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[Bedwyr]

I think that Tom clearly defined Europian-styled SMA-based religions as the first. Meaning that the MP has no place on Dwilight as a religion.

Feel free to quote him, then, because I remember no such thing.

No major middle-ages European religion worshiped three stars.  No major middle-ages European religion worshiped the five elements.  No major middle-ages European religion worshiped a nature goddess of reincarnation and enlightenment.  No major middle-ages European religion was based around fulfilling your own personal destiny because of what a star whispered to you in your dreams.

Those are the religions currently on Dwilight besides tMP.  None of them have the slightest bit of anything to do with the Abrahamic religions, which were the religions of consequence in medieval Europe.

The Catechism of Sanguis Astroism says that the stars influence the movements of blood in humans, and that the point of the religion is to seek spiritual health by maintaining harmony with the Bloodstars and understanding the hidden movements of your blood.  Does that sound, I don't know, like a reasoning based on observed physical phenomenon to improve yourself?  The Bloodstars follow fixed patterns in waxing and waning, and to achieve greater spiritual enlightenment is to live your life according to that cycle because that is harmonious because the Bloodstars are physically and spiritually acting in our world.

That's not a set of deities that any European would recognize.  That's a natural phenomenon that has a set pattern that influences the world.  http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Sanguis_Astroism/Writings is where I'm getting my info beyond the Catechism on.

And you can say that some people in Sanguis Astroism believe they are deities, that's fine.  Some of the followers of tMP believe in Tyr and Ziza too.

Here's a quote from Tom, from the d-list, 1/13/08, Re: [Discuss] Dwilight - non-european realm/religion concepts:

"No, and you can easily make 20 different religions just on variations of
the abrahamic ones.

I didn't say it has to be a copy. It just has to have the "feel". What's
the "feel" of the european middle ages church? Huge cathedrals,
crusades, witch hunts, pious monks, remote monasteries, fervered
discussions over scripture interpretations, a church in every village -
take your pick, choose what you like best, turn it into an in-game
religion. There is more than enough material there."

There are a couple ways to interpret that.  One is that Dwilight religions should have the feel of an Abrahamic religion.  Not a single religion on Dwilight has anything remotely like the theology of an Abrahamic religion, so I think we can ignore that.

The other main way I can see to interpret it is to take the idea that religion should be more important than almost everything else, should have grand edifices devoted to it, should be intolerant, should be actively spreading to remote corners of the world, etc. so as to preserve the feel of a religion-dominated continent.

The Manifest Path doesn't fit in the first interpretation, but neither do any of the other religion on the continent.  The Manifest Path does or will fit in the second interpretation.

And for the last time, it is not atheist or nontheist!  It is, as someone pointed out before, misotheist (anti-theist) with a strong dash of deism.  Read up on how the Roman religion functioned.  There were lots and lots of gods, they didn't care who you worshiped so long as you did it through the proper authorities and your worship didn't violate their core tenets.

[Vellos]

Not gonna lie, I did not read this entire discussion. But I will make a few comments that may already have been made:
1. Indirik said it right: if the argument is "Buddhism does it" or "Confucianism does it," that's a bad reason. BM is not a China simulator. It's indisputably Western-oriented. QED.

2. The idea that "deities are allowed, but not really a necessary part of our religion." Is hardly sufficient. That just means you're still only an ideology, but a non-totalizing one: you allow people some ideological freedom, but you still aren't a religion.

3. There is a solution: the Light. Make a prophesy about the light and demand people believe it. Or theologize it in some way. Conceptualize it into some internalized driving force of anti-monster virtue. Make it into an embodiment of the power of the soul. You do need a theology, and, conveniently, you already have one! The Light! Build on it! Theologize the Archons. They are a distant story based in fact: treat the Light the way that Christianity treated Jesus. Messianic! Coming again! Will redeem us after certain signs of the end grow near! A power that burns within! Do something with it.

[Vellos]

Oh, one final possibly offensive note:

This Tyr and Zisa crap is getting old. I swear like 7 religions have pirated those IC deities now and re-used them over and over again. It was a dumb importation and misrepresentation of dubiously historical religious practices the first time, and it's redundant now the fiftieth it's redundant now the fiftieth.

It makes me want to start a religion about Jesus and Mary, and then claim it's all IC.

So that's how I really feel.

