Why add orthodoxy and protestantism but not an African or Native american religion?

[Menzies]

The Ottoman Empire was Orthodox, before becoming Muslim

Religion in the Ottoman Empire

It was an Islamic Empire with Orthodox subjects at first, before they converted.

I've never heard of quite a few religions that made it into the game, yet they made it into the game.


Where's Atheism?

Atheism is by definition not a religion, and it would be inappropriate to list it as one in the game.

As for other religions, the game makes it quite clear that pantheon beliefs are religions like the Greek, Roman and Norse religions, some of the most influential on the modern world, so why is it such a stretch to apply the same to American and African religions?

I didn't realise the native americans could go back in time

Whatever you may judge their "level" of religion to be, it was certainly no "earlier" form of religion than the old world religions. Unless you count Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism etc too as early forms religions because they were founded long ago. It most certainly wasn't an early form in that it remained undeveloped, religion in america developed considerable over the millenia, animism wasn't some stagnant thing they developed and left as it was. It certainly wasn't less sophisticated than old world religion either. It was just different.

Referring to meso-american religions as simply "Animism" is hugely offensive and in it's essence a massive over simplification. Animism is a western term for any religious belief to do with the spiritual nature of the physical worl or animals. Saying that "animism" is the "religion is america" would be like calling Christianity "Monotheism". It can be classified as a monotheistic belief, but itself is not some vague monotheism.

Whilst "level" probably isn't the right way of describing it, to give any religion in the Americas precedence over the others would be offensive in and of itself, and in a game where the Norse, Roman, Greek and various religions of Mesopotamia aren't represented directly, and instead considered "pantheon beliefs", it surely isn't hard to see how they are representing American and African beliefs.

 

[quantum42]

There are various mods on the Steam workshop website that have more religions and some some sci-fi/fantasy based ones as well.

 

[True_Candyman]

Referring to meso-american religions as simply "Animism" is hugely offensive and in it's essence a massive over simplification. Animism is a western term for any religious belief to do with the spiritual nature of the physical worl or animals. Saying that "animism" is the "religion is america" would be like calling Christianity "Monotheism". It can be classified as a monotheistic belief, but itself is not some vague monotheism.

Whilst "level" probably isn't the right way of describing it, to give any religion in the Americas precedence over the others would be offensive in and of itself, and in a game where the Norse, Roman, Greek and various religions of Mesopotamia aren't represented directly, and instead considered "pantheon beliefs", it surely isn't hard to see how they are representing American and African beliefs.

Preaching to the choir babe, didn't wanna overload the guy by calling him on his terminology too, i already felt a bit bad ripping on him for his pre-conceived judgements of other societies. I'm not sure i'd say animism was an offensive term however. A generalization for sure but i don't see how its directly offensive, rather just ignorant. It's derived from the words soul and life, it's not like its supposing those religions and animal like.. If i went round calling christians monotheists they wouldn't be angry, they'd be a litle confused and probably say either "actually i'm a christian" or "well, yes i am, but that's an odd turn of phrase old chap"

The level in inverted commas was because the guy i quoted seemed to imply that old world religions were superior, of a higher "level", than new world religions. I'm not quite sure whether that's what came across from what you've said there, so i hope that clears it up!

As for the preferential treatment, again i wouldn't say it is offensive to give an american religion a slot over others, it may be unfair, it may be subjective to personal preferences, but its a matter of fact that there are not slots for every religion. Given how important new world religions were in the americas for such a long period of time however, i am surprised we don't have one represented.

From what i can understand they've selected the major religions of today for the most part (with some exceptions - i'm looking at you Tengriism), but that seems a little out of touch with the theme of the game.

 

[otaman1]

Just throwing some infamous religions out there:

Animism - Aztec
Druidism - Celts
Duma - Shoshone
Huaca - Inca
Huna - Polynesia
Karihwiio - Iroquois
Popol Vuh - Maya
Saan - Zulu
Swedenborgianism - Sweden

 

[True_Candyman]

Just throwing some infamous religions out there:

Animism - Aztec

Dude no... Did you read any of the previous posts? I hope by infamous you mean that they are misinterpreted.

/facepalm

Just for future reference, i think the most appropriate word would be some derivative of Teotl, or just Teotl itself.

