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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 328404" data-attributes="member: 4937">"The person who criticized Tyler Do'Urden's summary of Gnostic tenets should be made aware that he didn't make them up."A couple of things.  The person you refer to is me.  I did not criticize Tyler's summary of Gnostic tenets, although, if you want me to grade it as a history report, I can.  I am well aware that he did not make them up.  Any angst in this post is due to the fact that you are immediately assuming that what offended me was Gnosticism and that I was some ignorant uneducated rube.  That gets really tiring you know.  Although this appears to have escaped you, I criticized not Tyler's content but an apparant lack of respect for the other posters (whether intended or not).  My fear is that eventually we are going to get one of two types of posters involved in this thread: either immature religious types looking to stamp out heresy with hellfire and brimstone, or angsty aetheists looking to stamp out the evil of Christians.  Either type is more interested in provoking the other side than anything contructive.  Both have thier own agenda, and both to be frank annoy me."Gnosticism is a real, historical religion as worthy of respect as the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, or the Quakers, or anyone else."Ok, right.  Provoke the Mormons, the Latter Day Saints, and the Quakers by comparing them to a bunch of heretics.  I'm sure that they feel the comparison is valid.  Actually, you are probably safe, because in my experience, those three groups typically use thier time more constructively and probably aren't killing time on a BBS."The reason there aren't many around today is because the religion (and a good proportion of its adherents) was brutally wiped out, at least twice."Yep.  I knew that.  I imagine most of us did.   We don't seem that stupid.  But, the reason I'm suspicious of this sort of thing is 9 times in 10 the person that is bringing it up is just hoping to shock someone. "I think it would make an interesting basis for an RPG campaign (and actually forms part of the background for the Kult RPG)."Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at.  The Kult RPG is supposed to be a good reference for a medieval catholic religion?  Look, if you want to do some post modernistic 'I'm so burned by societies evils' RPG, that's fine.  I can't stop you.  Do your thing.  I assume you are perfectly capable.  I frankly would like to transcend societies evils instead of moping about them, but that's just me."Anyway, I believe that since the suggestions in this thread are explicitly in a game context, it would be perfectly okay if Tyler Do'Urden had made Gnosticism up."Maybe, if the thread had been about making up new religions, and if Tyler's intentions in making up a new Christian heresy was not to upset the Christians on the board and provoke a flame war, or if Tyler himself wasn't the sort that enjoyed trying to shock or enrage members of other religions by discussing or inventing alternative narratives which were distasteful to the members of that religion, then sure.  But I had this slight suspicion you see that Tyler LIKED creating contriversy, and he himself kinda expected it to be the normal outcome of his conversation and I was trying to head it off before it became viscious on someones part."If someone chose to flame him because they were offended by an explicitly fictitious variation on Christianity, it would be the fault of the flamer, not the original poster."No, not by my book.  If you invent a fictitious narrative involving Christianity, Judism, Hiduism, or anything else that is specifically offensive to the members of that group, then no its probably not entirely the fault of the people on the recieving end of your fiction.  Wasn't there something you said about treating religions with respect?"Let's let creativity run wild - how about a campaign where God is Satan's scorned lover, or one where God has somehow died and the angels are trying to keep it a secret. Not for everybody, for sure, but they're valid ideas for those who like them."The problem is that for some people, those simply aren't valid ideas.  The resemble more people telling other people that eating ice cream doesn't make you fat, and that carbon monoxide isn't actually poisonous.  They resemble dangerous lies.  Moreover, since they are (by thier perception) slander about a person they actually know, they tend to get touchy about it.  So, I would suggest, that if you don't know the Big Guy, that you don't dish on him so freely, because at the very least - you are going to get annoyed by people continually praying for your soul.  <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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