Fan of theocracy?

I think religion is autocratic and oppressive by nature. It uses mythology and the supernatural, things we cannot examine empirically or rationally for ourselves, as tools for control and power. Religions try to impose order and rules by asserting things that are intangible, if not outright imaginary, and then asking us to just trust them on it. Then they violate our trust and tell us that while people are fallible the Imaginary Being in the Sky (or His/Her/Its son, messenger, or pizza delivery person) is Divine, so we should continue to trust in Him/Her/It, and we'll be rewarded after we die (which we should be eager to do, for the sake of the religion). Religions shouldn't even get tax exemptions.
 
I haven't actually played Civ that much. The +2 experience points sounds quite powerful to me! Or isn't it?
Theocracy in Civ4 already has the +2xp (and no non-state religion spread).
To me that seems a bit lacking.
In some of the mods I've been playing, such as Realism Invictus, they moved the +2xp over to a new Civic named Militancy.
I prefer it over there myself.
Just because a religion has a stronger role in a government doesn't mean their people are always whipped up into some kind of frenzy or more effective in combat someway.
 
I think religion is autocratic and oppressive by nature. It uses mythology and the supernatural, things we cannot examine empirically or rationally for ourselves, as tools for control and power


There are many people who are spiritual who think that you or anyone else should not do anything that you don't find rational to do. You can be rational and religious at the same time! This has been a debate in Western religious philosophy for a long time. Thomas Aquinas is one example of this, and I have been reading about other theologians who already in the middle ages thought we should use as much technology as was needed to get a good society where we could live in harmony with the earth.

There has been empirical work, done for instance by William James, who collected the experiences of "saints", monks and regular people, who had had an important religious EXPERIENCE. He made theories on the basis of all these experiences. I don't agree with all his theories, but I agree when he said that they bear witness to an overarching "reality" and "power". I don't remember it all. Very interesting chapter in a very readable book: 9 Theories of Religion :)

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One thing I think is funny is: The first chapter in the book, the subject of which is an atheist, has a lot of arguments, and his arguments I think leads to believing in spirits, while he thinks they should lead to atheism. How this is possible, i don't know! :lol:
 
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Just because a religion has a stronger role in a government doesn't mean their people are always whipped up into some kind of frenzy or more effective in combat someway.

I believe they would be less afraid of dying... And in a hostile environment, the leaders could stir up a frenzy. Being less afraid of dying the citizens could do combat effectively. And in other respects, like taking orders from the leaders.

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I am not sure what has happened in the theocracies of the world, I will have to wait for my book to arrive, but this combat boost I believe didn't help much in either Tibet of Bhutan. Tibet got "bulldozed" by the Chinese and Bhutan I don't know much about but I don't think they are military strong!
 
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There are many people who are spiritual who think that you or anyone else should not do anything that you don't find rational to do. You can be rational and religious at the same time! This has been a debate in Western religious philosophy for a long time. Thomas Aquinas is one example of this, and I have been reading about other theologians who already in the middle ages thought we should use as much technology as was needed to get a good society where we could live in harmony with the earth.

There has been empirical work, done for instance by William James, who collected the experiences of "saints", monks and regular people, who had had an important religious EXPERIENCE. He made theories on the basis of all these experiences. I don't agree with all his theories, but I agree when he said that they bear witness to an overarching "reality" and "power". I don't remember it all. Very interesting chapter in a very readable book: 9 Theories of Religion :)
Yes, when someone says they're "spiritual but not religious", I tend to take that as "I reject the hierarchical power structure built to sustain those who've attained power through it and maintain the oppressive status quo." Of course, I worry that those people might accidentally throw out the baby with the bathwater, and reject the worldly good a church can do while keeping the mumbo-jumbo. But people can have their mumbo-jumbo if they want it. Unlike a lot of religious people, I firmly support freedom of religion, as I support all sorts of personal expression. Let your freak flag fly, I say.

I've never read Aquinas. I do enjoy philosophies of different sorts, though. I might take him out for a spin.
 
I've never read Aquinas. I do enjoy philosophies of different sorts, though. I might take him out for a spin.
I'd say he is overrated. I listened to the first quarter of his Summa Theologiae as a Librivox audiobook three years ago (that was all that had been recorded at that time) and found it very disappointing. It is mostly him knocking down a bunch a very weak straw man arguments, but occasionally a decent argument against the Catholic orthodox position gets through. In those cases he does not actually counter the argument with an argument of his own, but rather cites the authority of Aristotle, Augustine, (Pseudo-)Dionysius the Areopagite (whom he considered a genuine 1st century Apostle rather than a 6th century forger), or a bible verse taken wildly out of context. He focuses a lot on the strict distinction between completely inert matter and the active spirit needed to move it, and of course the concept of God as "pure act."

Of course, if you think Aristotelian physics is correct and makes the best foundation on which to build an entire worldview, then you'd probably love him.
 
I haven't actually played Civ that much. The +2 experience points sounds quite powerful to me! Or isn't it?

It's not that powerful. At most it's another promotion, which marginally increases the survival rate of your units. Useful, but not usually going to be decisive. I am a huge warmonger in Civ IV and I never use Theocracy and I do just fine.
 
I'd say he is overrated. I listened to the first quarter of his Summa Theologiae

The little I have read of Aquinas is from chapter 1 of the Summa Contra Gentiles. He speaks a little about how people come by knowledge. I had a pretty bad impression of Aquinas from before, but what I read here was a little exciting. Nothing of the dreaded Aristotelian physics. I will try to read a little from the other Summa, that MagisterCultuum mentioned.

