Real World Religions

Dragongirl · Sep 3, 2002

DISCLAIMER : I am not making any comments about real life or religions in the real world, this is just a game.

I am trying to come up with an idea of how to handle this premise.
Gods from real world religions suddenly manifesting themselves. My main problem is how to handle the very related religions of Catholic, Orthodox, Islam and Jewish. Should they all be represented by one god?, a related trinity of 3 gods (christian, islam, jewish) or a god for each? I really can't decide what to do. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Nifft · Sep 3, 2002

Here's an idea which will allow you a lot of flexibility, some moderate "gee-whiz" and might just keep the flames away:

There are no new gods. The immortals have battled for the hearts and minds of humanity for eons. They do not die -- but they do take other names.

You can then pick nice historical dead gods which represent different universal aspects of religion, and say that those immortals have been feeding off the energy of humans worshipping that aspect of divinity.

"Christianity" then becomes as splintered as the minds of its followers, since there are so many different things being called "christian": forgiveness, redemption, education, healing, and also greed, powermongering, oppression, hate, revenge and retribution.

You'll be able to find similar break-downs in nearly every religion (buddhism and hinduism perhaps excluded), but not because religions contain good & evil -- because PEOPLE contain good & evil.

Consider the difference between a lying, cheating, political televangelist and a nun who feeds and educates the homeless. Both are "christian", but the gods they truely worship are quite different.

Anyway, IMHO it's always fun to bring back dead gods.

-- Nifft

fba827 · Sep 3, 2002

From a religious-historical perspective, the three aforementioned religions all in fact worship the same god (just different names for the same god). If you want to keep it similar in your campaign I would suggest keeping it as one god. Then there could be different churches/groups and they may worship that same god just refer to it by different names.

Then, to further extrapolate, each of these three main religions (in the real world) has several groupings who choose to emphaises different aspects of that same god. So, by mimicing this scheme, you would have several levels of diversity there and just only need the one god.

fusangite · Sep 4, 2002

Monotheistic religions are not conducive to manifesting God (in any of his three persons). I recommend that if you really want to stick with this premise (not a great idea in my view), you stick to saints, prophets, angels, etc.

Dragongirl · Sep 4, 2002

Thanks for your opinions. Still not sure what to do. The world I am working on now is basically Earth up to a point where something happens to infuse your standard fantasy world critters and magic. Obviously other races I have come to this world I can just have their gods (or an aspect of them) follow these races, but it is what to do with the native humans and their religions is what I am stuck with.

1) I could have the humans see other races having their prayers answered (clerical spells) and have them turn away from their native religion for one of the new ones.

2) Have the belief of the native humans combine with the new magic in the air have new dieties appear to represent earth religions.

3) Have minor powers and/or demons take on the appearance of the native gods and thus growing with power as their influence spreads through the established church.

4) Have no gods of any kind manifest on Earth. I don't like this last one because I think it is a cop out and takes out clerics as a class.

Buttercup · Sep 4, 2002

fba827 said:
From a religious-historical perspective, the three aforementioned religions all in fact worship the same god (just different names for the same god). If you want to keep it similar in your campaign I would suggest keeping it as one god. Then there could be different churches/groups and they may worship that same god just refer to it by different names.

This will only work if the god does not manifest. If christians, jews & moslems do indeed believe they are worshiping the same god (I'm not sure, since I thought one was called yaweh, and the other allah, but I'm far from an expert on any of those religions), then two of those groups would be in for a rude awakening if said god showed up and said 'You people please me, and the other two groups have it all wrong.' ZZZZOTTTT!

Rhialto · Sep 4, 2002

Buttercup said:
This will only work if the god does not manifest. If christians, jews & moslems do indeed believe they are worshiping the same god (I'm not sure, since I thought one was called yaweh, and the other allah, but I'm far from an expert on any of those religions), then two of those groups would be in for a rude awakening if said god showed up and said 'You people please me, and the other two groups have it all wrong.' ZZZZOTTTT!

It's the same god. In fact, Allah isn't a real name--it's Arabic for "The God".

Elder-Basilisk · Sep 6, 2002

Rhialto said:
It's the same god. In fact, Allah isn't a real name--it's Arabic for "The God".

Well, there's actually room for discussion on this issue. If my information is correct, Allah is actually the name of an Arabian moon god of some kind which was appropriated by Mohammed for the God of Abraham (since there may not have been a generic name for god that worked) much like the greek word Theos was appropriated by the Jews and the predecessor of the english word "God" was appropriated by Christians. So the words have not always conveyed the same meaning that they do today.

That aside, however, all three religions claim to honor the God of Abraham (who is also the only god and the creator god). However, their visions of that God are sufficiently different that it may not be appropriate to say that they worship the same God. It's kind of like a bunch of people saying "John Doe for President!" If when you talk to them, you find out that person one thinks John Doe is a democrat, person two thinks he's a republican, and person three thinks he's a libertarian, are all of them really supporting the same guy? (Or did someone else impersonate him at one or two of the conventions?)

Rhialto · Sep 6, 2002

Elder-Basilisk said:
Well, there's actually room for discussion on this issue. If my information is correct, Allah is actually the name of an Arabian moon god of some kind which was appropriated by Mohammed for the God of Abraham (since there may not have been a generic name for god that worked) much like the greek word Theos was appropriated by the Jews and the predecessor of the english word "God" was appropriated by Christians. So the words have not always conveyed the same meaning that they do today.

Your information is wrong. That story is a myth circulated by born-agains. The term 'Allah' is Arabic and was used to denote a higher supreme being for a long time before the coming of Mohammed. It is related to the Hebraic "Eli" or "Elyon" which means, once again, 'the God. The "Allah is a moon god" myth was born by taking the prominence of the ancient Babylonian moon god Sin, and trying to tie it into the use of the moon as a holy symbol in Islam. (A practice that comes several centuries after Mohammed, and is based on Islam's use of a lunar calender to determine festival dates.)

And I'd have to say it'd be difficult to believe that various sects within the same faith worship the same god. And yet they apparently do. Religions a funny thing...

Chewbacca · Dec 9, 2005

This reply coming years too late...
You need not exclude clerics from your game if you decide not to use a Higher-Being-Worship type of religion. A few beliefs/theories (notably Agnosticism and Deism) are practicable by clerics, as they can be granted their holy-type magic by their "connection to the cosmos" or the "understanding of the universe" or something. Here's a link that helped me out:

http://www.3rdedition.org/articles/viewer.asp?id=55

Real World Religions

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fba827

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fusangite

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Dragongirl

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Elder-Basilisk

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Chewbacca

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