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Poll

What religion do you follow?

Judaism
- 0 (0%)
Christianity
- 17 (23.3%)
Islam
- 1 (1.4%)
Hinduism
- 0 (0%)
Taoism
- 0 (0%)
Buddhism
- 0 (0%)
Scientology
- 2 (2.7%)
Other (please tell)
- 7 (9.6%)
Athiest
- 35 (47.9%)
Undecided
- 1 (1.4%)
Agnostic
- 10 (13.7%)

Total Members Voted: 70


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Author Topic: Religion discussion.  (Read 72675 times)

TheBiggerFish

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #270 on: May 04, 2017, 01:14:40 pm »

That is a modified gender symbol used by some LGBT people, I believe to symbolize people who do not fit into the gender binary.
Huh.  Makes sense.  (kinda wondering why you quoted me if it was Rolan who asked though.)
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Rolan7

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #271 on: May 04, 2017, 02:00:54 pm »

Huh, thanks for the explanation.  I was wondering if it was a sign of LGBT solidarity from Christians, maybe.  Or maybe a Mars/Venus/Jesus thing?  I was definitely overthinking it in hindsight.
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Starver

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #272 on: May 04, 2017, 02:20:52 pm »

What worries me is that you have two shadows...   Was this anywhere near the Library, by any chance? ;)
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Khan Boyzitbig

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #273 on: May 04, 2017, 03:02:00 pm »

What worries me is that you have two shadows...   Was this anywhere near the Library, by any chance? ;)

Heh, I know I can have nine different shadows while wandering my flat, some of them might be minions of mine though.
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Rolan7

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #274 on: May 04, 2017, 03:46:33 pm »

That was a good episode...
I did happen to be outside a campus library, though! It was raining and twilight. Three rather spiritual things, IMO (:
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helmacon

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #275 on: May 04, 2017, 04:00:03 pm »

It always strikes me as a bit ironic when people complain about the "violent religion of the middle east" and how it's going to take root in the west and ruin everything.

Religion from the middle east already took root in the west a long time ago. It was called christianity. Nearly all major religions nowadays came from the middle east*, they crushed the greek and roman pantheons a long time ago. They laughed at the nordic religions. They didn't even notice the native religion in the Americas! They steamrolled thier way through the world, and you are part of it right now!

They degrade them because "They fight each other, over the differences in their religions", but they don't even realise that with christianity being from the same abrahamic god, christian/islamic conflict is the same thing as sunni/shia conflict, but just one step up the scale!

That brings the question though, what is it about religions in the middle east that makes them so much more effective than religions that came from elsewhere? Why has religion from this one part of the map managed to dominate so much of the globe?


*yea, I know hinduism and buddhism and ect.. exist. They haven't spread and dominated quite the same though.
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Rusty Shackleford

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #276 on: May 04, 2017, 04:06:28 pm »

It always strikes me as a bit ironic when people complain about the "violent religion of the middle east" and how it's going to take root in the west and ruin everything.

Religion from the middle east already took root in the west a long time ago. It was called christianity. Nearly all major religions nowadays came from the middle east*, they crushed the greek and roman pantheons a long time ago. They laughed at the nordic religions. They didn't even notice the native religion in the Americas! They steamrolled thier way through the world, and you are part of it right now!

They degrade them because "They fight each other, over the differences in their religions", but they don't even realise that with christianity being from the same abrahamic god, christian/islamic conflict is the same thing as sunni/shia conflict, but just one step up the scale!

That brings the question though, what is it about religions in the middle east that makes them so much more effective than religions that came from elsewhere? Why has religion from this one part of the map managed to dominate so much of the globe?


*yea, I know hinduism and buddhism and ect.. exist. They haven't spread and dominated quite the same though.

You should read both the Quran and the Bible and make your own decision as to why this is.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 04:25:15 pm by Rusty Shackleford »
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Teneb

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #277 on: May 04, 2017, 04:42:53 pm »

It always strikes me as a bit ironic when people complain about the "violent religion of the middle east" and how it's going to take root in the west and ruin everything.

Religion from the middle east already took root in the west a long time ago. It was called christianity. Nearly all major religions nowadays came from the middle east*, they crushed the greek and roman pantheons a long time ago. They laughed at the nordic religions. They didn't even notice the native religion in the Americas! They steamrolled thier way through the world, and you are part of it right now!

They degrade them because "They fight each other, over the differences in their religions", but they don't even realise that with christianity being from the same abrahamic god, christian/islamic conflict is the same thing as sunni/shia conflict, but just one step up the scale!

