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[Felblood]

"Agnostic religion" is probably poor word choice, as the followers of the sort of religion I was referring wouldn't have to be agnostic.

It's the religion itself that refuses to make a commitment to any particular god or idea about God or gods.

Some sects of Buddhism, for a potentially volatile RL example, decline to comment on the existence or non-existence of the divine, preferring to focus entirely on moral and karmic concepts. If your religion doesn't have any teachings that are mutually exclusive with nirvana and transmigration, they don't see any reason why you can't be a member of both. Other religions, naturally, rarely see it quite like that.

In order to counter that these sects usually bill their teachings as a "philosophy" or something to that effect, in an attempt to woo members of traditionally exclusive members, but if you want to talk about word games...

Whatever you want to call a sect that dispenses spiritual teachings grounded in non-empirical systems of belief, there's no reason to split them into separate structures, just because one group tends to have gods attached to it from the top side, and the other might possibly have gods attached to it from the bottom side.

Just picture some divine being, seeking to atone for some personal failure of divine proportions, joining some sort of penance-contemplation-and-hard-work type monastery and meditating on a rock all day, instead of doing the usual god type stuff. The other gods don't have to buy into it, and might even get angry, if he's showing support for a religion that they see as siphoning away coveted followers.

It isn't a thing that I feel is an absolute must-have feature, but it's a possibility that deserves more than cursory exploration.

[Granite26]

So the god would have perfect knowledge over the metaphysics (because he's a god) but imperfect knowledge of morals?  Sounds good to me.

[Neonivek]

So the god would have perfect knowledge over the metaphysics (because he's a god) but imperfect knowledge of morals?  Sounds good to me.

Why not? Nobles often have great knowledge of high-society but pathetic knowledge of the lower class.

Afterall it was considered news when a Noble reported that Farmers arn't stupid

[Granite26]

One of the things that I don't think we've settled is what worship and godhood really mean in a fantasy setting.

Something that's actually called a god probably shouldn't have concerns about the true nature of the universe.  However, (philosophy warning) if morality really does derive from divinity, it's possible for the divine to begin to doubt it's correctness.  If God says 'buggering other guys is bad' and that makes buggering other guys bad, what happens when God later changes his mind?  Does it become not bad anymore?  Was it ever bad?  Is it still bad and God has lost his own morality?  (standard philosophy answer is that morality does NOT derive from divinity and that our conception of God is as a perfectly moral being, not the source of morals)  However, in a polytheist society, either gods are not perfectly moral (the Greeks certainly weren't), espouse the same moralities (boring) or morality actually DOES derive from a godhead.

How does THAT work?  Some people espouse the 'you go to the heaven you believe in' theory, or at least did in high school when that was trending and considered the height of wit.  Certainly a polytheist with multiple divinely derived moralities wouldn't be limited to a heaven and hell?  How do they choose?  Perhaps that is what drives true worship?  Morality derives from divinity as a godhead, and mortals choose which fountain to drink of?  Something like the moral codes that replaced humanity in the 2nd ed Vampire games.

[Rowanas]

Each god has ethics, and dwarves will pick gods based on how well the god matches up with their civ ethics and personal interests. The god might change, and then people will abandon the god, or if the god is still good enough for them, their ethics will change.

[Felblood]

The scenario above naturally assumes that the god in question in neither omniscient nor infallible, as he has mistakes that he regrets, and seeks wisdom from others, for how to deal with it.

An omniscient or infallible god, shouldn't be joining religions from the bottom side, since he's not going to be interested in taking advice from anyone, regardless of whether their belief system encourages worship of divinities.

Another interesting scenario is to have a god who approves of a religion that doesn't worship him, as something good for mortals to do, but isn't a member himself. There's a lot more variety in what type of god might fulfill this role, as the other example was intended to be something that only happens on the outside chance, but could still be plausible.

Each god has ethics, and dwarves will pick gods based on how well the god matches up with their civ ethics and personal interests. The god might change, and then people will abandon the god, or if the god is still good enough for them, their ethics will change.

