259 réponses à ce sujet

[Oakshire]

During times of turmoil and possible destruction - people tend to look anywhere for answers - even if it is a Turian referencing a heaven after death.

[Hunter_Wolf]

Militarized wrote...

Baronesa wrote...

S Atomeha wrote...

BatmanPWNS wrote...

Even in the future, people will have religions.

I don't know why, in ME1, they tried to say most of humanity doesn't have a religion anymore and, yet, in ME3 there are so many religious people and it even shows that Anderson believes in God.

the change sort of irked me tbh...  your basically told in me1 religion is rare(via ash defending her beliefs compared to other members of the system alliance military), then in 3 it's around every corner

To be honest I didn't read on ME1 that there were too many atheist, but more that society was more secular than what it is now, so people simply practiced their religion or none at all without having to shove it down anyone's throat.

It's stated in the books that the confrontation with the Turians threw all of mans religions into a frenzy, essentially they tried to modify their entire doctrines and if I remember correctly they had lost a lot of the power they have today in society. Only a few crazy ones tried to maintain the original stories. 

Yep, which makes sense. 


The Hannar/Drell and Asari seem very strongly religious however. Which in the Asari's case makes plausible sense until you bring Javik with you xD

[NeoGuardian86]

i'm religious. so.... didn't bother me so much really.

[Huyai]

I do recall reading in ME1 or ME2 that Turians got quite interested in Human religion. sadly don't remember when or where I read that one.

[Faded-Myth]

I'm an atheist and I saw it as just general banter. I could see myself making the same statement, kind of as a last minute joke. "You better be at the bar when this is done. You're buying." That kind of thing.

[Sean]

Atheist here as well.

Just to make people feel better I do reassure them with their own belief system...and I do say goddamnit quite a bit.

I do make jokes about religion too.

Modifié par RX_Sean_XI, 22 mars 2012 - 10:19 .

[Vergil_dgk]

Archontor wrote...

In mass effect lore humanity and a few other species appear to be primarily athiestic, you can even join in when Ash asks of your religion in the first game.

What I found odd then is that at one point in the game Shep says "I'm sure wherever he is he's putting in a good word for us." I found that a bit odd but I went with it becaus it was poigninat scene and I was caught up in the loss of such a great character.

Then later Garrus makes his memorable 'bar in heaven referrence' even though nothing in the Turian religion suggests that they have a heaven and certainly rules out a god.

What I want to know is why they deicided to mess with the lore and take away an established choice about our Shepards?

"there are no atheists in the trenches" - either that or they are just figures of speech that have passed into language. I will say that I believe Shepard to a sort of messianic figure (his name is "Shepherd" for god's sake, he warns of the coming apocalypse and sacrifices himself for all) - but not in a dogmatic, religious way. It's just a little inspiration like in so many other works of art.

[Ozzelll]

I liked how you could define Shepard's beliefs in ME1. So, I didn't exactly like how Shep suddenly spoke about "better places" etc, since my Shep's an atheist. Bioware removed the neutral dialogue option, and skewed so much of the "optional" dialogue, in ME3 especially. I can't say I appreciate it.

[Archontor]

To those saying it's just a turn of phrase presumably in a mostly athiest society Shep wouldn't have heard or been influenced so much by religous terminolog and I can't imagine Garrus would learn about human religion without leaning that statistically speaking Shep wouldn't follow anyway.

[Nobrandminda]

 A couple other people have said this already, but Atheists us religious coloqualisms too.

And anyway, there is quite a bit of religious discussion in Mass Effect.  You can ask Thane, Liara, and random Hanar about their respective religions.  Ashley is some denomination of Christian.  Of the races that don't have a prepared speech on their belief system, most of them have that information readily available in the codex.

[Dark_Caduceus]

I guess it would have been nice to make "my" Shepard's lack of religion known. Seems like there was alot of more of Liara gasping and making appeals to the "Goddess" and turians referencing "the spirits". I guess I kinda figured a 109 year old individual and PhD would have shed any religious beliefs long ago.

[Baronesa]

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

Again, not to be confrontational, just wondering why you thought saving the galaxy was what you should do.

Because other people's and beings lives matter?

If I do good, and help others it is because I have empathy, and want for others to thrive and generally not have a ****ty time.

I don't do it out of fear of a supernatural being punishing me, or hoping for an eternal reward. I do it because for my own moral system, it is the right thing to do.

The fact that morality is a social construct does not detract from it. And even then you can talk with people like Sam Harris that would argue for an objective morality form a biological point of view, not dictated by any sort of supreme being.

[Militarized]

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

I can be civil My reasoning for saving organic life is pretty much the same reason I am outraged when someone is murdered or we try to push our populace into going to war with Iran like we are right now. Those people only have one life, one go at enjoying their short, brief existance in this beautiful accident we call Home and they deserve a chance to experience it without pain and suffering, without misery because if that's the only thing they have to look forward to experiencing then it's completely ruined. It's worth fighting for them to enjoy that brief existence, even if it's subjective. 

