Oh, you're my hero. (Today anyway. Tomorrow we'll violently disagree about something. I'm fickle that way.)
Amazing what sorts of shenanigans a bad translation of 'cast into the lake of fire to suffer eternal destruction' can generate.
From 'instantly and permanantly destroyed' it got tweaked to 'poked by red-skinned goat-people with pitchforks in a burning pit of fire for all of eternity.' Wow. That's some quality translatin' Bubba!
Constantine needed something to control the masses. Particularly when Christ, when examined clearly, consistantly demonstrated intelligent ways to resist authority.
It also handily destroyed competing faith systems. Desconstruct a conquered nations belief system and they're easier to assimiliate.
But.. all that being said.. your real challenge is to seperate the inspiration and source of the faith, from the Church.
Really hell as a place is not a Greek infestation. Starting from ancient times it was called Hades and it was a place of grayness and sorrow. It was the realm of death and the soul merely continued its existence their without hope. In the Bible when Christ is Crucified it states he descneds to the Kingdom of Hades and unbinds the bonds of death forever and shatters the Kingdom of death. The Hell that is being reffered to over and over is a Western Roman Catholic invention to keep the people under control
I'm not going to prolong a discussion of early religion, but Set has the right of it. You may not be entirely wrong in one context, but you're talking about two different religions as if they had a common origin, and they don't.
Christianity got its origins from the Jewish faith, which lacks a geographical 'hell' so to speak. 'Hell' was to be outside of the grace of God, but was not a place of punishment.
Hades was an ancient greek belief, and was not connected to Christianity, until Christianity started to spread.. and belief systems began to get intermixed.
Christianity has had a history of assimiliation. That's not a condemnation of it, but it is accurate. When you assimiliate, you sometimes you just don't convert.. you pick up a few things you don't expect.
I lived in a Seminary for 4 years. My partner got a full ride scholarship for their ability to translate Hebrew and Greek (most people are good at one or the other, they were proficient in both). Graduated with a 4.0. Now, truthfully, I can't claim to know all that much. I'm not the scholar in the family, and it's dishonest to put myself forward as an authority. But I managed to pick up a few things along the way.
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Frostflame,
I was not comfortable with my response. I thought it was boastful and showed more lack of education than anything. I decided to ask more questions of my resource, and the responsible thing is to share that refinement of *my* understanding.
A Brief History of 'Hell'
* Ancient Israelites (not 'Jews', because anything resembling formalized Judaism does npt yet exist), have no afterlife. You die. You go into the ground.
* About the time of King David and King Solomon, the concept of Sheol is introduced. This is a place of shades. Echoes of life. Sheol is not necessarily feared, because the belief is that every last single person goes there without exception. The only moral judgment you might attach to Sheol is that one should live their life to the fullest and not "like you're in Sheol." That is, live life to the fullest while you have it. Now this sounds like the Greek concept of Hades, but it's not. In comparison, Hades is structured and organized. Sheol in this time is not organized, and it is not a kingdom. Its just where the shadows of everything go after life is over.
*Much later, Israel is conquered repeatedly, and each conqueror adds a new layer of their own belief system. The Babylonian Empire brings in the Persian influence and Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism is the concept that Good and Evil are in a cosmic war, and that eventually one will prevail in a great final battle.
After the Babylonians die out, the Greeks invade. Specifically after Alexander the Great dies, his generals start in-fighting and so do their successive descendents. This is where Greek culture gets brought into the mix, and some of these Greek conquerors try to bring in Greek Religion. I *think* specifically that Ptolemy the IV slaughters a pig in the Temple and starts persecution and murder of the Jews (300 BC). This is noteworthy, because you start to see the influence of Jewish Martyrdom. That is, 'when I die for the faith, something good will happen to me.. while something bad will happen to those who persecuted me'.
The Greeks are overthrown by an uprising until about 63 BC, when the Romans come and conquer Israel.
