Humanism as religion #8

[vingrjoe]

I want to point out that Jehovah's Witnesses are not the only representation on Christianity like stated above, but it is because they are not Christians. They don't believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or that He died for the sins of the world and that He was resurrected. They believe totally different. Jehovah's witnesses believe they can earn their salvation through their own effort (a common theme among many major religions). They, like alot of others, think Christ was just a prophet, or a good teacher.

 

[bathsheba666]

And my personal God is observed throughout even the existing Civs - when the RNG kicks in with its tricks.

In deference to a million years of evolution, I never respond: "Glory be, a miracle !"

Nietzche, rather amusingly, mentioned the concept of the superman - rising above the chaos in the universe and laughing at it.
(I wonder, does the appearance of localised order deny this perspective, or merely throw it into even starker relief)

 

[bathsheba666]

But atheism is not a religion though so I'm not sure this should be a religion.

Ah but why not?

If the main characteristic of a religion is a central belief in something that cannot be proved - like God - then Atheism is a religion.

Christians believe in God. They cannot prove his existence, and this is part of the brand. They MUST have FAITH. Watch out Thomas...

Atheists believe in no God. They cannot disprove his existence, and therefore their belief is simply a matter of FAITH.

FAITH (in the absence of facts) (ok, plus a bunch of ceremonials) = Religion.

 

[ThERat]

there will be this civic option called 'religious freedom' or whatever it is called and it will allow you to have a true multireligious country, my choice. And I agree it has to include atheism. If you don't like the word, use what they call it here in Singapore: free thinker (I like this expression). Or use humanism by all means.

In my mind, such a state should enjoy the biggest bonus with regards to culture, research and others, since it would allow for real freedom of thinking. Examples in history are plenty. Of course, there should be a balancing side effect and that is, the whole world would envy this state and be 'aggressive' towards it.

Any opinions

 

[Darwin420]

@vngrjoe: my inlaws are Jehovahs, and they consider themselves "christian" . Maybe I should have said something like Greek Orthodox cannot be used as a singular representation of Christianity. My point, however, was that one sect of a belief system cannot be used to generalize the entire belief system.

 

[vingrjoe]

I understand the point you were making Darwin420, regarding representaion of a single faith.

Jehovah's witnesses' beliefs deny the Trinity, Christ's Deity, Christ's Bodily Resurrection, that the Holy Spirit is God, and Christ's full atonement for our sins.

So if I knew someone who were a Jehovah's Witnesses and claimed to be a Christian, I would be quite confused. Of course, this isn't anything new, sadly many people call themselves Christians, but do not live the life of a Christian, nor do they know God's truth and love God and alot don't even admit they are sinners or are imperfect.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Darwin, I agree with your underlying point that one instance of a belief system (Catholicism, Sunnism, Hellenism, etc.) should not be generalized to encompass the entirity of that belief system (Christianity, Islam, various Polytheistic pantheons).

I think part of our problem is that humanism isn't always used precisely. I would imagine most folks don't know much about the AHA you mentioned. Instead, most people probably use humanism to exemplify a certain belief set, whether it's attached to a religion or not. For instance, the civil rights movement in the US, though attributed to humanism earlier in the thread, was definitely attached to various religious movements (that of Malcolm X to Islam, Martin Luther King Jr. to Christianity, etc.)

That said, I find the idea of Humanism included as a religion to be intriguing and think it has possibilities.

 

[Darwin420]

I take it it's their personal preference. The only time they'll mention it is when comparing religions.. but 99.9% of the time they refer to themselves simply as Witnesses.

Back on topic, though: hopefully more belief systems will be represented. With my wife being an Earth Pagan (Eclectic Witch, to be exact), I'd like to see something representing the Earth Religions, which are far older than most other religions in the world, and many of the beliefs in the Earth Religions were taken in by the newer religions (i.e; father, son, holy ghost = mother, babe, crone). It would also be interesting to see Religions evolve and change over time.

