When you kill the village blacksmith the price of nails goes up for everyone while the quality of such goes down, as a general thing, ergo this is wrong absent any god or morality and is to be considered self destructive & hostile behavior.

Quote from: jhkim on October 26, 2023, 01:29:50 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on October 25, 2023, 01:18:46 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 25, 2023, 12:53:39 PM
There are Buddhist nuns, though there are differences among branches. Only in Mahayana Buddhism could they be fully ordained (until modern times). For example, Wing Chun is a martial art created by Buddhist nun Ng Mui. There was a good film "Wing Chun" starring Michelle Yeoh that documented it. Though I wouldn't say nuns are a great signal of women's rights either way.

In general, Christianity was historically more open to women's participation than Judaism and some other prior Mediterranean religions, but it wasn't the leader in that. (Paul's exhortation that women should be silent in church comes to mind.) In northern Europe, women often lost rights as the countries were Christianized. Norse women, for example, had the right to divorce and own property as widows. The Laxdaela Saga was a pre-Christian story about the family of the powerful matriarch Aud the Deep-Minded.

I'd give historical Christianity a B+ on the world scale in rights of women.

Thanks! I don't know much about Norse religion and I'm glad to learn.

I remember watching Vikings and noticing that Norse women seemed to have more rights - but at the same time they seemed to be more accepting of murder, robbery, torture, human sacrifice and illiteracy, so I was always rooting for the Christians (I know this is beside the point but I think worth mentioning).

I eventually stopped watching for unrelated reasons (the plot armor was too strong for my tastes - I hear it gets better).

I like the idea of Norse matriarchs, seems fun for world-building.

About Buddhism, am I right in assuming Buddhist nuns/monasteries are a rarity compared to Christians/Catholicism?

Just to be clear, I want pointing to nuns (or pastors) as a sign of woman's rights, more of a sign of being able to participate in religious rites, become saints, etc. Or saints AND warriors like Joan of Arc.

No, Buddhist monks are certainly not a rarity compared to Christianity. From one report, nearly a quarter of Tibetan males were monks until recently - and there are 46,000 currently even under Chinese rule. And according to another article (and Wikipedia), there are 340,000 Buddhist monks in Japan alone currently. That's much more than Christian monastics in any similar-sized country.

I mean, Buddhist monks are the basis of the monk class in D&D. :-)

The population of Buddhist nuns seems to vary a lot - along with the rules for them. They seem to be non-existent in Japan, maybe because of Shinto influence - and are only 1/10th as common as monks in Tibet (though that is still substantial).

Sorry, I was not clear; I was talking specifically about female monks. I'd think they are very rare compared to nuns, but I do not know.

Pundit has a monotheistic implied setting, in Lion & Dragon; with opposing entities / forces, at work.  I like that scenario, myself.  That's good enough for me.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 24, 2023, 08:21:56 PMEqual rights. The dignity of all human beings. Those ideas are not self evident but come from two separate religions- Buddhism and Christianity.

...The list goes on, but the important thing to take away is that if you remove the supreme deity you remove every single justification for Christian morality, just as removing karma removes every justification for Hindu or Buddhist morality.

Though I'm a Catholic myself I think you may be doing some of the other faith and philosophical traditions of the world a bit of a disservice.  C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Abolition of Man which shows how the majority of the world's faiths and belief systems mostly agree on the broad strokes of morality, at least when applied to one's own people or kin-group -- the mechanics of expression may differ, but the motives and goals are much the same.  Keeping one's word, refraining from murder and violence for one's own gain, not coveting others' goods or wives, showing due respect to others, honouring the dead, looking after widows and orphans and the needy, all are touted as virtues in the vast majority of moral systems.

