Deity centered world

[Emerwyn]

If anything, I think PoE and the DnD worlds aren't deity centered enough. As Gromy said, in a world where magic works, you'd have to be an idiot not to believe in the gods (I'd be signing up at the local temple) And yet, unless you play a cleric or a paladin, you really have very little to do with them (gameplay wise)

 

 

In DnD believing in a god is as trivial as believing in a fork. Unlike in the real world, gods often manifest themselves physically and send real signs of their existence to mortals (a bit too often if you ask me). That was never the question. 

[PrimeJunta]

No.

 

The idea of faith and souls is not fundamentally different at all. In our world, the existence of souls and active gods was accepted as a given for almost all of our recorded history. The only large-scale exception is the past couple of hundred years in parts of the Northern hemisphere. For the people concerned, they might as well have been "objectively proven truths." They were as self-evident for them as it is that the sun rises in the East. Therefore, the whole notion of "proof" and faith as "belief in something unproven" did not enter into it, because it never occurred to people to doubt. In fact, this whole notion of empirically-based facts is a product of the Enlightenment. Before that, empiricism was a tiny and insignificant philosophical sidetrack; even the tiny minority of people who spent time doing some serious thinking about this stuff were approaching it from a Platonist-Aristotelian POV.*

 

So yes there were cases of people born without souls, or possessed by demons, gods, and angels, casting spells, working magic, wielding mysterious powers granted to them by ancient powers, digging their way out of the grave and feeding on the blood of the living, taking on shapes of feral beasts when the moon was right, or having children stolen away by the sidhe and replaced with evil changelings... as far as everybody was concerned. They took this so seriously they bleeding burned people to death for it.

 

Again: faith as "belief in something unproven" didn't enter into it. The raw agonizing questions torturing the occasional saint or sinner were "Has God forsaken me?" or "Am I irredeemably damned?" or "Who the bleeping bleep cursed my cattle so they all keeled over dead and how am I going to make it through the winter now?"

 

This, really, is my only objection to your statements. You're saying something that's just plain incorrect, and I'm attempting to set the record straight. Your preferences about how the game should be are neither here nor there.

 

*Discussing Western intellectual history here. Stuff in e.g. India and China were radically different and way-cool, but that's a tangent I won't get into here.

[Luckmann]

 

 

the aztecs, who offered bloody sacrifice o' literal thousands of their own citizens

 

That'd be damn awful.

I've heard the aztec empire had a political enclave within their territory where'd they grab people now and then from their enemy nation Tlaxcala. Which is awful too after all.

 

there were a professor at Cal, we forget his name, who advanced the theory that aztec sacrifice were the single greatest limit to their expansion in the region.  approximately 1% o' the population were killed by sacrifice each year, which at the height o' aztec civilization meant that hundreds o' thousands were being sacrificed.  for a pre-industrial society, that were, according to the professor, an insurmountable hurdle.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

I read an article where one professor (no idea where he was from, it was a long time ago) posited the theory that it became a form of population control because they were expanding too quick, not necessarily as a society or empire, but as a city (or cities), leading to widespread unrest and increasingly terrible sanitary conditions. Just for reference, it should be noted that Tenochtitlan had a population of anywhere just short of 200 000 up to over 300 000, and that the Aztec Empire came to encompass anywhere between 3 to 5 million people.

 

So "hundreds of thousands" being sacrificed might be an overstatement, but it's still a crazy amount of people, especially if you compare it to the relative amount of people.

[White Phoenix]

The point I was trying to make in the original post is that I don't want to feel the need for my warrior to be an avid follower of the god of Good and Light and pray to that god in his shining glory every dawn. My Warrior would be perfectly fine being just a good guy and doing what he feels is right. Or my Wizard could be a necromancer simply because he enjoys toying with life and death, but doesn't bother or even care about whoever is the god of Death because he doesn't need a valid meta-reason to be a necromancer. He simply is a necromancer in the same way that a football player doesn't need a god of Football to worship, and simply plays football because it's what he enjoys.