*Christ enters the picture. Around now we have the concept of Gehenna, the midden heap. What we have here is the notion that when you die, you go into the ground, and then on some final Judgment Day all the souls are sorted out. The good go to an undefined place with God (alluded to the "many mansions of the Father"). This is where Heaven comes into play. The bad go to 'the cold outer darkness', or Ghenna.. which is the garbage dump. The garbage dump that is periodically set on fire. Without getting ahead of ourselves, that notion of Gehenna being set on fire comes back in the Middle Ages. However, Gehenna is not a place of punishment or torment (yet), but rather is just the consequence of not following God's laws and leading a proper life. Why would any one want to go there, and so it was better to live a proper life.
* I'm probably skipping a few steps, but then we arrive at the Middle Ages, after Emperor Constantine has aggressively spread the faith. Competing religions, like the old Greek faith, are folded into this notion of Hell. You can readily see satyrs and Pan in these middle age devils, and now we have the concept of Gehenna/Hell is now always on fire burning up bad souls.
Now, you have to realize that as a document, the Bible has been translated over and over, and has gone through Hebrew, Greek to English.. with countless editorial opinions. Yes, you can point to a reference to Hades, and what has happened is that a translator has used that word because they thought it would be more readily understood (or they had some personal agenda). Things were retroactively altered much after many of these time periods I described above.
Likewise, the Devil has come through several historical evolutions. That belief came from hundreds of different stories and was boiled down to Lucifer and Satan, who were eventually fused into one entity. Think of a family tree, but where all the branches are the beginning, and the roots are the final product. A good example if this is the Book of Job. When translated directly, the 'Devil' in the Book of Job is not God's Enemy, but is an Angel in God's Celestial Court who is acting in capacity of 'Prosecuting Attorney.' Later this Angel is renamed by a translator into the Devil. Why? Because the translator probably was of the opinion that to be in an adverserial role to God was to be God's Enemy.. thus in the translation of the Book of Job that Angel becomes the Devil, not for the sake of accuracy to the original text, but because it made for tidy continuity.
Anyway.. I'm rambling now. I hope this was helpful to anybody curious on the topic. I'm sure what I have written contains some minor mistakes; I didn't mean it as a rock solid piece of scholastic research, but just a loose overview.
Final personal opinion: I consider myself to be a Christian. However, being a Christian, its my belief that you can also educate yourself and keep things in perspective. I know a lot of people can be really fed with Christainty in this day and age, and I understand and appreciate that. What the Church has done, still doesn't change the core message.
Module J5, "Beyond the Vault of Souls", became available on July 29th and I downloaded it. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the module adduces considerable new information on the fate of atheists in Golarion's afterlife. Without revealing anything about the plot or characters of that module, here are the facts of relevance to this discussion:
Once again it is made clear that atheism does not here mean a lack of belief in the gods. Atheists are defined in the module as those who did not believe in reward or punishment in the afterlife. This comports with the notion described earlier in this thread, of persons who do not believe in the existence of souls. A firm disbelief in the justice of the apportionment, or in the reward or punishment inherent in a given afterlife, might also qualify, though this is speculation.
Atheists' souls condense into gems. They are 'beyond consciousness' and 'awaiting the ultimate oblivion.' (The most parsimonious interpretation is that they are simply unconsciousness, though the notion that they are in some supra-conscious suspended meditative state seeking a Buddhist-like state of existence/non-existence is intriguing to me.) It is not clear what differentiates these, which appear to be the standard fate of an atheist soul, from the conscious and active atheists in the Graveyard, or those with other existences, described in The Great Beyond.
The gems can be removed from the Outer Sphere and can be damaged and destroyed. Perhaps 'the ultimate oblivion' is what happens to the soul involved in such a case. (I would rather hypothesize that whatever the atheists are waiting for is not going to happen and that their wait is potentially eternal; that if the gem is destroyed the soul merges with the plane on which the destruction occurs, as with a petitioner.)
While their non-belief was so strong they 'could not be assigned to any god or plane' -- apparently it was a matter of import to them, not merely casual lack of belief -- the module also says that they must be stored in specially constructed areas Outside of such areas they have a natural tendency to open a portal to a like-aligned plane and go there to rest. The Great Beyond describes a Graveyard of Souls, though the module calls it a Vault. The Outer Sphere being a matter of perception and a vault being a form of tomb, it's entirely possible both are accurate.
