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Artaraxl
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So, I have read there will be religions to choose from, each with its own advantages.
But will there be an option to choose none??? Might not there be advantages associated with a lack of religion?
It seems silly that a civilization be required to have a state religion. And this idea of religions being "spread" I find particularly worrying. Some religions do not have "missionaries," and spreading them is not an overt objective. E.g. Isn't "Jewish missionary" an oxymoron?
Besides, religions arguably carry disadvantages as well: Consumption of time, money, and resources might be one.
I'm not trying to advocate for or against a religion or secularism, but it seems to me there are good reasons why this aspect of civilization has been avoided in previous versions. It's interesting that the developers are trying to tackle it, but can they do it well?
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:37
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I don't recall a preview which explicitly said that you HAVE to choose a state religion. We don't have proof to the contrary, either, but I don't see why "No state religion" couldn't be an option.
And yes, religions expand. Remember, religions are in cities. There may be officially atheist states (the USSR was such a state), but religion has spread everywhere in the course of history, and there were no cities where no people or virtually no people were religious. Didn't happen.
Jewish missionaries... well, Judaism also expanded, and you don't have to see the Missionary as, well, a Missionary. It was Christians mainly who really had missionaries, with a Bible in their hands and going to educate the pagans about the true ways of their religion or whatever. Yet, other religions, Judaism included, did spread, and largely due to people. Think of religious people moving to a new area, they bring their religion with them. Or a famous / influential person moving somewhere with his religion. I think of the Civ4 missionaries more like that, as indeed not all religions have missionaries in the traditional sense.
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Artaraxl
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaybe
Religion is a concept in the game for enhancing your civ, culture and income. It is a game mechanic that goes by the handle of "religion". It is not religion itself. |
I'm not sure I take your point. Everything in the game is a game mechanic. Why does that make the debate any less meaningful? The game designers control the game mechanics, and I'm suggesting that this particular mechanic be questioned.
quote:
Originally posted by Jaybe
Not wanting to have a religion in civ4 will be like never building temples and cathedrals in civ3. |
The analogy doesn't hold, so I disagree and here's why: Temples and cathedrals bring benefits and they also have costs, and these must be weighed in deciding to build them, but the vast majority of city improvements are civic, and you could chose between various improvements which make people happy, or for that matter, you could forget this class of improvment and give luxuries to your people -- not an advisable strategy, but possible.
From what I've read about Civ4 (obviously it's still in development, so of course we're making assumptions!) the religion concept works differently. You don't get any benefit by chosing NOT to establish/research/discover a religion. Therefore, the only good strategy would be to adopt a religion -- and this is the crux of my question:
Why is that?
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Artaraxl
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
Quite true, but they can also be unifying motivating forces too- and they can generate money, as Thomas a Becket's shrine at Canterbury did, and the Pilgrimage to Compostella... |
Of course, the money had to come from somewhere. The pilgrimages may have juiced the economies of Canterbury and towns on the road to Canterbury, but the pilgrims could have spent thier dough on coffee and cigarettes, or their time inventing a better catapult, or the telescope...
quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
On the other hand, as the ruinous Thirty Years' War shows, they can cause the wrecking of economies, devastate agriculture and whole cities and cause populations to revert to cannibalism to survive. |
Cannibalism might be a bit extreme for the game, but it would seem relevant to incorporate the religion concept into diplomacy, in a way that can be unifying, but also has the potential to cause hostility. The role of religion (organized at least) in international conflict is universally recognized at this point, is it not?
Actually, this could be interesting -- if there were a "non religious" option, you might find yourself alone in the world with all other civs adopting some religion different from yours, and thereby generating hostility towards you. That would be an argument for adopting a religion -- perhaps the religion of the most powerful civ on the planet. Eerie...
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The_Aussie_Lurker
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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
May 2001
time: 05:37
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I think there are two major disadvantages to having a State religion, within Civ4. The first is that it will be very rare indeed to have a nation with a completely homogeneous religious belief. From what I understand, adopting a State religion which is different to those of individual cities will cause unhappiness within those cities-until at least Freedom of Religion is adopted (which, I think, represents the state adopting a 'Secular Humanism' approach, where all religions are treated fairly equally).
