Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1129273No.

   Faith is belief in something based on an authority judged to be trustworthy, but without knowledge that compels the mind's assent.

faith

noun
noun: faith

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
h
Similar:
trust

belief
confidence
conviction
credence
reliance
dependence
optimism
hopefulness
hope
expectation
h
Antonym:
mistrust
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

Please take note that you want to prove me wrong by just changing faith for one of it's synonyms.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129283Please take note that you want to prove me wrong by just changing faith for one of it's synonyms.

  What I was objecting to in your statement was the 'without evidence or even against evidence' part of the definition. In the traditional Christian understanding of faith, there is plenty of evidence for God and His self-revelation in Christ … it's just not sufficient to compel the assent of the mind, as opposed to direct experience or self-evident chains of logic.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1129287What I was objecting to in your statement was the 'without evidence or even against evidence' part of the definition. In the traditional Christian understanding of faith, there is plenty of evidence for God and His self-revelation in Christ ... it's just not sufficient to compel the assent of the mind, as opposed to direct experience or self-evident chains of logic.

ev·i·dence

noun
noun: evidence

    the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
    "the study finds little evidence of overt discrimination"
    h
    Similar:
    proof

confirmation
verification
substantiation
corroboration
affirmation
authentication
attestation
documentation
support for
backing for
reinforcement for
grounds for

    Law
    information given personally, drawn from a document, or in the form of material objects, tending or used to establish facts in a legal investigation or admissible as testimony in court.
    "without evidence, they can't bring a charge"
    h
    Similar:
    proof

confirmation
verification
substantiation
corroboration
affirmation
authentication
attestation
documentation
support for
backing for
reinforcement for
grounds for
testimony
statement
sworn statement
declaration
avowal
plea
submission
claim
contention
charge
allegation
deposition
representation
affidavit
asseveration
averment
signs or indications of something.
plural noun: evidences
"there was no obvious evidence of a break-in"
h
Similar:
signs
indications
pointers
marks
traces
suggestions
hints

        manifestation

verb
verb: evidence; 3rd person present: evidences; past tense: evidenced; past participle: evidenced; gerund or present participle: evidencing

    be or show evidence of.
    "that it has been populated from prehistoric times is evidenced by the remains of Neolithic buildings"

Without citing the Bible and saying it's true because the Bible says so give me any evidence that is evidence.

Religious Faith is the belief in the absence of evidence or in the face of evidence to the contrary.

And this is relevant to gaming because:

In a world where the gods/demons intervene and interact to the extent of giving people powers and/or directly no religious faith is necessary.

Quote from: arcanuum;1129049So I have been interested in Golarion as of late. However I noticed that the cool campaign setting for the Inner Sea Region is no longer available. Then I remember how the 1st edition of Pathfinder had inbred ogre rapists, Fantasy Romani Travellers, Slavery and a whole bunch of pulp fantasy ideas. Sadly Pathfinder has added in Atheist Paladins (who are actually agnostic paladins but let's forget that because REEEEEE Religion is bad. Even in fantasy worlds.) Anywhoosit, I hoped to find out more of what happened to your favorite parts of Golarion and therefore Pathfinder.

I bought the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting for 3.5 when it came out, and I thought it was pretty good. Paizo was doing some interesting stuff. But I found myself turning against much of it because they'd throw in whatever crap was popular on the Internet.

At this point, the only thing from Paizo I have any interest in is Starfinder (a friend is running one of the adventure paths).

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129291And this is relevant to gaming because:

In a world where the gods/demons intervene and interact to the extent of giving people powers and/or directly no religious faith is necessary.

   That such powers manifest does not necessarily mean that the source of such powers is what the users claim, or is necessarily trustworthy, benevolent, or worthy of worship--and even if all those things are true, that doesn't mean that people can't deny it. Even taken purely as narrative, the Gospels demonstrate as much.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1129259Can someone be an atheist in such a world? I don't know, it depends on how one defines atheism. Obviously, supernatural beings exist. A atheist in real life could view an alien with vast knowledge and abilities beyond any human, though there would be no special requirement to worship that creature. With standard religion, a deity isn't just something more powerful than ourselves, it is a being with moral significance not merely great knowledge or abilities. In pagan religions there were being of great power, titans or giants for example, who rivaled the gods but were unworthy of worship. Could someone like in a D&D setting and extend this thinking to all of the deities?

The former reminds me of my long-time Call of Cthulhu character Henrik -- who saw cultists and horrible supernatural beings, and it ended up reinforcing his Catholic faith, even though he wasn't very religious previously. He didn't see anything that corresponded with Catholic religion -- no power of the cross or such. However, he was convinced that the world was bigger than his imagination -- and if these powerful beings existed, it was less of a stretch to imagine that there was something even more powerful than them. That evil existed in the world isn't something new -- he had fought in WWI and seen thousands die from bombs and poison gas.

Despite *seeing* powerful immoral beings that were invading the world, he *believed* that there was a greater moral framework over them.