[De-Legro]

Oh, one final possibly offensive note:

This Tyr and Zisa crap is getting old. I swear like 7 religions have pirated those IC deities now and re-used them over and over again. It was a dumb importation and misrepresentation of dubiously historical religious practices the first time, and it's redundant now the fiftieth it's redundant now the fiftieth.

It makes me want to start a religion about Jesus and Mary, and then claim it's all IC.

So that's how I really feel.

Yes but in our case, it is because a pre-existing Tyr religion joined with us. We didn't exactly choose to keep them or add them to our religion, we simply swallowed up a group that already had a theology around them.

[De-Legro]

Not gonna lie, I did not read this entire discussion. But I will make a few comments that may already have been made:
1. Indirik said it right: if the argument is "Buddhism does it" or "Confucianism does it," that's a bad reason. BM is not a China simulator. It's indisputably Western-oriented. QED.

2. The idea that "deities are allowed, but not really a necessary part of our religion." Is hardly sufficient. That just means you're still only an ideology, but a non-totalizing one: you allow people some ideological freedom, but you still aren't a religion.

3. There is a solution: the Light. Make a prophesy about the light and demand people believe it. Or theologize it in some way. Conceptualize it into some internalized driving force of anti-monster virtue. Make it into an embodiment of the power of the soul. You do need a theology, and, conveniently, you already have one! The Light! Build on it! Theologize the Archons. They are a distant story based in fact: treat the Light the way that Christianity treated Jesus. Messianic! Coming again! Will redeem us after certain signs of the end grow near! A power that burns within! Do something with it.

And like Matt points out, there isn't a SINGLE religion on Dwilight that doesn't on the surface borrow concepts from eastern religions. The worship of stars or the belief that they influence us for example conjures up links to various eastern astrology cults to me.

[Bedwyr]

So do political ideologies like Communism and Facism. So, for that matter, does public education. And the media. Yet I hear no one arguing that they are religions. The cultural influence of a religion is only one part of what makes it a religion. There's more to it than that, and my opinion remains that MP is missing something.

You're not getting ^ban^'s point.  Saying tMP can't be a religion because it does something that all religions do is silly.  Yes, other things do it too, but there are several people saying that tMP's subtle attempt to construct a reality where everything that it states is a logical extension of facts means it can't be a religion, which is silliness, because there are religions that do that.

[Nerukou]

I'm sorry, has Tom even said he doesn't approve of the Manifest Path? Because if he hasn't, who gives a flying rats backside what anybody else thinks? Besides Tom, there really isn't anybody whose opinion matters.

If you don't approve of the MP, and you aren't Tom, get over it.

[BarticaBoat]

To me, it looks like MP deifies humans. It divides the world into Human and not Human, and says that we must seek to further ourselves. Same sort of stream as confucianism (Cosmic Order, yada yada).

Religions can be broadly separated into Abrahamic, Indian, East Asian, Shamanistic, and New Age. Abrahamic religions, looking back to the time of ancient israelite religion, stresses the choice between good and evil and the supremacy of God. Now, to stretch this out to SMA we could say that morality should play a major role in SMA religions.

And if you look at the religions on dwilight, they do tend to be highly moralistic; Eleryonism says you need to follow your destiny from the star Eleryon (so to not follow is misguided and ignorant, read sinful), Estianism means you must find harmony with nature (to not be harmonious is to be burdened with rebirth, sinful), SA has you seeking to control the influence of the stars (to succumb to their influence renders you mad, sinful), Hredmonoth had you obey the Dethgodas (anything else was uncivilized, sinful), Torenism worshipped that which gave you power over others (To be weak was sinful).

Verdis Elementum I'm having a little trouble fitting in, and Triunism doesn't have enough on the wiki (but does look very interesting i'd love to have one of my characters meet one of the priests)

So, as for MP, it's very shady on morality. It's more of a humans must prevail philosophic East Asian type faith.

Where does ancient Greek religion stand in SMA, by the way? I think it would be classified as shamanistic and ignorning its obvious connections to Europe, I don't think it would fit.

[De-Legro]

To me, it looks like MP deifies humans. It divides the world into Human and not Human, and says that we must seek to further ourselves. Same sort of stream as confucianism (Cosmic Order, yada yada).

Religions can be broadly separated into Abrahamic, Indian, East Asian, Shamanistic, and New Age. Abrahamic religions, looking back to the time of ancient israelite religion, stresses the choice between good and evil and the supremacy of God. Now, to stretch this out to SMA we could say that morality should play a major role in SMA religions.