Atheists' souls repel Groetus and the apocalypse he signifies, and are the only known means of doing so. The module does not describe the sort of seemingly-delibate sacrifice that The Great Beyond does. It rather says Groetus has a "spiritual gravity" that attracts souls. It would mesh with both sources if this "gravity" sometimes eventually attracted an atheist soul, an unpleasant surprise which caused him to withdraw.
I close with some reactions. If we take as given that atheists in Golarion are objectively wrong, in that an afterlife exists and souls naturally gravitate to a just existence of reward or punishment of a sort suited to their ethics, then it is a curious and perhaps worrying point that upon this error of fact rests the planes' sole bulwark against apocalypse; that the defenders of existence do so without hope of reward and, perhaps, without even knowing. There are multiple layers of interpretation available for a complex layering of ironies.
It is unfortunate that the simplest explanation is that the authors involved stuck a real-world group they didn't like much, or didn't know much about, with literarily convenient catatonia. Fictional groups like sincere worshipers of a dead god or followers of an identity-subsuming philosophy could serve the same literary purpose equally well. It doesn't help that this real-world group is obviously a not-insignificant part of the game's target audience.
With some work, though, those who care enough about the setting that it's worthwhile can find that it's possible to impose an interpretation that redeems the flaw. That gem-condensation appears to be a natural phenomenon rather than some sentence of Pharasma's can suggest that 'atheists' are actually souls with psychological damage to the sense of self, rather than someone who might have come to a rational if erroneous conclusion regarding the state of metaphysics in Golarion. That the Keepers of the Vault and the active wardens in the Graveyard could be healers seeking to rectify that damage and hold out hope of constructing a useful, conscious afterlife would be a natural consequence. I would encourage Paizo, when this ever becomes relevant to future material, to emphasize such an interpretation.
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It is unfortunate that the simplest explanation is that the authors involved stuck a real-world group they didn't like much, or didn't know much about, with literarily convenient catatonia. Fictional groups like sincere worshipers of a dead god or followers of an identity-subsuming philosophy could serve the same literary purpose equally well. It doesn't help that this real-world group is obviously a not-insignificant part of the game's target audience.
I feel that if playes of faith can handle playing in a game-world where their diety is not even a footnote, and there are clerics of a plethora of fictional gods both malevolent and benign, that those playesr who do not necessarily follow any specific faith should be likewise able to man up and accept that in this fantasy world, where these 'gods' are quite real creatures fully capable of empowering their faithful and punishing those who offend their sensibilities, that the faithless are not looked upon fondly.
The fantasy setting, with it's abundance of fictional gods, demons, devils, etc. is hardly politically correct to Christians, Hindus, Moslems, etc. In light of that, I can't imagine it making any sense that the designers would bend over backwards to preferentially cater to the delicate sensibilities of atheists.
I'm sure it will all end in tears when Dawkins issues a fatwa on the head of Erik Mona, but for now, I think they've done a great job of creating a fantasy world, and not a political statement. :)
It is unfortunate that the simplest explanation is that the authors involved stuck a real-world group they didn't like much, or didn't know much about, with literarily convenient catatonia. Fictional groups like sincere worshipers of a dead god or followers of an identity-subsuming philosophy could serve the same literary purpose equally well. It doesn't help that this real-world group is obviously a not-insignificant part of the game's target audience.I feel that if playes of faith can handle playing in a game-world where their diety is not even a footnote, and there are clerics of a plethora of fictional gods both malevolent and benign, that those playesr who do not necessarily follow any specific faith should be likewise able to man up and accept that in this fantasy world, where these 'gods' are quite real creatures fully capable of empowering their faithful and punishing those who offend their sensibilities, that the faithless are not looked upon fondly.
The fantasy setting, with it's abundance of fictional gods, demons, devils, etc. is hardly politically correct to Christians, Hindus, Moslems, etc. In light of that, I can't imagine it making any sense that the designers would bend over backwards to preferentially cater to the delicate sensibilities of atheists.
I'm sure it will all end in tears when Dawkins issues a fatwa on the head of Erik Mona, but for now, I think they've done a great job of creating a fantasy world, and not a political statement. :)
And to add to Set's remark, how does the Campaign Setting owe any of our real world beliefs any sort of validation?
