Main Story, an atheist cliche?

[Brimsurfer]

So in every work of fiction if anti theism is universal truth it's atheist propaganda? Are IE games politheistic propaganda? And JRR Tolkien works monotheistic propaganda? And so on...?

See we are going back in circles now, that's why i didn't want to repeat myself, somebody already asked me this and I have replied to a very similar question previously.

 

Works of Tolkien are not monotheistic propaganda because monotheism is not shown as a universal and uncontested truth of Middle Earth, same goes for the games you mentioned.....

[Brimsurfer]

 

even the lead designer has publicly admitted that he is an atheist as well.....

lmao "admitted". Yeah I'm not religious guys, my whole beef with this story isn't because my faith is so weak that any reference to atheism starts eroding the foundations of my sandcastle, it's just uh, bad storytelling

 

 

So speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions, is an indication of having weak faith? 

 

BTW how come you are still here.......I thought that, you thought that you won the argument, what are you still doing here?

 

P.S. just to be clear to other readers, as I have said before I am not particularly a religious guy but I am also not an Atheist and I absolutely do not approve of anyone pontificating their personal dispositions...hence this topic came into existence..

[Tennisgolfboll]

 

 

 

even the lead designer has publicly admitted that he is an atheist as well.....

lmao "admitted". Yeah I'm not religious guys, my whole beef with this story isn't because my faith is so weak that any reference to atheism starts eroding the foundations of my sandcastle, it's just uh, bad storytelling

So speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions, is an indication of having weak faith?

 

BTW how come you are still here.......I thought that, you thought that you won the argument, what are you still doing here?

 

P.S. just to be clear to other readers, as I have said before I am not particularly a religious guy but I am also not an Atheist and I absolutely do not approve of anyone pontificating their personal dispositions...hence this topic came into existence..

Liberal facism cannot stand anyone challenging their absurd fantasies.

 

If you do, no matter how little, they will try to burn you anyway they can.

 

You are stating a few simple facts about POE and they cant stand it.

[house2fly]

So speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions, is an indication of having weak faith?

 

BTW how come you are still here.......I thought that, you thought that you won the argument, what are you still doing here?

 

P.S. just to be clear to other readers, as I have said before I am not particularly a religious guy but I am also not an Atheist and I absolutely do not approve of anyone pontificating their personal dispositions...hence this topic came into existence..

The writers are not pontificating their personal dispositions, or at least what they are pontificating is not what you think it is. Even if they were, speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions is implicitly an attack against every work of literature, or even any story with any kind of theme, ever written, which seems to be a bit of a big ask for a videogame thread. As for me, I'm a bad winner and I'm just wallowing in my victory.

[Brimsurfer]

 

So speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions, is an indication of having weak faith?

 

BTW how come you are still here.......I thought that, you thought that you won the argument, what are you still doing here?

 

P.S. just to be clear to other readers, as I have said before I am not particularly a religious guy but I am also not an Atheist and I absolutely do not approve of anyone pontificating their personal dispositions...hence this topic came into existence..

The writers are not pontificating their personal dispositions, or at least what they are pontificating is not what you think it is. Even if they were, speaking out against someone pontificating their personal dispositions is implicitly an attack against every work of literature, or even any story with any kind of theme, ever written, which seems to be a bit of a big ask for a videogame thread. As for me, I'm a bad winner and I'm just wallowing in my victory.

 

Am I suppose to laugh now?

 

P.S. BTW thanks for keeping this topic on top for me, I guess I can always count on you in this regard, when I am not around....

Edited March 11, 2016 by Brimsurfer

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Works of Tolkien are not monotheistic propaganda because monotheism is not shown as a universal and uncontested truth of Middle Earth

 

 

What.

[Caribou]

I always thought the entire point of having faith was believing in something in the face of no evidence, or even evidence to the contrary.  Religions, Christianity in particular (as I'm most familiar with it), hold that having strong faith is a desirable trait.  Extraordinary holy people seem to gain their religious "street cred" by believing in extraordinary things. 

