C2C - Religions discussions and ideas

I am going to be away for a couple of weeks, if I can get over this cold enough to drive. So keep discussing but I may have some surprises in store when I get back.

Then since you all feel so strongly that atheism should stay in the Religion Civics what do you propose to give it an "equal" science footing to Religions?

As for reducing Monasteries science production what era should this start? It should really be at least held off till the Industrial Era imo.

To replace the science that will be reduced/lost from the reduction to monasteries will a larger % be introduced for the education system for the masses? Not only libraries and Universities but schools both public and private should have the means to replace the lost beakers. Which means that more education buildings maybe needed starting in the Ren era.

JosEPh

Not sure what atheism as a c2C religion will do yet.

Already the animal enclosure buildings start giving science as the monasteries would stop.

I think the idea that monasteries give a flat science boost plus a decreasing % boost is the way to go. that way they will always provide some science but will stop being the centre for science. I agree that the reduction wont start until Scientific method is discovered.
 
Beside breaking up the clusters, which I'd like, I have some ideas to smaller the problem that one leading civ founds all the religions.

You don't like to have dead-end technologies for researching religions, but what about this? If you researched a tech, taht now gives you a religion, you should get none instead. BUT taht tech should enable a World Project (or a Great Wonder) which make the city it was built in the holy city of the analogous religion. If the city where you want to build the new wonder already is a holy city, it should give a malus on the productionspeed of the new holy-wonder. Spititual Civs should get production bonus for the wonders. I dont know if industrial civs also get a bonus on projects, but if so, taht should be removed for those religion-wonders.
This way, you dont need to add /research DE-Technologies, but you also wont get religions to easy. And the Tech leader has still an advantage in the religion-race.


Another idea i had was to making the religion-founding more random:

Once you researched a Tech providing a religion, there is a chance per round to recive a divine prophet (NOT a great prophet). The only thing this prophet can do is walk and found its related religion. The chance for reciving a divine prophet depends on how many religions you found, how many cities (and population) you have, your civics and your trait (IMO spiritual loses its power because of Cristo retendor and the increased amount of golden ages.)
This way, the techleader still has an advantage in the religion race (since there a more turns he has that chance compared to other civs), but civs with fewer religions still get a chance to got those religions.
 
The essence of religion is belief while the essence of science is doubt. They rarely coexist well.

The essence of religion Is belief that comes from gaining the facts "knowledge". This knowledge is then used to gain understanding. And from understanding the knowledge, wisdom is gained to put the knowledge and understanding to use. And is this not the essence of science? I believe that it is, not doubt. So there is a commonality and has been all along. It is irrationality to proport that they can not coexist, even rarely, because they do and have been doing so thru the ages. :)

Not sure what atheism as a c2C religion will do yet.

Already the animal enclosure buildings start giving science as the monasteries would stop.

I think the idea that monasteries give a flat science boost plus a decreasing % boost is the way to go. that way they will always provide some science but will stop being the centre for science. I agree that the reduction wont start until Scientific method is discovered.

I'm in agreement with this (the last statement). Even though it "pains" me to do so. ( I Really like the way the Religions function in this mod and is why I've been so resistant to changing them.)

But there will need to be additional "builds" to supplement the animal enclosures, like Boarding schools, Apprentice guilds, private schools, etc. We already have Public schools in place don't we? (It's been Ages since I've gotten a C2C game that far in the tech tree).

But I will continue to disagree that Atheism should stay as a "religion", the same as I maintain the disagreement that Pascifism should remain in the Mil. Civic category. I feel both of these should be Societal Civics or Societal Civics sub categories.

JosEPh
 
The essence of religion Is belief that comes from gaining the facts "knowledge". This knowledge is then used to gain understanding. And from understanding the knowledge, wisdom is gained to put the knowledge and understanding to use. And is this not the essence of science? I believe that it is, not doubt. So there is a commonality and has been all along. It is irrationality to proport that they can not coexist, even rarely, because they do and have been doing so thru the ages. :)
What you call facts are dogmata which you are not supposed to question.
There is no such thing in science. Everything is questioned until objective measurable evidence overcomes the doubt.
Neither is wisdom a part of the scientific foundation. It might help you as a scientist but wisdom is subjective and the framework of science requires objective reproducability. In general you could go and check every single part of it yourself.
 
What you call facts are dogmata which you are not supposed to question.
There is no such thing in science. Everything is questioned until objective measurable evidence overcomes the doubt.
Neither is wisdom a part of the scientific foundation. It might help you as a scientist but wisdom is subjective and the framework of science requires objective reproducability. In general you could go and check every single part of it yourself.

