Something about religion, offensive to none

[Perfect_Blue]

Shinto is certainly a religion, quite independent of Buddhism. When Buddhism arrived in Japan, most notably as mentioned, in the form of Chan (Zen) it syncretized well with Shinto, but certainly didn't 'wipe it out' or 'subvert' it or any such thing.

 

[SmokeyD]

Additionally, Paganism, a religion ideal that is equally complex to Christianity or any other modern religion, if not more, was absolutely not incorporated into the game. Greco-Roman Polytheism influenced all of the western culture, Christianity, and is still a heavily literized mythology. References to this "paganism" are continously made from the dark ages to modern times. It is unfortunete that such an elaborite culture was ruthelessly destroyed by Christianity. While Greco-Roman Polytheists were very tolerant to other religions, Christianity was all persectuion. Just some information to consider

Paganism isn't a religion whole unto itself. It refers to any animistic, polytheistic religion. Thus it is entirely correct to call a druid, a pre-Christian Roman, a pre-Columbus Native American or anything of the sort a pagan, despite the very real and obvious differences between each of their religions.

 

[5cats]

Theres nothing in Christianity that specifically rejects circumcision. If there was then almost every boy born in the USA after WWI is not a Christian. The difference is that Christians don't do circumcision ceremoniously. It is not a religious event as it is with Jews.

For trivia's sake, for the first time since before WWI more boys born in 2000 were NOT circumcised in the USA than were. I guess people are finally realizing that it does absolutely NOTHING for the health of the child. Plus theres the accident factor....

Well that's my point For Christians it isn't "required" by God, so cut or uncut you're fine in the Lord's eyes.

Of course some people (TMI WARNING!!!) develope a condition where the foreskin becomes attached to, whatever you call it, and requires surgery. (otherwise ensuing infections will probably prove fatal)
Not that I know someone to whom this has happened to...

 

[SmokeyD]

Not fatal, but incredibly painful, dehabilitating and embarassing if it were allowed to continue.

 

[Older than Dirt]

Circumcision does have health benefits. It is also a reminder every time that one takes a leak that he is not to fornicate. Such a reminder might be helpful in reducing the spread of STD's and reduce cervical cancer not to mention violent deaths from jealous "lovers".

How can one be so incredibly ignorant to say that Greco-Roman paganism was tolerant? Was it not the Romans who put all the Druids to death by sword? Did not Nero use Christians as torches at his lawn parties? How many Roman emperors required everyone to swear "Caesar is Lord" (Kurios) or be executed? Maybe such things never really happened, just like Hitler really didn't murder all those Jews? Bah!

 

[SmokeyD]

Roman paganism was tolerant towards other religions... provided you still believed in Roman paganism. The pre-Christian Empire existed at a time when mutual exclusivity of religion was quite a rare thing, and the Roman pantheon had slowly grown to include almost every cult, sect and religion in the Empire. From a pragamatic Roman point of view, the more gods you had on side, the better you were going to do. Christianity and Judaism, in that respect, were quite exceptional in that they insisted on the existence of only one God, and that only He was worthy of worship.

The druids were erradicated more because they were a political threat to the Romans than because of their religion.

 

[Kerrang]

It is also a reminder every time that one takes a leak that he is not to fornicate. Such a reminder might be helpful in reducing the spread of STD's and reduce cervical cancer not to mention violent deaths from jealous "lovers".

How does the fact that the tip of my willy was lopped off when I was an infant remind me not to fornicate? I would think tattooing my wife's name on my schlong would be a better reminder (not that I have done that).

 

[Junichiro]

Yup, Roman empire had one set of faith everyone had to follow, that is, divinity of emperor. Sort of a worship of Roman empire. Outside that, most everything went (the thing with many polytheistic religions is that they tend to give divine status even to gods of different polytheistic religions, even if they are not worshipped "here").
Jews were freed from this practice due to long history of monotheistic isolationism. And as long as Christians were considered a sect of Judaism, they were free too from this practice...after it became clear that Christians and Jews have separated normal Roman laws applied to Christians and if they refused to admit divinity of emperor, they were considered political enemies of Roman Empire and suffered the fate.
Same political clause was indeed applied to druids, who did keep rather strong political influence over conquered Celts. They however are pretty much the only religious group who were destroyed by Romans of all the lands they conquered, and indeed some of the Mid-East mystery religions (like cults of Isis and Kybele) became rather fashionable in Rome.
So generally Roman empire was religiously tolerant if the religion didn't directly oppose the Empire (or was Judaism).

 

[Xineoph]

So Judaism should get +1 health due to circumcision?

Technically Muslims too right?

 

[Depravo]

How does the fact that the tip of my willy was lopped off when I was an infant remind me not to fornicate? I would think tattooing my wife's name on my schlong would be a better reminder (not that I have done that).

I had Gen. 38 9-10 tattooed on mine with room to spare.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

The Old Testament? Pure Judaism.

bedtime storys that have been told to babylonian kids and other mesopotamic civilizations. If there would be copyright in the old ages there wouldn't be an Old Testament

 

[JustAnotherUser]

Also, think how many oriental religions there already are. Taoism and Confucianism are Chinese, while Budhism and Hinduism are both indian. Why have 5 religions from one relatively small area of the world, and have just two religions from somewhere else? I'd replace Confucianism with Shintoism, as Confucianism isn't a religion.

I don't know what you are talking about. Confucianism is Incas , hinduism is greek, buddhism is ... Persian, I think, and taoism is from "a land far away".
Or at least that was the situation in the last game I played.

Civ is not a historical simulation, it don't and should not represent how things went but how they could have gone (or this is the way it should be, civ 4 is seriously lacking from this point of view), so what if judaism is not very influential in our history? in another "game" things could have gone differently.
The problem is that fireaxis should have never used real-world religions for his game, iot create only problem it should have used generic names that would have covered varied and different religions so judaism would be monoteism, hinduism, politeism, etc (shintoism, for example, from a (very quick) research on-line could enter under politeism or buddism ) or give the option to name your religion like it does for the cities .

 

[Albatoonoe]

I agree about the shintoism part. Although a lot of people don't know much about it, it did make an impact

Judaism is actually quite common, which is probably the main reason, and it also has had a great influence on HIstory.

Ancient Religions(Greco/Roman, Viking, Egyption, etc.) should probably be achnowledged as well. Although, possibly becoming obsolete with technology. Or hell, just put them in with the other religions.

 

[Xineoph]

bedtime storys that have been told to babylonian kids and other mesopotamic civilizations. If there would be copyright in the old ages there wouldn't be an Old Testament

This coming from the person who identifies himself as Stalin.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

yep and it's true, many similar stories (like simson and dilaila) are already told and writen in old babylonian and Assyrian

the bibel is just a book with some new christian texts and a lot of old copy work.


oh and my name make me lie well kind of a prejudice