H e r e s y

[CyberChaosV2]

I don't think people are heretics because the gods are dicks, look at the greek gods, they'd punish mortals who didn't even realize they did wrong! Take Alcmene, mother of Heracles, she was punished by Hera after Alcmene slept with Zeus... only she thought Zeus was her husband because he impersonated that guy... I have no idea why people would worship gods like that except out of fear... yet our gods are kinda more like "Eh, I just want my stuff done, but I'm not that bad a guy, just kinda selfish, but meh." (Not shitting on the gods, just saying they're not as bad as the Greek ones) I think the real reason is the fact that Gods have been shown to exist, which opens up people's ideas, looking at an illogical argument between someone who believes there is no god, and someone who believes there is, the main arguments are this: "You have no proof he does exist, so I say he doesn't." "You have no proof he doesn't exist so I say he does." Burden of proof aside, one of these arguments is rendered invalid with how the Gods of Altera have shown themselves, suddenly gods are a very real thing, so yes, we technically shouldn't have any atheistic characters... unless you change the statement of their belief. "I believe there are no gods still among us today." they believe the gods are gone, and this is a very possible atheistic character, explaining away the miracles people can perform by saying it is simply high level magic. As for heretical characters, the easiest way to explain is "Well, we've been shown there's more than one god, who's to say there's more than just the ones in the common pantheon?" one could also say that these beliefs are more spiritual, people don't entirely believe their gods to exist, but rather value the belief itself, the culture that goes with, and the full ideal of their belief, though more often than not, they totally believe in the god. Then take a look at a character we all love to meme, Sankera. Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not as active on the forums these days) but San is most certainly considered a heretic if only because what he worships is not in the common god group for worshiping, rather, he worships a being that used to exist with great power, yet no longer does. If San can certainly believe in something that exists, perhaps there's a better way to do a heretic character? Rather than believing in an entirely different moon god, or some god of the grass and pollen, I'd be more interested in people seeing ASPECTS of the gods, misinterpreting, or not getting the full picture, and worshiping them still, but as something different. Example: Say Roy, having just emerged from a cave where the dwarves failed to teach him about Korog, sees Crusade, the god of war, and is so enraptured by the god being coated in blood, having just been done with a slaughter, he misinterprets the god's meaning, instead believing him to be a god of blood, and fully accepting this ideal. He uses the dwarven word for blood (Don't know it off the top of my head) and let's say the word for great being, idk, and uses those combined words to name the 'god' he believes in. Roy is now a heretic even though he fully believes in a god commonly worshiped and accepted as a being to worship, all because he didn't get the full picture.

 

[Lily_]

Roy is now a heretic even though he fully believes in a god commonly worshiped and accepted as a being to worship, all because he didn't get the full picture.

he's dead.

 

[Archbishop]

r u heretic?

Only on Sundays.

 

[CyberChaosV2]

he's dead.

yup, hence why I use him for examples, that way it can't be mistaken that it's not IC

 

[NIAH]

I also don't focus on religion for my characters because religion makes me OOCly uncomfortable for personal reasons. I don't find it fun or appealing, and Cena has been my only religious character and that was only because of the RP and having a god manipulate her every time I logged in. xD

 

[LePancake]

I had Amrak as a character, and my original idea for him was a devout Crusade worshiper, but mid-way through writing out his backstory and thinking of how he had come from where he started to where he was now, I realized that it might make for some actually decent character development if he wasn't, mainly due to the fact that he deserted a group of people who devoutly worshiped Crusade, and they hadn't helped him much when he did that. But since then, I've also had a devoutly religious Dwarven mercenary that killed several heretics in his short amount of time, and also endured many a pun. And another heretic character, and then another devout worshiper. Point is, for me I just like to play different stuff, so sometimes characters are heretics. Amrak was a "heretic" because he had only seen Crusade, the deity he considered himself a worshiper of, do bad, and had only seen Ignis worshipers in Queens Port, and one killed him, another hunted down the people he swore to protect, and another sided with him in protecting those people, so it was just a lot of confusion, but more cons than pros really. And the rest of the pantheon he just couldn't be bothered to care about. Durlem on the other hand was religious because religion happened to be a good source of income when heretics ran about aplenty, and killing them brought coin. Also because at the time I was trying to find a way to side with Anhald in political matters, which was shockingly successful.

