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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 9747584" data-attributes="member: 42856">I'd say it may make them more religious. People participated in civic worship because they felt it would protect their city, even in the absence of any effect. If sacrificing to a protective god of your city unerringly caused a wall of fire to surround it when enemies attack, I'd say the net effect would be that people would participate in the rituals with even more enthusiasm. Thing is, until we were able to explain the natural order without resorting to gods or the surnatural to explain most phenomenons, religion was the natural order of the world. Tides didn't happened because of gravity, they happened because the Sea God breathed, or because the Moon God willed it (when a link between tides and the moon was observed). You don't say you have faith in gravity, and you wouldn't have said to have faith in the Sea God or Moon God, you'd just know that they are the cause of the phenomenon, and that, unlike gravity, you could take actions to make them favourable to you. If the agnostic Bard can cast spells, it doesn't mean that you'd doubt suddenly the very effective spells that are cast at you by a cleric... There might be other sources of magic, but that doesn't invalidate that the cleric you just told his god is wimpy is casting Flame Strike on you after doing the proper ritual to ask for his god's intervention. Honestly, in real life, if one could:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">touch, see, and chat with the Sun God (by casting Gate on a TV set and have a lead talk show host invite him),</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">witness that natural process (like the Sun emitting light) can be altered at will by said being, </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">that calling the name of this being allowed people anointed as priest of the Sun God to cause eclipses or make laser rays strike their foes directly from the sun when practicing a Sun God-provided ritual,</li> </ul>I am pretty sure very few people would doubt the existence of said Sun God.</blockquote>

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