 

[wotan321]

Whoa whoa whoa.... are you saying there is NO Santa Claus? OMG! I need a drink...

 

[Dida]

Having a state religion will provide some benefits, according to the previews, but I think having a state religion should also come with some drawback. Religion/blind faith is a double edge sword.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

So if i make my state a communist state and following Marxist rules then it should be an athist state because communism bans religion.

And in civ you have to have a religion or can you chose to ban al religion and order your people not to listen to misionaries.

Oh and where are the dead religions (greek, roman, viking, incan, egyptian religions) the game is about rewriting history so what if the romans never confurted to christianety and stayed with there own beliefs

I WANT TO WORSHIP: Hades, Ares, Seth or Loki (im not evil those gods just popped up in my head)

 

[Dida]

Please note, Hades was not evil, he was just assigned to govern the dead realm.

 

[Darwin420]

Neither were Ares, Seth, or Loki... well, Seth is debatable.

 

[JavalTigar]

NO SANTA!

Next you'll tell me some bad things about the easter bunny.

The tooth fairy is real, Right?

 

[Mark Anthony]

I included the bible versus as well in case someone wants to confirm these claims of the Christian faith, and it is my hope some do open up a bible and check it out. My reference for the above points are from the book: So What's the Difference ? A Look at 20 Worldviews, Faiths and Religions and How They Compare to Christianity written by Fritz Ridenour.

Just FYI:

The book Mind Siege is another good source explaining the rise of the Humanist/Secularist/Marxist movements (particularly in the United States) over the past hundred or so years and how their practitioners (who make up less than 10 percent of the US population) are the ones dictating (through lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and poorly conceived/poorly written legislation) what the other 90% should be thinking, saying, doing and what they can't.

Sounds like Spiritual Apartheid to me

Oh, but don't read the first chapter. It is a fictualization of the concepts covered in the rest of the book. Tim LaHaye can NOT write fiction. That's why he partnered with Jerry B. Jenkins for the Left Behind series.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

So plenty of folks here seem to keep mentioning the lack of a fair "atheistic" alternative to a state religion in Civ4.

But there is an alternative, isn't there?

I believe one of the later civics options was "freedom of religion" or something like that. Rather than getting a bonus for one particular religion, the bonus is based on the number of different religions you have in your state. Thus, you don't have a "state religion" anymore, but instead let religions be.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Freedom of religion is different from atheism. I think a lot of people would like an empire that didn't have ANY religion. I'd elaborate further, but we've discussed this, ad nauseum, in other threads.

 

[qazxc]

If we're going to include Humanism then we should also include "The church of what's happenin' now."
Humanism is a notion - not a religion.

q

 

[Torinth]

Humanism is a notion - not a religion.

I don't know about that, qazxc. Humanism has some pretty well-established principles (rights equality amongst humans, primacy of individual thought and practice or empiricism over divine writ, etc.), some obvious and self-identified organizations (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, etc.), and plenty of philosophical underpinnings (Kant, Jefferson, Russell, Popper, etc.) that reach back nearly 400 years in their modern form. It's an influential movement that has had an incredible influence on the 19th and 20th century--so much so that many humanists don't even realize that the way they see issues is dramatically different way and no less dogmatic manner than their pre-Enlightenment forbearers.

So unless your key criteria for identifying religion includes a reliance on some sort of supernaturalism, or that they orginited over XXX years ago (sorry Mormons, Adventists, Scientologists, etc.), humanism should qualify as well as anything else. It's molded modern Western culture no less than Catholocism shaped pre-Enlightenment European culture or Confucianism and Daoism shaped the culture of pre-modern China and has enough publicity to be credited as such.

 

[kaoruchan]

I have a very novel idea. Perhaps instead of including any named religions, Firaxis could simply allow the player to enter the names of their own religions at the beginning of a game, thus negating any argument about religion and adding a new factor of fun to the game: creating your own religion and spreading it around the world.