Christianity's great moral innovations were threefold:
1) It was the first moral system to emphasize forgiveness of sins and enemies as a prerequisite for personal salvation;
2) It was the first system to truly universalize the moral status of all men as brothers in spirit, trumping all worldly considerations of rank, status, wealth or background.  It is not an accident that while slavery coexisted with Christianity for many centuries, it was only people descended from and driven by the Christian philosophical tradition who finally and successfully abolished slavery.
3) It was the first system to completely abolish systematic material sacrifice as a method of interacting with the Divine, emphasizing that God could not be bargained with or bought off as the pagans, or even the Jewish tradition of the Law, held could be the case.

In the typical fantasy RPG environment, a rising new religion teaching these things could give you adventure mileage in many ways:

- Adherents of the New Faith are trying to launch an anti-slavery campaign. Your average paladin might well be on the side of such a movement, until its more fanatical fringe elements start insisting that even feudal oaths should be abolished (look up the Albigensian Crusade for some of the fallout this political stance could cause).

- A local prince has had a religious epiphany and wants to convert and join the New Faith. Unfortunately his father has responded to this with great fury and disowned him as a result, which the young man is sad about but accepts; now his younger brother, a wastrel and good-for-nothing if ever there was one, has to be brought back from the far kingdoms where he's been spending money on wanton living. Which would be an easy enough job for your PCs, if the King's enemies weren't seeing an opportunity to gain power by seizing the younger Prince or killing him ....

- The noble who has hired you to clean out the local nest of orcs has hit you with a completely unexpected demand: He doesn't want the orcs killed, because he's recently become convinced of the immorality of such extermination. Instead, he's hired a bunch of wizards to write up a boatload of sleep spell scrolls and has built a whole platoon of wagon-cages.  Your job is to incapacitate the orcs and haul them, alive, to the border of neighbouring territory and then ... release them. Quite aside from the ludicrously difficult nature of this in the first place, how do you stop the orcs from just heading straight back and moving in again? Or, if they're "encouraged" to run in the other direction, does that make you responsible for whoever they hit with their marauding when they find other human lands again?

I do have some notes on a setting where the surface of the world is hellish and its inhabitants demonic but above in the clouds are the cities of angelic beings.   The historical belief is that the demons were cast out of the angelic cities.  I created the world as an adjunct to GURPS Banestorm's Yrth where medieval Christians brought Christianity with them when they were displaced from that world.  The thing is that the centaurs, satyrs, and other chimera are from one world and the goblins and gargoyles from another and I thought, then the demons and angels must be from yet another.  But here's the interesting bit.  Imagine the introduction of Medival Christian ideas to that world of Angels and Demons where there are certainly parallels and yet no notion of redemption.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on October 28, 2023, 11:31:27 PM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 24, 2023, 08:21:56 PMEqual rights. The dignity of all human beings. Those ideas are not self evident but come from two separate religions- Buddhism and Christianity.

...The list goes on, but the important thing to take away is that if you remove the supreme deity you remove every single justification for Christian morality, just as removing karma removes every justification for Hindu or Buddhist morality.

Though I'm a Catholic myself I think you may be doing some of the other faith and philosophical traditions of the world a bit of a disservice.  C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Abolition of Man which shows how the majority of the world's faiths and belief systems mostly agree on the broad strokes of morality, at least when applied to one's own people or kin-group -- the mechanics of expression may differ, but the motives and goals are much the same.  Keeping one's word, refraining from murder and violence for one's own gain, not coveting others' goods or wives, showing due respect to others, honouring the dead, looking after widows and orphans and the needy, all are touted as virtues in the vast majority of moral systems.

Christianity's great moral innovations were threefold:
1) It was the first moral system to emphasize forgiveness of sins and enemies as a prerequisite for personal salvation;
2) It was the first system to truly universalize the moral status of all men as brothers in spirit, trumping all worldly considerations of rank, status, wealth or background.  It is not an accident that while slavery coexisted with Christianity for many centuries, it was only people descended from and driven by the Christian philosophical tradition who finally and successfully abolished slavery.
3) It was the first system to completely abolish systematic material sacrifice as a method of interacting with the Divine, emphasizing that God could not be bargained with or bought off as the pagans, or even the Jewish tradition of the Law, held could be the case.

