Wesnoth and Religion

[Hulavuta]

[HomerJ]

I tend to look at it from a scientific view; thus, no god for me. I was raised though in sunday school, and everyone should agree with the values learned there. What I dislike is how some(Unfourtunaly more like most) Christians interpret the Bible as their science textbook.

I myself think in a most similar way. I do not believe in the God as He is described in the bible, and I like to think of Jesus as just a regular guy with the right attitude. I still consider myself a christian because of the core values.

Greetz
HomerJ

[Hulavuta]

I'm kind of holding back here because I don't want to end up with this closed or myself banned, but that makes it more of a philosophy for you rather than a religion.

[Noy]

Who said it was the policy?

Wait .. it's not the policy? Because a lot of people (including myself) thought that it is. After all, there's that nifty acronym everyone throws around.

Umm, there has never been a "policy" persay. Certainly there has been a series of decisions thus far to not include overt religious references within the default setting. But its not like we ever said no religion whatsoever.

[Gambit]

I myself think in a most similar way. I do not believe in the God as He is described in the bible, and I like to think of Jesus as just a regular guy with the right attitude. I still consider myself a christian because of the core values.

Right. And it's important to remember that all the books in the bible (save perhaps Genesis) were written by men, edited by men, translated at least a dozen times by men, and then cherry picked through by men hundreds of years after their original writing, and then translated a few more times by men, to make up the book we have today.

[boru]

Wait .. it's not the policy? Because a lot of people (including myself) thought that it is. After all, there's that nifty acronym everyone throws around.

Umm, there has never been a "policy" persay. Certainly there has been a series of decisions thus far to not include overt religious references within the default setting. But its not like we ever said no religion whatsoever.

Umm, thanks.

[TheGreatRings]

That policy is a complete farce. The campaigns are replete with religious references: there's the elves' faith in Under the Burning Suns, the two white mages' references to "Lords of Light" or somesuch in Northern Rebirth, Haldric's use of the term "Unholy" to describe necromancy in Rise of Wesnoth, and the visit to the land of the dead in Delfador's Memoirs.

Who said it was the policy?

Eh, I thought it was (or at least used to be) a rule. Maybe that's changed, and if so I'd say its for the best.

[Sgt. Groovy]

And it's important to remember that all the books in the bible (save perhaps Genesis) were written by men, edited by men, translated at least a dozen times by men, and then cherry picked through by men hundreds of years after their original writing, and then translated a few more times by men, to make up the book we have today.

And that's how we got the "no women in the clergy" and "the man is the head of the family" parts, neither God nor Jesus had anything to do with that.

[Gambit]

And it's important to remember that all the books in the bible (save perhaps Genesis) were written by men, edited by men, translated at least a dozen times by men, and then cherry picked through by men hundreds of years after their original writing, and then translated a few more times by men, to make up the book we have today.

And that's how we got the "no women in the clergy" and "the man is the head of the family" parts, neither God nor Jesus had anything to do with that.

Amen.
[/irony]

[sur.nhm]

And it's important to remember that all the books in the bible (save perhaps Genesis) were written by men, edited by men, translated at least a dozen times by men, and then cherry picked through by men hundreds of years after their original writing, and then translated a few more times by men, to make up the book we have today.

And that's how we got the "no women in the clergy" and "the man is the head of the family" parts, neither God nor Jesus had anything to do with that.

you can add the Qur'an to that and get suicide bombers, female genital cutting and accusitions of deicide.

[Sir_Koi]

For me, it's been difficult to write a campaign with no religious references. Even a casual oath like "damn" or "hell" conflicts with a totally secular world. So what do they say when they stub their toe? "Ye gods" is out. It does blandularize the atmosphere somewhat, but luckily we can write our own stuff fairly easily.

That's because Wesnoth has a 'fantasy setting' and with a few exception pretty much all fantasy settings are based upon the Middle Ages. Due to religion and warfare being the primary matters of concern in this era the religious tones are to be expected. As such it is unlikely that any religious allusions are intentional (unless it's some extremist publisher).

And that's how we got the "no women in the clergy" and "the man is the head of the family" parts, neither God nor Jesus had anything to do with that.

Let's keep gender roles out of this - it's not like this thread needs more philosophical topics (and is an entirely different topic).

As for the topic at hand as far as I can see it...

Spoiler:

Dwarves - technocrats/atheists (although I can't say I've played that many of their campaigns - traditionally they are presented as having Norse beliefs)
Elves - Pagan (elves are pretty much always presented as nature worshippers)
Loyalists - Christian (only slight links, nothing overt like the elves)
Orcs - atheists(?) (don't recall any mention of any war gods or anything like that, but their brutality seems kind of aimless without one)
Saurians - Occult, Satanism(?), Voodoo through their very tribal mannerisms
Trolls - Buddhist? (through living in seclusion and attempts at peace)
Undead - Occult

[thespaceinvader]

Sir_Koi: your interpretation is plain wrong. None of our factions have (with a few minor exceptions mentioned previously in this thread) any explicit religious sysems, and they CERTAINLY do not follow any real-world religions.

Take care when applying the real world to Wesnoth. WINR.

[johndh]

Is there ever given an in-universe explanation for Wesnoth religion, or lack thereof (Like the gods left, or killed each other, or something?) or is it never mentioned? I don't recall anything of the kind, but there's a lot of territory I haven't covered.

[thespaceinvader]

It's never mentioned IIRC, save for a couple of cases, one of which turned out to be fake anyway,as previously mentioned here.

[Iris]

Is there ever given an in-universe explanation for Wesnoth religion, or lack thereof (Like the gods left, or killed each other, or something?) or is it never mentioned? I don't recall anything of the kind, but there's a lot of territory I haven't covered.

While I'm not attempting to explain why the mainline races don't seem to have well-defined religions, I'm currently working on a semi-secret project with several other people to explain some things hinted at in UtBS, things involved in IftU/AtS/TSL, and other things that have never been dealt with in any mainline campaign.