Religion is bad, M'kay?

[Dalvy]

FF12 does fall into the usual pitfall of "Gods are bad, humans should follow their own path". The Occuria are responsible for the Espers and almost leading Ashe away from her vengeance quest. Ashe destroys them in response to messing with her mind.

Venat was an aberrant Occuria that led Vayne through his journey to dictatorship, corrupting Cid Bunansa and destroying Archadia's military supremacy in the process. Dr. Cid is particularly driven mad by Venat. Its reasoning was that the other Occuria are old fashioned. Towards the end of the game Vayne turns on Venat, and I recall the dialogue being about how man should choose their own path.

I do get the sense that FF is a bit anti-organized religion and that if gods are tangible, they are always having a negative impact on human lives. Yu Yevon, the thing at the end of FF9, the Warring Triad, Cloud of Darkness, etc. Even Hydaelyn doesn't feel like a happy goddess to me, even though she is half of the Dualism concept.

This is reminiscent of animism where you must pay tribute to local spirits or suffer. This animism is present in some games where the summons or a powerful pantheon are a focal point, and people still come to ruin despite following protocol. I can't recall there ever being a truly benevolent god or higher power.

[Cilia]

Snip

Yep, I have a Limit Break that allows me to... break the character limit! Muahahaha! (If you just compose and cut / edit / paste a long post, it won't show up as "edited" if you do it within about 2 minutes.)

Actually, I can deny that taking away religion leads to people being self-centered narcissists. Sort of. I would argue that taking away religion simple reveals a person's true character; if you only do good things because you're afraid of being punished in the afterlife, are you really a good person? People who renounce religion are simply free to decide for themselves what is right and wrong instead of following the teachings of something whose existence can be neither proven nor disproven. People who renounce religion are simply free to make their own choices on what is right and wrong, but have the responsibility for what those choices entail.

This can lead to the absolute worst of humanity, but it can also show the very best. Nobody is inherently good or evil.

Back on topic (sort of)...

FF12 does fall into the usual pitfall of "Gods are bad, humans should follow their own path". The Occuria are responsible for the Espers and almost leading Ashe away from her vengeance quest. Ashe destroys them in response to messing with her mind.

The Occuria actually encourage Ashe to pursue her vengeance, because the only way to overpower the Archadian Empire outright is to use deifacted nethicite which can only be granted by the Occuria and thus put her in the palm of their hand. Ashe eventually rejects their control and stops pursuing vengeance at all costs, putting the reins of history back into the hands of man.

This sort of works in conjunction with Venat, who was pursuing a similar agenda with Cid and Vayne. By helping them develop manufacted nethicite, Venat was giving Archadia the power to conquer all of Ivalice against the wishes of the other Occuria, also putting the reins of history back into the hands of man.

That said, there's no religion, organized or otherwise, based around the Occuria. The only people aware of them at the start of the story are Cid and Vayne though Venat, and during the course of the story the party learns of their existence, but they remain alive (if hidden) and nobody worships them. So, manipulative "gods," but not anti-religious.

[PogueX]

It is a theme in most FF games, FF10 for example with the enemy being Sin, as well as FF tactics with the player killing St Ajora, as well as FF6's Kefka whose final god form resembles the Christian images on the Sistine Chapel


But i think what people are missing is the understanding of Japanese culture. They don't hate religion in Japan but the idea of one organized religion dictating people's lives is vastly different from their culture. Christianity for example states that humans are sinful by nature, but Buddhism says that humans must better themselves so they can become a perfect person and enter into Nirvana (which is what Christianity says is impossible cause we are sinful by nature) So they contradict each other. Rather then following one religion they practice in a mixture of religions, the Japanese get blessed in Shinto temples, have christian marriages, and then get buried in a Buddhist funeral

therefore one religion ruling all seems like a threat

[Byonka]

"Hear... Feel... Think..."

[Akiza]

Religion is a crutch to make man feel as if they are the most important species in the cosmos and the cosmos was made for them. It's convient to believe that god created the entire cosmos for us that we are created in hs image and we are loved. Its convient to think there is a grand plan and purpose to the world. The reality is at the scale of the Cosmos we don't exists in fact nothing in the Cosmos exists there is mostly darkness and emptiness with pin point flashes of light that qucikly fades. On value we don't have value the only reason we are valuable and important is because we ourselves believe that we are valuable and have importance so we extend that to others. We also project are purpose onto the world around us and extend it to the Cosmos which has no purpose, ryme or reason. The Cosmos has no location in space no moment in time it contains all physical events and all possibilities at once occuring in different parts of spacetime it simply is. At the end of the day there is no purpose and no reason for the Cosmos.