 

[quantum42]

Here's another approach: have 50 random icons, with the names, 11-60, that are non-religious in design. When a religion is founded, one of the icons is selected and then a player can assign a name to it if he/she desires. The beliefs that are available to choose are not exclusive to one religion.

 

[turingmachine]

There's also a historical religions mod that allows virtually every civ to have their religion represented.

Just throwing that out there.

Honestly, everytime this thread comes up I just want to post a link to it:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104252536



He's even going to update it with even more in the near future.

Just download it and edit the XML to have any combination of religions you want to represent whatever native, or pre-modern group you want.

 

[True_Candyman]

Honestly, everytime this thread comes up I just want to post a link to it:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104252536

He's even going to update it with even more in the near future.

Just download it and edit the XML to have any combination of religions you want to represent whatever native, or pre-modern group you want.

....

Multiplayer?

 

[turingmachine]

....

Multiplayer?

Well, blame Firaxis for not letting mods work with MP

At least you can use it with GMR and advanced menu options.

 

[True_Candyman]

Well, blame Firaxis for not letting mods work with MP

At least you can use it with GMR and advanced menu options.

That's what we do with these threads

 

[Sonereal]

Here's another approach: have 50 random icons, with the names, 11-60, that are non-religious in design. When a religion is founded, one of the icons is selected and then a player can assign a name to it if he/she desires. The beliefs that are available to choose are not exclusive to one religion.

This is an extremely poor solution to a non-problem.

 

[Menzies]

Preaching to the choir babe, didn't wanna overload the guy by calling him on his terminology too, i already felt a bit bad ripping on him for his pre-conceived judgements of other societies. I'm not sure i'd say animism was an offensive term however. A generalization for sure but i don't see how its directly offensive, rather just ignorant. It's derived from the words soul and life, it's not like its supposing those religions and animal like.. If i went round calling christians monotheists they wouldn't be angry, they'd be a litle confused and probably say either "actually i'm a christian" or "well, yes i am, but that's an odd turn of phrase old chap"

The level in inverted commas was because the guy i quoted seemed to imply that old world religions were superior, of a higher "level", than new world religions. I'm not quite sure whether that's what came across from what you've said there, so i hope that clears it up!

As for the preferential treatment, again i wouldn't say it is offensive to give an american religion a slot over others, it may be unfair, it may be subjective to personal preferences, but its a matter of fact that there are not slots for every religion. Given how important new world religions were in the americas for such a long period of time however, i am surprised we don't have one represented.

From what i can understand they've selected the major religions of today for the most part (with some exceptions - i'm looking at you Tengriism), but that seems a little out of touch with the theme of the game.

Again, we have no Roman, Greek, Norse or Celtic religions of any kind, we don't have ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian or such, what we are the largest organised religions with some form of long held structure and significance. The game has pantheon beliefs for a reason, and they are to cover these religions, the American and African religions quite well without favouring any one in a bizarre or unfair manner.

As for those selected, they are a good mix that take the mix of civs in the game into account quite well, as well as covering the major large organised religions. But, just for the sake of some form of discussion I would ask that you list actual usable candidate religions, and from there we can discuss why they would or would not be good options, obviously keeping extremely important religions that have been put under the Pantheon banner (Roman, Greek, Norse, etc) in mind.

 

[True_Candyman]

Again, we have no Roman, Greek, Norse or Celtic religions of any kind, we don't have ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian or such, what we are the largest organised religions with some form of long held structure and significance. The game has pantheon beliefs for a reason, and they are to cover these religions, the American and African religions quite well without favouring any one in a bizarre or unfair manner.

As for those selected, they are a good mix that take the mix of civs in the game into account quite well, as well as covering the major large organised religions. But, just for the sake of some form of discussion I would ask that you list actual usable candidate religions, and from there we can discuss why they would or would not be good options, obviously keeping extremely important religions that have been put under the Pantheon banner (Roman, Greek, Norse, etc) in mind.

But as i say, we have literally nothing representing 40,000+ years of history for 2 of the worlds continents. I know it's easy to say we don't have "blahdeblah" so we can't have "blahdeblah" but in doing that you are in fact instituting a leveling system for religions again. There are plenty of examples of american religions in this thread already, but i think comparing them in the manner your suggesting is counter-intuitive based on the context of equality of representation across the huge number of variables that could be (or could not be) taken into consideration.