That is the theory at least. In reality nothing can be proofed, only strongly supported by experimental data that might just have a fatal flaw in the observation or is not precise enough to see the flaw in the theory behind it.
Meanest example is gravity: Just because we observed everything faling "down" for millenia doesn´t mean we are just experiencing a maximum of a rather long periodic behavior that might one day pass zero again and evrything would drop "up".

To defend religion a bit: Science and religion can coexist to a point, because some religious traditions are also those of doubt. Not doubt of god(s) or some holy text, but doubt about the interpretation of them, leading to constant reinterpretation and adaption to new concepts, including scientific discoveries.
 
But I will continue to disagree that Atheism should stay as a "religion", the same as I maintain the disagreement that Pascifism should remain in the Mil. Civic category. I feel both of these should be Societal Civics or Societal Civics sub categories.

JosEPh

This I don't agree with Joseph. I see Civics as how the nations views that area. Religious View can very well be an Atheistic view on religions; basically having a non-believing world view take precedence.
Military View can likewise very well be in a Pacifistic viewpoint.

Depends on how you look at it I suppose. *smile*

Cheers
 
But I will continue to disagree that Atheism should stay as a "religion", the same as I maintain the disagreement that Pascifism should remain in the Mil. Civic category. I feel both of these should be Societal Civics or Societal Civics sub categories.

JosEPh

You have me a bit confused here. Atheism is a religion civic. I was thinking of removing it from the civics and making it a "religion" but on second thoughts this may be too hard. ;)
 
You have me a bit confused here. Atheism is a religion civic. I was thinking of removing it from the civics and making it a "religion" but on second thoughts this may be too hard. ;)

That is what is troubling with that word. Its really NOT a religion, Just like Science is not a religion. Its a faith "society."

Just like how do you really explain, Dinosaurs, and the first "so called" human (Homo neanderthalensis). If the Bible is true then the Homo Neanderthalensis is what GOD looks like. But remember this when saying that, the HN did not have any speech (vocal cords) much less more than a pea sized brain. So if "we" are derived from HN, then as Mr T would say "I Pity the Fool" who believes all this, remembering at the same time, who wrote the Bible hundreds of years later after BC went to AD.
It was so misinterpreted, it ridiculous, one word wrong at certain place(s), makes everything incorrect at certain points of History.
Just like the Pope 2 years ago, now admits that 25 Dec is NOT the correct date of the "rise." It was either in April or May, and only if you believe the so called "Mary" person.
Now also, if a Middle Eastern person had a baby and it had been white, back in those days, they would have stoned both of them to death, so it had to be darker in color to begin with.
The so called scholars of those days picked a picture of "Zeus." A well known so called "god" back then and thats where "we" get the picture of Jesus from, and they call that praying to the wrong person, everything can be explained, even the so called flood, the opening of the water, then closing of it everything HAS been explained already, you just need to know the "facts." "I'm just sayin."

You got to know our history in this aspects, i have studied this for over 35 years now. Everything as in Science is explainable.
Take this post as you may, one way or the other. No offense to anyone on Earth, ok.:)
Now with that being said hence the "word" Atheism is born, not of faith, but the question thereof? So is it a religion could be, could not be.:dunno:
 
@ Joseph: I did not mean to accuse you or anyone else of being ignorant. But I feel it an ignorant comment to state that religion hasn't impeded scientific advancement. Let's differentiate scientific advancement and discovery for a moment. Religion and religious thinkers have led us to a great many discoveries, of that I would concur. Certainly, a biased approach based on ancient wisdoms can often guide us to truth. And the case can clearly be made that intuitions and religious world-models have given us a basis for beginning to understand a great many things.

But science was a revolutionary idea in that it goes about it quite the opposite way. As has been pointed out, science requires an unbiased viewpoint from which to proceed with discovery. Contrarily, religious ideal guides the religious researcher to prove what they believe they already know, which is the very essence of that which corrupts the scientific process. A scientist cannot start with any preconceived beliefs, only theories, to which religions provide a whole world view set of theories.

So what I'm trying to say is that religion and science can quite happily co-exist and even feed off each other IF and only if, the researcher is capable and willing to overwrite any preconceived notions derived from their faith based on the evidence presented by their scientific experimentation. This is a rare open minded individual that finds themselves capable of this form of mental gymnastics, therefore, research rooted in religious viewpoints may often suffer from skewed perceptions of the results.

