I think the perception outside SA is such that it is viewed as a political rather than a religious entity however this is certainly not true within SA itself.
You've touched on one of the biggest problems across this game and indeed across society. What an entity appears to be from the outside and what that entity is to those that take part can be too very different things. Part of the advantage of having these OOC areas is that the players may get more information then their characters are privy to and hopefully resolve some of the player misunderstandings that can exist. Course our poor characters are still left with their misunderstandings, but hey a character without issues is kind of boring.