 

The thing is, I like that gods add flavour to some settings, and are tangible forces in conflict, but I don't like when they become mandatory in the process of a character creation, or even a forcefully defining factor in a character's personality and goals (again, Clerics, Paladins etc aside for obvious reasons).

 

Either way, real world religions don't apply and don't belong to the discussion here, I'm only speaking of how I preferred if my character could just be a "good guy" without having to follow "Mr Nice God" to back it up, or could be friendly prankster without having to follow "Mr Friendly Prankster God" to reinforce the concept. In other words, I feel that RPG deities rather than offering diversity and adding depth to characters, actually encase them into stereotypes, and that's what I wouldn't like for PoE.

Well, In POE world there are some people who called themselves Faithless. They believe gods shouldn't be worshipped or need no worship by mortals. Gods tend to punish Faithless souls for some kind of their 'atheism', not allowing to rebirth after death correctly. Because of it majority of people worshipped any gods in fear of their powers.

 

Classic atheism (like in our world) doesn't exist in POE lore, because gods existence IS scientific fact as reincarnaction or soul, it is not a matter of faith in modern understanding (believe). I think people only debate about gods real impact on their world (which is meaningful) or how it could be limited or what does it mean to be a god (what is it in fact?), how we can reach divinity, can a mortal become god and so on. So they are present in mortal life all the time, when you see stars, moon, sun, fire, water. They are partially personification of natural phenomenon as social phenomenon (rebellion, assassination, war, hierarchy, authorities) and very specific, more direct manifestations in corporeal avatars and probably Godlike creation (not confirmed they are 'divine children', but they are viewed so by most cultures).

[Diogenes]

Listen to me, my brothers and sisters... heed my words. We have been chosen as the recipients of a most holy miracle, one that should be neither dismissed nor ignored!

 

I, Gaal... I, who have been stripped of my eyes most mercifully, have been shown the truth that has eluded the sighted! The gods that you worship are false gods, icons that serve to increase the wealth of the churches and heathens! Listen to them not!

 

If anything, I think PoE and the DnD worlds aren't deity centered enough. As Gromy said, in a world where magic works, you'd have to be an idiot not to believe in the gods (I'd be signing up at the local temple) And yet, unless you play a cleric or a paladin, you really have very little to do with them (gameplay wise)

 

Would you, priest? I ask of you all a question, for a moment, if what the priest says is true. Yes, his false god grants him power to fuel his spells, much as any wizard might possess. I say that the churches lie to you! They claim their gods are present when they do nothing other than require your coin to fill their pockets!

 

Have they protected you from famine? Have they protected you from disease? Have they wrought harmony upon the land? No, they have not! They lie and cloud your sight to gain your worship of their false images! I have stripped myself of their foul eyes and I see what is the truth! The truth, I tell you!

 

I call on you to abandon your false gods! They have done nothing for you! Cast them aside and join me on the true path, join me in the calling of the true sight!

Edited March 18, 2015 by Diogenes

[Heijoushin]

 

If anything, I think PoE and the DnD worlds aren't deity centered enough. As Gromy said, in a world where magic works, you'd have to be an idiot not to believe in the gods (I'd be signing up at the local temple) And yet, unless you play a cleric or a paladin, you really have very little to do with them (gameplay wise)

 

 

In DnD believing in a god is as trivial as believing in a fork. Unlike in the real world, gods often manifest themselves physically and send real signs of their existence to mortals (a bit too often if you ask me). That was never the question. 

 

What was the question then? It's kind of vague...

 

I don't agree that every character rushes to advance their gods' interests. Fighters and rogues just get on with life for the most part...

 

 

Edited March 18, 2015 by Heijoushin

[h3st]

It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.

Why would a modern interpretation of faith ever develop in a world where the gods are manifest? There might be a few cults, such as the Eye Cult, but confronted with the evidence of living gods, it'd never amount to anything more than an obscure field of study for their academics. I'd expect our modern variant of faith to have developed to keep religion relevant in the face of no evidence—completely superfluous in a gods-are-real universe.