That brings the question though, what is it about religions in the middle east that makes them so much more effective than religions that came from elsewhere? Why has religion from this one part of the map managed to dominate so much of the globe?


*yea, I know hinduism and buddhism and ect.. exist. They haven't spread and dominated quite the same though.

You should read both the Quran and the Bible and make your own decision as to why this is.
Or you could bother giving a proper answer.

The reasons behind why Christianity and Islam caught on are many. Notice that Judaism remained rather small, as far as these go.

First and foremost is that while nearly every religion is very much tied a culture, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are not. That's one reason for these three to be pretty successful. Christianity was not seen as the "religion of the hebrews" (that was Judaism), but as the "religion of the Christians". Who are the Christians? Why, anyone who believes in what they do, culture of origin be damned.

Second is that they (not Buddhism though) are very pro-active when it comes to conversion. Pagan religions don't care much about conversion, mostly because for pretty much everyone except the abrahamics other religions are also partially right. Romans were good at securing conquered territories because they didn't force their religion on others. Instead, they even adopted gods from other cultures because they believed that everyone was at the very least partially right as far as metaphysics go. If everyone is partially right, you don't need to "correct" them to the True Ways. Christianity and Islam are: "I am the One True Religion, and you will be tortured eternally if you don't accept the truth".

Things kind of diverge for those two, however, at this point.

Christianity was very much a pacifist religion in its initial stage. It was persecuted by the romans for various reasons, but the main being: insisting, as mentioned above, that they were the only right tradition; that the roman gods were aspects of the Adversary; refusing to mingle with the rest of roman society; having some rituals that sound extremely horrifying if you know nothing about them (eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus (cannibalism), baptism (drowning babies), etc). But when emperor Constantine converts, being christian shifts from being political and social suicide to being pretty much required if you had any ambitions. Sure, those people may not have all been true believers, but their kids would be raised from birth as part of the religion, having faith and wanting to spread it as per its doctrines.

Islam, meanwhile, took the militaristic path. With quite a few exceptions, the Arabic peninsula was united by force of arms, as was the rest of the Islamic empire that arose shortly after Muhammad's death/ascension. Islam also had a very interesting, and extremely effective, tactic for converting people: non-Muslims had to pay a special tax that Muslims didn't. So if you didn't want to, or couldn't, pay, you converted. What I said at the end of the paragraph above also applies here.

Also, and this applies to both, when you see a conflict between groups of two different religions as an extension of the conflict between their deities, some people would rather join the winning side, making it win even more, causing more people to convert and feed the cycle.

Kind of busy, but PM me if you want sources and I'll eventually send them to you when I'm un-busy.

EDIT: More exposition, but only on Christianity since I studied it in quite a lot more depth than Islam.

Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, has been extremely flexible as well. They co-opted a lot of traditions from other religions and cultures that converted, such as Christmas being when it is (more or less during the roman saturnalia, for instance). During the conversion of Ireland, the Pope conveniently overlooked the fact that many irish priests were polygamous. Quite more recently, during the conversion of the Tlaxcaltecs in Mexico, the religion only took off after a Mexican peasant had a vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who had Mexican features rather than European ones, speaking to him in Nahuatl.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 04:52:07 pm by Teneb »
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #278 on: May 04, 2017, 04:52:42 pm »

As it was explained to me, "Religion" is a Western concept. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Tao/Daoism, etc. are as much ways of life as they are a system of beliefs. Additionally, Abrahamic religions (I.E. Christianity, Islam, & Judaism) are much more concerned with forceful conversion than Eastern religions are. In fact, it's really hard to explain how Eastern religions operate because they're not really religions as we understand them, more philosophical schools of thought and action. Also what Teneb described.
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penguinofhonor

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #279 on: May 04, 2017, 05:12:38 pm »

snip

Woops, that was a misclick. I meant to quote Rolan.
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misko27

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #280 on: May 04, 2017, 05:55:04 pm »

Although an interesting post Teneb, you don't really explain why Christianity originally took off, pre-Constantine. You say Constantine, fine; but that implies there was an early conversion and the rest occured from the top-down, which isn't really accurate. Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Imperium, despite being (eventually, originally most romans knew nothing about them) hated as enemies of the Gods and the bringers of bad fortune. Understanding the appeal of early Christianity is hard, because, as you say, being Christian was suicide; not figuratively, mind, but literally: Being-eaten-by-lions suicide. And yet, by the time of Constantine, Christianity had already spread through Constantinople, Alexandria, Milan, Paris, Syracuse, and other cities, not to mention Rome itself (I'm going off the map available here). I mean, that's pretty impressive for a "come, join, be martyred" type deal. And that's not to mention the areas outside the empire that converted: the first Christian state was Armenia, not Rome.

