Atheist character

[Anaris]

I believe it's worth noting that the only effect of a lightning bolt is to seriously wound the character.

A lightning storm can kill, but they're rarer.

[Geronus]

A lightning storm can kill, but they're rarer.

Whoa, really? I've been playing this game for 4 years now, and I've never even heard of a lightning storm. What do you have to do to attract one of those bad boys?

[Antonine]

The only one I've ever heard of is when you had the United Sirion States conquer everything and bring about perpetual peace - the gods don't like peace you see.

[Indirik]

No, even the great peace didn't cause a lightning storm. The one I remember was during the period where orders messages were restricted. Someone sent a message to a group they could not send orders to and said "This is an order!" Next day, dead character.

Anyway, kind of hard to tell from just one message if the character professes atheism, or if he just thinks the enemies gods are false.

[egamma]

This is the only message sent by Perrin in the past 7 days (thanks message search!).

The offending sentence (bolding added by me) is this one:

These gods will not decide nor have anything to do with the war or future wars since they are just ideas.

This is not a profession of atheism, only a statement that the gods of all the religions in Arcaea (at least 3, maybe 4) are false. He did not state that there are no gods.

[Ehndras]

o_O Stating that gods are nothing more than artificial constructs of the mind? Yep, that's Atheism.

[Indirik]

Depends on which gods. My gods are real. Yours are the ones that are fake.

[Draco Tanos]

The wording, "they are just ideas", makes it sound like atheism to me as well.  Calling them false?  Sure, that works and some of my characters do so frequently.  But "just ideas" sounds atheistic.

[Ehndras]

He wasn't being selective. This wasn't a my gods vs your gods. His pattern of speech and the words used are explicitly stating gods in general are artificial constructs of the mind. These gods is actually a general statement implying all gods. If he were singling our certain gods, as far as the English language goes, he'd say your gods/my gods. Also, if he were a theist trying to refute the existence of a particular group of gods, he's being awfully strange in the way he expresses it...

[Cren]

Perhaps you can ask him IG what he meant by *these*, the pantheon of Gods of all religions or a select few.

[Antonine]

People did ask IC for him to clarify what he meant but he hasn't said anything since.

[roland.walters@abbott.com]

He is probably too busy watching the sky for storm clouds.

[Fleugs]

Hilarious to see this on the forum as a magistrate case. You'd figure that people would just open a pleasant topic in the historical background section of this forum, but no... let's call the cops!

Nevertheless I think that the notion of atheism in a medieval context is ridiculous and this character should simply be skinned alive IC. Also, Ehndras, the guillotine is not a medieval method of execution.  ;)

[Indirik]

IIRC the character is specifically referencing the destruction of a temple. So to me, "these gods" could refer to the gods of the temple that just got burned down.

[egamma]

IIRC the character is specifically referencing the destruction of a temple.

Well, the destruction of the temples of several religions, and the remarks of the priests of several religions.