Alright, this falls in my category of "Post once about my opinion, then leave". If you feel so inclined to quote me, and dispute my beliefs, do so. However, I won't reply (unless of course you PM me
)
First thing: I think, just so that you understand where I am coming from, I am a Christian, and have always been. However, I have always been extremly good with sciences, and even got the top award for my school in Y13 (the final year) of biology. So don't for a second think that I haven't thought long and hard about the whole Creation/Evolution debate.
Now, in Civ IV, there are a couple of things that I agree with and a couple of things that I disagree with. However, to answer the original question on this thread: Fireaxis decided not to implement Atheism as a religion, as then they would have 15 page threads about this issue
.
#1: I think Atheism is a religion, if we define a religion to be "A belief system that is not scientifically provable". If someone 'proves' to me that atheism (or, for that matter, any form of theism) is true, then I will reconsider that statement. However, I define scientifically provable to mean "Uses the scientific method", which includes that the proof must be observable, and repeatable, which (obviously) all creation theories (including creationism, which I believe in) cannot ever fall into. That shouldn't put you off, so go ahead and do so! New knowledge is never made by accepting that the old knowledge is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
#2: However, Atheism is NOT like ANY form of religion in Civ IV. There is no holy city of Atheism. The only possible shrine is Darwins book on Evolution, commonly regarded as the beginning of the popularization of Atheism. There are no Atheist missionaries (The closest thing in the real world to Atheist missionaries already exist. They are called Great Scientists, and even that is a HUGE stretch of the imagination, as most Great Scientists in Civ IV are either Christian, or follow some other belief. A few late-game Great Scientists don't fall into that category, however by-and-large, they are theists).
#3: Contrary to popular belief, there CAN exist a state-atheist country, and there definitely exists one in South America, and there used to be one in Asia.
#4: For some strange reason, Free Religion comes with a science boost. It is important to note that religion DOES NOT impede science (note: Evolution, often used in disproofs of this statement, is NOT science, along with all other creation theories. They are not repeatable, nor observable, thus they are not science. Until someone creates a "universe in a box", a creation theory CANNOT EVER be proved). Often, religion helps religion along, as people try to find out why their God(s) made the universe the way they did. Theocracy is the exception, as any new thoughts were accused with heresy. Therefore, Theocracy should realistically be given a science DEFICIT, and a higher free experience bonus. Free religion should have more expensive missionaries, however not require a monestry, and organized religion have only monestry-free missionaries for the state-religion.
#5: Free religion does NOT mean atheism. You can have a free religious empire, where everybody believes in a religion (ie. no atheists), as long as everyone is willing to do so. Free religion does NOT create atheism either. Atheism was created in Organized Religion countries more often than not.
#6: Paganism does NOT mean atheism. Paganism is a form of theism, rather a primitive form of theism that has no major hierarchy of "Gods", just a hodgepodge of equally-ranked good and bad spirits. Paganism is the 'art' of scaring away the evil spirits, while calling the good spirits towards the dwelling. Paganism is NOT dead, and there are still practicing pagans.
When you add these 5 points together, you get a shocking conclusion. In Civ IV, there are NO ATHEISTS, nor any way you can imagine a atheist existing (unless you call, say 95%, of the late-game no-religion populace (if they exist. I haven't added up the percentages of religions in the late game, to see if they add to 100%...) atheists, however it is also possible that they are just all pagans
). Why isn't this large chunk of people largely left out of Civ? Because Fireaxis, rather wisely, knew that if they included atheism as a religion, then they would draw HUGE anger from the atheists, linking their beliefs with a religion. If you added state-atheism as a civic, then it could potentially work, but it would destroy the work you have done of spreading your religions into the right part of your civ, and would imply that, unless you were using this civic, you have very few atheists in your civilization.
Feel free to quote me in further posts, but don't feel sad when I don't reply. If you feel like you don't agree with me strongly enough, feel free to PM me, and I will listen, and reply to your comment. Unless of course that comment has no real point in it, other than saying that I am wrong. (I did get a PM in another forum after posting in a thread like this. It said quite simply "You are wrong". After asking WHY I was wrong, he replied "I am right, and therefore you are wrong. There is no other way to think about that". I ignored him after that message
). However, CIV Fanatics: This is a very calm, collected and logical discussion. You aren't off-topic, nor flaming (or flaming very very quitely and discreetly). So keep up the good work
[Edit] Actually... there is a possible method to implement it: Having the atheist 'missionary' as the unit that kills non-state religions in a city (used in Gods of Old, and some other mods. From my vague memory, its called the inquisitor), and then have some State-Atheism civic that gives unhappyness for each religion, and no state religion. However, this is also VERY controversial, as that implies that all Atheists are extremist, and won't allow another religion to exist, which isn't realistic at all, and also ruins your hard work in organising the religion from the previous millenia.
Slightly off topic, the Gods of Old mod becomes VERY interesting once the AI adopts free-religion. All the religions go bye-bye as the Inquisitors remove ALL religion from the civilisation, and then they constantly spam Inquisitors trying to stem the slow flow of religion which occurs naturally. They all suddenly become very, very weak
. Luckily, it means for the state-atheism civic, no changes need to be done for the AI
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