Jem,
I want to express my regrets for my previous reply. It doesn't engender further discussion; it only seeks to terminate it. I've also re-read the thread, this time with a mind towards the core subject.
I am sensitive to the fact that it might come across that one's own belief system is being looked down upon in the campaign setting. Bear in mind, I don't see it that way myself, but I can certainly see it from the other point of view.
For example, in this thread there have been comments that people would like "less Christianity in their Golarion". I would argue that there is none. And I'm quite fine with that. However, belief in a divinity does not equate to Christianity. There are a lot of people in the world who worship one or more gods (Jews, Muslims, and Indians.. bearing in mind India has no small population). Few to none of them would appreciate being called Christians. So hearing people gripe and mutter about a Christian sub-text or agenda, because the people of Golarion sometimes worship gods, is frustrating.
But I can empathetic because of that frustration.
Doing some reading on the topic, I don't think Beyond the Vault of Souls changes or reverses anything in The Great Beyond. If you read the text on Groetus on Page 33, the plot of Beyond the Vault of Souls is alluded to in part. (Let us be mindful of using spoilers before we say too much more) You may have been premature to thank Todd Stewart, but I don't think Beyond the Vault of Souls changed the rules on you.
Might I suggest that the status quo exists, because there has not been any strong effort or attempt to devise another solution?
Groetus is described as a demigod.
By the Law of Jacobs and Mona, demigods can be stated up. They have been stated up before. If they can be stated up, they can be opposed.
Maybe we're seeing some clues to some long range planning here. Just this past Tuesday night Erik and James said that they have some long range story arcs that they seed well in advance for maximum impact for when the campaign setting becomes more mature. At the time they were speaking about Azlant, but this scenario could just as easily apply.
An Epic Rule system has also not been taken off the table, and has been discussed in meeting recently. This could also be an excellent scenario much further down the road.
Just food for thought.
For example, in this thread there have been comments that people would like "less Christianity in their Golarion". I would argue that there is none.
I'd argue the same, because I don't see any. If anything, Golarion's cosmology does away with a lot of Judeo-Christian concepts that have in my opinion been at rather awkward inclusion in a distinctly non-Judeo-Christian D&D cosmology. For instance, there's no longer any overt or even implied notion of a Miltonian Fall in the history of Asmodeus or his devils.
I tried to de-emphasize any notion of a damnation or paradise zero-sum duality to the planes for mortal souls. You go where it best fits, and the Law/Chaos axis is just as important as the Good/Evil axis. It has largely been like this in D&D as a whole for a long time, but still you see a lot of stuff trying to impose an awkward Good/Evil duality on the whole thing when it doesn't really work in a non monotheistic setting.
And of course, don't see me as hostile to religion by taking the design stances I did, as I'm actively Russian Orthodox. ;)
Plus, the "athiest" souls in the Boneyard, waiting for potential nomming by Groetus don't have much connection to the same word in real life. Athiesm in real life is very different from the specific use of the term in Golarion, and the real world notion of what we consider athiesm to be is untenable really in a world where deities physically manifest in a way that can be seen and felt and proven to the senses. Not choosing to worship them, or not thinking them worthy of worship, which is about the closest you'll get to a real world athiest transplanted to Golarion, they don't suffer any sort of sanction at all. They're treated just the same as any other soul. It's only those who deny themselves and in an almost borderline pathological way dismiss a tangible aspect of reality who get handled differently, and they're damaged goods by the time they die and their soul hits the Astral.
So how about the completely pathological? Do they get special dispensation? Or just sent straight to the vortex?
I'm always maintained that insanity has no alignment, however I'm curious how actual full blown psychosis would affect where a soul would go in the afterlife in Golarion.
As I said, I know 'atheist' in the real-world sense is not what Beyond the Vault of Souls is referring to, and perhaps my wording was a little harsh. Since the topic interested me and came up early in my posting career here at Paizo, it probably seems like it's a hobby horse for me, and it's not that big a deal, really. I've GM'ed two campaigns of In Nomine for years. Atheism wrong? In Nomine is a game about the War between Heaven and Hell where the PCs are angels fighting demons for the souls of humanity. %^)
So how about the completely pathological? Do they get special dispensation? Or just sent straight to the vortex?