[PrimeJunta]

I think the way P:E frames it -- "are gods worthy of worship?" is a pretty good one and does make sense in a world where gods go around smashing atheists' windows.

 

It is, incidentally, also a question that's come up on our planet, notably on the Indian subcontinent. Some, notably some Buddhist schools said no, others, notably most Vedic religions said yes. Neither considered the question of their existence all that much, both did spill a lot of ink regarding their nature. That debate would fit the world of P:E just fine.

[Emerwyn]

 

 

If anything, I think PoE and the DnD worlds aren't deity centered enough. As Gromy said, in a world where magic works, you'd have to be an idiot not to believe in the gods (I'd be signing up at the local temple) And yet, unless you play a cleric or a paladin, you really have very little to do with them (gameplay wise)

 

 

In DnD believing in a god is as trivial as believing in a fork. Unlike in the real world, gods often manifest themselves physically and send real signs of their existence to mortals (a bit too often if you ask me). That was never the question. 

 

What was the question then? It's kind of vague...

 

I don't agree that every character rushes to advance their gods' interests. Fighters and rogues just get on with life for the most part...

 

 

 

 

My doubt was solved by PrimeJunta:

 

@Emerwyn: I don't think you need to worry. Again, the character creation doesn't even let you specify which god you follow unless you're a priest, and the reputation/disposition system is independent of it. The rep/disp mechanics do affect priests and paladins, but that's IMO entirely as it should be.

 

 

 

The rest is people going on about theological discussions, which I'm fine with, but the topic is solved as far as I'm concerned. 

[Kal Adan]

Why do you assume there even are gods? I didn't see gods manifest in Pillars of Eternity. All I saw was

a construct

. "There is magic" is not enough to objectively state gods do exist. Magic can operate under same laws of the universe like electricity. I can understand priests having to pick up their deity or common people doing the same - lore-wise - but this is more of a cultural thing, rather than proof of something.

[PrimeJunta]

Why do you assume there even are gods? I didn't see gods manifest in Pillars of Eternity. All I saw was

a construct

. "There is magic" is not enough to objectively state gods do exist. Magic can operate under same laws of the universe like electricity. I can understand priests having to pick up their deity or common people doing the same - lore-wise - but this is more of a cultural thing, rather than proof of something.

 

Because Saint Josh of Sawyer doth so proclaim. Gods are real and active. The nature of the gods is up for debate though.

[Kal Adan]

Quote? I tried to find something like "In Pillars of Eternity gods are real", but I didn't find anything even close to this.

[WotanAnubis]

Also, if there are no gods, where do Godlike come from?

 

Actually, that could probably be explained by some kind of mix-up of souls or something.

[PrimeJunta]

Quote? I tried to find something like "In Pillars of Eternity gods are real", but I didn't find anything even close to this.

 

"The pantheon of Eora is separated from their mortal kin by the boundary of the Shroud. [...] The gods take an active interest in affairs that impact broader issues, like piety or the state of an empire. [...] History has demonstrated that the gods are capable of visiting the mortal realm in the form of chosen spectral aspects or corporeal avatars. The former embodiment is used for ease of communication with a cleric or prophet, while the latter is reserved for taking a hand in high-stakes conflicts.

 

"This degree of proximity allows that the character and disposition of the gods are abundantly knowable."

 

(Campaign Almanac, page 17, The Gods and the Wheel)

Edited March 18, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[White Phoenix]

Also, if there are no gods, where do Godlike come from?

 

Actually, that could probably be explained by some kind of mix-up of souls or something.

Their origin is unknown, they are believed to be created by divine intervention. There is no direct proof of it. They have biologically mother and father like all ordinary living creatures. I think people believe they are from gods because their appearance fits into variety of gods domains.

