Release That Witch - Ch. 60 - The End of a King

[vodspod]

@HuevoPodrido I don't agree that the middle east is an example of the ideal world. Maybe it was during Islams golden years of tolerance, but the bad actors in the religion currently have too much power, they may be in the vast minority, but they are too well organized compared to other religions. I will be more clear than I was in my previous post. Currently Islam is the only religion where the bad actors have enough power and drive to cause harm to anyone who makes fictional content based on their religion. Scientology has bad actors in it that are more organized, but they will only ruin the person's reputation, job, and personal life.

I wonder if mentioning the fact that your life will be in danger, by a small organized group of people who consider themselves Muslims, if you make art depicting the Islamic religion, like in the case of The Charlie Hebdo Shooting, was the reason I was censored, or was my last message monitored due to me mentioning the fact that Scientology took part in Operation Snow White to infiltrate the government and purge any unfavorable records about their organization.

I am just trying to clarify that Muslims are mostly peaceful. It is just they are currently the biggest religion on the planet, and by being so large the number of bad actors will also end up being large. Also those bad actors are the only religious group that have a strong enough organization that they can and have targeted people for murder across the world using their religion as a shield, and no one can criticism them because criticizing it would be considered criticizing the whole religion. I guess religions are above scrutiny no matter how fringe and no matter how many people are effected. That is the same reason we allow child rapists to go free in the Catholic church because religion is above scrutiny.

 

[Stoner]

I've never been bothered by exposition but fuck that was obvious.

 

[HuevoPodrido]

@vodspod Hahaha! Sorry, I meant to say that in an ideal world, artist would be able to use any cultural reference in their fictional works, in this example, muslim religion.
I also agree with the fact that religions are above scrutiny, recently, a consequence of the repression on some subcultures in the past decades that gave birth to the present times in which the political correctness is just stupid. I don't really want to dip in those waters, I get mad and the subject is endless. And in the past mainly because of two reasons, the main religion of a territory was usually deeply involved with the government as consequence of the second reason, which is that most of the population were believers. This bring interesting facts like kingdom and countries falling and rising but religions staying as the "peoples opium".
I'm going offtopic at this point. I just want more variety on the religions portraited as the bad guys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[vodspod]

@HuevoPodrido I personally think it would be great if we did not need to use real world religions as references for the religions of fantasy worlds I think it would be great if we could build religions from the ground up from the story without any mold that is already set up for them to fit into. Decide on the environment in that area of the world, consider the needs for survival in and how people could get the resources to survive, consider resources that are not consistent, look into coincidences that people could use the flaws in their logic to believe it is a cause and effect relationship, consider the type of culture for the area, list out things that could cause death or injury in the area, and any special attributes for the location or world. Then create some stories that would convey warnings to avoid the dangers and others that try to tie together the cause and effect relationship. Then work to conform the stories together in a more and more cohesive narrative. Then determine the god, gods, supernatural energy, ect that don't actually exist that could be used to explain the cause and effects and explain away portions of the stories that are not realistic for the world. Then determine the doctrine for the area based on this narrative, also consider how the religion will spread since without doctrine that pushes for indoctrinating others the religion will die out and not last long enough. You can also stop anywhere along the way and set up folk lore or other superstitions without a full religion, or add some which do not fit the religion as additional parts of the culture.

It may take a lot of work but it would make for a more immersive world than one where you just shove in a cookie cutter religion in that may not fit with the culture without revisions. Also if the fantasy world has gods then there is a different process that can be done to make better religions for the world depending on other factors like the actions of the god, the gods' power and their interactions with the world, ect... If there are gods, then it would be good to define the gods first as well. Also it would be good to have religions and folk lore and superstitions that are not accurate along with the accurate ones.

Oh also for large populations consider groups that branch off from the original group based on different doctrines either new ones they think they should follow or doctrines they think are wrong and should not be followed. Probably choose more than one for a branching religion, and have certain doctrines as debated within the religious communities. Also take into account of how people in power will want certain things and how they will use their power to warp the religion to get the believers to do what they want; like wage war, follow laws, don't question, ect...

 

[HuevoPodrido]

@vodspod As you said, too much work, I also think that too much flavor text would slow the story development a bit too much, it would take some skill to balance the exposition of everything in the narrative. Well, I think Skyrim did a good job in that regard. But it's a game, not a manga ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[daime17]

@Goldenzeal

You're right and I just remembered it.

 

[SCP-049]

(((Church)))

 

[CalamityCallout]

Ah, here it is, the 100% realistic church, the truth about their evil, and the idiot who drank the koolaid. Was waiting for this!

 

[vodspod]

@vodspod Overwatch!
Nah, in all seriousness I agree with you. What I really meant was that usually the religions portraited in this scenarios are all based on the christian chuch. It is extremely rare to see any other religion used as base.