I'm always maintained that insanity has no alignment, however I'm curious how actual full blown psychosis would affect where a soul would go in the afterlife in Golarion.
It would depend on the nature of their madness, I suppose. Personally, I'm going to emphasize the interpretation that souls stuck in the Graveyard have a damaged sense of self, what the DSM classifies as dissociative disorders.
Of course, the most transcendent religious experiences in many traditions would also be thus classified. Out-of-body experience, the brotherhood of humanity, oneness with the world at large, subsumption of identity in the Deity... these and similar experiences are actively sought through the use of meditation, repetitive group activities like song and dance, and psychoactive substances. Religion, like art, is virtually inseparable from the forms of madness it evokes.
It also bears hard on notions of free will and thus responsibility for sin and virtue, but that's a question of long standing for religion. Someone is depressed -- are they slothful? They have narcissistic personality disorder -- are they prideful? They have an eating disorder -- are they gluttonous? Where does sociopathy fall on the spectrum of sin? Does a genetic predisposition to alcoholism at all mitigate a drunken crime of passion?
I doubt such questions will ever significantly enter play unless your group is fond of challenging dramatic scenarios exploring the nature of sin and redemption, crime and punishment, and the nature of the various philosophies in the world. Generally, I would start by assuming that Pharasma (and the natural process of assigning souls to afterlives) is knowledgeable enough about mental illness to see beyond it to some spark of free will, making allowances for both genes and environment in some way mortals don't fully understand. It might bear on the question of how a cleric interprets a given action's morality, or what an ethical group decides to do with a dangerous madman.
In Nomine is a game about the War between Heaven and Hell where the PCs are angels fighting demons for the souls of humanity. %^)
[sidetrack]I remember it well! I never got a campaign off the ground, but I still own all the books (along with Demon: the Fallen). I loved the sense of humor in In Nomine.
Now the Hogshead edition of Nobilis is fine wine to me, but actually running it is a bit daunting.[/sidetrack]
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Wow, talking about religion on the internet that hasn't instantly degenerated - fantastic!
It might be fun to play resurrection differently with 'atheists' by having the spell draw the soul gem to the players who then have to carefully do something which calls out the soul:
"Hey, Dave loved juggling, and was CN - so who is going to juggle the soul gem?"
"Hey Lucy loved swimming, who's going to swim across the river while cradling the soul gem?"
etc. ad nauseum...
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It is unfortunate that the simplest explanation is that the authors involved stuck a real-world group they didn't like much, or didn't know much about, with literarily convenient catatonia.
Considering that one of the most prolific writers about Golarion's gods (Sean K. Reynolds) is, IIRC, an atheist himself, I think your "simplest explanation" is barking up the wrong tree. ;)
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B&$+! b$@~* b~@%~ b!%+! b~*#~.
No one ever said the universe has to be fair. Sorry, i dont have much time to properly articulate this statement: 4chan's /tg/ has ruined me.
But, look: the standard christian cosmology is unfair b~@*##~#, and it's run by an omnipotent "kind and loving" god.
Now, consider the info in Book of the Damned:
Gods are sort-of evolved spiritual beings, with various different outlooks and powers, squabbling amongst themselves, in a universe that is otherwise uncaring and undirected regarding mortal life. A spot of light in a cold void full of tentacles.
If nihlistic damaged souls are the only way to stop a mysterious apocalypse being from destroying the man transit station of the afterlife, I'd say tossing the occasional being to it is...justified, given no other option. This is the fate of damaged, insane people who didnt just deny the existance of the gods, they denyed their own nature as something greater than they gross physical. the lack of awe, of spirituality, damaged them beyond repair. in life, they failed to grow as people.
In our world, we have no evidence of a greater beyondness, so such a intellectual position is justifed. it doesnt stop staunch rationalists from beleiving in things like trust and justice and kindness, loving other people, and having a sense of awe and wonder at the universe.