In the typical fantasy RPG environment, a rising new religion teaching these things could give you adventure mileage in many ways:

- Adherents of the New Faith are trying to launch an anti-slavery campaign. Your average paladin might well be on the side of such a movement, until its more fanatical fringe elements start insisting that even feudal oaths should be abolished (look up the Albigensian Crusade for some of the fallout this political stance could cause).

- A local prince has had a religious epiphany and wants to convert and join the New Faith. Unfortunately his father has responded to this with great fury and disowned him as a result, which the young man is sad about but accepts; now his younger brother, a wastrel and good-for-nothing if ever there was one, has to be brought back from the far kingdoms where he's been spending money on wanton living. Which would be an easy enough job for your PCs, if the King's enemies weren't seeing an opportunity to gain power by seizing the younger Prince or killing him ....

- The noble who has hired you to clean out the local nest of orcs has hit you with a completely unexpected demand: He doesn't want the orcs killed, because he's recently become convinced of the immorality of such extermination. Instead, he's hired a bunch of wizards to write up a boatload of sleep spell scrolls and has built a whole platoon of wagon-cages.  Your job is to incapacitate the orcs and haul them, alive, to the border of neighbouring territory and then ... release them. Quite aside from the ludicrously difficult nature of this in the first place, how do you stop the orcs from just heading straight back and moving in again? Or, if they're "encouraged" to run in the other direction, does that make you responsible for whoever they hit with their marauding when they find other human lands again?

I think you are missing Christianity's main difference, which also happens to be the main concern when creating an RPG setting's religious milieu and institutions.  Call it (which other theologians have) the first question of religion.  In short, is something Good because God says it is good, or does God saying something is good make it Good (call these "Post-Enlightenment" and "Pre-Enlightenment" respectively as an incomplete but convenient shorthand)?  There is a great divide between religions based on their answer to this question.  On one hand, many of the ancient pre-Enlightenment Western and Near-Eastern religions have fallen solidly in the second category.  God's commands literally create Good.  In the Torah or Old Testament, in the Koran and the Hadiths, and in other similar old religions (like the Norse or early Greek mythos), gods may directly declare the need to slaughter men, women, and children, to take slaves, to rape or procure wives by force, and other acts that would be considered evil by most contemporary readers.  But these acts were considered to be objectively Good by all believers at the time.  An example of this might be if a Pre-Enlightenment believer were to have fallen into a well and was rescued by a non-believer/other tribe/etc.  A Post-Enlightenment believer would consider this a good act by the non-believer.  But the Pre-Enlightenment believer would still view the non-believer as evil (unless the could be converted to the believer's religion), and all hostile religious commands towards that non-believer would be justified, even though they had just saved the believer.

This is one of the things that make Christianity (especially post-Enlightenment, read the excellent book Aristotle's Children for a history of how the rediscovery of Greek and Roman texts dramatically influenced the development of Christianity very differently than Islam) and several other Far Eastern religions different.  The parable of the good Samaritan serves as a direct answer to this question for Christians (even though, for much of pre-Enlightenment western history, the medieval Christians behaved much like the earlier religions... see their relations with heretics, for examples).  To Judaism at the time of Jesus, the Samaritan, simply by the nature of his tribe and birth, was an unclean other, who was still unclean and unholy even though his actions were noble.  The parable asserts that the Samaritan behaved in a way that was universally Good, and not dependent on the religious or tribal affiliations of the Samaritan.  So, where historical Judaism answers the fundamental question in one way, Christianity answers in a completely different way.  It's one of the reasons that Westerners (who are generally shaped by Enlightenment Christianity, even if they are not religious) cannot understand the behavior of radical Wahhabist Islamists: they always assume that they can show the Islamist that they are "good" people and should be treated as such.  But, to the Islamist, if you are not a Muslim (and usually one of their particular sect) you are evil by definition, and subject to the rules of Dal al Harb (the "domain of war").  No act you can take can redeem you in their eyes (except "submission").

