Oh lords of Kobol . . . .we're getting into this are we?
*Cracks knuckles and neck*
Thank the gods I majored in Religious Philosophy. It's FINALLY going to serve it's purpose!
Let's address the OP first though:
Pwener2313 wrote...
Religion for humanity seems to have not changed at all in 200 years. From Christianity to Buddhism, humans are as culturally diversed as ever. The only hint to Shepard's religion is made when talking with Ashley in ME1, where the only options are to deny God's existance (Atheism), say you believe in God (Catholic, Christian, ect.) or to play coy and tell Ash to not discuss the topic openly (???).
Wathever Shepard's religion is seems to be left for the player to fill indirectly. So quick question; What religion is your Shepard and what have you done to support that?
I've done only done 2 double playthroughs (Me1 -> ME2) on two characters.
The first, Atma Jack, would be Agnostic, like myself.
For Juliaran, I figured she was probably faithful to God. I hadn't given a denomination too much thought though, probably Catholic actually.
Here's an interesting follow up question for you and everyone:
If you do think Shepard is religious, does he/she
remain that way afte their ressurrection? After all wouldn't Shepard know, having been dead and all? Shepard is, as far as we know, the first true ressurrection documented by science in the ME universe, and so someone who has "seen beyond the veil". Does this cause a crisis of faith? Do you think Shepard has seen an afterlife? If so, why doesn't Shepard talk about it?
THIS is a question in ME that may throw religion "out the window" not what you brought up next . . .
I myself had hoped that this issue would have been explored deeper in ME2, yet no such luck was found. I'd also like to point out that when it comes to games like ME where alien species are introduced with they're own religions, the existence of God and any other human religion goes out the window. Why? Because if God created all, why do aliens have they're own religions? Why didn't he intervene with those species? So in ME, it seems to be safe to assume that God doesn't exist. When this problem presented, no one dares to explore it for wathever reason.
Maybe ME3 will go deeper into the religious aspects of characters..... or not. If this topic takes off, maybe we can discuss alien religions, like the Turian multireligious culture or the Asari Goddess religion.
OK, here's my thing "Pwener". You start this thread with an interesting enough question. One that needs no needling to get an interesting conversation started. Then you bring in this flagrantly bad bit of reasoning that could possibly start an argument, then follow it with "I hope an argument doesn't start". That's like giving me a desk, dousing it with gasoline, then laying out some matches and going "Gee I hope this desk doesn't burn!".
I suspect trolling. Advanced level 60 Trolling, but trolling nonetheless. Still, all genuine philosophers could be accussed of trolling . . . so I'll bite.
The flawed reasoning: That alien gods somehow invalidate human ones.
That doesn't make much sense from the point of view of any major monotheistic religion. Why? None of the three majore monotheistic religious texts talk about the concept of actual Aliens at all (unless you interpret angels or spirits as a form of alien). Not only that, but they all mention "other" religions (Sin of Idolotry anyone?), so it's pretty silly to say that having other religions, just on different worlds somehow infringes upon human belief structures.
That's like saying that since we have multiple religions on earth NOW, it invalidates all of our belief structures. Which, actually, is an argument used to disprove god, but hey, it's something that the presence of Alien religions neither adds nor subtracts from.
The concept of human god is not mutually exclusive with an alien god -
they can be the same god, just viewed through different lenses. This is an argument used to explain why we have multiple relitions on earth as it is, it would work fine for alien religions.
That being said, let's define god shall we? At least a monothesistic one. Why? Because, if you're going to have this debate, you have to agree to certain terms so everyone knows what they're talking about.
Traditionally the monotheistic god worshiped by most humans, regardless if they're Christian, Jewish or Islamic (or other) has the following 3 traits:
God is All-Knowing (Omniscient)
God is All-Powerful (Omnipotent)
God is All-Good, or the greatest concievable moral authority (Omnibenevolent)
The best argument I saw here on these boards agains religion in the ME universe, is the fact that the Reapers exist, and destroy all life every 500,000 years or so, and what type of God would allow that?
This is called The
Problem of Evil, and with that link to enkindle further debate, I bid you adieu for know.
Modifié par MrGone, 19 avril 2011 - 08:05 .
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