magic and ostracizing witches/warlocks. But "religion" is quite noticeably missing. They are clearly careful not to mention God or paganism or anything specific. Even when there is a wedding, there is no priest per se. I am very sure this is done purposely to avoid stepping on anyone's toes, probably because, after all, it is not some sort of deep, epic show. I am curious what you think of that approach.


Marriage without a priest was very common in the Pagan rituals. Only when Catholicism showed up did they have a priest in all their "rituals." Also Pagan is a Roman Catholic term meaning "Anything that is not Roman Catholic."

Sorry I went on a tangent. No, I haven't seen it but the Merlin and dragon tales were used by the Christians to slowly convert them over and well the whole Germanic pantheon went the same way as the Greek/Roman ones.

Then what is their reference? What is the Magic? why are they banning it? Is this the X-men and Homosexuality? Or the Marvel Supers "registration act" for immigration? remember we write what we know. It either comes down to our past, our future or what is happening right now.

During the 70's and 80's the gay rights movement was the rage. It WAS what was going on. During the 90's and now Immigration and race is what is in the news. So now we are pushing for forced registration of foreigners, Sticking them in camps and watching their every move because they could be a threat. Our past is what we saw as children our hopes our dreams and how they are now seen from our eyes but it is again tainted by our lives and what we have today as a reference. Finally all this dystopian future stuff is watching those dreams fester and become what we fear. Reviewing history is what happens when we look to the future... and well it looks bad. Religion IS the history for most of the world and looking back we see through the cracks and is shows in everything we do.

*By Bleaching out any religion or most of it, what slips through is even more important...
arachni42 wrote: I agree with this... but I'm not even sure there would be that much of a "backlash".... backlash implies a widespread response, and I don't think I've seen that to existing media. (Was there a backlash against Skyrim that I missed??) Although I suppose it depends on where you live.
Because it is too subtle. As "history" has shown the Nords and Vikings were "Christian." (until you look past the 500 year limit.) Most can see the Elves AS the pagans while they are the ones pushing for one god under the nation while Crushing any who fallow the '9 divines.' It's subtle but most either don't catch it or ignore it. They also play both sides to be dicks and let YOU decide which side you prefer so either side is the christian or pagan side.

'Course I could be reading too much into this. I would also like to apologize if this gets confusing... I'm not that great of a writer...
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Re: Religion... Yay or nay?

#77 Post by Tempus »

I think I have something useful to contribute. The words "atheism", "agnosticism" and the scientific use of the word "theory" have all, in my opinion, been poorly defined. While I won't go so far as to say my own definitions are correct (since ultimately word usage determines meaning, not recorded definitions), I will say that I think they are more useful, especially if consistency in word construction and usage is of any value to the participants here.

First, belief and knowledge are separate, but not mutually exclusive. That is, you don't either believe *or* know - rather, they're compatible in a number of combinations, such as belief without knowledge, belief with knowledge, no belief and no knowledge. This is an important part in my argument for definitions below.
  • Theism - from the Ancient Greek "theos", or "god".
    A belief in one or more personal (i.e., interested in human affairs) god/s. Can be further specified by prefixes such as "mono", "poly" and "pan". Being theistic does not necessarily mean one is religious.

    Deism - from the Latin "deus", or "god".
    A belief in one or more impersonal (i.e., not interested in human affairs) god/s. Can be further specified by prefixes such as "mono", "poly" and "pan". Being deistic does not necessarily mean one is religious.

    Gnosticism - from the Ancient Greek "gnosis", or "knowledge". (Gnosticism in this context is not referring or related to the capital "G" Gnostic movement.)
    A claim to knowledge or certitude regarding one's own beliefs.
From here, the words "atheism" and "agnosticism" can be constructed by adding the prefix "a", meaning "not" or "without". Read the above definitions once more adding "without" at the start and you'll get the definitions for atheism, adeism (I've never seen this used; it's meaning is always merged with "atheism") and agnosticism. Theism, deism and atheism, along with their prefixed cousins, deal with belief. Gnosticism and agnosticism deal with knowledge - agnosticism is not a middle ground between theism and atheism. As I mentioned in the second paragraph, belief and knowledge are not mutually exclusive. Keeping that in mind and using the above terms four positions emerge (I've omitted deism for brevity):
  • Agnostic theist - believes in a god or gods but does not claim to know a god or gods exist.

    Gnostic theist - believes in a god or gods and claims to know a god or gods exist.

    Agnostic atheist - does not believe in gods but does not claim to know gods do not exist (sometimes referred to as "weak atheism").

    Gnostic atheist - does not believe in gods and claims to know gods do not exist (sometimes referred to as "strong atheism").
The terms "weak atheism" and "strong atheism" have been mentioned above only because their usage is common enough to warrant it. They are poor terms in that they give the impression that atheism can be graded on a scale of intensity which it can't; the terms are akin to "weak empty" or "strong nil" - there's nothing to measure.

The definition of atheism is sometimes worded like this, "atheism is the belief that there is no god". While seemingly innocuous, there's a problem with this definition: it doesn't make sense. The above phrasing is equivalent to saying "amoralism is the system of no morals" or "asexuality is the desire for no sex". The prefix "a" in these words means "without" or "not" and negates what follows - if theism is "a belief in a god or gods", then a-theism is should be, "without a belief in a god or gods". In the same way asexuality is a lack of sexual desire and not a desire itself, atheism is a lack of belief and not a belief itself.
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Theories exist in science to explain facts. Theories can contain both facts and laws. "In scientific terms, "theory" does not mean "guess" or "hunch" as it does in everyday usage. Scientific theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses." (source) To pre-empt any games with the word "fact", this is how it's being defined: "In the most basic sense, a scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts." (source)
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Re: Religion... Yay or nay?

#78 Post by Cyrus »

When I grew up, where I grew up, atheism was something worse then being black, homosexual, communist, and a woman. It was pure evil. There was no such thing as weak atheism. You had to be strong and learn to fight. Because of this banning of ideas, most religious individuals haven't been introduced to any atheist concepts.

"What are Atheists, mother superior?"
"Black, homosexual, communist women who don't believe in God."
"Why don't they believe in God, mother superior?"
"Because they work for the devil."

Now I'm not saying that isn't true (it is equally a belief after all :? ) but it may not be. :twisted:

One of the bedrocks of Atheism is that an Omnipotent Being is a contradiction of terms. All that is human is because of lack of control. Omnipotence is to not be constrained by cause, which is randomness.

And one small correction. Religion is not a search for the meaning of life. That is philosophy. Religion is the answer to the meaning of life. It was because they overlapped that Religion destroyed philosophy, quite brutally, and only allowed a small subset to slip through. We know that subset now as science.
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