So, the answer to this first principle of religion is probably the most important choice you can make in your RPG religions.  Is there a Universal Good, that even gods can be judged by?  Or is Good defined by the declarations of the deity that you follow?  This is especially important in a world where gods might be physically present and directly interact with mortals.  It is interesting to note that, by explicitly categorizing deities in D&D by alignment, Gygax, et al., implicitly reflected their post-Enlightenment cultural beliefs that there is a universal Good and Evil by which those gods can be judged.  One of the reasons that the "baby orcs" question can be a problem for for players and DMs is that the decision what to do with them presupposes an answer to the fundamental question of religion, which most players and DMs don't really explicitly consider.  For a post-Enlightenment viewer, killing innocent orc babies will violate an implicit concept of Good, whereas there is no such qualms for those who answer the question the other way (and are tasked by their deity with exterminating them).  So the answer to this question can save a lot of later confusion in your game...

Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 24, 2023, 08:21:56 PMHomosexuality is bad: Supreme deity said sex with another of your sex is bad.

The Bible is, I believe, not clear on these matters while understandably being texts based upon the mores of their time. (There's probably a lecture about ethnography and transference to be had here, too, but I'm no Biblical scholar.)

The Bible is extremely clear on homosexuality:

Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

My favorite version of leftardism on the Bible is when they say Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked because they were not hospitable to visitors and that's why, not the buttsex or clamdipping.  Or when they tell people the New Testament is what matters the old testament is no longer to be followed because the Cross and whatnot.  Meanwhile the Cross removed the ritual not the rules.

I'm just having fun watching large denominations get gayed and do sermons on how god is a cross dresser and is the god of pronouns.  Some of the best sermons come from those nuts and the idiots who still attend those churches.  Better than the satanic panic.   I'm waiting for Episcoplalians to do a fund raiser to put a golden calf behind the pulpit, its that bad.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 29, 2023, 11:12:53 PM
It is interesting to note that, by explicitly categorizing deities in D&D by alignment, Gygax, et al., implicitly reflected their post-Enlightenment cultural beliefs that there is a universal Good and Evil by which those gods can be judged.  One of the reasons that the "baby orcs" question can be a problem for for players and DMs is that the decision what to do with them presupposes an answer to the fundamental question of religion, which most players and DMs don't really explicitly consider.  For a post-Enlightenment viewer, killing innocent orc babies will violate an implicit concept of Good, whereas there is no such qualms for those who answer the question the other way (and are tasked by their deity with exterminating them).  So the answer to this question can save a lot of later confusion in your game...

You realize Gary was pro- Paladins killing orc babies, right? You've obviously got something seriously wrong here.

But I think the issue is really simple. It's just a game. Alignment 101 is, treat them as arbitrary categories. If the words "good" and "evil" are throwing you off, don't use them. Instead we have a North-South axis, and instead of Law-Chaos, we have East-West. Alignment is just a team jersey.

Alignment 201 is recognizing that instead of team jerseys, we can use moral, ethical, and behavioral codes to distinguish teams. And so we aren't starting with a singular moral code and influencing the game with it. We're setting up a framework within which all moral codes, belief systems, religions, etc, can have a place.

Alignment 301 is using the terms Law & Chaos rather than East & West because that was a motif in ancient stories, like that one time Marduk slew the dragon of of Chaos. And in recognizing that neither Law nor Chaos is inherently positive or negative, that each has its positive and negative aspects to it. And that this has always been present in stories, not just post-enlightenment or post-christ, but back into time immemorial.

Alignment 401 is just systematically filling the gaps, beginning with the four alignments--Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil--then adding neutral for in the Monster Manual to account for creatures that are not sufficiently intelligent, sentient, and/or willed to be otherwise given a team jersey. Then the 9-alignment system filling the gaps. And then the 17 alignment system that add "tendencies".

