Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 2830471" data-attributes="member: 29746">Close contact (even friendship) with people living in areas outside major American cities, specifically some who grew up in tiny towns, as well as life in cities in the "Bible Belt" (with similarly-formed acquaintances there). I lived in Memphis, TN for three years in the 90s, and went back there on and off for several subsequent years since my parents and sister were still there (later they moved to Dallas, TX for a couple of years, but are now living in rural Michigan).It is true that a lot of people these days are inclined to listen to scientific explanations, particularly if they actually take the time to look at evidence and listen to arguments based on said evidence; however, at least half of the people I've known when living in the above-mentioned places (or who grew up in such places) were disinclined to put forth the effort to listen to and consider such evidence and arguments. For them, science and religion carry equal weight before analysis, and religion is often more emotionally comforting than science. Ergo, what their reverends/preachers/priests had told them was good enough for them, and they didn't bother looking for any other explanations. I'd be genuinely shocked if people living in the Middle East (where the monotheistic religions are strongest, and often at least partly written into local laws) didn't tend to behave the same way. People living outside large cities in general, in the world, tend to be less educated and more prone to religious fervor- and that is still a majority of the current world population despite the rise of huge cities in the last couple of centuries.My reasoning on the subject goes like this: the mystery entities show up, and governments around the world at first deny their existence, trying to keep a lid on potential panic hoping the Things just go away. Meanwhile, the rumors make it 'round the Internet and various other word-of-mouth channels anyway, evidence building and building until no amount of official denials can be credible. The governments then trot out scientists and other "experts" to give a scientific explanation and try to reassure the public, again to keep the potential for panic down, but by that time the creatures would already be named- the initial phase of rumor expansion is when the creatures would acquire the colloquial title and associations that are the subject of this thread. During that initial phase, people without explanations would naturally fall back on whatever occurred to them first, and anybody offering an explanation would gain a large audience. Essentially, my feeling is the preachers would give an explanation first, in an effort to whip up the congregations, and their explanation would stick for quite some time in people who are inclined to religious thinking (or aren't inclined one way or the other towards religion or science). And since the mystery entities didn't arrive via any visibly technological means (meaning ships- portals could be considered either technological or supernatural depending on the perspective of the viewer), the scientific establishment would be very hard pressed to dislodge the idea that they're demons or spirits once it becomes common among the populace.I suppose, my reasoning boils down ultimately to cynicism. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> So be it- I'm a cynic. People have rarely proved me wrong that way.</blockquote>

Verification