 

[Vincentius]

I'd be more interested in people seeing ASPECTS of the gods, misinterpreting, or not getting the full picture, and worshiping them still, but as something different. He uses the dwarven word for blood (Don't know it off the top of my head) and let's say the word for great being, idk, and uses those combined words to name the 'god' he believes in. Roy is now a heretic even though he fully believes in a god commonly worshiped and accepted as a being to worship, all because he didn't get the full picture.

You've actually explained extremely effectively what I have done with Iskvandar in terms of his religious values.

When I first made him, he was designed as one of the many who won't deny that the gods DO exist, but he harbors absolutely no respect toward them because he believed them to be apathetic sadists who have forsaken their children, essentially leaving their souls to die without their presence. As he learned more about the gods from a logical standpoint, he first began taking a scholarly interest in a few of them, particularly focused on Skraag merely because he found the old lore and common doctrine to be something that sparked interest for the sheer, previously-assumed unescapable truths behind them.

Iskvandar's childish-curiosity in Skraag only furthered until he was blessed by an epiphany that totally changed what he envisioned Skraag's cause to be. Now, he has perverted what it means to 'follow Skraag.' He has an obsessive aversion to Stagnation, a heavily psychological concept surrounding around amnesia, dreams, depression, and an eternal Damnation.
I won't go too in-depth here, but essentially, Iskvandar believes Stagnation to be a child of Jishrim and the Grey Lady, gods he sees as heinous for corrupting minds and damning them to Second Death by working together in an unholy balance of Chaos and Order. With this, he sees Skraag as the one who combats Stagnation to avoid Second Death, and without being inherently devoted to Skraag, Iskvandar strives to gain a divine enlightenment by obsessing and researching everything he can to avoid Stagnation and Second Death.

Death is Unnecesary, after all~

 

[Lily_]

You've actually explained extremely effectively what I have done with Iskvandar in terms of his religious values.

When I first made him, he was designed as one of the many who won't deny that the gods DO exist, but he harbors absolutely no respect toward them because he believed them to be apathetic sadists who have forsaken their children, essentially leaving their souls to die without their presence. As he learned more about the gods from a logical standpoint, he first began taking a scholarly interest in a few of them, particularly focused on Skraag merely because he found the old lore and common doctrine to be something that sparked interest for the sheer, previously-assumed unescapable truths behind them.

Iskvandar's childish-curiosity in Skraag only furthered until he was blessed by an epiphany that totally changed what he envisioned Skraag's cause to be. Now, he has perverted what it means to 'follow Skraag.' Iskvandar has an obsessive aversion to Stagnation, a heavily psychological concept surrounding around amnesia, dreams, depression, and an eternal Damnation.
I won't go too in-depth here, but essentially, Iskvandar believes Stagnation to be a child of Jishrim and the Grey Lady, gods he sees as heinous for corrupting minds and damning them to Second by working together in an unholy balance of Chaos and Order. With this, he sees Skraag as the one who combats Stagnation to avoid Second Death, and without being inherently devoted to Skraag, Iskvandar strives to gain a divine enlightenment by obsessing and researching everything he can to avoid Stagnation and Second Death.

Death is Unnecesary, after all~

*swet*

 

[Vincentius]

*swet*

you did this to him and then ditched him for Sallana.

 

[Lily_]

you did this to him and then ditched him for Sallana.

shhh

 

[blargtheawesome]

[opinion hour]

the idea is that people believe certain things because they think that explains it

there is no concrete way to prove that gravity exists, but we believe it because we think it explains all the things that the magical force we call gravity makes happen. apples fall from trees because of gravity, and good people go to paradise because they abided by the ultimate creator's rules for getting to paradise.

consider in this vein that somewhere between the 1600s and 1900s that religion stopped being as prominent, because religion stopped being able to explain all the things going on; and around this time, ideologies like nationalism and all that stuff like socialism, fascism, democracy and etc arose, culminating in world war 1/2 that was practically a mutual crusade ala the religious wars of the 14th century.

so as this goes, some characters - i'll use nwalme as an example - aren't especially religious, because things that can be explained by gods, he doesn't explain as being gods but explains as something else. in his case, it's mostly magic mumbo jumbo and understandings of things based in lore that happened ooc years ago. thus he doesn't think that gods are the causes of things like gravity, but he does think that even though they may not be the creating forces behind the universe, that they're worth worshipping because of how they're good moral guide lines. like that one guy whose name i can't remember from the protestant reformation who was an atheist but thought that the bible was a good moral framework

tl;dr why worship the big bearded guy in the sky if you don't think that he is the primal creating force behind the universe anyway

[opinion hour]