I say this because there's really no objective way to choose them. I can objectively say that the lands across the Atlantic have very little going for them with religion in this franchise compared to the rest of the world as it stands. My main trouble is I can't say i understand why they had to choose just 12 religions to represent in game. How long does it take to make a symbol? Would it really be much more cluttered to have 20 and a better spread of religious representation for the civs?

I don't mean to say american religions categorically deserve a place above and before the religions that you mentioned, there were a great many and regional differences even within each. What i do mean to say however, is i'm a little disappointed for an RPing point of view that we have such limitations for some civs in religious representation.

I guess i find the american situation particularly grating religion wise because for the large part it is now populated by the decedents of ethnic europeans for the most part who are Christians, yet in game the american civs representing the era before their arrival are awkwardly pushed into Catholicism. Yes there was conversion etc, but that was after the empires of the americas represented in game had fallen really, especially for those outside the elite. So what are we doing with Catholic Inca's? It is justified in the same manner that Mexico is a continuation of the Aztec empire, which is just absurd.

 

[turingmachine]

Again, we have no Roman, Greek, Norse or Celtic religions of any kind, we don't have ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian or such, what we are the largest organised religions with some form of long held structure and significance. The game has pantheon beliefs for a reason, and they are to cover these religions, the American and African religions quite well without favouring any one in a bizarre or unfair manner.

As for those selected, they are a good mix that take the mix of civs in the game into account quite well, as well as covering the major large organised religions. But, just for the sake of some form of discussion I would ask that you list actual usable candidate religions, and from there we can discuss why they would or would not be good options, obviously keeping extremely important religions that have been put under the Pantheon banner (Roman, Greek, Norse, etc) in mind.

Please, the pantheon argument makes no sense when the game includes Tengriism, Shinto, Daoism, and Hinduism. There's no real reason to favor Hinduism over, say, a religion representing the Ancient Hellenic world except that Hinduism is still practiced today. (Not counting new age, reconstructivist versions of ancient religions, like Neo-Druidry or Kemitism, as these are in no way the same as the actual ancient religion).

That's the major dividing line in terms of religions they chose to include; all of them are still practiced today. You'd be hard pressed to find any indigenous or African religion authentically practiced today that's not in some way syncretized with Christianity or Islam.

It has nothing to do with misguided attempts at claiming one religion is more primitive, or less deserving, or nothing but a "pantheon".

("Pantheon" is also a horrible choice to name what the game calls primitive religions. A pantheon does not imply anything in regard to the maturity of the religion; cult or folk belief would have been a much more appropriate name).

 

[Menzies]

But as i say, we have literally nothing representing 40,000+ years of history for 2 of the worlds continents. I know it's easy to say we don't have "blahdeblah" so we can't have "blahdeblah" but in doing that you are in fact instituting a leveling system for religions again. There are plenty of examples of american religions in this thread already, but i think comparing them in the manner your suggesting is counter-intuitive based on the context of equality of representation across the huge number of variables that could be (or could not be) taken into consideration.

I say this because there's really no objective way to choose them. I can objectively say that the lands across the Atlantic have very little going for them with religion in this franchise compared to the rest of the world as it stands. My main trouble is I can't say i understand why they had to choose just 12 religions to represent in game. How long does it take to make a symbol? Would it really be much more cluttered to have 20 and a better spread of religious representation for the civs?

I don't mean to say american religions categorically deserve a place above and before the religions that you mentioned, there were a great many and regional differences even within each. What i do mean to say however, is i'm a little disappointed for an RPing point of view that we have such limitations for some civs in religious representation.

I guess i find the american situation particularly grating religion wise because for the large part it is now populated by the decedents of ethnic europeans for the most part who are Christians, yet in game the american civs are awkwardly pushed into Catholicism. Yes there was conversion etc, but that was after the empires of the americas represented in game had fallen really, especially for those outside the elite. So what are we doing with Catholic Inca's? It is justified in the same manner that Mexico is a continuation of the Aztec empire, which is just absurd.

Let's start with:

But as i say, we have literally nothing representing 40,000+ years of history for 2 of the worlds continents.

