I'd point out that the idea of "one note characters" is pretty germane to the discussion since that's the example that was presented - characters that would actively oppose the gods and do everything in their power to tear down the wall. If the character is simply not terribly pious and doesn't talk about his faith (or lack thereof) in the game, then who cares? It's not like it would matter. I was under the understanding that we're talking about characters who not only believe that the system is unjust but also are actively doing something about it.
Well I think it's a bit hard to keep track of exactly who is discussing what, as several examples have been given. I provided a few different scenarios of a character without faith working with those that have faith.
Personally, in my game, my PCs are all devoted to the destruction of one specific deity. That's their end goal. As such, they've had to examine how to go about that, and what it would mean. The other Powers have also reacted to their mission and methods, and become involved in one way or another.
At this point in the story, they aren't trying to tear down the gods, but they also don't quite have the same view of the gods as they did at level 1.
Arguably, fear and respect ARE worship. There are certainly many religious practices that solely existed to appease the gods, and weren't performed out of love and devotion. Within the Forgotten Realms, Umberlee is a classic example of this.
And this seems to be a major source of the divide. Those who have been defending the Wall have seemed to have a stronger tendency to view the realms separate from all other settings, and those most opposed have seemed to be coming from a planescape many worlds standpoint.
For me personally, I like to view each campaign setting in a vacuum, so to speak. Trying to find cohesion in the metaphysics of all of the campaign settings to me ends up making as much sense as if you tried to create one super religion out of all of the world's religions. In both situations, it's a lot easier to find internal consistency.
I think a lot of it comes down to accepting the tone of the setting. Most people don't balk at the idea of dark sun not having gods at all. Most people WOULD balk at a character trying to play a cleric devoted to a god in Dark Sun. For those defending the Wall and the religious setup of the realms, I think it's a fundamental part of the tone of the setting.
For me personally, it's just a fun exercise. I have a bit of history in apologetics, and enjoy the exercise of accepting the tenants of a faith and trying to find arguments to justify and defend it. It's pretty easy to say a religion is wrong; it's more challenging frequently to prove that it's right. In real life, I'm agnostic now, so I don't do a lot of defense of religion anymore. As a result, fictional religions are all I get to exercise that part of my brain on.
I don't really agree about fear and respect being the same as worship. I have a healthy respect of guns and I can certainly fear guns under the right circumstances, but that doesn't mean I worship them. Or tornadoes or fire or serial killers. I suppose in a setting like FR, it could be true, depending on the deity, but generally speaking I would separate them.
I agree that ultimately, it's not of great consequence, but makes for interesting discussion. I can't imagine too many games that would be affected by all this, even though I suppose mine is...although as I said above, I've altered the setting to match my outlook and that of my players.
I suppose that I don't see the gods as being all that fundamental to the setting...at least not in the sense that we've been discussing, with the afterlife structure and the requirement of worship and so on. I feel like only a few of the novels have really delved into that, and those were the ones that followed the Avatar Trilogy. Most of the novels I've read since that time include the deities and so forth, but not in the same manner....the gods are not protagonists, and we aren't privy to the workings of the planes and the afterlife and so on. Although I'll admit that I could be off on that as I read less and less FR novels as time goes on.
So I suppose I don't see the Wall as a fundamental aspect of the Realms in the same way no deities is fundamental for Dark Sun, or the Mists are fundamental for Ravenloft. I see it more as one small factor in an otherwise huge canon of material. No more fundamental to the setting than the city of Mezro in Chult.
