"The Manifest Path endeavours to not ask any leaps of faith, only the exercise of logic with the occasional minor intuitive leap with each step along the Path firmly grounded in provable (or at least supportable) facts."
I'm tired of having this thrown back at me OOC. It is based on Greek ideas, which is about as European as it gets since the Greeks inspired "Western" civilization and basing things on the classics like the Greeks and Romans was pretty common.
It's also a complete fabrication. The logic involved is, at best, psuedo-logic in several cases. It is a piece of propaganda to appeal to the rationalist types.
And for the last blasted time, the religion is new. More stuff gets added as I or others present it. I've had some extensive discussions about what the Manifest Path's position on souls and how they work, and that's going to go through the process to become one of the official writings soon.
Deism, by the way, originated with the ancient Greeks. There was a big revival in the Enlightenment, but it never truly died.
The comparisons with east Asian religions are to counter the argument that it's not a religion at all. I said from the start that my main inspiration for the theology was the Norse religion minus the Aesir being good guys. And again, BM-reality has to trump SMA, and the existence of the Netherworld and the Daimon invasions absolutely has to be taken into account theologically or the religion is flipping insane. It's such an incredibly crucial change to the world that shouting "IT'S NOT BASED ON A EUROPEAN RELIGION!!" is beside the point, because Europe was never invaded by beings that are clearly demons straight out of hell.
Seriously, people. Give a culture some time to develop. See what happens. See whether this is actually going to hurt something.
And yeah, I think a comparison with the other religions on Dwilight works. Especially when Rob's comments about the Bloodstars being actual gods worshiped is flat-out contradicted by quotes from SA's Prophet. I think SA is one of the best things to happen to the game, and did amazing things for getting people on Dwilight to think of religions very seriously, but it sure as hell has no relation to any European religion I've ever heard of. Changing your life to fit the patterns of the eternal stars which influence the movements of your blood has no relation to making sacrifices to and worshiping a god.
To me, the point of SMA is to make people really think like nobles, within a context of the warring states of Middle Ages Europe. Religion should be extremely important, in many cases more important than realm affiliation. Our characters should not be socialists, should not be egalitarian, and should jealously guard their privileges. They should not be tolerant of beliefs that contradict their own, and should push their own faith. And, of course, they should not be buddy-buddy with commoners.