If you mean the Americans, then no, your above statement couldn't have more issues. Rather than just a wall of text though, here are some dot points:
- "literally nothing" implies literally nothing, the fact that there are Incan, Mayan, Aztec, Iroquois and Shoshone nations suggests otherwise
- 40,000 years is quite an exaggeration and is taking the most out there current estimates of the crossing of Beringia, not the settlement of the whole of the Americas. The most significant migrations are generally estimated at around 16,500 years ago, and pushing the date back to 40,000 years is needless beyond over stretching your argument
- If by two continents you were suggesting North and South American, then continuing from the earlier point, even if 40,000 years was correct for the crossing of Beringia, it certainly was not for South America, which was at best around 12,000 odd years

On the point of "literally nothing representing 40,000+ years of history" for a continent, how about Australia? Not only is the accepted time of first arrival at least 40,000 years ago, but estimates taking the same liberties as your's range as far back as 125,000 years. Unlike the Americans however there is actually no representation beyond two city states, both of which are modern European settled cities. There is no Indigenous Australian anything in the game, or even a modern Australian Civ, it's just Sydney and Melbourne in the game's eyes, and they were both added since Vanilla. But no, the Americans with only 5 Native Civilizations, 2 of which are from the USA and Canada, is literally no representation.

I get that you meant religion, but ultimately Europe has literally no religious representation either. Their religions are not in the game, and instead there are now 5 Levantine Religions. Don't start declaring Christianity in any form European by the way, as if we go down that slippery slope we can start calling various parts of Christianity American and ask why they aren't there. Let's be brutal about this, the Norse didn't take up Christianity much earlier than the Meso-Americans, yet nobody is shedding any tears over chucking them in as "Pantheon" religions. How is it any more bizarre to have a Islamic Nebuchadnezzar, Catholic Augustus or Orthodox Alexander than a Catholic Monty? Again, Europe is as unrepresented religion wise as the Americas or Africa, yet nobody sheds a tear.

You say that there is no objective way to choose the religions, but ultimately they have already found a very objective way. They picked the largest, most wide spread religions throughout history and they picked a good diverse set that covers the in game civs well.

Please, the pantheon argument makes no sense when the game includes Tengriism, Shinto, Daoism, and Hinduism. There's no real reason to favor Hinduism over, say, a religion representing the Ancient Hellenic world except that Hinduism is still practiced today. (Not counting new age, reconstructivist versions of ancient religions, like Neo-Druidry or Kemitism, as these are in no way the same as the actual ancient religion).

That's the major dividing line in terms of religions they chose to include; all of them are still practiced today. You'd be hard pressed to find any indigenous or African religion authentically practiced today that's not in some way syncretized with Christianity or Islam.

It has nothing to do with misguided attempts at claiming one religion is more primitive, or less deserving, or nothing but a "pantheon".

("Pantheon" is also a horrible choice to name what the game calls primitive religions. A pantheon does not imply anything in regard to the maturity of the religion; cult or folk belief would have been a much more appropriate name).

Tengrii is not a exactly Pantheistic religion
Hinduism is one of the largest and most significant religious movements in history, and it is far more than just a Pantheistic religion
Similar can be said of Taoism and Shinto

The key here is also the shear size of the religions. Tengrii was at a time of the major world religions due to the influence of the Mongols. Hinduism as it stands is third largest religion behind Christianity, whilst Shinto and Taoism are some of the largest religions. No religion larger than any included by modern (and from what I can find, historic following) are not in the game.

 

[turingmachine]

Tengrii is not a exactly Pantheistic religion
Hinduism is one of the largest and most significant religious movements in history, and it is far more than just a Pantheistic religion
Similar can be said of Taoism and Shinto

The key here is also the shear size of the religions. Tengrii was at a time of the major world religions due to the influence of the Mongols. Hinduism as it stands is third largest religion behind Christianity, whilst Shinto and Taoism are some of the largest religions.

First off, pantheon and pantheistic are two different words that mean two different things (pantheonic is the adj of pantheon). The game uses "pantheon", which implies nothing more than that the religion has multiple gods and has nothing to do with size and significance. Tengri, Daoism, Shinto, and Hindu are all absolutely "pantheons", i.e. they're not monotheistic. Yes, Tengri too, it has both a Sky-Father and an Earth-Mother.

As for pantheism, identifying god with the universe and/or nature, again has absolutely nothing to do with size or significance. Again, here, Tengri, Shinto, and denominations of Hindu all fit the bill of pantheistic.

You have absolutely no argument here in trying to make either pantheon or pantheistic mean a primitive or undeveloped religion. It doesn't. Saying something "wasn't just a pantheistic religion" means absolutely nothing as it implies nothing outside of a certain belief.

