Religion is bad, M'kay?

[DPZ2]

That trope was literally invented by Tolkien (along with the Fantasy genre itself) in LoTR. So much of fantasy as a whole still copies his concepts, that it shows up in a lot of places to this day.

George MadDonald, William Morris and Lord Dunsany object to your rewrite of the history of Fantasy in literature. So do the 1950s authors of Sword and Sorcery novels.
Tolkien did NOT invent the Fantasy genre, although there certainly are a large number of folks who think they have to copy his works to be successful.

Now, if you were to say "Tokien's publisher ruined the Fantasy genre by breaking story into a long, drawn out series of novels" you'd be closer to the mark.

[Cilia]

snip

Now we're doing this...

It's not really my place to comment on Eastern religions, because I don't know very much about them. However, what you call "wishy-washy magical thought" is arguably wiser than "there is one God as spelled out in the Christian Bible," and just as important to them as the Bible is to Christians. That "wishy-washy magical thought" generally accepts that it doesn't know everything, and the wisest thing anyone can say is "I do not know," because it's only though accepting your own ignorance that you can learn.

Seriously though, if you're going to call other religions stupid you should be willing to accept your own religion is stupid, or at least has stupid things within it.

Anyway, yes thermodynamics is a thing, but without knowing how much initial heat (energy) existed it's impossible to calculate how much time it would take to reach equilibrium. We're actually headed towards that effect, otherwise known as the Heat Death of the Universe. Scary stuff, huh?

snip

VIII has nothing religious about or in it, and IX has churches but the religion of the planet is not really touched on.

XIII's relationship with faith is... complicated. There's one good goddess, the rest of the gods are evil, but it has little to do with human worship.

[Delily]

And so the problem with non-Western religions is that they can get away with being wishy-washy since they are filled with magical thought than rational philosophy. It had been the last stages of Aristotelian/Platonic philosophy that had arrived to the conclusion reiterated by Western religions: 1.What ever begins to exist has a cause. 2.The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. If you believe the Universe existed forever, then you must not know how the Law of Thermodynamics works- namely that processes in a closed system reaches for equilibrium; if infinite, the universe would've ran out of energy long ago. Since the universe can't cause itself, then the cause must be beyond the Universe, beyond space, time, immaterial, eternal, and powerful. Much better than an egg or whatever it is they believe in eastern religions.

You're bordering on what's known as the First Cause fallacy. There's nothing wrong with using causality to claim the Universe had a beginning, but to then extrapolate hat claim into whatever deity you worship is where the argument breaks down.

I suspect by Eastern religions, you're referring to either Hinduism or Buddhism. Hinduism has a creation story, and Buddhism remains silent on the matter, because it's irrelevant to enlightenment.


To answer you original question, religion is one of the easiest way to control people, since it appeals directly to their emotions and beliefs. It's one of the easiest vehicles to use.

[myahele]

Well the problem there is that Western religions tend to be absolutist; they are right and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong. This gives followers of the faith a common enemy, and as we all know nothing brings people together quite like having someone or something they can all hate.

I could be wrong, but didn't parts of Japan try to slaughter the early Jesuit missionaries and Japanese Christians?

[Cilia]

I could be wrong, but didn't parts of Japan try to slaughter the early Jesuit missionaries and Japanese Christians?

My knowledge of Eastern history is not too great; however, I believe you are correct, though not for the reasons most people believe.

Medieval Japan was very, very big on loyalty to the Emperor and one's Lord. Since Christianity places God above all other loyalties, the Emperor (etc.) thought it would cause conflict with loyalty to him, so Christians were persecuted. Christianity still is a minority religion in Japan to this day, though considering modern societies have largely evolved past religious persecution and the Emperor is little more than a figurehead these days, that's probably just because Christianity is not native to Japan.

[Dalvy]

Some characters are very religious, despite knowing that the leaders of their faith are corrupt. There is Lucia who calls on Halone for strength. Garleans are more or less atheist and yet there she is, praying to Her during steps of faith.

It's not the faith that is bad, but the ones who call themselves leaders of men. Even the druid/shamanism of Gridania has draconian aspects that are easily corruptable.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Some characters are very religious, despite knowing that the leaders of their faith are corrupt. There is Lucia who calls on Halone for strength. Garleans are more or less atheist and yet there she is, praying to Her during steps of faith.

It's not the faith that is bad, but the ones who call themselves leaders of men. Even the druid/shamanism of Gridania has draconian aspects that are easily corruptable.

Like the "If the elementals say no then F*** human decency" complex? Cause that is preaty BS to me. Sure the elementals were powerful once, still are to an extent, but with only a select few able to communicate with them I can't help but wonder how often the elementals are saying no and how often the Xenophobic Gridanians are using that as an excuse to not help outsiders.

[PogueX]

the church isn't the only bad guys in FF14 though you have the Monetarist a faction in the Ul'Dah's syndicate that conspires to commit regicide

so you can look at that and think "oligarchy is bad m'kay" something that most would agree with

[IoannesBellator]

Because not all religions are the same. The First Cause isn't a fallacy by any means, but I can see where you'd think that it would because of my borderline conflation of Platonic First Cause/Demiurge with the Judeo-Christian God.

And for the record, before anyone accuses Catholicism of the cause of all wars ever, Buddhism and Hinduism aren't some ideal, peace-loving religions. Just ask the Muslims in Burma/Myanmar how their Buddhist neighbors treat them as well as the treatment of Christians by Hindus at Orissa. And I'd think we're all justified at some level- coexistence is a lie. I myself would quickly grab a gun if a Crusade is ever called- but then again, what's the likeliness of Pope Francis ever doing that, or even regular Catholics doing it?

[IoannesBellator]

the church isn't the only bad guys in FF14 though you have the Monetarist a faction in the Ul'Dah's syndicate that conspires to commit regicide

so you can look at that and think "oligarchy is bad m'kay" something that most would agree with

Well, yeah... and no. Because I'd see government as being cyclical but still prone to becoming corrupted versions of themselves. Monarchies (Rule by one) can become unjust tyrannies; and they devolve to or evolve from aristocracies (Rule by few) which become oligarchies; and they devolve to or evolve from democracies (Rule by the citizens) which become mob rule. Regardless of the form of government, legitimacy is enforced by the strongest. People band together and decide what is right or wrong on consensus, whether it's rape, murder, or pillage, etc. That's how warlords rise up from mobs of people who fight each other- they band together, and how kings form from groups of warlords. In each forms, for a large part of human history, religion was used to legitimize their rule. Without religion, we can just pretend that we're good enough and smart enough, even though it's evident that we'll never be so.