Of course it helps that I seem to be partial to our human evolution of being cooperative and helpful, it's one of the major reasons we're succesful as a species. Species that fly solo and are violent do not do very well, in the large scheme of things. 

[Archontor]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

LadyofRivendell wrote...

You know, that's a very minimal amount of religion to be complaining about.

Yeah I'm an atheist myself and I really don't care.
But the auto-dialogue thing is a bit annoying.

This seems to be more an autodialogue problem than a religion problem per se.  I think lots of people can agree that autodialogue Shepard saying things they don't think is annoying.  There was a lot of autodialogue in this game.

Yeah that is a lot of it, if you could choose to have Shep change religious beliefs after you know DYING I would accept that but to just have it happen felt a bit odd. I mean I can chose almost every other aspect of his/her moral allignment but that just gets left to auto? 

[ninjaNumber1]

Baronesa wrote...

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

Again, not to be confrontational, just wondering why you thought saving the galaxy was what you should do.

Because other people's and beings lives matter?

If I do good, and help others it is because I have empathy, and want for others to thrive and generally not have a ****ty time.

I don't do it out of fear of a supernatural being punishing me, or hoping for an eternal reward. I do it because for my own moral system, it is the right thing to do.

The fact that morality is a social construct does not detract from it. And even then you can talk with people like Sam Harris that would argue for an objective morality form a biological point of view, not dictated by any sort of supreme being.

No what I meant was that if there is really no 'value' to life other than something we socially constructed, there is no sense in really trying to protect it, right?

Here I don't mean supernatural punishment but more so the existence of a supernatural 'order' of things. So in this case, it would have to be a supernatural reality that life is valuable. It can't be something we only came to know naturally because then it would just be evolution or just a sociological construct.

Like if I told you, you have to give your life to save some Jam bottles from being recycled, would you consider it worth dying for? If everyone around you said that those Jam bottles are a life form too, would you be willing to die for it?

[Laughing Man]

Yuoaman wrote...

Cosmar wrote...

I also think it has to do with the whole end of the world thing. If people believe the end is coming, a lot of them tend to start thinking about that kind of thing more. Death, afterlife, what does it all mean, etc. when you're faced with impending death and loss of everything you know and love...

That's the "No Atheists in Foxholes" argument, which is kind of bull****.

But I can see Shepard just saying these things out of either habit or to comfort others.

As an atheist myself I'd say that it both is and isn't BS, depending on how you look at it.  When you're facing the end, no matter your beliefs, you're going to reflect and wonder at what (if anything) will be next... even if that's just your impact on the world after you're gone.  Also, as someone else said, heaven, hell, gods, and demons make excellent metaphores even when you don't believe in them.  So "may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead" and the talk of meeting at the bar in heaven if things go wrong are more symbolic rather than literal theistic statements (especially given that few theological doctrines would allow for bars in their interpretation of heaven).

[Pottumuusi]

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

Again, not to be confrontational, just wondering why you thought saving the galaxy was what you should do.

Why do you think organic life is worthless if it isn't eternally ruled over by a celestial tyrant?

I wouldn't run so I could look at myself in the mirror when I die and say to myself "I like you."
That last moment of knowing that I wasn't a coward and that I faced my end with dignity would well be worth dying for. There are worse things than death after all(unless god exists, eternal life would arguably be the worst torture that can be inflicted upon a sentient being.)
These might be subjective values without a god(I don't think a god would make anything objective though, look up Euthyphro dilemma) but that doesn't make them any less meaningful to me.

That wasn't meant to sound assholish but it probably did anyway.

[warrior256]

Well to be fair, the reapers are attacking pretty much everywhere and millions of people are dying every day. In that situation many people (Note that I said many and not all) would turn to religion do to the promise of a better place after death.

I consider myself religious and I myself didn't mind the moments where Mass Effect turned more atheistic and the moments where it became more religious. To be religion was used in the series as a way to create drama and stir our emotions (Thanes prayer as an example).

Plus lets be fair, it would kill the mood of the game if when, as an example, Garrus is talking about meeting you in the bar in heaven and you go on a long rant about how heaven isn't real or how God wouldn't allow bars in heaven. It's fine the way it is if you ask me.

Modifié par warrior256, 22 mars 2012 - 10:29 .

[Merwanor]

Even though I am an Atheist, because I believe that religion is basically the biggest troll anyone has ever done to the human race. I still respect those who do believe in an afterlife and some kind of god, and so I chose to join in the prayer when Thane died. Even if I do not believe something like that, does not mean I don't have to respect other peoples belief and make them comfortable.

I did notice it when I played the game, I did not think much about it though as I would probably have said something along the same lines as Shepard at that time, because starting a fuss over something so trivial would just ruin the mood.