Normal, sane atheists who just didnt much like the gods arent left high and dry. they have the right to go where they want. there's just no one to help them along, so they have to rely on themselves. some arent strong enough. nature-folks get re-incarnated, sciency self-reliant folks get to explore infinity, with all it's horrors and wonders (probably banding together with other free-roamers)
Worshipers get, in exchange for their beleif, access to the celestial beurocracy, a patron to argue for them, and the express train to their afterlife. the tradeoff is less freedom, and the possibility that you were raised to follow a douchebag god (like asmodeus) who kind of misrepresents himself to his worshipers. Atheists didnt pay anyone anything, and their reward is freedom.
Freedom isnt always good.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Am I the only one who thought the fate of Atheists as described in Beyond The Vault of Souls was absolutely Awesome?
And I'm speaking as an Atheist myself here.
I'll break it down in a spoiler box
B. You are wicked-powerful, so much so that you warp planar reality. Outsiders can use you to start turf wars, cults can assemble Gods out of you. You may not be conscious of it, but as an atheist in the afterlife, you are way more badass than any lame-o believer. Talk about stroking the ego!
C. You also happen to be the only thing stopping THE END OF THE WORLD. What a big "F-You!" to all the believers! Oh, yeah, you used the power of your supposed "god" to heal someone? Well I Personally Prevent The End Of Everything As We Know It. On a Daily Basis. Yeah, not something you can really gloat about and still be an Atheist, but still, awesome.
All in all, I would have no problem with this happening to me after my death.
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b#~@& b#~@& b#~@& b#~@& b#~@&.
No one ever said the universe has to be fair. Sorry, i dont have much time to properly articulate this statement: 4chan's /tg/ has ruined me.
.........
Worshipers get, in exchange for their beleif, access to the celestial beurocracy, a patron to argue for them, and the express train to their afterlife. the tradeoff is less freedom, and the possibility that you were raised to follow a douchebag god (like...
What's more, a fantasy-atheist would be rather different from a real-world one. As an atheist myself, I for one would probably suck it up and pick a damn god, or go druid/green faith. my main point of dislike of religions stems from their fostering if ignorance, superstition, and hypocrisy, plus all the damn holy wars. Most of these problems are moot in a standard polytheistic fantasy setting.
Clerics of Cayden Cailean dont incite their flocks to hunt down and slaughter followers of Desna because they dont like booze enough.
A cleric of sarenrae who fireblasted an entire village of civilians would loose his/her powers on the spot.
Holy wars are waged against threats
A close-minded and insular band of Erastil-ites who start hunting down and burning witches would get a fraking divine visitation telling them to lay off the moldy bread.
Sure, there are excesses of religion in the standard fantasy world, but good-aligned and neutral-aligned gods and their worshipers REALLY DO do alot of selfless good works, and deities actually step in when their worshipers go off the deep end. And the divine miracles are just plain obvious.
b#~@& b#~@& b#~@& b#~@& b#~@&.
No one ever said the universe has to be fair. Sorry, i dont have much time to properly articulate this statement: 4chan's /tg/ has ruined me.
.........
Worshipers get, in exchange for their beleif, access to the celestial beurocracy, a patron to argue for them, and the express train to their afterlife. the tradeoff is less freedom, and the possibility that you were raised to follow a douchebag god (like...What's more, a fantasy-atheist would be rather different from a real-world one. As an atheist myself, I for one would probably suck it up and pick a damn god, or go druid/green faith. my main point of dislike of religions stems from their fostering if ignorance, superstition, and hypocrisy, plus all the damn holy wars. Most of these problems are moot in a standard polytheistic fantasy setting.
Clerics of Cayden Cailean dont incite their flocks to hunt down and slaughter followers of Desna because they dont like booze enough.
A cleric of sarenrae who fireblasted an entire village of civilians would loose his/her powers on the spot.
Holy wars are waged against threats
A close-minded and insular band of Erastil-ites who start hunting down and burning witches would get a fraking divine visitation telling them to lay off the moldy bread.
Sure, there are excesses of religion in the standard fantasy world, but good-aligned and neutral-aligned gods and their worshipers REALLY DO do alot of selfless good works, and deities actually step in when their worshipers go off the deep end. And the divine miracles are just plain obvious.
Maybe the atheists of Golarion know of the existence of deities but don't consider them to be gods, just powerful outsiders or something (like god-like non-corporeal aliens in Star Trek).