I think an atheist not worshipping the gods would be similar. That powerful beings exist doesn't mean that they should be worshipped.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1129259I think with fantasy world religions, we need to be careful not to assume that the people who live in that world don't have access to the player's handbook. For them, magic and religion should both be wondrous and mysterious.

In general, I think a person growing up in a fantasy world would know much *more* about their own world than someone who just read a book about it. Even if the characters don't have access to a Player's Handbook per se, they will have had years to learn about things. They will have had a cousin who works for a wizard, and their friend's grandfather was a paladin, and so forth.

In my experience, it can ring hollow if the players play-act as if magic and religion are wondrous and mysterious to them, when it's actually just cut-and-dried rules from the Player's Handbook. If as a GM I want magic and religion to be wondrous and mysterious in my campaign, I prefer to abandon the Player's Handbook, and instead have wondrous and mysterious things happen in the game.

The way it works on Tekumel is that all spellcasters are clerics and all spells are clerical spells. Ther are no secular magic-users. But that's not because of divine power, it's just an institutional thing: the temples and the temple schools are the only places where magic is researched and taught. If you want to learn, you're going to have to join a priesthood.

That (jealously guarded) institutional monopoly aside, there is nothing intrinsically or mechanically religious about magic use on Tekumel. Casting requires mental training and sorcerous knowledge, but ultimately it's just a matter of tapping interplanar energy and forming it to create desired effects. No gods are involved in the process, nor is "faith" or "belief." Just like you don't need religious faith (or actual divine intervention) to drive a car or use a GPS.

Quote from: Pat;1129225Even stranger, they're fictional religions that supposed to be a specific type of religion (polytheism), but are based on what irreligious people think know about an entirely different religious paradigm (monotheism).

People sometimes call it henotheism, but it's not. It's polytheism as imagined by people who have a poor grasp of monotheism.

You are correct, it is actually even worse than I originally stated.

Quote from: Shasarak;1129233Well of course Scientology is more rigorous and foundational, it is based on Science!.

Of course it is. Says so right on the front of their book... LOLZ!

Quote from: Shasarak;1129233...I get the impression that Ed Greenwood knew what he was writing up and then the people who came in after especially us dear readers dont appreciate the context of living in such a world.

After reading Ed Greenwoods recent writings over on EN world, I believe that he was just making shit up that sounded cool. When it comes to religion he doesn't have a clue.

FR gets a big pass because it was one of the first settings that fired young gamers imaginations. I think that what many as young gamers didn't appreciate the context of; was that when looked at from an actual world building perspective FR really isn't very good.

But the inertia of nostalgia is very powerful in the RPG hobby, and WOTC dare not take an axe to the forgotten realms lest they incite wide scale consumer rebellion.

Quote from: Pat;1129267One thing that could be really useful, from a game standpoint, is defining the limits of gods, at least from the perspective of the PCs. What are the limits of their knowledge, when it comes to things like commune? What exactly does contact other plane put you in touch with? What can I learn from summoning a demon? The DM can leave the ultimate questions uncertain or unknowable, but it helps to define how they interface with the game mechanics. This can vary from campaign to campaign.

It's also useful to have some idea how religion works, overall. How often do gods meddle, and what remedies do people have? The default is to assume intervention is rare, but that's just modern prejudices. I can imagine a really fun game based on something like Homer, where the gods intervene constantly. The trick would be to quantify it, so the players can notice the signs and respond effectively, not to treat it as a deus ex machina (despite the name) they have no control over. Maybe they're mostly interested in name-level characters, and their hand can be deduced by omens, which might be divinable by spells, proficiencies, or seers. Also, how does appeasement work, what can people expect from their patrons, and so on. Think about it both at the PC and the campaign level, so the players know what they can do, and have some idea how to interpret the examples they run across.

These are all things that 99% of D&D settings get wrong.

But should be some of the the first questions answered when building a fantasy religion.

Quote from: Omega;1129276In D&D they just game you the pantheons. The rest was up to the DM to make of it whatever they wanted. Its presented blank for a reason. Sadly way too many missed the point.

The fact that these are only cookie-cutter gods based around what non-polytheist irreligious people think polytheistic gods are like or about is precisely the problem with D&D gods. Having a template for some generic fire god that people apparently devote entire temples to cuz they like fire, or something, doesn't really help me cuz actual polytheistic gods in real life religions aren't just some separate entity with an exclusive club centered around a very specific element, but part of a greater pantheon of interrelated gods that most people worship collectively, rather than as completely separate gods with their own unique independent and competing religions. You may find examples of cults devoted to a single god from time to time, but those are typically mystery religions that serve some specialized purpose rather than representing the norm of how polytheistic religions work or how worship of gods operates.

In real life polytheistic religions each god typically represents more than just ONE specific element (that people are extremely devoted to in exclusion of all others for no apparent reason), but rather an entire host of different things (such as fire + metalwork + creation + teaching/passing on knowledge, etc.) that might be tangentially related but often have some transcendental or symbolic meaning. And people from different parts of the world--and sometimes even different lands within the same general region--often worship different gods or pantheons with different believe structures, rather than just worship the same 15 or so cookie-cutter gods the world over, in their own cookie-cutter temples devoted to just one god operating as competing religions rather than as part of a greater pantheon.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1129291Without citing the Bible and saying it's true because the Bible says so give me any evidence that is evidence.

