Wesnoth and Religion

[johndh]

Since she was burned at the stake in 1431 and made a saint almost 500 years later, we can safely say they were not the same Catholics, and therefore "changed their minds" is a bit of an exaggeration.

Indeed. Maybe I worded that wrong. I was referring to the organization as a whole, rather than individual members. Point being, what might look like demonic magic to one group at a particular time might look like divine miracles to another.

Personally, I don't like to lump Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants together either (I'm not saying any of them are more or less Christian than any other, but they're just so different that I think it's hard to fairly call them all the same religion), but the Biblical definition of witchcraft is pretty much the same across the board as far as I know. Of course, the definition is subject to interpretation, like whether or not astrology counts as "divination", which is (as I recall) one of the specific forms of magic mentioned in Leviticus(?) as being unholy. Once again, a thin line between demonic divinations and divine prophecy, from the outside looking in.

Also, (and I know I'm going to take a lot of heat for this statement) I don't put Catholicism and Protestant Reformed Christianity together.

Why does everybody leave out Orthodoxy?

[Simons Mith]

[In response to an earlier post I've just seen in this thread. I don't want to derail the thread - if anything like that happens please ask for this post to be split and/or locked.]

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.

Heh, NRIW (no religion in Wesnoth) is the acronym that won't die. Possibly because it's so similar to WINR (Wesnoth is not realistic), which is official.

NRIW was actually intentionally removed from the Wiki acronym list after I added it while trying to be helpful. Maybe it does need to be re-added just so that it can be specifically flagged as not the official position.

[I assume NRIW hasn't been re-added in the year since I last looked, but with the Wiki down at the moment I can't check. Likewise I've got a lot of posts to catch up on since I was last here so I might be out of date again.]

This thread has more info, including links to earlier discussions. http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=25928

See also http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 18&start=0
Please take particular note of the final post by Boucman, in green. I believe that even though it was posted a year ago it remains the final word from the devs on this subject.

As I understand it, the reason NRIW isn't wanted as an official position is that, for example, if somebody wanted to use the Wesnoth engine to model a campaign about, say, Joan of Arc, attempting to model the historical battles she led during the Hundred Years' War, then that would be an entirely legitimate thing to do. In fact, I think it would be fascinating. I'd love to play it. And if that campaign was sufficiently well-written, it could well be added to mainline. Trying to reconcile a hard-and-fast 'No Religion in Wesnoth' rule and a mainline campaign with Joan of Arc as the main protagonist clearly makes no sense. On the other hand, offending people with pseudo-religious fiction that appears to parody their real beliefs is also undesirable.

Personally, I think the NRIW guideline isn't really about religion/no religion, it's about offending people/not offending people. Therefore anything with religious connotations that could cause offence is out, for basically the same reasons that anything with racist connotations that could cause offence is out, and anything with sexist connotations that could cause offence is out. Similarly, even the most foul-mouthed orcs in the game don't usually swear. For a good model for making orcs or trolls appear crude and brutal without turning the air blue, refer to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The preferred approach in Wesnoth is very, very similar.

[boru]

I hereby propose a new acronym: [acronym=made you look!]NPORIW[/acronym] (No Policy On Religion In Wesnoth).

[Captain_Wrathbow]

[acronym=made you look!]NPORIW[/acronym]

[Crushmaster]

I hereby propose a new acronym: [acronym=made you look!]NPORIW[/acronym] (No Policy On Religion In Wesnoth).

Nice.
In Christ,
Crushmaster.

[Iris]

Move on, people. Nothing more to discuss here.