Islam also has examples: Southeast Asia wasn't conquered by a foreign Muslim power but converted through contact with Muslim merchants. I mean that's really impressive, isn't it? These people so far from Arabia, without incentives to convert, still converted.

So there's something else going on here than simply enforced conversion from above. Although what it is, precisely, is up for debate.
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Teneb

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #281 on: May 04, 2017, 05:58:51 pm »

-snip-
I mostly focused on the political elite because its what I know and am sure about.

Shit, I wasn't even going to post that, but I got pissed with Rusty Shackleford's post and went and did it.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #282 on: May 04, 2017, 06:26:28 pm »

As it was explained to me, "Religion" is a Western concept. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Tao/Daoism, etc. are as much ways of life as they are a system of beliefs. Additionally, Abrahamic religions (I.E. Christianity, Islam, & Judaism) are much more concerned with forceful conversion than Eastern religions are. In fact, it's really hard to explain how Eastern religions operate because they're not really religions as we understand them, more philosophical schools of thought and action. Also what Teneb described.
That's an overly restricted conception of religion. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also possess lifestyle requirements and have philosophical schools associated with them. It's true that Eastern and Western philosophy are different meta-schools, but that doesn't make those not religion.

Plus, Judaism doesn't typically allow conversion while Buddhism seeks to evangelize, so the whole model is flawed.

The better model of religious grouping is the one that divides them into Universalizing and Ethnic. Universalizing religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology) seek to spread themselves evangelically and are based on adopting a group of ideas. Ethnic religions (Judaism, Hinduism, Indigenous religions) do not spread beyond their founding ethnic group and are generally only conferred to members of that group.
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Teneb

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #283 on: May 04, 2017, 06:32:07 pm »

As it was explained to me, "Religion" is a Western concept. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Tao/Daoism, etc. are as much ways of life as they are a system of beliefs. Additionally, Abrahamic religions (I.E. Christianity, Islam, & Judaism) are much more concerned with forceful conversion than Eastern religions are. In fact, it's really hard to explain how Eastern religions operate because they're not really religions as we understand them, more philosophical schools of thought and action. Also what Teneb described.
That's an overly restricted conception of religion. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also possess lifestyle requirements and have philosophical schools associated with them. It's true that Eastern and Western philosophy are different meta-schools, but that doesn't make those not religion.

Plus, Judaism doesn't typically allow conversion while Buddhism seeks to evangelize, so the whole model is flawed.

The better model of religious grouping is the one that divides them into Universalizing and Ethnic. Universalizing religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology) seek to spread themselves evangelically and are based on adopting a group of ideas. Ethnic religions (Judaism, Hinduism, Indigenous religions) do not spread beyond their founding ethnic group and are generally only conferred to members of that group.
Addendum: "But Hiduism is huge!" That's because its ethnic group is also incredibly huge.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Religion discussion: The church of Bay12
« Reply #284 on: May 04, 2017, 07:36:38 pm »

@MSH,

I haven't defined religion at all. Nor am I implying that Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese Fold Religion, etc. are not valid religions because they are from the East, I am implying that they can be significantly more than what Religion has come to mean in the Western world and that practically speaking, the philosophical schools of thought (and action, very important) of the Abrhamic religions are frankly disregarded, neglected, or simply unknown to many of their practitioners in a way that is dissimilar to the aforementioned Eastern religions.

HOWEVER, the original question was "what is it about religions in the middle east that makes them so much more effective than religions that came from elsewhere? Why has religion from this one part of the map managed to dominate so much of the globe?" and my answer is that both Christianity and Islam have PRACTICALLY been incredibly focused on conversion at essentially any cost with the added bonus of centuries of what is essentially theocratic authoritarianism in areas controlled by highly religious leaders. Actually, Islam and Christianity are pretty much the same exact religion--while obviously hyperbole, if you look at where Christianity was when it was Islam's age you'd find some pretty similar extremism. Christianity is more widespread than Islam simply because it had the technological and geographical means to spread somewhat faster. Obviously, there is more history to it than that, but that can sum up my claim fairly well.
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