Without Atheism the game would remain incomplete. A patch is anticipated I think!!!

[bman003]

And I thank God that I am not and He has given be the hope that a mod could arrive.

I think god should give the ability to spell and not have sentence errors, because I suck in that area too. Ever read genesis? Well there are more sentences in that section that start with And, along with a few other horrible sentence errors. Sorry about the hijack.

Once again I return to the crowd with *yea there should be atheism in the game*. LOL

 

[Sullla]

I think that you can make a valid case for putting Marxism into Civ4 as a religion, but Atheism is not something that really falls under what I'd consider a "religion" (closer to a philosophy). For that matter, I think that what the original poster wanted to see would be better summed up as Marxism than Atheism too.

 

[Deep_Blue]

I dont know why people make a fuss a bout minor things in Civ4 such as this. Why its so important to play the game under choice of no religion, after all its only a game ,plus religions are extra addition here to make the game deeper. If they didnt even add religions will you like the game less or more? I dont thing so because it is civilization that we all loved so much.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

re•li•gion P Pronunciation Key (r -l j n)
n.
1.
a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

a•the•ism P Pronunciation Key ( th - z m)
n.
1.
a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
2. Godlessness; immorality.


pa•gan P Pronunciation Key (p g n)
n.
1. One who is not a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, especially a worshiper of a polytheistic religion.
2. One who has no religion.
3. A non-Christian.
4. A hedonist.
5. A Neo-Pagan.

adj.
1. Not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.
2. Professing no religion; heathen.
3. Neo-Pagan.



Paganism is in the game already, it means about the same as Atheisism here's how:

Pagan = "One who has no religion"
Religion = "Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe"

If you have no Religion, AKA Pagan, you dont Believe in God! AKA Atheist

This information is from: Dictionary.com

 

[HourlyDaily]

@ Deep Blue

I'm not sure why - but I just wouldn't feel so proud of my own civ if it was one of the mainstream religions having victories over the other civ or converting one of its cities. Being an atheist, it would just annoy me and perhaps a little more than it should because it is small bananas.

. I think I'll stick to Confucianism as my state religion because, as has been said, it is more a philosophy. That is until I mod humanism - the closest to ideal modern state 'religion'.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

@ Deep Blue

I'm not sure why - but I just wouldn't feel so proud of my own civ if it was one of the mainstream religions having victories over the other civ or converting one of its cities. Being an atheist, it would just annoy me and perhaps a little more than it should because it is small bananas.

. I think I'll stick to Confucianism as my state religion because, as has been said, it is more a philosophy. That is until I mod humanism - the closest to ideal modern state 'religion'.

I can see way the makers of Civ.4 were a little guarded, when it came to adding Religion to the game! Just look at all the controversy it’s stirred up already and it’s not even out yet!

 

[warpstorm]

...and too boot all religions in the game are just names and a little icon.

 

[Japanrocks12]

Atheism can be like the period of Anarchy experienced during a revoulution. Or it can be like despotism, what you begin with.

 

[frekk]

Pagan = "One who has no religion"
Religion = "Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe"

But atheism is only lack of belief in gods. You could be religious and atheist - many sects of various Eastern religions are.

Similarities between various usages of a word do not necessarily connotate a synonym, except perhaps in contextual usage. Asserting that druids (who were pagan) were atheists is nonsense.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

But atheism is only lack of belief in gods. You could be religious and atheist - many sects of various Eastern religions are.

Similarities between various usages of a word do not necessarily connotate a synonym, except perhaps in contextual usage. Asserting that druids (who were pagan) were atheists is nonsense.

I guess we need to define the word God :
When I refer to God I'm refering to the God of Abraham, so to me Pagan's and Atheist's are the same thing! Under other Definitions of God you could have Pagan's that are religious and not Atheist's, but not under Framework of the God of Abraham!! BTW this is getting way to Involved!!

Pagan may refer to:
• A believer in Paganism or Neopaganism.
• One who follows a religion of European, North African, West Asian or Pre-Columbian American origin and who is not Christian, Muslim nor Jewish, or who does not worship the God of Abraham. Such usage, while traditional in the above three religions, may be considered derogatory. (Religions of Southern and Eastern Asian origin (eg. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Shinto) are generally considered to be pagan).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan

 

[frekk]

I guess we need to define the word God

I don't like rewriting the dictionary to suit preconceptions. The dictionary is there to provide immovable anchors, not wishy-washy buoys that one might move around at will, to suit or confuse. It is not a tool to be employed for obfuscation, but rather to provide clarity and solid landmarks in communication.

BTW this is getting way to Involved!!

It's not really involved at all. Atheism is not a religion, and atheism is not a synonym for paganism, except by the most convoluted subjective contexts. To be synonyms, the terms would have to match in their most common contexts, not in their utterly least common contexts. It would be very very simple if people wouldn't semantically contort the language to try to fit square pegs into round holes.