 

God seems to manifest himself only in ways that are not scientifically quantifiable, but I guess this is good.  If there were actually empirical evidence of the existence of god, there would be no need to have belief anymore, it would be considered a fact or truth.  There wouldn't be the need anymore for so many different religions or even sects and sub-sects and reformations of a single religion.  There would only be one.  The One True Religion.^TM

[Amentep]

I've only played through the endgame once, so I might not remember correctly, but I think that OP might have a point in this one. There were essentially two paths, as far as I remember: condemn Thaos in the name of truth, or accept his ethics of lies for the sake of peace, stability and order. Choosing another path, i.e.arguing that gods are gods regardless of their origins, or stating that the truth is irrelevant because people wouldn't be convinced by it anyway, or they would still believe in the values the gods stand for(Eder comes to mind), is certainly sensible for many characters, so it's easily understandable that many people who would like to do that find the ending lacking. Still wouldn't call it an atheist cliche, though.

Point is the end isn't directly important to whether there is a God/gods/goddesses or not. The Engwithans found no evidence of god - but absences of evidence isn't evidence of absence.  For all the player knows, there actually ARE gods out there beyond what the Engwithan's created.  The Engwithans decided that no proof of god meant there was no god and that unless there were gods there would be eternal fighting between the people of Eora. And so they made entities with powers beyond those of mortals, to manifest and prove the gods existed and who they were.  To order even chaos by putting it in a box attached to relevant gods.

 

The resolution of the game is only regarding the discovery that the current beings worshiped by many on Eora are Engwithan creations (and as an aside, there is the debate whether that is still sufficient to consider them gods).  Nothing in the game establishes that there aren't gods other than the Engwithan one, and so it could be that there is some distant pantheon in the setting.

[Parasol_Syndicate]

Of course, these nongods still have advanced magic, and individual goals, and strike bargains with certain members of humanity.

 

Making them perhaps less than deities, but certainly MORE than mere mortals or golems. So what's the difference? 

[Zenbane]

This is so incredibly basic christian knowledge that a little kid that had read just a tiny bit would know that there is absolutely no question to what the answer is.

 

Your list is complete garbage.

The phrase "christian knowledge" is an oxymoron; and your overuse of insults backed with a complete lack of intellectual thought exemplifies "oxymoron" without the "oxy."

 

 

 

Said it countless times, I am talking about the whole dialogue theme of final act........and why and what objections I have about it, have been discussed in detail previously, I don't want to link previous posts in the same topic for someone who keeps asking the same question over and over again without acknowledging the answer...........there is no point.....

 

The only thing you have said countless times is that you have said something countless times.

 

And to recap: you are arguing that if you take something out of context (e.g., remove the dialogue in the final act from the entire story of the game), then the original context is lost. Aside form the painful obviousness of that fact - much like arguing that a shining sun shines - you are spamming the forum with mindless rhetoric.

 

As much as I hate to admit it, Tigranes put the nail in the coffin for this debate:

 

He also refused to really respond to counter-arguments, instead choosing to repeat himself over and over and over and over and over again; e.g. he does not understand that the entire point of the story, as told in the game, is that religion and faith and gods may not be meaningless or fake just because you find out the gods are constructed.

 

That is 100% true. The title of this thread refers to the "Main Story" yet what Brimsurfer has done is butcher a specific dialogue sequence, and then present the theme of that dialogue sequence as the Main Story itself.

 

For the sake of clarity let's make an analogy. In the classic mobster movie, "The Godfather," there is a famous quote at the end of a murder scene: "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." What Brimsurfer has done here is spam the discussion with rhetoric about how The Godfather is not about a family-based crime syndicate, but is an unrelenting propaganda machine spewing gospel in favor of Italian pastries.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Zenbane

[Romanul]

Yeah, the ending sucked. It felt like atheist propaganda out of nowhere and out of place. The gods aren't real? In a universe with fireballs, souls, and "gods" with supernatural powers? Give me a break! What's worse is I didn't manage to find an option to use the souls to become a god or demigod or something.