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 29, 2023, 11:12:53 PM
I think you are missing Christianity's main difference, which also happens to be the main concern when creating an RPG setting's religious milieu and institutions.  Call it (which other theologians have) the first question of religion.  In short, is something Good because God says it is good, or does God saying something is good make it Good (call these "Post-Enlightenment" and "Pre-Enlightenment" respectively as an incomplete but convenient shorthand)?  There is a great divide between religions based on their answer to this question.  On one hand, many of the ancient pre-Enlightenment Western and Near-Eastern religions have fallen solidly in the second category.  God's commands literally create Good.  In the Torah or Old Testament, in the Koran and the Hadiths, and in other similar old religions (like the Norse or early Greek mythos), gods may directly declare the need to slaughter men, women, and children, to take slaves, to rape or procure wives by force, and other acts that would be considered evil by most contemporary readers. But these acts were considered to be objectively Good by all believers at the time.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 29, 2023, 11:12:53 PM
So, the answer to this first principle of religion is probably the most important choice you can make in your RPG religions.  Is there a Universal Good, that even gods can be judged by?  Or is Good defined by the declarations of the deity that you follow?  This is especially important in a world where gods might be physically present and directly interact with mortals.

In Greek religion, for example, there is a difference between what the gods do and what is moral. The Greeks, in particular, philosophized about this a lot. In mythology, Zeus would frequently cheat on his wife, but he would also frequently get in trouble for it. So the Greeks did not define good as what Zeus did. Zeus and other gods would sometimes act in the wrong, and get in trouble for it. The laws of morality weren't defin ed by what the gods did, but were independent.

Likewise, in Hinduism, the mythic figures would often commit sins and be punished for their sins, as in the Mahabharata. Even the gods have their karma and dharma, which are defined by the universe. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think the Vedic texts describe sins, but don't phrase them as "god commands this" but simply as "this is wrong".

This is very different than ancient Judaism, which often held loyalty and obedience to YHWH as the highest good. I think a myth like demanding the sacrifice of Isaac is a bit of an outlier. I think many pre-Enlightenment religions had moral laws as absolutes different from what the gods say.

Christianity doesn't have a clear break from Judaism on this. Many Post-Enlightenment philosophers still say that God is all-powerful and that God defines what is good, but he is infinite and unknowable rather than a personified figure who could commit acts. In general, almost everything in Christianity is open to debate, rather than being clear rules - and practice and interpretation differ between different branches. For example, there is the debate over homosexuality:

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 30, 2023, 07:48:57 AM

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 10:41:09 PM
The Bible is, I believe, not clear on these matters while understandably being texts based upon the mores of their time. (There's probably a lecture about ethnography and transference to be had here, too, but I'm no Biblical scholar.)

The Bible is extremely clear on homosexuality:

Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

But Christians generally do *not* follow the laws of Leviticus. For example, most Christians don't have a problem with eating shrimp, yet Leviticus is also quite clear that shrimp is an abomination:

Leviticus 11:10 ~ And all that have not fins and scales in the seas and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.

Leviticus 11:11 ~ They shall be even an abomination unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall hold their carcasses in abomination.

A better example might be in Paul's letters, like Romans 1:26 - but it's still true that modern Christians don't follow the words of Paul absolutely. For example, Paul also says that women must keep silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34), but many churches allow women to speak during services. Modern Christians tend to treat Paul's advice in letters as suggestions for his own time and place, different than the universal commandments of Jesus like the Golden Rule.

I grew up in a Presbyterian church with a woman pastor, say, who was obviously allowed to speak. And my church was welcoming to gay couples back in the 1970s.