And if you look at the religions on dwilight, they do tend to be highly moralistic; Eleryonism says you need to follow your destiny from the star Eleryon (so to not follow is misguided and ignorant, read sinful), Estianism means you must find harmony with nature (to not be harmonious is to be burdened with rebirth, sinful), SA has you seeking to control the influence of the stars (to succumb to their influence renders you mad, sinful), Hredmonoth had you obey the Dethgodas (anything else was uncivilized, sinful), Torenism worshipped that which gave you power over others (To be weak was sinful).

Verdis Elementum I'm having a little trouble fitting in, and Triunism doesn't have enough on the wiki (but does look very interesting i'd love to have one of my characters meet one of the priests)

So, as for MP, it's very shady on morality. It's more of a humans must prevail philosophic East Asian type faith.

Where does ancient Greek religion stand in SMA, by the way? I think it would be classified as shamanistic and ignorning its obvious connections to Europe, I don't think it would fit.

in cases like this, the wiki is great


"There is still an incredibly broad and deep variety of themes and cultures in Medieval Europe that you can draw inspiration from (Spaniards, Greeks, Baltics, Eastern European Cultures). There is quite enough variety without having to blend cultures that realistically never would've had much to do with one another. A little bit of research will turn up a lot of results."

[Vaylon Kenadell]

During the Middle Ages (the 5th century to 15th century), Europe was in the process of being Christianized; so-called pagan beliefs still existed in many places at various points throughout the medieval period, though most of these had disappeared by the end of it. The most well-known of these would probably be Norse paganism.

[Galvez]

@ Bedwyr: I believe the wiki is very clear about asian and american inspired religions. They disturb the SMA enviroment. Yet I only heard about existing asian religions to justify the MP as a religion. Personally, I am not convinced that the MP even is a religion. That aside, it raises the question if it is appropriate within the SMA enviroment.

Please justify why the MP is appropriate on Dwilight without criticizing other religions on Dwilight.
Also, you quoted Tom, but he does not speak of the abrahamic monetheistic theology.

And aren't misotheism and deism philosophies applied on existing religions? I am no expert in either one of them, but I see them as sub-cultures of real religions. And isn't deism simular to the 'Enlightenment', which is a concept of the 18th century.

[vonGenf]

Please justify why the MP is appropriate on Dwilight without criticizing other religions on Dwilight.

We could all wait and do nothing and see if Tom agrees or not. But, this is a discussion forum. I think it is perfectly appropriate to compare a new religion to existing ones; I also think that if you plan to create a new religion and wonder if it will be acceptable, the best thing you can do is to inspire yourself from what already exists so as to fit within the overall experience of the game.

[Gustav Kuriga]

I'm sorry, has Tom even said he doesn't approve of the Manifest Path? Because if he hasn't, who gives a flying rats backside what anybody else thinks? Besides Tom, there really isn't anybody whose opinion matters.

If you don't approve of the MP, and you aren't Tom, get over it.

This. Unless you have suddenly become the embodiment of Tom, and know his innermost thoughts and feelings, then please stop acting like you know what he will do.

[De-Legro]

@ Bedwyr: I believe the wiki is very clear about asian and american inspired religions. They disturb the SMA enviroment. Yet I only heard about existing asian religions to justify the MP as a religion. Personally, I am not convinced that the MP even is a religion. That aside, it raises the question if it is appropriate within the SMA enviroment.

Please justify why the MP is appropriate on Dwilight without criticizing other religions on Dwilight.
Also, you quoted Tom, but he does not speak of the abrahamic monetheistic theology.

And aren't misotheism and deism philosophies applied on existing religions? I am no expert in either one of them, but I see them as sub-cultures of real religions. And isn't deism simular to the 'Enlightenment', which is a concept of the 18th century.

Indeed the wiki is

"Non-European Realm/Religion Concepts
While these are acceptable on other islands, we are very, very sceptical about them on any island where we are looking for a serious medieval atmosphere. Some will be ok, a little bit of orient can spice things up, but the vast majority would only dilute and disturb the atmosphere. That goes especially for any asian or american concepts. Basically anything that the middle ages did not have much contact with. Again, there are other islands in BattleMaster where these ideas can be explored."

The crux would be defining what a "little" eastern influence is.

[Darkgrave]

This. Unless you have suddenly become the embodiment of Tom, and know his innermost thoughts and feelings, then please stop acting like you know what he will do.

Let them have their fun. They're not hurting anyone and it makes a nice change to the normal "SA rules." "No it doesn't" "Yes it does" crap.