Allegiances and Alignment

[Celebrim]

cced1106: Do you actually consider yourself a follower of a deity? If not, I don't see how you can know what people that follow a deity ask of themselves. I actually have problems with every sentence of your post, but I'm too tired to pick it apart right now.

 

[Crothian]

Gods **following** alignments?? Never!

My viewpoint is that gods dictate the behavior of their followers. Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims ask themselves if they're Lawful Good? Heck, no! They ask themselves if they follow the prescribed behavior of their religious systems.

Good and Evil now become more nebulous and flexible. Some religions equate Evil with "not being my religion". Others will equate Good with "behavior that this religion condones". Paladins and Clerics are finally religion-specific (and can go whack each other now).

First, in standard D&D good and evil are very well defined. BovD talks about this. Second, you cannot compare a world that clerics recieve spells, direction (divinations), and can talk to divine beings with real world religions. Gods do define alignment.

 

[shilsen]

What Crothian said. Those two points should be posted on every thread which brings up real-world religions as evidence while discussing D&D.