Edited March 18, 2015 by White Phoenix

[gkathellar]

In Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he describes a village that worshiped the deity of a nearby lake. When the rain failed to come, the people of this village would pray. When the god failed to respond to their prayers, they would throw rocks in the lake to punish the god for not holding up their end of the bargain. Did they lack for faith? Were their offerings and supplications insincere? Was their outrage?

 

Reciprocity is the essence of faith. Though some modern religions don't promise any return on investment until after death, that doesn't change the reciprocal nature of the arrangement. Moreover, look at the believers of those religions, and you will find an incredible wealth of people who claim to see their deity's hand in the misfortunes of their enemies, ask for divine strength or protection or guidance, or expect the divine to always be working in their interests; they are no less faithful, no less deeply and personally connected to their concept of the divine.

 

For Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich and a few other people (some of whom may be in this argument), faith is "belief despite the absence of proof.". For most people in the world today, and most people throughout history, faith is "belief that refuses the absence of proof," that never considers any other possibility. Having the gods actually around in Eora does little or nothing to change that. The majority of people will still follow what they see as an observable truth about their universe, theologians will still question the parameters of divinity, and skeptics will remain steadfast in not caring.

 

 

 

 

the aztecs, who offered bloody sacrifice o' literal thousands of their own citizens

 

 

That'd be damn awful.

I've heard the aztec empire had a political enclave within their territory where'd they grab people now and then from their enemy nation Tlaxcala. Which is awful too after all.
 

there were a professor at Cal, we forget his name, who advanced the theory that aztec sacrifice were the single greatest limit to their expansion in the region.  approximately 1% o' the population were killed by sacrifice each year, which at the height o' aztec civilization meant that hundreds o' thousands were being sacrificed.  for a pre-industrial society, that were, according to the professor, an insurmountable hurdle.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

It's widely speculated that, while the Aztecs were pretty bloodthirsty, sacrifice was a political tool above all, used to keep their vassal states fearful. European accounts are almost certainly untrustworthy on the matter, as are those of the allies Cortez found among the Mexican city-states; it's also very likely that the Aztecs themselves deliberately exaggerated the extent of its use to quell dissent.

 

1% is a baffling and deeply improbable figure. This was not an empire that did itself in with its excesses. It might have been working in that direction, but it hadn't gotten there yet.

 

 

Why do you assume there even are gods? I didn't see gods manifest in Pillars of Eternity. All I saw was

a construct

. "There is magic" is not enough to objectively state gods do exist. Magic can operate under same laws of the universe like electricity. I can understand priests having to pick up their deity or common people doing the same - lore-wise - but this is more of a cultural thing, rather than proof of something.

 

Because Saint Josh of Sawyer doth so proclaim. Gods are real and active. The nature of the gods is up for debate though.

 

 

It ain't a god if it ain't omnipotent. Them's just sky wizards and strong aliens.

[Tort]

In fact, if your FR character dies without a god, she's in for a world of pain through eternity.

That is pretty much the same in POE. The existence of the divine and souls is known fact in the world. Its believed that those who choose not to worship a deity risk their soul a 'world of pain' as they go through the cycle of reincarnation.

 

With that said, I got the impression that there is a lot of freedom in who you worship, usually you would have a god that most associated with your way of life (e.g. god of the hunt and adventures) but nothing limits you from praying for god of war, redemption or whatever put food on your table in times of need.

 

Generally unless you are in the pass of the gods, they do not rule you, and its my understanding that unless you are a priest you are not required to commit to one god.

[Gromnir]

In Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, he describes a village that worshiped the deity of a nearby lake. When the rain failed to come, the people of this village would pray. When the god failed to respond to their prayers, they would throw rocks in the lake to punish the god for not holding up their end of the bargain. Did they lack for faith? Were their offerings and supplications insincere? Was their outrage?