The other major disadvantage is that your state religion will have an impact on your relations with other civs. Again, as I understand it, having friendly relations with civs with a different state religion to you will be quite difficult-particularly if you are a theocratic state. I get the feeling that this disadvantage too will be reduced (or eliminated) by the adoption of 'Freedom of Religion'.
Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
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Artaraxl
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quote:
Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
The other major disadvantage is that your state religion will have an impact on your relations with other civs. Again, as I understand it, having friendly relations with civs with a different state religion to you will be quite difficult-particularly if you are a theocratic state. I get the feeling that this disadvantage too will be reduced (or eliminated) by the adoption of 'Freedom of Religion'.
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That sounds good -- where did you read about "freedom of religion?" I did find a review that mentioned the religions will affect diplomacy, but it didn't mention inter-city problems or "freedom of religion."
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The_Aussie_Lurker
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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
May 2001
time: 05:37
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Well, if you have a look at the civics screen-very closely-in one of the Civ4 Preview videos (the one with the Indian guy asking the questions), you can see that one of the Civics options for religion is 'Freedom of Religion'-with the others being (IIRC) Primitive (eg. Pagan), Organised Religion (i.e. Standard State religion), Theocratic (eg. State religion, with persecution of other non-state faiths) and Pacifism (no idea how that one works). A word of warning, though, is that obvsiouly this may not be the last word on the Religious Civics, but at least it indicates that there will be a difference between a repressive religious state, a 'standard' religious state, and a secular state.
Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
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Artaraxl
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quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
Why even the Venerable Bede in Jarrow could scientifically observe the motion of the tides, and give us the dating system we use across the Western world- he popularized 'anno domini'. |
Okay, okay, now you're just showing off... 
But seriously, I really wasn't trying to suggest that organized religion brings no benefits to society -- it certainly does benefit society in many ways (although I would argue that religions' contribution to scientific inquiry isn't the best example, since it's negligible relative to, say, science itself!). That's not the issue, it's whether or not the game balance could be improved by the inclusion of set of "religious civics" that are in fact, non-religious.
From the other comments above, it does sound like the developers are working on this, which is encouraging.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:37
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The idea that secularism and religious freedom are the same thing is way off target. In a society with religious freedom, government has to focus its attention on secular matters and refrain from interfering in religious ones. As a result, a society with complete religious freedom will be as religious or as secular as the free choices of its individual citizens combine to make it, with government interfering neither to make the society more religious nor to make it more secular.
If government instead actively promotes secularism at the expense of theistic religion, it violates religious freedom in the opposite direction from what men like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had to worry about in their era. Instead of the religious character (or lack thereof) of the society being based entirely on the free choices of individual citizens, it is partly the result of manipulations by government. That is a direct violation of the arguments men like Madison and Jefferson used in arguing for religious freedom.
The biggest religious conflict in the United States today is the conflict between traditional religion and secularism. The side of secularism in that conflict includes not just atheists but also religious people and groups that, although they profess a religious belief, put so much of their faith in secular human reasoning that they ignore or twist any scriptures that disagree with their secular reasoning. Based on that conflict, and on similar conflicts elsewhere in the world, I think a "religion" of "secularism" would probably be the most plausible way to incorporate atheism into the game. It would be a late-game religion that competes with traditional religions, and the Soviet Union would be an example of a "theocratic" society with secularism as its state religion.
On the other hand, I'm skeptical as to how well secularism would fit with Civ 4's religious model. From what I understand of the game's design, it operates on a presumption that religions are a lot more centralized and organized than secularism generally is. Is there really any historical basis for the nation that first founds "secularism" to have significant long-term advantages over other nations that adopt it later? I don't know of any.
The only way religious secularism (to use something of an oxymoron) has ever been centralized enough and organized enough to fit Civ 4's religious model (as I understand it) has been when it was combined with particular political and social ideologies. But since Civ 4 (as I understand it) is designed to make the choice of religion essentially independent from the choice of what kind of government to have, trying to turn Soviet-style Communist ideology into a religion wouldn't fit the game's model either. I don't see any realistic way to have a form of atheism with both the necessary centralization and organization and the necessary freedom from ties to a particular form of government to fit Civ 4's religious model as I understand it.