Religious Faith is the belief in the absence of evidence or in the face of evidence to the contrary.

And this is relevant to gaming because:

In a world where the gods/demons intervene and interact to the extent of giving people powers and/or directly no religious faith is necessary.

Religious faith transcends the concept of evidence and its not about believing things for the sake of believing them, but because (presumably) they serve some higher purpose in the lives of human beings (whether that purpose is real or merely imagined). Whether or not there's evidence for them is completely irrelevant to the religious person's mind. This is something that's more important to how atheists argue against religious ideas in the internet than to how religious people actually view the world. You're reducing the notion of faith to some technical definition in the dictionary and applying it almost prescriptively when the purpose of dictionaries is to provide descriptive definitions based on common usage, rather than to enforce some sort of fixed notion of what these concepts mean.

Religious faith in the real world, outside of the dictionary, is not about "belief in the absence of evidence". Its about adhering to some transcendental truth that helps guide people's lives and give them hope or helps them achieve some type of understanding of their place in the world, or the true nature of reality, etc. Merely having concrete evidence of the existence of some being purporting to be a "god" is not enough on its own to dispel the need for "faith", because what people have "faith" on is not the existence of that god, but in that god's teachings and whatever that god supposedly represents. And having proof positive that whatever being claiming themselves to be a "god" actually does exist does not prove that whatever they're selling or whatever that god represents for people is also true. That part takes faith, and that faith is the actual foundational principle of a religion, not whether some being purporting to be a god actually exists.

Religions aren't about gods, they're about believe systems. And having evidence that some supremely powerful being exists is not evidence that the systems of belief surrounding them are worth anything, nor does it mean that people will automatically believe in those teachings, transcendental truths, etc., without question. All of that transcends evidence of the existence of gods.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1129311.

In real life polytheistic religions each god typically represents more than just ONE specific element (that people are extremely devoted to in exclusion of all others for no apparent reason), but rather an entire host of different things (such as fire + metalwork + creation + teaching/passing on knowledge, etc.) that might be tangentially related but often have some transcendental or symbolic meaning. And people from different parts of the world--and sometimes even different lands within the same general region--often worship different gods or pantheons with different believe structures, rather than just worship the same 15 or so cookie-cutter gods the world over, in their own cookie-cutter temples devoted to just one god operating as competing religions rather than as part of a greater pantheon.

We possibly agree, not Sure. I know I have had some difficulty with the Tekumel pantheon for some of these reasons, but you may be overstating your case if you are suggesting polytheistic religions necessarily work "this way" and not "that way." I agree that the deities in pantheons rarely seem to be totally one-trick ponies, they usually have more going on, but it's certainly possible to have pantheon where no one deity offers "full-service" spiritual comfort, and people need recourse to whole pantheon to satisfy their spiritual needs.

Look at the Olympians. Sure, some Greek deities, especially the cthonic (and/or foreign) ones that give rise to mystery cults like say, Bacchus, or Demeter come pretty close to full-service deities. But the Olympians? No, you can't say "I'm an Ares guy, he's got everything I need and screw the others." No, Ares is not going to satisfy all your needs, sometimes your going to need the rest of the pantheon

Some people are sure getting worked up about how fictional beings are handled in a fictional setting.

I really don't care if someone is an atheist on Golarion. That's their business. The Athar PF planescape were atheist. And the wizards of netheril were atheists. But, I would not allow anyone to be a cleric or paladin that is an atheist, that's where they get their power.

And I personally don't think faith=belief. Faith is your ability to act on a belief. You can believe in a god and have no faith.  Although modern dictionaries butchered the word to death, so I understand why people think otherwise the last 150 years.

Quote from: Manic Modron;1129315Some people are sure getting worked up about how fictional beings are handled in a fictional setting.

Welcome to the internet!

Quote from: Manic Modron;1129315Some people are sure getting worked up about how fictional beings are handled in a fictional setting.

Fair enough, this is all fictional. But to me, and I think for many of the posters here, religion in an rpg setting is important. You want something that seems like it should feel real for both the pcs and the npcs. It should be a big motivator for the good guys and the bad guys.  To me anyway.

And although I have no experience of forgotten realms, I do have both the LbB Gods demigod and heroes, and the hardcover Deities and Demigods, and you know what? They are the only dnd books I found I had no use for. Both seemed so lame. "Hey, I'm the orc god. What's my schtick? Well I'm totally the orc'iest. I'm so orcie it hurts." Oh yeah? Well I'm the gnome god. I'm the gnomiest. I'm so gnomy it hurts."

Just didn't do it for me. For some reason unconvincing religion really weakens a setting.

EDITED to add: not to mention "Hey, I'm Artemis. I was worshipped on the planet Earth. Which isn't here. Why the hell do I show up? I dunno, but here's my stat block. You know, in case we go at it mano a mano."

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1129317Welcome to the internet!

Thank you, random citizen!