 

That being said, I consider Iovara to be mentally ill and just ignored her ramblings. As far as Thaos ( or whatever his name was) is concerned he was just a pawn of his goddess. Makes more sense that way for me. Problem solved as far as I'm concerned.

 

Also, I would have liked a less emphasis on Gods and more on the countries of Eora and their power struggle. I wasn't much attached to Dyrwood and in a PoE2 it's hard to get excited if it's another story about Gods and their machinations. I wanted to see more conflict between the nations of Eora, how that affected the lives of common folks, despair, genocide, betrayal etc As master of Caed Nua I would have liked to see more quests about the power structure in Dyrwood.

 

Hopefully, PoE2 will take place in the Vailian Republics since that nation has a lot of potential for intrigue, power strugles and conflicts.

[Hayzeus]

I just completed the whole thing, and I liked the ending. It was kind of a twist, but for one reason or another, it didn't bother me. After all, there are so many games with "real" gods. Interesting how the St. Waidwen thing was a bit of foreshadowing.

 

Then again, I found proof of actual Gods. I suspected they might be found in PoE, since I had seen them in other games, e.g. Baldur's Gate. At the first opportunity, in Raedric's dungeons, I even adopted a God, and carried every God I could find in my inventory throughout the game. What are these Gods? you ask. I give you a hint: Meow!

[Elerond]

I just completed the whole thing, and I liked the ending. It was kind of a twist, but for one reason or another, it didn't bother me. After all, there are so many games with "real" gods. Interesting how the St. Waidwen thing was a bit of foreshadowing.

 

Then again, I found proof of actual Gods. I suspected they might be found in PoE, since I had seen them in other games, e.g. Baldur's Gate. At the first opportunity, in Raedric's dungeons, I even adopted a God, and carried every God I could find in my inventory throughout the game. What are these Gods? you ask. I give you a hint: Meow!

 

I am pretty sure that lead designer would have any problems to accept your canonical gods. As he is big cat lover.

[Sannom]

"and even the lead designer has publicly admitted that he is an atheist as well...."

 

The lead designer also lead the Honest Heart DLC for New Vegas, which has sometimes been called "mormon propaganda". Your agument is invalid.

 

 

Point is the end isn't directly important to whether there is a God/gods/goddesses or not. The Engwithans found no evidence of god - but absences of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

I'm no theologist, but that really felt like one strong example of Prideful behavior on the Engwythans' part.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Sannom

[Zenbane]

Yeah, the ending sucked. It felt like atheist propaganda out of nowhere and out of place. The gods aren't real? In a universe with fireballs, souls, and "gods" with supernatural powers? Give me a break! What's worse is I didn't manage to find an option to use the souls to become a god or demigod or something.

 

Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of god's (whether real or manufactured); whereas PoE presents a scenario where the gods are manufactured - which makes it more like Christianity and all other deity-based religions.The simple fact that the concept of gods is presented in the games story disqualifies PoE as being an atheistic perspective.

 

Atheism entails zero deity references; theology entails manufactured deities.

 

At worst, PoE's main story is a long-winded version of the Wizard of Oz.

[Silent Winter]

 

The simple fact that the concept of gods is presented in the games story disqualifies PoE as being an atheistic perspective.

 

Only if you discount the possibility of it being a metaphor - the gods represent various religions/religious outlooks - something that was suggested earlier for literary works.

I'd distinguish this situation from novels though, as in a novel there's only one main character whose experiences and personality lead to one end.  If this had been a PoE novel, I wouldn't even mention it.  In an RPG, we have multiple possible main characters depending on character-creation and role-play throughout.  So the more choice we have with that character and how they react to the game, the better.

In a CRPG, this is limited by how much the devs can program.  But we were given a choice between 'lie to the people  because they need the gods to control them', or 'tell the truth because people are mightier and should be free' - there was no choice to 'tell the truth because the real gods must be out there'  (Again - based on what the character perceives, not what the world creators (devs) know).

 

Atheism entails zero deity references; theology entails manufactured deities.