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Artaraxl
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How would you suggest, then, that concepts of religious freedom be incorporated into the game?
Incidentally, my initial reading of the developers notes lead me to the conclusion (perhaps simplistic) that the chosing of a state religion was essentially going to be "forced" on the player, by virtue of the fact that refraining from adopting religion would be disadvantageous. However, subsequently, others have suggested the religion model will actually be more complex, allowing for variations that sound less like state sponsored religion being required.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with you about what "freedom of religion" means, or should mean in the U.S. though. For instance, if an organized group in the traditional religion camp decides to pass laws based on a specific religious ideology, the state can and should step in to say, "wait a sec! That will violate others' religious rights (including atheists'!)" Yet that ought not be regarded as an attempt by government to secularize society.
It's perfectly right for governent & society to insist that non-religious arguments be made for laws and public policy matters. To be fairly applicable to all, policies and laws should have logical arguments that stand quite apart from any particular religion.
The reason there aren't vast secularist movements, is just as you said: secularism is by its very nature decentralized & individualistic.
To me the conflict arises when there is dispute over what constitutes public and private affairs.
Of course this discussion goes well beyond what we can expect Civ4 will get into...
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Artaraxl
But will there be an option to choose none??? Might not there be advantages associated with a lack of religion?
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Historically, the only societies that have not had religion are the communist societies of the 20th century. Whether that was an advantage or disadvantage is subject to debate.
However, state religion is a different matter. There were many cultures that were multireligion, and these cultures often were more advanced: for example, China during the Tang dynasty (I think), and Moorish Spain.
Still, I think the game concept is that it will be easier to make alliances with countries that have the same religion, which makes sense.
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Artaraxl
How would you suggest, then, that concepts of religious freedom be incorporated into the game? |
Real life has a spectrum of options ranging from theocracy at one end of the spectrum to complete religious freedom on the other. (Government support for atheism or secularism is essentially the same thing as government support for a particular religion, only with the favoritism aimed in a different direction.) I'm hoping and expecting that Civ 4 will reflect the real world in terms of offering a spectrum of choices at and in between the two extremes.
Warning: the rest of this message deals with real life issues.
quote:
I'm not sure I entirely agree with you about what "freedom of religion" means, or should mean in the U.S. though. For instance, if an organized group in the traditional religion camp decides to pass laws based on a specific religious ideology, the state can and should step in to say, "wait a sec! That will violate others' religious rights (including atheists'!)" Yet that ought not be regarded as an attempt by government to secularize society,
It's perfectly right for governent & society to insist that non-religious arguments be made for laws and public policy matters. To be fairly applicable to all, policies and laws should have logical arguments that stand quite apart from any particular religion. |
The key is to strike a balance. On one hand, the concept of, "I believe it's a sin, so let's make it illegal," must not be considered a legitimate justification for laws in a society with religious freedom. But on the other hand, when religious people have legitimate secular reasons to believe that a type of action significantly harms or endangers others, the fact that they also regard the action as a sin cannot legitimately be used as an excuse to prevent them from passing a law against the action.
In a lot of modern debates, such as debates over gambling and abortion, there are very definitely secular reasons to consider passing laws restricting people's actions. (Gambling can cause enormous harm to people who lack the self-control to avoid betting more than they can afford to lose and, even more importantly, to the gamblers' families. Abortion kills genetically distinct living organisms of the human species, so the desire not to risk killing millions of innocent human beings every year if fetuses are in fact human beings in a moral sense does not require religious faith.) In such debates, religious people need to be careful that their secular reasons for supporting a law are sufficient to justify the law independent of their desire to prevent people from sinning, But we also need to make sure people who oppose the law don't get away with attempts to silence legitimate debate with claims of, "You're just trying to force your religion onto others."
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The_Aussie_Lurker
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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
May 2001
time: 05:37
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I'm sorry nbarcley, but have you actually read the prerelease info regarding religion and civics? If you have, then you would realise that the spectrum of Complete religious freedom to complete theocracy is represented within the game, with Primitive, Organised Religion and Pacifist making up the remaining 3 choices. Now, I admit that this is imperfect, but you have to agree that it is a fairly reasonable range.
Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
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