 

Reciprocity is the essence of faith. Though some modern religions don't promise any return on investment until after death, that doesn't change the reciprocal nature of the arrangement. Moreover, look at the believers of those religions, and you will find an incredible wealth of people who claim to see their deity's hand in the misfortunes of their enemies, ask for divine strength or protection or guidance, or expect the divine to always be working in their interests; they are no less faithful, no less deeply and personally connected to their concept of the divine.

 

For Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich and a few other people (some of whom may be in this argument), faith is "belief despite the absence of proof.". For most people in the world today, and most people throughout history, faith is "belief that refuses the absence of proof," that never considers any other possibility. Having the gods actually around in Eora does little or nothing to change that. The majority of people will still follow what they see as an observable truth about their universe, theologians will still question the parameters of divinity, and skeptics will remain steadfast in not caring.

 

 

 

 

the aztecs, who offered bloody sacrifice o' literal thousands of their own citizens

 

 

That'd be damn awful.

I've heard the aztec empire had a political enclave within their territory where'd they grab people now and then from their enemy nation Tlaxcala. Which is awful too after all.

 

there were a professor at Cal, we forget his name, who advanced the theory that aztec sacrifice were the single greatest limit to their expansion in the region.  approximately 1% o' the population were killed by sacrifice each year, which at the height o' aztec civilization meant that hundreds o' thousands were being sacrificed.  for a pre-industrial society, that were, according to the professor, an insurmountable hurdle.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

It's widely speculated that, while the Aztecs were pretty bloodthirsty, sacrifice was a political tool above all, used to keep their vassal states fearful. European accounts are almost certainly untrustworthy on the matter, as are those of the allies Cortez found among the Mexican city-states; it's also very likely that the Aztecs themselves deliberately exaggerated the extent of its use to quell dissent.

 

1% is a baffling and deeply improbable figure. This was not an empire that did itself in with its excesses. It might have been working in that direction, but it hadn't gotten there yet.

 

william borah did extensive studies on the aztecs.  his disciples at Cal went further.  modern revisionism is always popular when it diminishes the scope o' human atrocities, but the truth o' the matter is that we, as a species, is capable o' doing great harm to one another, and the scale o' that harm is sometimes baffling. in the 1900s, many historians became dismissive o' spaniard eyewitness accounts and earlier estimates o' sacrifice.  borah, and others, actual did the research and realized that the numbers were underestimates.  one reason why the aztec empire were, according to borah and his sort, so over-extended in terms o' population even before spaniards arrived, is 'cause  o' the ritual culling o' the population.  

 

http://f14.middlebury.edu/ECON0224A/readings/borah69.pdf

 

then again, am certain there is historians and archeologists who also claim that borah numbers is inflated.  

 

ancient history is tough to find a truth.  look at even more recent events such a the american civil war.  historians actual have a goodly amount o' first hand accounts from the civil war, and yet those journals and letters is as bad or worse than the the eye-witness accounts o' the ferguson shooting-- no consistency.  try and put together an accurate picture o' history while removed hundreds or thousands o' years is an art more than a science.

 

regardless, and more on point, we will note once more that what modern audiences recognize as faith is compelling thematic fodder that is impossible with manifest gods who grant daily and predictable boons to worshipers.  the talk o' what some bunch o' villagers living on the shore o' a lake in __________ some hundreds or even thousands o' years ago is complete irrelevant.  most o' pj examples is irrelevant.  the poe world has elves and magic and animacy and an impossible economy.  is not rl.  is not having a time-frame similar to our own because it is complete different.  it also has gods that is manifest and active in the world, which has never been the case in rl.  you genuine think that all folks in ancient rome believed that sacrificing a white rabbit at the temple o' _________ would bring fortune or fecundity or whatever?  so what?  that observation has zero relevance to whether or not modern notions o'  faith is possible in a game or story world with gods who is active and observable and concrete.  such observations also is irrelevant in answering whether thematic faith is useful story fodder for modern audiences.

 

people throwing rocks at a lake?  so what?  

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited March 18, 2015 by Gromnir

[Cantousent]

"You're saying something that's just plain incorrect, and I'm attempting to set the record straight. Your preferences about how the game should be are neither here nor there."