Quote from: jhkim on October 30, 2023, 02:20:05 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 29, 2023, 11:12:53 PM
I think you are missing Christianity's main difference, which also happens to be the main concern when creating an RPG setting's religious milieu and institutions.  Call it (which other theologians have) the first question of religion.  In short, is something Good because God says it is good, or does God saying something is good make it Good (call these "Post-Enlightenment" and "Pre-Enlightenment" respectively as an incomplete but convenient shorthand)?  There is a great divide between religions based on their answer to this question.  On one hand, many of the ancient pre-Enlightenment Western and Near-Eastern religions have fallen solidly in the second category.  God's commands literally create Good.  In the Torah or Old Testament, in the Koran and the Hadiths, and in other similar old religions (like the Norse or early Greek mythos), gods may directly declare the need to slaughter men, women, and children, to take slaves, to rape or procure wives by force, and other acts that would be considered evil by most contemporary readers. But these acts were considered to be objectively Good by all believers at the time.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 29, 2023, 11:12:53 PM
So, the answer to this first principle of religion is probably the most important choice you can make in your RPG religions.  Is there a Universal Good, that even gods can be judged by?  Or is Good defined by the declarations of the deity that you follow?  This is especially important in a world where gods might be physically present and directly interact with mortals.

In Greek religion, for example, there is a difference between what the gods do and what is moral. The Greeks, in particular, philosophized about this a lot. In mythology, Zeus would frequently cheat on his wife, but he would also frequently get in trouble for it. So the Greeks did not define good as what Zeus did. Zeus and other gods would sometimes act in the wrong, and get in trouble for it. The laws of morality weren't defin ed by what the gods did, but were independent.

Likewise, in Hinduism, the mythic figures would often commit sins and be punished for their sins, as in the Mahabharata. Even the gods have their karma and dharma, which are defined by the universe. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think the Vedic texts describe sins, but don't phrase them as "god commands this" but simply as "this is wrong".

This is very different than ancient Judaism, which often held loyalty and obedience to YHWH as the highest good. I think a myth like demanding the sacrifice of Isaac is a bit of an outlier. I think many pre-Enlightenment religions had moral laws as absolutes different from what the gods say.

Christianity doesn't have a clear break from Judaism on this. Many Post-Enlightenment philosophers still say that God is all-powerful and that God defines what is good, but he is infinite and unknowable rather than a personified figure who could commit acts. In general, almost everything in Christianity is open to debate, rather than being clear rules - and practice and interpretation differ between different branches. For example, there is the debate over homosexuality:

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 30, 2023, 07:48:57 AM

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 10:41:09 PM
The Bible is, I believe, not clear on these matters while understandably being texts based upon the mores of their time. (There's probably a lecture about ethnography and transference to be had here, too, but I'm no Biblical scholar.)

The Bible is extremely clear on homosexuality:

Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Leviticus 18:22 ~ You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

But Christians generally do *not* follow the laws of Leviticus. For example, most Christians don't have a problem with eating shrimp, yet Leviticus is also quite clear that shrimp is an abomination:

Leviticus 11:10 ~ And all that have not fins and scales in the seas and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.

Leviticus 11:11 ~ They shall be even an abomination unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall hold their carcasses in abomination.

A better example might be in Paul's letters, like Romans 1:26 - but it's still true that modern Christians don't follow the words of Paul absolutely. For example, Paul also says that women must keep silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34), but many churches allow women to speak during services. Modern Christians tend to treat Paul's advice in letters as suggestions for his own time and place, different than the universal commandments of Jesus like the Golden Rule.

I grew up in a Presbyterian church with a woman pastor, say, who was obviously allowed to speak. And my church was welcoming to gay couples back in the 1970s.