That's a decent enough start, but it doesn't allow for the agnostic or atheist group, that preaches a codified set of beliefs, which is sort of what we're exploring.

[Pilsu]

Agnostics and atheists in a world where gods talk back to you?

[Felblood]

Agnostics and atheists in a world where gods talk back to you?

Google "Flat Earth Society".

More seriously, yes.

They aren't going to be the sort of atheists that we get here, of course, but there are going to be people who don't take any truck with this worshiping higher powers thing, or simply find themselves "still searching" for the right god.

Plus, there will always be these guys, in any universe.

Urist McAtheist: "They're not really gods! They're just wizards, trying to manipulate you!"

*Bolt of lightning strikes Urist*

Labash McConspiracy: "See! what do they have to hide!?"

[Neonivek]

Once again the Atheists don't have to deny that the gods exist (though it is against the definition of Atheism) they just have to doubt the divinity of the gods and the right they have to be worshipped.

That is as good as Atheist in a world where the gods do exist and make themselves evident.

[Granite26]

Once again the Atheists don't have to deny that the gods exist (though it is against the definition of Atheism) they just have to doubt the divinity of the gods and the right they have to be worshipped.

That is as good as Atheist in a world where the gods do exist and make themselves evident.

Sure, but until we decide what it means to be worshipped (in DF terms, and as opposed to 'well respected'), how can we really make that happen?

[Felblood]

It's possible that the distinction between Atheism and Agnosticism would be irrelevant in game terms, as both are people who don't have any gods in their "worshipped" list, but I think there's a way we can make the difference mechanically interesting.

Religious philosophies encourage the worship of gods or a specific group of gods (possibly only one). There's going to be a lot of variety here, depending on the gods, and how well people understand them.

Atheist philosophies disapprove of worshiping gods, and consider membership mutually exclusive with religions proper.

Agnostic philosophies neither approve nor disapprove of worshiping gods, and pursue dual membership adherents from both religious and atheist philosophies.

Atheist philosophies will naturally clash with any religion, even if that religion is ambivalent towards them, while agnostic ones could get along with a religious philosophy, if that's also withing the religion's tolerances.

This could get more fine grained, if that level of abstraction becomes unacceptable.

Atheism could be further broken down into the ideas that "the gods do not exist," and "worshiping the gods is morally wrong," (Anti-theism?) but that might be more fine grained than necessary, depending on whether there's a mechanical difference between the two.

If we draw a line between these last two, there are two ways that I see to make them distinct: First, a good round of smiting will bring around all but the craziest of Atheists, but is likely to have the opposite effect on Anti-theists, especially if they are a highly non-violent sect. Second, Atheists are going to be very rare in a world where the gods are highly visable, while Anti-theists like McConspiracy, are going to crop up a lot in such a world, especially if the gods have humanizing flaws, or are capable of being harmed by mortals.

[Rowanas]

Well, that could be made obvious by having anti-theists with "anti-god" in their god-slot, and agnostics would have absolutely nothing there, but might pick up a god or anti-theism later.

[Felblood]

It depends on how hard it is for a religion/philosophy that lacks gods to pick up new ones, if the default behavior for religions is to acquire gods, until their spheres are full, then it may be necessary to create a no-god type entry, to represent a commitment to a deity neutral philosophy.

This essentially means dividing agnosticism into two further sub-groups, one that simply doesn't have any gods yet( proto-cults looking for a god), and one that avoids collecting gods on principal (hardline agnosticism).

Once again, this might be too much detail. As much as that phrase seems to be counter to the principals of DF, we don't want the system to grow completely out of hand before the gods actually get involved, because you know they're going to make everything really complicated.

By the same token, we don't want to give non-religious philosophies short shrift.

Depending on how religion ends up being structured, we might also have secular individuals, who have no strong connection to any particular philosophy. However, even they tend to hold onto a small shred of some philosophy that they where raised under, or were once members of, so just people with very low levels of faith in their religion could represent this.