 

I honestly don't see it the way you do, PJ.  I don't have time to engage in a fifty page argument on this issue, but as it seems to me, you took this statement from my post "Yeah, if anything, I would rather the gods were more abstract.  I would rather that the character worship the gods who don't have such overt impact on the world.  After all, expecting tuna when you open a tin isn't faith.  It's a reasonable expectation[.]" and went after it with vigor.  Fair enough.  However, my desire that everything need not be absolutely cut and dried is already answered in the affirmative.  After all, look at what... well... *you* said.

 

 

"I don't think you need to worry. Again, the character creation doesn't even let you specify which god you follow unless you're a priest, and the reputation/disposition system is independent of it. The rep/disp mechanics do affect priests and paladins, but that's IMO entirely as it should be."

 

First you argue that my desire that things not be so cut and dried is against the spirit of the game because it's set in the renascence.  Cool.  Then you point out that even most modern people don't share my views.  Alright.  Does that mean the Renascence historical setting doesn't count anymore?   ...And, why did the 'Enlightenment' (so called) occur?  Could it be because enough people, certainly not the majority, but enough people were interested in cause and effect and developed these ideas?  Unless that concept sprang out of thin air at Day One of the Enlightenment, we have to assume there was someone who was thinking about it.

 

I don't want to take over the thread, but I'll point out just two things and then yield the floor.  First is, from what I've heard in this thread, *my* character will be able to have the views I've espoused because there is enough room to doubt the gods.  Not that these beings with godlike powers exist, of course, but the nature of these gods and how they fit into the universe.  Yes, I imagine your view of society in the game is correct, but my interest will remain in my character and how he interacts with the game world.

 

Second, it's just plain silly to say what 'people' believed as if it were some monolithic truth that no one doubted.  Sure there are trends and basic assumptions, but people still lived their lives.  They might have believed that the gods caused thunder by heaving bowling balls in heaven, but the gods didn't actually come down to their farm with an army of demons and destroy it.  People lived day to day and part of that life was giving lip service to the gods.  The fact is that they often paid such lip service with varying degrees of genuine fear battling with some disbelief.  Getting back to the Renascence theme that figured prominently in some of your posts, there weren't even 'gods' per se in areas where we Westerners say the Renascence occurred.  There was Christianity that still had room for people to believe in some decidedly mystical and magical things.  Hell, why attack my ideas of faith based on other religions?  Plenty of modern western Christians believe that dead family members are 'guardian angels' and the like.  Earlier in European history, at least the areas about which I know enough to discuss, the big name 'gods' were less important to folks' day to day lives than the hearth gods or goddesses.  I don't know if the game has hearth gods in it or not, but the angle of attack that dictates my views about how faith should be treated in the game based on what people did in either the Renascence or ancient times or modern times or whatever time period is convenient for you just doesn't work for me.

 

Okay, if you got through the wall of text and want to take a shot at me, fair enough.  A good healthy heated debate helps keep things fresh.  I'll give you the last word and to show that there aren't any hard feelings for whatever harsh words you may have, we'll sacrifice a goat together (and give the bad parts to the gods and eat the good parts ourselves of course) and then light some incense and maybe chant Kumbaya together.  :Cant's pagan grin icon:

[Voss]

Also, if there are no gods, where do Godlike come from?

 

Actually, that could probably be explained by some kind of mix-up of souls or something.

Honestly, they're easily explained by being nuclear magical mutants with a really dumb name.

[Tort]

Because Saint Josh Josh of Sawyer doth so proclaim. Gods are real and active. The nature of the gods is up for debate though.

I think this is a very important distinction. Its common to play on what is real and what we believe to be real. So in a world where souls play an important role, and we are told outright that the divine and souls are real. Its very likely that there is a hidden twist in plain sight. I have a theory about the nature of the gods.. in part it is based on the info on the guidebook backcover.