You throw out the ritual not the rules.  The Bible is extremely explicit on homosexuality.  You can use every form of left moral degenerate argument to degrade Christianity to state the Bible is wrong, people are hypocrites, new covenant etc, however we follow the 10 commandments from the Bible.  Generally when God is calling for death for a behavior, it doesn't fly.  There is a big difference about having to sacrifice some doves for a sin (removing the ritual) and God stating outright death for behavior and then him following up nuking two cities for said behavior.  I'm sorry but shelfish <> nuking two cities.  An abomination isn't the same as outright death for a behavior, is probably a behavior we should avoid.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for people doing whatever they want, in fact bronze is cheap and people can cast a bronze bull and pick and choose what they want from the Bible, I'm all for it just give it a new name so you don't lie to people about what the place of worship believes and is.  I won't consider them Christian, they are more in the line of  jehovas and mormon territory at that point.  They are something new, and quite twisted and deranged.  At one time there were whores who used the christian name to get people into the "church" to make money for the pimp pastors, that isn't a church but its opinions are just as valid as the churches pushing homosexuality and hard core pronoun/left wing marxism in chuch see video below for an example.

And women keeping silent in church was probably a very good idea.  When you look at churches putting up progressive pride flags and BLM flags (false idols) in the church, its a woman pastor 9 times out of 10 putting up that sacrilege in a place of worship.  Like this woman going off on pronoun in church calling God the God of Pronouns.  It should make people vomit.  Men tend to be more traditional and women tend to be very emotional and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, they are the prime target for degeneracy.  Mind you a decade ago, I'd have your opinions but looking at what women have done to the nation and church, its got me full on revulsed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvvTZ12TcxU

if this is going to devolve into another homosexuality debate, two things to know
1. I apologize for bringing it up in the OP
2. Please take it somewhere else

Quote from: jhkim on October 30, 2023, 02:20:05 PM
In Greek religion, for example, there is a difference between what the gods do and what is moral. The Greeks, in particular, philosophized about this a lot. In mythology, Zeus would frequently cheat on his wife, but he would also frequently get in trouble for it. So the Greeks did not define good as what Zeus did. Zeus and other gods would sometimes act in the wrong, and get in trouble for it. The laws of morality weren't defin ed by what the gods did, but were independent.

Likewise, in Hinduism, the mythic figures would often commit sins and be punished for their sins, as in the Mahabharata. Even the gods have their karma and dharma, which are defined by the universe. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think the Vedic texts describe sins, but don't phrase them as "god commands this" but simply as "this is wrong".

This is very different than ancient Judaism, which often held loyalty and obedience to YHWH as the highest good. I think a myth like demanding the sacrifice of Isaac is a bit of an outlier. I think many pre-Enlightenment religions had moral laws as absolutes different from what the gods say.

Christianity doesn't have a clear break from Judaism on this. Many Post-Enlightenment philosophers still say that God is all-powerful and that God defines what is good, but he is infinite and unknowable rather than a personified figure who could commit acts. In general, almost everything in Christianity is open to debate, rather than being clear rules - and practice and interpretation differ between different branches. For example, there is the debate over homosexuality:

Incorrect.  Greek religion changed over time (like most do), and later Greek philosophers treated stories of the gods much differently than earlier believers did.  You are cherry-picking (as usual) later beliefs and applying them across the whole civilization.  I think Hinduism might qualify as an Eastern religion... which I said tended to answer the question in the same way as Christianity... thanks for proving my point.

As for your objection vis a vis Christianity, you really didn't contradict anything I stated.  Instead, you post some babble about "almost everything in Christianity is open to debate."  Which is not true.  Just because your church ignores half of the Bible doesn't mean that the tenets of Christianity are obscure or debatable.  It just makes that church grossly heretical.  But honestly, the only way someone in the Universalist Church is going to find Jesus is if Jesus doesn't see him coming first...

Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 30, 2023, 05:25:21 PM
if this is going to devolve into another homosexuality debate, two things to know
1. I apologize for bringing it up in the OP
2. Please take it somewhere else

Agreed.

(Fair point, MeganovaStella - I'm dropping the stuff about homosexuality.)