You're contrasting atheism with theology - a belief in no gods vs. a study of God,gods and religions.

Better to contrast it with theism - a belief in the existence of God (monotheism) or gods (polytheism).

[house2fly]

One thing about that big ending reveal is that it shows who reads and who doesn't; I've seen a number of people who got to the end-where Iovara says "the gods aren't real" and then clarifies how that statement makes sense-and said "pff I spoke with the gods they're clearly real, gimme a break""

[Silent Winter]

One thing about that big ending reveal is that it shows who reads and who doesn't; I've seen a number of people who got to the end-where Iovara says "the gods aren't real" and then clarifies how that statement makes sense-and said "pff I spoke with the gods they're clearly real, gimme a break""

Depends on your definition of 'god' - if it's merely 'very powerful', then superman counts and the known gods of Eora fit the bill.  If it's 'eternal and outside the created realm of which we're aware' then the PoE gods don't count.  It's more a question of whether your character accepts that 'gods' can be created or whether they believe that there are gods that predate and exist beyond the known 'gods' of Eora.  [Again, I'm speaking from the POV of the characters here, not the devs/players - except for the superman reference, that was just for illustration]

 

So "I've spoken the the gods and they're clearly real" is one character's POV but not another's.  They are clearly real beings, but does that make them 'real gods'?

[Zenbane]

You're contrasting atheism with theology - a belief in no gods vs. a study of God,gods and religions.

Better to contrast it with theism - a belief in the existence of God (monotheism) or gods (polytheism).

 

Atheism is not a "belief in no gods" (as I quoted earlier), it is a lack of belief. Silly as it seems, there is a difference and those cute little atheists pride themselves in that difference. Also, you decided to apply only a single definition of "theology" - the one that best fits your counterpoint. How very Christian of you lol

 

Here is another valid definition of "theology" :

a system of religious beliefs or ideas

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theology

 

That is obviously the definition that accompanied my earlier statement. So your counterpoint is invalid, unfortunately, as it completely warps the basic idea behind both atheism and theology.

 

 

Depends on your definition of 'god'

 

Well I think we have established on more than one occasion that the use of a "definition" changes on a whim for you personally. When it comes to proving God exists, you apply the concept of definitions so loosely that you consider the text in the Bible valid proof; but when it comes to debating atheism and theology, you apply the use of definitions so strict that you omit valid entries.

 

Good times.

[Silent Winter]

 

You're contrasting atheism with theology - a belief in no gods vs. a study of God,gods and religions.

Better to contrast it with theism - a belief in the existence of God (monotheism) or gods (polytheism).

 

Atheism is not a "belief in no gods" (as I quoted earlier), it is a lack of belief. Silly as it seems, there is a difference and those cute little atheists pride themselves in that difference. Also, you decided to apply only a single definition of "theology" - the one that best fits your counterpoint. How very Christian of you lol

 

Here is another valid definition of "theology" :

a system of religious beliefs or ideas

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theology

 

That is obviously the definition that accompanied my earlier statement. So your counterpoint is invalid, unfortunately, as it completely warps the basic idea behind both atheism and theology.

 

 

Depends on your definition of 'god'

 

Well I think we have established on more than one occasion that the use of a "definition" changes on a whim for you personally. When it comes to proving God exists, you apply the concept of definitions so loosely that you consider the text in the Bible valid proof; but when it comes to debating atheism and theology, you apply the use of definitions so strict that you omit valid entries.

 

Good times.

 

If you were using 'theology' to mean 'a set of religious beliefs' then your claim that "theology entails manufactured deities" is using a definition that fits your whims/ideals.  How very atheist of you.  Why not claim "theology entails the belief in a deity or deities" ?

Good times.

 

My definition of proof never varied - I pointed out that it wasn't the same as yours.

Your argument against the Bible included linking a source that said "The Bible doesn't say 'X'" - I pointed to where in the Bible it says 'X' and you complained that I quoted the Bible to prove something.  Who's got selective definitions?  (I read the link in more detail and the specific arguments have all been thoroughly debunked by scholars (atheist and theist) who bothered to do the research in more detail).

