Brimsurfer Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 (edited) Well, does this game had a large Atheist backing when it was in development? Or do some of the developers or writers adhere to similar absence of beliefs? Does anyone know? Because the story does seem like something that an atheist parent would tell his child before putting him to bed, it seemed like the whole thing did turn into Atheist cliche propaganda......and seems like it was indirectly sending a specific message to the audience...... EDIT: Just saying, because I have had some experience with proponents of Atheism and many things they say are quite similar to the ideas behind the main story ...... Edited March 7, 2016 by Brimsurfer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenbane Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 I'm not sure how much you know about Atheism, but the way I see it... there is a difference between the possibility of a God and the existence of man-made religion. I think that if anything, the narrative in PoE takes place somewhere in the middle. I mean, even if it trashes the idea of a deity, in the end you can play characters that cast magic and there's even a God-like race. That is hardly a pure Atheistic point of view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caribou Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Care to elaborate why you think so? I would say that the entire plot revolving around the existence of souls which can be tangibly manipulated isn't really indicative of a development team full of skeptics. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenbane Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Oh and that! lol Atheists don't believe that humans have souls. Fin. This thread can be marked as "solved" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RingMachine Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 (edited) Was there really any need to post this thread twice? On topic: no way to know. And to answer your other thread: no. Edited March 7, 2016 by RingMachine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brimsurfer Posted March 7, 2016 Author Share Posted March 7, 2016 I'm not sure how much you know about Atheism, but the way I see it... there is a difference between the possibility of a God and the existence of man-made religion. I think that if anything, the narrative in PoE takes place somewhere in the middle. I mean, even if it trashes the idea of a deity, in the end you can play characters that cast magic and there's even a God-like race. That is hardly a pure Atheistic point of view. Magic has nothing to do with divinity......magic is an ungodly force....... And God-like race description creates kind of a loophole in the lore, since the closing act of the game completely discounts the existence of Gods....... (made a thread about this in stories section of the forum). One may also argue that the race is God-like only in name, as its referred as God-like only because it shares some resemblence to elements and celestials but lore doesn't say much about it, so nobody can be certain..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brimsurfer Posted March 7, 2016 Author Share Posted March 7, 2016 Oh and that! lol Atheists don't believe that humans have souls. Fin. This thread can be marked as "solved" I have seen that tactic employed many times, promote an idea in disguise of negation....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruzen Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 7 Kana - "Sorry. It seems I'm not very good at raising spirits." Kana winces. "That was unintentional." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kvaak Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 (edited) ^ hook, line and sinker. I must've missed the part where atheists claimed powerful, divine entities most certainly exist but they were made by men. Edited March 7, 2016 by kvaak 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinysalamander Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 It's this thread again, eh? Pillars of Bugothas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerekKruger Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 I'm an atheist and I can assure you there's no need to capitalise atheist, we're not part of some monolithic organisation that demands respect. As for what atheists "believe", there's only really one requirement and it's that they don't believe in a God or gods Atheists don't believe that humans have souls. Fin. I don't, but that's got nothing to do with atheism, that would be, I don't know, apsychists or something similar. Once again, atheism is about non-belief in gods. To answer the OP: I can see where the idea comes from sure given the main plot. That said, the gods of Eora definitely do exist, so in Eora it's not rational to be an atheist. Also, even putting aside their origins, the setting doesn't explicitly say that there isn't another layer of "real" gods of a God above them that are merely not interventionist. Because the story does seem like something that an atheist parent would tell his child before putting him to bed... Atheist parents mostly tell their children normal stories before putting them to bed. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogocactus Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 (edited) Well, does this game had a large Atheist backing when it was in development? Or do some of the developers or writers adhere to similar absence of beliefs? Does anyone know? Because the story does seem like something that an atheist parent would tell his child before putting him to bed, it seemed like the whole thing did turn into Atheist cliche propaganda......and seems like it was indirectly sending a specific message to the audience...... EDIT: Just saying, because I have had some experience with proponents of Atheism and many things they say are quite similar to the ideas behind the main story ...... For what it's worth, the kickstarter wasn't aimed at 'atheists' and neither did Obsidian create the story in tandem with - any - part of the community. So... to put it carefully, I would say that you are a bit too much on the defensive here. Edited March 7, 2016 by gogocactus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenbane Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Atheists have a non-belief in a God, and the concept of a soul comes directly from the idea of a God. If you claim to be an Atheist but deny that connection between a God and a soul, then you are likely just an Atheist in label as opposed to practice. And by practice I mean "thought." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wozzeck Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Magic has nothing to do with divinity......magic is an ungodly force....... I find it always fascinating when religious people perceive the idea of magic as some kind of threat. But maybe it is? Both in fantasy stories as in religious texts you often find events that bend the laws of physics. And I imagine, that for instance christians don't wanna see Jesus confused with a magician, as suggested in that hilarious Rowan Atkinson sketch. But then - although I don't know the statistics - pretty much everybody knows magic isn't real. So in demonizing magic, it seems to me, religion actually recognizes the slippery slope it's inhabitating. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosveen Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 I can't speak for other atheists, but I'm not going to tell my children bedtime stories of how an ancient civilization extracted their souls into a giant machine to create real, living godlike entities who rule over us all to this day. That's even less believable than Santa. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenbane Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Magic has nothing to do with divinity......magic is an ungodly force....... And you know this based on all the fabricated research about real Magic? lol Magic is an imaginary concept. When I made the connection with Magic and "God" I am referring to the magic described in the Bible. Things like parting the Red Sea, turning water to wine, etc. Based on the Bible, magic is very much related to divinity. The fact that you don't know that before posing a question about Atheism is very telling of your overall ability to grasp even the most fundamental of these concepts. I have seen that tactic employed many times, promote an idea in disguise of negation....... The tactic you are referring to is called a: counter-argument. I can see why you are against it though, since a valid argument involves facts, examples, context, etc. You know, all those things you purposely avoided when you tossed out the "bait" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerekKruger Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Atheists have a non-belief in a God, and the concept of a soul comes directly from the idea of a God. If you claim to be an Atheist but deny that connection between a God and a soul, then you are likely just an Atheist in label as opposed to practice. And by practice I mean "thought." The Christian concept of a soul comes from God (as does literally everything in the Christian world view), but Christians don't have a monopoly on the word "soul" and, if by soul we mean an immaterial essence of a person that may (or may not) continue to exist after their death, there's absolutely no reason one cannot believe in souls but not God or gods. Indeed an awful lot of people do. What is "an atheist in practice"? Atheism isn't a religion, there are no practices associated to it. It's merely a description of a belief, or more accurately a non-belief. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigranes Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 There's no need to create multiple threads on the same topic. Continue here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85055-main-story-an-atheist-cliche/?do=findComment&comment=1784997 Let's Play: Icewind Dale Ironman (Complete) Let's Play: Icewind Dale II Ironman (Complete) Let's Play: Divinity II (Complete) Let's Play: Baldur's Gate Trilogy Ironman - BG1 (Complete) Let's Play: Baldur's Gate Trilogy Ironman - BG2 (In Progress) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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