And religion has formed much of our culture and language, in my language I often utter a phrase close relation to "oh my god" but it is just an expression to me and has nothing to do with belief in itself. The expression is derived from religion but has been rooted in the language.

More and more people are turning away from religion these days, especially the younger generation, at least that is what I have experienced as I very rarely meet people who say they are religeous, of course they might hide it in the fear of being ridiculed, which I find to be very sad. Even though I personally ind it to be very positive progression, I still can't deny that religion has had a good and bad influence on the world (mostly bad), and it still does.

Modifié par Merwanor, 22 mars 2012 - 10:33 .

[Tehzim]

Don't forget Ash talks about God and Heaven in the first game, so she is just being true to her character. Just because your Shep isn't religious doesn't mean the other characters have to agree. That's what makes ME unique.

[ninjaNumber1]

Militarized wrote...

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

I can be civil My reasoning for saving organic life is pretty much the same reason I am outraged when someone is murdered or we try to push our populace into going to war with Iran like we are right now. Those people only have one life, one go at enjoying their short, brief existance in this beautiful accident we call Home and they deserve a chance to experience it without pain and suffering, without misery because if that's the only thing they have to look forward to experiencing then it's completely ruined. It's worth fighting for them to enjoy that brief existence, even if it's subjective. 

Of course it helps that I seem to be partial to our human evolution of being cooperative and helpful, it's one of the major reasons we're succesful as a species. Species that fly solo and are violent do not do very well, in the large scheme of things. 

Thanks!  I understand your position better now.

But I am just a bit curious about something more you said about there only being one life. Why would this one life be valuable though? Wouldn't that it-self just be a social paradigm?

[ReallyRue]

Well, I'm not sure whether turians believe in a heaven, but assuming they do, I think it's understandable that Shepard (regardless of what s/he personally) believes would go along with it to comfort him before a huge battle that they're unlikely to walk away from. It just seems a little kinder than "no, I don't believe in that, when you're dead, you're dead".

[Militarized]

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Baronesa wrote...

ninjaNumber1 wrote...

Militarized wrote...

I'm an Atheist and I don't really say that stuff except as a metaphor like.. go to hell = screw you. I never say "Oh maybe he's looking down at us from a better place" .....yeah, I'm sure that's what he's doing, enjoying his time in the Celestial North Korea by staring at everyone like some creepy stalker from above.

I was more then a little miffed that I couldn't say I didn't believe that, or at least say it was a nice sentiment but I don't believe that. In Mass Effect 1 you can tell Ashley she is strange for believing in God.

The more I think about it, the end game really fits into the bleak apocalyptic story of bad mythology that's the Bible and seemed to get away from a lot of the Secular stuff that were in 1 and 2... lots of mentioning of afterlife and stuff in ME3.

Maybe ME3 did more then ruin the series with just the ending.... sigh.

Well, I hope we can be civil about this but I am just curious. What would be reason to consider organic life worth anything or even worth saving? Wouldn't it just be a socially constructed view of what needs to be done? To me it would feel less satisfying to go one a journey to satisfy a social construct which really seems to cause my character a lot of pain anyway.

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just escape on board my Normandy and keep running or hide? Or just enjoy life my-self and do the things I wanna do the most and just get owned by the Reapers?

Again, not to be confrontational, just wondering why you thought saving the galaxy was what you should do.

Because other people's and beings lives matter?

If I do good, and help others it is because I have empathy, and want for others to thrive and generally not have a ****ty time.

I don't do it out of fear of a supernatural being punishing me, or hoping for an eternal reward. I do it because for my own moral system, it is the right thing to do.

The fact that morality is a social construct does not detract from it. And even then you can talk with people like Sam Harris that would argue for an objective morality form a biological point of view, not dictated by any sort of supreme being.

No what I meant was that if there is really no 'value' to life other than something we socially constructed, there is no sense in really trying to protect it, right?

Here I don't mean supernatural punishment but more so the existence of a supernatural 'order' of things. So in this case, it would have to be a supernatural reality that life is valuable. It can't be something we only came to know naturally because then it would just be evolution or just a sociological construct.

Like if I told you, you have to give your life to save some Jam bottles from being recycled, would you consider it worth dying for? If everyone around you said that those Jam bottles are a life form too, would you be willing to die for it?

I'd make the counter-argument of why is life important at all if you're just going to go to a fun place when you die? Why bother fighting for that life? Just commit suicide if you're so excited about what comes next and you can find out real quick... it puts the opposite effect on the value of life as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm aware the dogma says not to do that in some texts but that just seems to be shoved in to keep people from doing it -.-. 

[Baronesa]

Tehzim wrote...

Don't forget Ash talks about God and Heaven in the first game, so she is just being true to her character. Just because your Shep isn't religious doesn't mean the other characters have to agree. That's what makes ME unique.

Agreed... the real problem is Shepard's autodialogue that asume a position, while on Mass Effect 1, you could choose which position you wanted your Shepard to take.