Quote from: Eirikrautha on October 30, 2023, 09:35:40 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 30, 2023, 02:20:05 PM
In Greek religion, for example, there is a difference between what the gods do and what is moral. The Greeks, in particular, philosophized about this a lot. In mythology, Zeus would frequently cheat on his wife, but he would also frequently get in trouble for it. So the Greeks did not define good as what Zeus did. Zeus and other gods would sometimes act in the wrong, and get in trouble for it. The laws of morality weren't defin ed by what the gods did, but were independent.

Likewise, in Hinduism, the mythic figures would often commit sins and be punished for their sins, as in the Mahabharata. Even the gods have their karma and dharma, which are defined by the universe. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think the Vedic texts describe sins, but don't phrase them as "god commands this" but simply as "this is wrong".

This is very different than ancient Judaism, which often held loyalty and obedience to YHWH as the highest good. I think a myth like demanding the sacrifice of Isaac is a bit of an outlier. I think many pre-Enlightenment religions had moral laws as absolutes different from what the gods say.

Christianity doesn't have a clear break from Judaism on this. Many Post-Enlightenment philosophers still say that God is all-powerful and that God defines what is good, but he is infinite and unknowable rather than a personified figure who could commit acts. In general, almost everything in Christianity is open to debate, rather than being clear rules - and practice and interpretation differ between different branches. For example, there is the debate over homosexuality:

Incorrect.  Greek religion changed over time (like most do), and later Greek philosophers treated stories of the gods much differently than earlier believers did.  You are cherry-picking (as usual) later beliefs and applying them across the whole civilization.  I think Hinduism might qualify as an Eastern religion... which I said tended to answer the question in the same way as Christianity... thanks for proving my point.

As for your objection vis a vis Christianity, you really didn't contradict anything I stated.  Instead, you post some babble about "almost everything in Christianity is open to debate."  Which is not true.  Just because your church ignores half of the Bible doesn't mean that the tenets of Christianity are obscure or debatable.  It just makes that church grossly heretical.  But honestly, the only way someone in the Universalist Church is going to find Jesus is if Jesus doesn't see him coming first...

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about Greek religion. I agree that Greek religion changed over time, but both early and late Greek religion is a very long time before the Enlightenment. I don't think either early Greeks or late Greeks defined good as "what the gods say". Even prior to the Sophists, the gods were powerful being that needed to be appeased, but their word was not taken as the absolute in moral behavior. The gods can and did do things that were seen as sinful, and would sometimes be punished for it.

It is similar in Norse religion. In the historical sagas, if someone's actions needed to be judged, it was usually brought to a secular legal authority. So religion didn't necessarily determine right and wrong for people. Religious authorities like gydja were consulted for omens of the future, when to plant crops, what sacrifices to make, and so forth - and less often about "did this person do right or wrong".

I think that is fairly common for many early societies, where they turned to religion for predicting the weather, healthy birth, and other practical matters - but not necessarily for morality. In modern times, we turn to science for this and to religion for morality, but that was often not the case historically. Human morality used to come from social mores and spiritual beliefs than the gods. i.e. I think what is tapu to Polynesians isn't a matter of what the gods say. Something is tapu because of its inherent nature, not because of divine action.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 30, 2023, 05:25:21 PM
if this is going to devolve into another homosexuality debate, two things to know
1. I apologize for bringing it up in the OP
2. Please take it somewhere else

This gets back to the point I made earlier.  It was entirely predictable that such a discussion would arise.  If this were to come up in one of my gaming groups, the Baptist player and I would say that this is definitely in "thou shalt not" territory.  The Methodist would say its fine.  The two nominal, unenthusiastic Christians would say "who cares?"  I would rather not have this discussion at my gaming table; it could take a lot of time and has the potential for creating acrimony between friends.  There are two ways to avoid this, first as DM I could make sure religious issues never come up in game.  But in this case why am I bothering to include a religion in the first place?  The other way is to create a well defined fictional religion that none of the players have a personal investment in.  That's my preference.