Also, Shinto is not one of the largest and most significant religious movements in history. Sorry, it never has been. It's only ever been limited mostly to Japan, exerting little influence outside of it, and well before the modern period became largely syncretic with Buddhism.

There's no more argument to include Shinto over say Ancient Hellenic religion, or even any ancient religion that was limited to mostly one people. And actually, Ancient Hellenic religion was much much more influential than Shinto, and traces of later theological developments are seen in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism today.

Again, the only dividing line is that Shinto is still a living religion practiced today.

No religion larger than any included by modern (and from what I can find, historic following) are not in the game.

Manichaeism.

Why is it not in the game? Again its no longer practiced today.

Also, you can argue ancient Hellenic religion at the height of the Roman Empire.

 

[Menzies]

First off, pantheon and pantheistic are two different words that mean two different things. The game uses "pantheon", which implies nothing more than that the religion has multiple gods and has nothing to do with size and significance. Tengri, Daoism, Shinto, and Hindu are all absolutely "pantheons", i.e. they're not monotheistic.

As for pantheism, identifying god with the universe and/or nature, again has absolutely nothing to do with size or significance. Again, here, Tengri, Shinto, and denominations of Hindu all fit the bill of pantheistic.

You have absolutely no argument here in trying to make either pantheon or pantheistic mean a primitive or undeveloped religion. It doesn't.

Also, Shinto is not one of the largest and most significant religious movements in history. Sorry, it never has been. It's only ever been limited mostly to Japan, exerting little influence outside of it, and well before the modern period became largely syncretic with Buddhism.

There's no more argument to include Shinto over say Ancient Hellenic religion, or even any ancient religion that was limited to mostly one people.

Again, the only dividing line is that Shinto is still a living religion practiced today.

Tengrii was actually both Polytheistic and Monotheistic, but that's a far more complicated discussion than this thread really needs. There are also a lot of complexities to Hinduism, and calling it a "Pantheistic Religion" doesn't really make sense when many adherents are adherents to Monotheistic or even Adeistic forms of it. It is a highly complex religion and to simply slap a "it's got a pantheon" label on it and go on with your day is ridiculously simplistic.

Shinto is one of the largest religions in the World Today, and is practised today by an estimated value larger than the population of the Americas at the time Columbus arrived, although estimates of both vary widely. That said, it could be seen as somewhat of an odd one out in that it didn't spread far beyond it's own boarders. In a modern context though there are more active adherents of Shinto than modern adherents to any Native American religion, and by a very long way, which Shinto still ranking as one of the World's major modern religions.

Defining religions is quite complex though, and people tend to get offended when labels are put on their beliefs. Ultimately though the choices they made are very obvious, and well done.

 

[turingmachine]

Tengrii was actually both Polytheistic and Monotheistic, but that's a far more complicated discussion than this thread really needs. There are also a lot of complexities to Hinduism, and calling it a "Pantheistic Religion" doesn't really make sense when many adherents are adherents to Monotheistic or even Adeistic forms of it. It is a highly complex religion and to simply slap a "it's got a pantheon" label on it and go on with your day is ridiculously simplistic.

Again, pantheon(ic) and pantheistic are two different words, and mean two different things, yet you keep using them interchangeably. Again, pantheon, polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, adeistic; none of them in any way imply anything relating to size or significance. Also, as the game includes "Tengri" and "Hindu" and "Taoism", and doesn't divide them into denominations, its taken to include all forms of the religions included the polytheistic and pantheistic ones, so I can certainly use them as examples in this argument.

Shinto is one of the largest religions in the World Today, and is practised today by an estimated value larger than the population of the Americas at the time Columbus arrived, although estimates of both vary widely. That said, it could be seen as somewhat of an odd one out in that it didn't spread far beyond it's own boarders. In a modern context though there are more active adherents of Shinto than modern adherents to any Native American religion, and by a very long way, which Shinto still ranking as one of the World's major modern religions.

If you are going by modern population, then Shinto still doesn't win compared to Ancient Hellenic religion at the height of the Roman Empire.

Also, I was editing my post as you typed your last response:

No religion larger than any included by modern (and from what I can find, historic following) are not in the game.

Manichaeism.

Why is it not in the game? Again its no longer practiced today.