I agree other churches should really be used more as templates, but many of the religions other than Christianity will literally send people to kill artists who depict their religion in a negative light, Just look at Islam. Making up a fake religion would be a good idea, but usually either the people making this sort of content don't know enough about the evolution of religious institutions and/or don't have the drive/budget to go through the process of designing one from the ground up, like what L. Ron Hubbard did. Most cults (definition being used: religions where the target of worship is a living person) are not setup well enough to withstand the death of their leader. Just look at Christian Science (literally has almost nothing to do with Christianity nor science) After the founder died the systems in place for maintaining the leadership collapsed and the organization dissolved nearly completely, since the founder was the only one allowed to give people leadership positions. Since editing the holy scripture would be seen as blasphemy, those that did lost most of their followers, and those that didn't couldn't lead. I just wish we could remove all the laws they put in place using their operatives who infiltrated the US government. It really had a negative impact on safety during the pandemic, even though the group dissolved mostly back in the 1900s.

 

[vodspod]

Ah, here it is, the 100% realistic church, the truth about their evil, and the idiot who drank the koolaid. Was waiting for this!

I don't see the church as evil. I just see the church as a company with little to no restrictions nor oversight, where their workers believe everything their boss tells them, and doesn't all the non-bosses are unpaid interns who actually pay to work. They even try to hire more unpaid interns for the company... Why is this starting to sound like an MLM? oh yeah MLMs actually used religious institutions as inspiration, plus it makes it easier to recruit the starting members, since people in religious groups are more susceptible to similar methods of manipulation that is done by their religious institution. Since the MLM doesn't claim to be a religion, they are not recognized as a rival to their religion.

It does feel like religious groups have a process they use.

• help those in need (more for publicity and conversion than actually helping them)
• use the converted people to gain more sway in government
• remove government programs to help those in need (to remove competition for their conversion programs)
• remove systems that keep people out of poverty (create more people who are in need)
• make sure there are always people in need to feed the conversion cycle.

I worry sometimes that this is all part of a plan to take over the government and forcefully convert the population. Mostly when I listen to groups like Christian Nationalists.

Although, it is likely just a side effect of the evolution of their religion over time rather than a intelligent and directed effort. More than likely they just want to do harm to those outside the religion and they want to convert people into their religion, and it just ended up with this over time, since groups at such a scale cannot actually be controlled by a controlled group.

It is like water drop, in small amounts it can hold together with surface tension, but if too much water groups together it becomes unstable and rips itself apart. if the water collects using gravity it can become a pond. If you want to direct a pond you have to dig up a path for the water to flow to a lower elevation, but the end result will only end up with a portion of the water being redirected, and some will be lost in the transition, even still control is never an option in situations where something large is being interacted with, only influence can be done.

I have realized it may be a bit late for me, since I tend to write lengthy posts when I am tired... I also tend to meander. Hopefully this is educational and interesting. Also everything here is observations and should not be taken as "truth", since I am definitely not an expert in any of these subjects, and only have a superficial understanding of most of the subjects I am talking about. I also am very sleepy so it is rather likely that my cognitive abilities are degraded in this state. I also tend to be rather verbose while in my current condition.

 

[HuevoPodrido]

I agree other churches should really be used more as templates, but many of the religions other than Christianity will literally send people to kill artists who depict their religion in a negative light, Just look at Islam. Making up a fake religion would be a good idea, but usually either the people making this sort of content don't know enough about the evolution of religious institutions and/or don't have the drive/budget to go through the process of designing one from the ground up, like what L. Ron Hubbard did. Most cults (definition being used: religions where the target of worship is a living person) are not setup well enough to withstand the death of their leader. Just look at Christian Science (literally has almost nothing to do with Christianity nor science) After the founder died the systems in place for maintaining the leadership collapsed and the organization dissolved nearly completely, since the founder was the only one allowed to give people leadership positions. Since editing the holy scripture would be seen as blasphemy, those that did lost most of their followers, and those that didn't couldn't lead. I just wish we could remove all the laws they put in place using their operatives who infiltrated the US government. It really had a negative impact on safety during the pandemic, even though the group dissolved mostly back in the 1900s.

Did you really pick up this debate after 5 years?
Were you doing military service or something?
I need to re-read all these walls xDDD
Well, glad to hear from you again.

 

[vodspod]

Did you really pick up this debate after 5 years?
Were you doing military service or something?
I need to re-read all these walls xDDD
Well, glad to hear from you again.

being sleep deprived is like being drunk. I was like a drunk person calling up his ex and leaving a voicemail.
We make bad choices when we are mentally debilitated.

 

[vodspod]

being sleep deprived is like being drunk. I was like a drunk person calling up his ex and leaving a voicemail.
We make bad choices when we are mentally debilitated.

I mean I could continue the discussion if you feel like it.