 

(And I stand by my definition of atheist - since there is no evidence for or against a thing, you can either believe that it exists or doesn't. I don't believe in Bigfoot and I believe Bigfoot doesn't exist - same thing in the end. If atheists were simply having an absence of belief, they wouldn't spend so much time on the subject. (some of them don't, but you seem to).)

[Ichthyic]

"How very atheist of you."

ugh.

what a stupid thing to say.

really.

 

[Silent Winter]

"How very atheist of you."

 

ugh.

 

what a stupid thing to say.

 

really.

 

 

It was in response to "How very Christian of you." - rephrasing Zenbane's own comment to point out the absurdity of his using it - try reading the whole thing.

 

Also, you decided to apply only a single definition of "theology" - the one that best fits your counterpoint. How very Christian of you lol

Edited March 13, 2016 by Silent Winter

[Romanul]

 

 

Yeah, the ending sucked. It felt like atheist propaganda out of nowhere and out of place. The gods aren't real? In a universe with fireballs, souls, and "gods" with supernatural powers? Give me a break! What's worse is I didn't manage to find an option to use the souls to become a god or demigod or something.

 

 

Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of god's (whether real or manufactured); whereas PoE presents a scenario where the gods are manufactured - which makes it more like Christianity and all other deity-based religions.The simple fact that the concept of gods is presented in the games story disqualifies PoE as being an atheistic perspective.

 

Atheism entails zero deity references; theology entails manufactured deities.

 

At worst, PoE's main story is a long-winded version of the Wizard of Oz.

I know what atheism is, I deal with atheists daily.

Also, the Gods of Eora are nothing like Christianity. The first clue should be the plural form. They are more like the Greek gods.

 

Anyway you're rationalizing the ending. The elf lady didn't say they are manufactured but that they aren't real. That was the big secret. A ghost was telling you the gods aren't real because she heard some people talking. That's a crappy ending, sorry and it feels like an atheist propaganda out of place and out of nowhere. That's why it makes mose sense to dismiss her as clinically insane. Especially after playing the WM.

 

The game could have made Raedric an atheist for example. His justification being that if this calamity is happening then there are clearly no gods and if they are and still allow for this to happen then he wants nothing to do with them. That would have been more appropriate given the game context. Not perfect considering the Eora gods are not known for their benevolence but better than that crappy ending.

 

The game is still good though. Would have been even better if there were less emphasis on gods storywise.

[Ichthyic]

"It was in response to "How very Christian of you."

your attempt at false equivalency is noted, and laughed at.

why do you even bother?

... perhaps you'd be better off with the old "I'm rubber, you're glue!" standby?

because that's what you've got so far... the argument a 5 year old makes.

 

again.. ugh.

 

Edited March 13, 2016 by Ichthyic

[Silent Winter]

"It was in response to "How very Christian of you."

 

your attempt at false equivalency is noted, and laughed at.

 

why do you even bother?

 

... perhaps you'd be better off with the old "I'm rubber, you're glue!" standby?

 

because that's what you've got so far... the argument a 5 year old makes.

 

again.. ugh.

Perhaps this is a cultural thing - where I'm from, it's common to respond to someone in the same style they used in the hopes that they will see the error of their ways.  (Not that I'd expect it in this case).  Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on what you meant?  Because the only thing I can think at this point is that your failure to see the equivalency is down to bias against Christianity and affinity for atheism.  If you're not an atheist but think I'm wrong on some other level, please state it plainly.

Do you also think that "How Christian of you." was a stupid thing to say?  Or was that eminently sensible?  Since you only called me out on it (despite it being tongue-in-cheek from me at least, but I'll admit that tone can be hard to read in written form).

 

As for my argument being that of a 5-year-old - did you actually read the rest of my comment?  Pointing out that his use of selective definitions was in violation of his own argument against me?  It's easy to throw out a '5-year-old' insult if you don't actually follow the argument but focus instead on the dressing.