The book I mentioned is probably more rewarding. It has chapters about both believers and atheists. But it spells out their beliefs or opinions very clearly and treats them fairly, in my opinion.
 
It's important to remember that Aquinas wasn't actually arguing against atheists in his various Summa - atheists functionally didn't exist in this era, and if they did, they certainly weren't publicly offering up reasoned positions for theologians to tilt at. Atheists weren't the threat in 13th century Europe - hell, even the possibility of Christians becoming atheists wasn't the threat. Aquinas's objective was to use the Organon of Aristotle - and more particularly the notes provided by Maimonides and Averroes - to help already-believing Christians allay their fears about whether the path they were on was correct. His tracts presuppose the existence of God, which is why his arguments ring rather hollow today, in a world where plausible rational argumentation for atheism exists. Make no mistake though, Aquinas was extraordinarily influential in the Medieval period. In Christian academia there were a handful of figures so influential as to be granted a 1-name epitaph. Paul was The Apostle, Averroes was The Commentator, Augustine was The Doctor. Thomas Aquinas is The Theologian.
 
I believe theocracies have fared better when it comes to the environment; the technologies non-theocracies have developed and the way they have used them have left us in a dire situation - globally.

In my opinion most governments are corrupt, so I find it interesting to study other sorts of government than those where I live.

Still, it could be that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others! (unknown source)
 
The obvious problem with theocracy is that it's only good for members of a very specific faith. Everybody else suffers.

As such it should never be implemented anywhere, except for in video games.

hm... interesting thought! But isn't it enough with one faith for each country? Come to think of it, isn't a plurality of religions or faiths a rather new circumstance?
 
hm... interesting thought! But isn't it enough with one faith for each country?

How can it be enough? I can't think of one country on the planet that only has people from one faith and nobody else.

Even if there was a country like that, theocracies frequently disadvantage and persecute those who want to leave that faith.

Come to think of it, isn't a plurality of religions or faiths a rather new circumstance?

Yeah, as our societies have become more inclusive and civilized, we've tried to shed such concepts as slavery and theocracy.
 
The obvious problem with theocracy is that it's only good for members of a very specific faith. Everybody else suffers.

As such it should never be implemented anywhere, except for in video games.
I don't even think it's good for the people of the faith. Imagine if the Catholic child-rapists could just decide it was legal. We're having enough of a hard time putting them in prison as it is. And don't even get me started on what Saudi Arabia or the Taliban think of women and homosexuals.
 
I "believe" peoples were more homogeneous in other ages. In a Greek city-state there was the people of that state, and a few foreigners. It was considered a big punishment to be exiled from your city-state. And they had a set of official deities people could worship. Remember that the famous Greek philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death for making up new deities.

In China and Japan, as it is today more or less, there are mostly one type of people. (As China expanded, this changed of course.)

In my country, Norway, I think there were only to kinds of faith in days past: Norse religion and later Catholic Christendom. And the latter more or less subjugated the former. I am aware that paganism was persecuted by the Catholic church though. But for a long time there was mostly talk of one religion

I don't have a complete set of knowledge of countries and empires past; please correct me if I am wrong.
And other things might have been different also.

I think we might agree that in our days, it is different!

Edit: Typo
 
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It's not that powerful. At most it's another promotion, which marginally increases the survival rate of your units. Useful, but not usually going to be decisive. I am a huge warmonger in Civ IV and I never use Theocracy and I do just fine.

Theocracy is weaker than pacifism and organized religion on average in Civ 4, but it is still a good civic in some situations and there's a good reason elite deity players make use of it, in contrast to something like serfdom which I've only even heard of seeing serious consideration in later-era start games.

The specific reason is that coupled with a barracks you are guaranteed 2 promotions. For most unit classes this is at least a 10% advantage vs units that don't have 5xp, but if you utilize city raider or counter-promotions like shock it can be significantly more and swing expected :hammers: saving beyond what you can get out of OR, even factoring anarchy for non-spiritual/golden age timing. Barracks + theocracy also lets you draft units with promotions.

The more you avoid building trap-buildings in terms of opportunity cost, the more likely theocracy beats out OR in Civ 4. Pacifism for fast great person production --> tech lead --> theocracy + unit production --> conquer is a relatively common play.
 
Anyone else here fan of Theocracy? Either in game or outside of Civ 4... :)

I think religious ways of doing things are exciting. I try to follow the motto:
Bring the physical forward with the spiritual.

But getting religious men into ruling position can be difficult. Might be the result of a revolution which brings a lot of risk.

And if priests or godly men were to rule, then maybe power would corrupt? Maybe democracy is the safest bet!
A question? Why is only RL or Civ4 specifically called out? In Civ2, there's also a government type on this model, though it's called Fundamentalism, not Theocracy (virtually analogous terms, especially given what's represented), and is a very distinct government type from any other in Civ2. Why was not even acknowledged in the question?
 
A question? Why is only RL or Civ4 specifically called out? In Civ2, there's also a government type on this model, though it's called Fundamentalism, not Theocracy (virtually analogous terms, especially given what's represented), and is a very distinct government type from any other in Civ2. Why was not even acknowledged in the question?

I have played Civ 2, but it is a long time ago and I only got around to fiddling around on the lower levels.
I am sorry for that!
I did enjoy the Fundamentalism and the fundamentalists or fanatics or what they were called. Being in a game I would think that it couldn't hurt. Civ 2 is a long time back.
I thought it was very interesting, although I now have quite enough with getting to grips with the Civ 4 religious civics.

Please elaborate if you wish...
 
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