 

[Menzies]

Again, pantheon(ic) and pantheistic are two different words, and mean two different things, yet you keep using them interchangeably. Again, pantheon, polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, adeistic; none of them in any way imply anything relating to size or significance. Also, as the game includes "Tengri" and "Hindu", and doesn't divide them into denominations, its taken to include all forms of the religions included the polytheistic and pantheistic ones, so I can certainly use them as examples in this argument.



If you are going by modern population, then Shinto still doesn't win compared to Ancient Hellenic religion at the height of the Roman Empire.

Also, I was editing my post as you typed your last response:



Manichaeism.

Why is it not in the game? Again its no longer practiced today.

My mistake in the use of Pantheistic. Yes, it should have been Pantheonic in the way I used it, my mistake.

By the same logic there are Pantheistic parts to certain Christian denominations. If we're going to use such loose rules we might as well not even bother with a discussion.

As for Shinto, the population of Rome at it's very peak was around the 65 million mark. Estimates of Shinto followers can range as higher or higher than that figure. Even counting all religions followed at the time (which was largely Christianity by that point), it would still not be certainly larger than Shinto is today.

Manichaeism was never as large as the religions in the game currently at their peak, although it was an important religion in it's own time. Out of curiosity, which religion would you replace for it?

I take it you're not even arguing over Native American religions.

 

[turingmachine]

My mistake in the use of Pantheistic. Yes, it should have been Pantheonic in the way I used it, my mistake.

By the same logic there are Pantheistic parts to certain Christian denominations. If we're going to use such loose rules we might as well not even bother with a discussion.

As for Shinto, the population of Rome at it's very peak was around the 65 million mark. Estimates of Shinto followers can range as higher or higher than that figure. Even counting all religions followed at the time (which was largely Christianity by that point), it would still not be certainly larger than Shinto is today.

Manichaeism was never as large as the religions in the game currently at their peak, although it was an important religion in it's own time. Out of curiosity, which religion would you replace for it?

I take it you're not even arguing over Native American religions.

The estimates for Shinto are between 27–65 million today. Why is there such a range gap? Because its mostly syncretized with Buddhism and many people are only nominally or nationally Shinto. The number is far less if you're trying to find "pure" Shinto followers. I would argue using contemporary population numbers is also the wrong way to go about it, as a) I view that as a corollary of my "still living" argument, and b) modernity has lead to exponential growth of several cultures yet that increased growth only really has had significance recently and is a poor system for a game that starts in 4000 BC in judging significance on a world stage.

I'll still argue that in terms of numbers, at best you can say that Shinto is equal to Hellenic religion even before AD 380. However, in no way can you argue that Shinto was more significant on the world stage. Particularly Hellenic religion as expressed by Neoplatonic mysticism, whose impact can be seen in the theological beliefs and framework of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. You can also argue just the mere cultural and aesthetic influence of Hellenic religion in terms of art. There are even forms of Hellenic religion that were monotheistic if that's important to some people.

If we also talking about influence on a world stage, I'm going to bring up Sikhism. I don't mean to offend anyone, but Sikhism is largely limited to one area, and really only began to spread worldwide in the 19th century. Ancient Hellenic religion and Manichaeism had for more impact on world history. You also can't argue it was included because a civ that had a chance of being in the game would use it. Why is it in? Because today it is one of the largest religions in the world. But again, this is today.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that size and significance, although certainly a factor, was not more of a factor than including living religions.

I'm saying you can certainly make arguments about the "odder" choices out of the 11 (now 13) included religions. You can find religions that were more significant historically than some of the 11. I'd say you can even make an argument in terms of size even if you include modern populations. However, you can't find any larger and/or more significant that are also still practiced today.

And no, I don't care about indigenous religions. For geographic distribution they might be nice, but were never very significant historically nor do they exist today outside of forms syncretic with Christianity or Islam.

I would argue that both a Hellenic religion and Manichaeism should be included with the 11-13 official religions, they can stand on their own in terms of size and impact, and both were certainly more than "just polytheistic or pantheistic religions" as you would say.

I'm also saying that "pantheon" was a poor choice on Firaxis' part as a label for primitive religions, and I think people use the poorly chosen label to discredit valid choices like Hellenic religion. Actually, I think Firaxis might have gotten confused with pantheon and pantheistic as well. As a pantheistic religion would fit with the belief system of giving bonuses to natural land, while a pantheon inherently has nothing to do with that.