That said, my primary argument about religion classically impeding science is not one targeted or aimed at the thought processes of individual researchers, but of the political power that SOME wildly influential churches have historically thrown around to shatter and disrupt the emergence of contradictory discoveries. This took place most commonly in the middle ages and led to why we call it the Dark Ages in the first place. Great men of knowledge lost their lives for simply stating the truths they'd discovered based on their research and their discoveries were often buried for ages. One must still wonder how much true history has been massively suppressed by those same forces today. The evidence suggests that a great deal of truth lays yet buried beneath these forces of religious oppression over truth. And if I sound a bit impassioned about that its because I'm offended to the root of my essence by these actions taken by powerful minorities to keep we the masses under the heels of their boots, not because of any affront by one who simply believes in basic religious pretexts.

I believe, at least, that we have done a modicum of accurate representation of this phenomenon by infusing into the Intolerant civic a healthy dose of scientific impediment, but perhaps we still have a bit further to go by impeding scientific development a bit under State Church too. And yes, Secularism should definately become a civic and perhaps we could even represent a U.S. style Secularism with a Propagandized Secularism civic that is quite similar... perhaps Free Religion (which still allows the selection of a state religion) actually is a fairly strong representation of this element.

@DH: What difficulties do you see Atheism being added as a religion presenting?

@Il Principe: The tenant of Science clearly states that nothing is fully proven at any given time. Under a truly scientific worldview, one must admit that new data can undermine even the most solid of 'proofs' which have been so relied upon to be established as scientific 'laws'.

@SO: I understand your comment on Atheism as a faith society, but I still believe that Atheism and Agnosticism alike are religious beliefs in and of themselves. They aren't 'organized' religious beliefs by any means but they are mindsets and religions are little if not mindsets in individuals. Furthermore, they are beliefs that do not coexist with other religious beliefs. If I am an atheist, I do not believe in a divine force guiding creation in any way. This is not compatable with any known religion otherwise. If I am Agnostic, it means I have not allowed any belief to yet fully sway me, including atheism. It simply means I will believe only what I feel I have enough evidence to believe and perhaps even that remains potentially subjective to further evidence. In truth, Agnosticism is the true root of the scientific method and Atheism can impede the scientific process just as deeply as any religion for being pre-convinced of ANYTHING is a bias you bring with you into the observation process.

In fact, perhaps Agnosticism should be considered a religion as well.
 
Great men of knowledge lost their lives ...

Don't forget the women mathematicians and philosophers who have also been persecuted in the name of religion eg Hypatia. they are usually called witches.

@DH: What difficulties do you see Atheism being added as a religion presenting?

The biggest difficulty is that I would have to do the work.:mischief: In Civ IV/BtS a religion needs certain buildings. What buildings are there for Atheism or Agnosticism.
 
:lol: A Fine can o worms we have here eh! ;)

You have me a bit confused here. Atheism is a religion civic. I was thinking of removing it from the civics and making it a "religion" but on second thoughts this may be too hard.
What would you use for it's "monasteries" and "temples" and later "cathedrals" type buildings? That is what I perceive as the hard part if you tried to make it a religion. And while we have it as a religion Civic choice, I still believe it would be better handled as a Societal Civic choice. And as T-Bird has brought up I see his suggestion for Agnostic as another Societal civic choice.

Religion Civics should contain the Civic choices that pertain to the religion usages. Under the current categories for the Civics, Society is the more logical place (from my point of view) for Atheism and Agnosticism. As these are more societal mindsets that can be interpreted as culture subsets of Society. Just as I feel that the Military Civics should be strictly Military oriented. So that Pacifism does not belong in the Mil Civic set but is again a Societal subset.

JosEPh
 
In fact, perhaps Agnosticism should be considered a religion as well.

Put simply theism and atheism deal with belief, and agnosticism deals with (absence of) rational claims to asserting knowledge.
 
To answer to your concerns, DH, I would say it really isn't completely necessary to have buildings for a religion. On many civics, all missionary types are trainable so that could be the method of Atheist access to missionaries. And we could simply make the benefit of just having that religion in a city a bit stronger to compensate. Additionally, we could set some scientific buildings to become a bit stronger when Atheism is the state religion. So in otherwords, it could be a building-less religion.

Agnosticism could work the same way. While I agree that it really is the absence of any real religious view, its perfectly valid as a State adopted view on religion and as a percentage of the population's belief.

While we certainly need a religiously hostile civic, such as Modern China may display, I just simply think we could get a more realistic view of the citizen's religious demographic by making them religions themselves.

Also... what about making religions that combine and thus naturally override (push out) other religions when spread? This could be the function that expresses those religions that are evolutions of their predecessors, such as Roman Mythology (a melding of Druidism and Hellenism), Catholicism (a melding of Roman Mythology, Kemetism, and Christianity), Protestantism (a dissident splinter sect of Catholicism), etc... Without it, we can't accurately represent the mergers and splits in church idealisms that have created vast and savage wars in our planet's history.
 