 

[Meleager]

Not another athiest thread PLEASE!!!!!

as phonix said aithiest = pagan!
pagan is in the game
case closed
can we move on with our lives?

now face my wrath for posting another evil athiest thread

 

[Truronian]

Atheism was the part and parcel of the communist ideology. It was communism's soul and if you read Marx's literature you will come to the same conclusion. It was considered a major tool with which the borguiese controlled the proletariat. Of course the Blosheviks allowed some religious practice but it was tightly controlled by them. Under them religion was largely a cosmetic practice. The Soviet Union was undoubtedly an atheist superpower which denied the existance of any supreme being and therefore you still see "In God we trust" message on every US dollar note. Its just now, after the end of communism, that religions throughout the world have again reemerged and gained importance in peoples lives; so huge was the impact of the Athiest religion/philosophy/ideology. Its a part of human history, you can not ignore it.

Atheism was a convemtience for Soviet Russia. For a start there is a difference between banning religion and denying its existance. Soviet Russia banned religion because they saw what a problem it had been for the Tsars. Atheism is not 'part of a communist's soul', it was a tool used to control the Russian Orthodox church. If you want proof, try reading about Trotsky, one of the most famous communists and a Jew. There have been no true Atheist states in history, just as there have been no true communist states. If your arguing for atheisms inclusion based solely on its connection to the USSR, then why not include the ancient Roman polytheist religion? It has had far more of an impact on history.

The fact is atheism has had next to no effect on the world today. If you want to include it, then mod it, but i doubt we'll see it in an expansion.

 

[TruePurple]

ISM? Atheism is about lack of faith, near as I can tell in civ4 religion is all about spreading it to others. Your going to preach lack of faith? Atheism isn't a religion, its a lack of religion.

Now religous freedom as a option would be interesting, you lack many of the specials of other religions but are resistant to other religions as well.

The whole religion thing is icing on the cake anyways, I much more care about what the base systems of civ4 is going to be and what kind of diplomacy and AI its going to have. Getting those other things in there is unimportant to me, we can always mod it in latter I'm sure.

 

[frekk]

Soviet Russia banned religion because they saw what a problem it had been for the Tsars. Atheism is not 'part of a communist's soul'

I beg to disagree. Marx wrote extensively of the need to abolish religion, a long long time before anyone would have associated communism with Russia - at the time Marx was writing, he felt England, or perhaps Germany or the USA, were the natural birthplaces for a communist revolution, as communism was to evolve from the most advanced stages of capitalist society, not a semi-feudal agrarian backwater.

One of Marx's more famous calls for the abolition of religion:

For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.

The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [“speech for the altars and hearths”] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks and must seek his true reality.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

-Karl Marx, in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February, 1844

 

[UWS]

Right, so Atheism was part of Marx's soul rather than the afore quoted "Communist's soul". How many communists do you know that rigorously adhere to Marx's idea without deviation at all? I'd be surprised if you knew any Come to think of it, how many "Communist" states do you know of that rigorously adhere to Marx's ideas without any deviation. Not many, if any

I think perhaps a better idea would be to incorporate 2 ideas into the new civics system. One would be Atheism (Neutrality), and the other, Suppression of Religion. That seems to be what you're looking. Paganism could simply represent primitive religion

 

[Markus6]

Atheism (Neutrality)

Atheism is not neutrality. Atheism is the belief that there is no god. If you want a neutral religious civic I think 'freedom of religion', which is already in, is a better name. For me it discribes the current situation in the U.K. and the U.S.A.

Suppression of Religion

This I'd definitely like to see and I think it has been important enough in History to be included. The ability to suppress ALL religions or just individual ones. Unfortunately, it's also quite a sensitive subject and doesn't look like it's made it into the game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I guess we need to define the word God :
When I refer to God I'm refering to the God of Abraham, so to me Pagan's and Atheist's are the same thing!

In game terms, this doesn't work at all, since we have Hinduism, Budism, and Taoism

 

[Markus6]

I guess we need to define the word God :
When I refer to God I'm refering to the God of Abraham, so to me Pagan's and Atheist's are the same thing!

When we can define the word God I doubt there will be any religious debates at all. Unfortunately that is a very Christianised view, even for Civ. Atheist's don't believe in ANY god. Pagan's just don't believe in your God, they can believe in a god, or many god's. To me the pagan civic option, as the starting case, is more of a tribalistic nature worship. It's got nothing to do with atheism and does not represent it in the game.

 

[frekk]

Right, so Atheism was part of Marx's soul rather than the afore quoted "Communist's soul". How many communists do you know that rigorously adhere to Marx's idea without deviation at all?

Atheism - or, to be more accurate, the abolition of religion - was a core tenet of Marxism and Communism, any which way you want to cut it, and long before the Russian Revolution. Whether all Marxists lived up to the core ideals of their theories or not, is irrelevant. The abolition of religion was as much an aim of the movement as a whole, as was the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

The Communist Manifesto begins by naming the Pope as an agent of oppression and enemy of communism (note: Pope, not Patriarch!!!), and names religion as "a bourgeouis prejudice, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeouis interests."