[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Religions in freeciv?

["Daniel Speyer" <Daniel_Speyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've seen a lot of objections, and I'll try to concatonate them into one
responce

Preface: I am Jewish and actually take religion rather seriously.  I'm not
sure if that effects how you read this, but I figured you might want to
know.

/************Church of Emacs***********/

>I think robotics aren't good idea for prerequiste. It's better to
>introduce a new civilization advance named "Emacs" which requires
>Computers and Writing. Emacs would allow Church of Emacs.
>
I don't think it's worth messing with the tech tree for such an obscure
religion (I've never heard of   it as having any followers).  The
reasoning behind robotics is that Emacs came from the AI lab and AI is
related to robotics (sort of).  It's probably not worth including at all,
but anyway... (BTW, does anyone else think Freeciv should be a wonder
requiring computers?)

/******************Islam***************/

>Have You heard about Afganistan or Iran?
Exceptions to a 1400 year pattern.  And Afganastan looks more like
nationalism than Islam to me (just as much of 16th century Europe was
capitalist even though it called itself Christian).  (see more on this
question below).

>
>Again. Intolerance is not a property of certain religions, but is a
>property of fanatism. Today christian countries are rather tolerant and
>muslim aren't, but in middle ages muslim were and christian weren't. Also
>conflict with scolars in present world is characteristic for muslims
>rather than for christians, but in middle ages there was otherwise.
Fundamentalism is its own thing (as someone else pointed out as well).  I
don't know why it isn't a goverment type yet.  If religions get
implemented, fundamentalism certainly should.  However, there are real
differences between religions in terms of tolerance.  Islam permits
intermarriage with Jews and Christians, and allows them to live as equals
in the law (this is still true (I think) even in theocratic Islam nations,
except for those which expelled the Jews as part of the land conflict with
Israel).  Christian theocracies never acknowledged members of other
religions as equal citizens.  Christianity no longer has the power to
repress other religions, so we can't really tell if it's become more
tolerant.  Jewish theocratic law (which hasn't been practised for about
2500 years) grants equal citizenship but forbids intermarriage.  Buddhism
(to pick a very different example) semi-acknowledges the Hindu gods and
permits its members to also be Taoist or Shinto.  This was only a brief
selection, but you can se
e that there really are differences between different religions regarding
tolerance.

/*************Confusianism**************/

>Just alittle side note here guys, Confucian theory is not a 
>religion it is
>a practise. You don't worship Confucious. I think of the other 
>ones in
>there are also not really religions at all. Gotta be very 
>careful where
>you tread in this, for example if you start calling 
>confucianism a
>religion, then to are all the little cults that spring up also 
>religions.

It's hard to give a good definitionof religion.  The best I can come up
with is a set of fundamental (i.e. unjustified) beliefs that apply to
one's long-range purpose in life.  Confucianism certainly fits this
description.  More importantly, it can be used as an official national
religion (I think the Ming did this, among others).  As to not worshipping
Confucious, Jews don't worship Judah ;), Buddhists don't worship Buddha
(at least, not if I understand Buddhism), Shamanists don't worship
shamans, humanists don't worship at all -- religions don't have to be
about worship.  As to little cults, do they come smaller than the Church
of Emacs?

/*********************Real Religions****************/
>Don't use real religion names like Christianity, Judaism,
>    etc.  Use general categories.  "Animism" is good.  >"Polytheism" (in
>    the Greek/Roman sense) is OK.  But things start to get ugly >(IMHO)
>    when you bring in Monotheism.
We use real nation names.  Admittedly, they don't say much about the
nations, but there's some precedant there.  This might well be a reason
not to do it at all, but using generic categories is worse.  As the
preceding discussion of Christianity vs. Islam should amply demonstrate,
monotheism isn't monolythic.  Neither are the others, and everyone thinks
of their category as their religion.  I get *very* annoyed and a little
offended when people say things about "religion" that only apply to
Christianity and I would feel more so if it were said of "monotheism". 
It'spossible to make meaningful statements about specific religions,
butnot really about entire classes of them.

/************************Mixed Religions**********/
>How would minority religions would be handled?
This is a real problem, at least if we want to be realistic about
religion.  Even theocratic nations only achieved true homogenuity by
exiling/executing all nonbelievers.  In many cases it's easy to pick out
the ruling religion (Moorish Spain was Muslim, even though it had large
Jewish and Christian populations).  Other times it's not.  What's the U.S.
religion?  Officially, it's FoR, but Christianity, Capitalism and
Psychoanalysis are all capable of exerting real pressure.  What's China's
religion?  I think they're officially Authorian Atheist (after all,
they're officially communist) but you could make strong arguments for
Buddhism, Taoism or Confucianism.

Maybe there should be some capacity for a mixture of religions, with an
official religion that gradually converts people and an option of forced
conversion that decreases the population but brings everyone together in
one religion.  That would require partial application of each religions
effects, and for some things (unhappysize, fogofwar) that really doesn't
work.

Anyway, just some thoughts.  I don't mean to offend anyone.  I'm not at
all convinced that we should go ahead with religions in any form.

--Daniel Speyer
"May the /src be with you, always"