Real-world sensitivities and game names

[Saxon]

The point about the �render unto Caesar� is not that any of the various Christian splinters followed it before the Enlightenment. The point is that the idea gives an intellectual space for some Christians to accept a separation of church and state. As Tifone points out, it is not universally accepted by all Christians, but it is accepted by many. More important for this discussion, such a separation is accepted as a real possibility by many liberal believers and non-believers.

Many other faiths do not have this concept and some explicitly state the contrary. This does lead to a communications gap for many Westerners trying to understand politics and religion in other parts of the world.

It also explains why some people may be offended by various things in the game while others shake their heads. Some people don�t or can�t separate religion and the rest of their life and may be offended. Others see a massive separation and can not comprehend how another could be offended.

[Tifone]

"Accepted by many" you say, and I read "accepted by the surely many reasonable Christians, which understand that not everybody can be forced to follow their 2000 years old values, even if they personally have the right to do so".

In that, we can agree.
But just think about the many religious leaders crying out and blasting against "the secularism" (which is nothing more than "rendering unto Caesar") and the "cultural relativism" (which is a MODERN RECOGNISED VALUE to every lay State, as they don't accept /one/ religious culture to impose itself on the others).
You see every day on TV what I mean. Those preachers drive masses of millions, which vote what their beloved priest wants, often imposing at the present time, religious values on lay States and to people which have the right not to share them.

So maybe "rendering unto Caesar" isn't something the Christian religion is so good doing in the present. Not that the other main religions are better in this. I just think about Christianity because many see it as "the reasonable religion", while in fact it possesses unnumbered brainwashing and "past-adjusting" media and often fights to deprive the people of the "Gift of Reason" ( ) the Enlightenment bequeathed to us.

Peace

[JimMorrison]

Tifone said:
...vote what their beloved priest wants, often imposing at the present time, religious values on lay States and to people which have the right not to share them...

Quite possibly the single greatest failure of universal Democracy.....

[Tifone]

Yes Jim I agree it is. Expecially because democracy, as all the modern Constituions and the many Charters of Fundamental Rights say, doesn't absolutely mean that "the majority wins". This is "dictatorship of the majority", an abjection of the democracy known even by the ancient Greeks, and is the way some modern countrys work, mine often included.
The real democracy safeguards the minorities and doesn't impose -by violence or by aggressive creation of laws- the values of one culture on the others, expecially on the "grey areas of morality".
So yes, it is a great failure of democracy that the referendums and the "public opinion" are used by the aggressive religious majority to impose its will and culture on everybody in a nation.

[Agema]

No more prophets are needed for Christianity. The prophets foretold stuff relating to the return of the messiah. The messiah arrived, which means the next stop is Armageddon, and the ticket to travel is already printed.

* * *

In a real democracy, the people rule. Whether the majority wish to be tyrannical is neither here nor there. Arguably, states which safeguard against such behaviour are less democratic than those that don't.

What separation of church and state means is that there is no direct interference by the government on the church or by the church on the government. It does not mean that those with religious authority can't indirectly influence government by persuading adherents to do certain things.

If a religious majority wishes to impose it's will, in a general sense it should be allowed. After all, a capitalist majority can impose low taxation on a socialist minority. A punitive majority can keep the death penalty. A prudish majority can impose strict censorship of pornography or bad language on a permissive minority. There's no justification under democracy per se to second-guess the motivation of people just because it is religious.

[Tifone]

Sure. "If a religious majority wishes to impose it's will, in a general sense it should be allowed"! Yeah,! If a woman is raped in a Muslim fundamentalist country, SHE is condemned to death! But they have the right to do so! It's right! The majority decides, not the human rights!

"A punitive majority can keep the death penalty". If the majority approves torture, here we go! And if the death penalty is applied to girls which lose their virginity before marriage, or to "heretics", or "witches"? Oh, that's true, a punitive majority has the right to do so!

"A prudish majority can impose strict censorship of pornography or bad language on a permissive minority" The best one! Next step: censorship on art, on intellectual thinking, because just the "prudish" bigot majority has the right to decide what you can say or show!

This kind of fascist way of thinking made all my young brown hair, totally white. Oh but wait, you wait for Armageddon, so that all Christians go to Heaven and all the others, good people even non-believing, burn in hell for eternity... yeah, that pretty much explains everything

P.S. If you think this way, don't live in a free country. you would be deluded. Learn what a democracy is, please, before living into one.

[JimMorrison]

I find it very disturbing to think that Agema is in fact a Christian. All this time spent being cautious, and polite, avoiding stereotypes, and making comments about how many good people out there are highly religous.

And then, one nice big slap in the face, "It's okay for me to do whatever I want to you, because I am going to heaven, and you are not!".

If that is truly your belief, I have nothing but sorrow. For you. And for this world that is being torn to pieces by people who hold similar beliefs.

Your comments only serve to illustrate my point (especially with Tifone's masterful clarifications), that Democracy is failed by the masses.

[thejeff]

I didn't get that out of his post at all. The "no more prophets" stuff could just as easily be an outside description of Christian belief as his own opinion.

Nor did he comment on your own state of salvation or his, for that matter, much less "It's okay for me to do whatever I want to you"?
So, unless that's your opinion of all Christians, I can't see why you think it applies to Agema.

[Kristoffer O]

> Well it just seems to me that there hasn't really been a religion that has had a recognized prophet in over 1000 years.

There are plenty, and lots more than that. What do you mean by recognized BTW? Recognized by the movements own followers, or by at least one other religion or by an encyclopedia ?

BTW, religion is a western concept. In other cultures there are rarely words for the concept we call religion. It is so closely connected to society and the world at whole that it is not meaningful to talk about.

[JimMorrison]

Because Jeff, of all of the Americans that I know (which is a lot! ), the only ones who think there is absolutely no problem with Democracy allowing Christians to run roughshod over the beliefs and ideals of the rest of the population - are Christians themselves.

To everyone else it amounts to nothing short of government facilitated conversion.


I will admit, I got a bit ahead of myself, as I feel very passionate about humankind plotting a course that is unfettered and unhindered by superstition and mythology. Do I believe that is all that religion is? Of course not, but it's the only part that gets forced upon others. You can't enforce true faith, you can't enforce virtue and harmony - you can only enforce dogmatic behavior.


And again, I will stop to clarify. I don't have a problem with religious people in general, and I think the majority of people who live their lives according to the tenets of a religious teaching, are decent people.

What I do have a problem with, a growing problem, probably because of the US involvement in the Middle East - is the people who think there really is some sort of war for souls going on in the world - who think that they are following the one true faith, and that all others are being misled by satanic forces. These people may be in the minority, but they are the problem, and they have enough sway in the world to still make terrible things happen, even in this modern age.