@SO: I understand your comment on Atheism as a faith society, but I still believe that Atheism and Agnosticism alike are religious beliefs in and of themselves. They aren't 'organized' religious beliefs by any means but they are mindsets and religions are little if not mindsets in individuals. Furthermore, they are beliefs that do not coexist with other religious beliefs. If I am an atheist, I do not believe in a divine force guiding creation in any way. This is not compatable with any known religion otherwise. If I am Agnostic, it means I have not allowed any belief to yet fully sway me, including atheism. It simply means I will believe only what I feel I have enough evidence to believe and perhaps even that remains potentially subjective to further evidence. In truth, Agnosticism is the true root of the scientific method and Atheism can impede the scientific process just as deeply as any religion for being pre-convinced of ANYTHING is a bias you bring with you into the observation process.

In fact, perhaps Agnosticism should be considered a religion as well.

Well there are 2 types of Agnostics; Agnostic Atheists and Agnostic Theist.
 
@Il Principe: The tenant of Science clearly states that nothing is fully proven at any given time. Under a truly scientific worldview, one must admit that new data can undermine even the most solid of 'proofs' which have been so relied upon to be established as scientific 'laws'.

Amen.. yeah.. not fitting here :D

Maybe the process of religion sometimes hindering sometimes advancing discovery could be modelled by giving/taking beakers away from certain techs, depending on state religion?
This would take of course a looot of time to decide which tech gets advanced/hindered by which religion.
 
Amen.. yeah.. not fitting here :D

Maybe the process of religion sometimes hindering sometimes advancing discovery could be modelled by giving/taking beakers away from certain techs, depending on state religion?
This would take of course a looot of time to decide which tech gets advanced/hindered by which religion.

Mostly those techs that cut the power of religious institutions were hindered
and also great wonders (think of the prevention of anatomical knowledge in Leonardos time).

Organized religions did however boost other tech/wonders that were like propaganda for the 'imaginable beauty' (as well as a 'graphic language' for analphabets) of their believe like seen in Sistine Chapel. So, yes, in the game the religion in terms of technology and buildings has to be a two-edged-sword
Spoiler :
and honestly you may ask yourself that for though the repressions of the churches and their corruptions made billions suffer and die over centuries that on this bulk of fecies sometimes something beautiful grows, which somehow "redeems" all humanity in the sense that although in subconscious and manipulated 'mass hypnosis' state mankinds fantasy and sense of beauty let even full-scale repression look kinda pretty in the retrospective...!? That really makes me :cry: one of the little Emo moments in my life. Hush, hush, thoughts! :help:

EDIT: :whew: I found back to my cynicism^^ in Germany we have a saying: "Sogar ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn" - which means like "A blind pig will even find an acorn" or "Every dog has it's day" (just with a blind chicken and a grain)
 
Religion Civics should contain the Civic choices that pertain to the religion usages. Under the current categories for the Civics, Society is the more logical place (from my point of view) for Atheism and Agnosticism. As these are more societal mindsets that can be interpreted as culture subsets of Society. Just as I feel that the Military Civics should be strictly Military oriented. So that Pacifism does not belong in the Mil Civic set but is again a Societal subset.
Civics represent how the majority and/or the state thinks about a subject or approaches a subject and Atheism and Agnosticism both are ways to think about religion so they fit well in the Religion Civics (and having them elsewhere would enable such weird combos like both Atheism and a State Church).
 
Civics represent how the majority and/or the state thinks about a subject or approaches a subject and Atheism and Agnosticism both are ways to think about religion so they fit well in the Religion Civics (and having them elsewhere would enable such weird combos like both Atheism and a State Church).


I wonder if Atheism should be available sooner but get certain bonuses with every tech that disapproves a religious believe. Like with knowledge of the weather system the idea that Zeus sends lightening gets more or less obsolete. So, if you were an atheist in classical era it would be more of an intuitive doubt of strange religious practices and explanations, the more tech that crushes the old believes of greek mythology or biblical creation stories, the more bonuses the atheism/agnosticism civic gets...

It would be quite a challenge to be the only atheist in 0 AD but you could beeline to certain techs to make it worthy and influence the world by your advances^^
Imagine that, like in slavery, all civs that don't accept a certain scientific discovery (like that lightening isn't caused by Zeus but by weather&electricity) would get a :mad: over time for denying this knowledge although the puclic has progressed beyond the old believes.
In game this could be like that there is a techleader with a powerful religion having many minions. Over time you beeline progressive techs to undermine his controll over the puppets by knowledge. A whole new strategy vs AI^^ (which of course could do the same to you if situation would be reverse)
 
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