In our RORL game I have a player who doesnt worship any god but he does believe in them.
We were discussing what happens to a PCs soul who doesnt worship a god after he dies?
We have a Forgotten Realms Player who was talking about what happens there so we were all wondering what happens?
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if he believe in the gods then he goes just to the place of rest related to his alignment, if not... well Pharasma has a special-shallow-not so nice place for true atheist :P
and its no easy to bring back someone who died and whod din't believe in the gods (different than not having a prefered god) simply... as he believes there is no afterlife, there is no afterlife for him, nor coming back
On the flip side, maybe a true atheist in Golarion is EASIER to resurrect, because his soul isn't claimed by any gods who might have a use for it closer to their home. In other worlds, if you want to introduce anti-atheist rules into an imaginary game, you can introduce pro-atheist ones just as easily. It's a matter of what you and your players are comfortable with.
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On the flip side, maybe a true atheist in Golarion is EASIER to resurrect, because his soul isn't claimed by any gods who might have a use for it closer to their home. In other worlds, if you want to introduce anti-atheist rules into an imaginary game, you can introduce pro-atheist ones just as easily. It's a matter of what you and your players are comfortable with.
I don't introduced any rules, this is already mentioned somewhere... just I don't remember which book :S actually i think the soul goes "puff"
Gods & Magic maybe.
He believes in Gods just does not venerate one
So his soul will just go to his Alignment Plane and hopfuly be called back when he dies
It's in the PFCS: Atheists* -those who denied their own afterlifes- have impacted their souls' solidity. Now they have difficulty traveling through the Astral plane, many become ghosts on the Material planes, others become easy prey for soul devouring fiends on their way to the Boneyard, and those which eventually reach Pharasma's domain are locked away to a fate unknown (185).
*Unlike agnostics. They are judged by Pharasma like all souls without any predetermined fate.
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So, where did I put this blasted key?
The Great Beyond has more on what happens to Atheists.
The way the OP is describing the player, he sounds more like an agnostic than an atheist as he actually believes they exist, just never picked one.
*Unlike agnostics. They are judged by Pharasma like all souls without any predetermined fate.
I agree, thus my footnote.
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So, where did I put this blasted key?
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The way the OP is describing the player, he sounds more like an agnostic than an atheist as he actually believes they exist, just never picked one.
*Unlike agnostics. They are judged by Pharasma like all souls without any predetermined fate.
I agree, thus my footnote.
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So, where did I put this blasted key?
Sorry, meant to say I agreed basically with your footnote being the right course.
I've gotten an answer from Mr. Stewart in another forum, for which I'd like to thank him for responding so quickly. The short of it is that the definitions below aren't the ones he used; an atheist for him is someone who actively denies their own existence, or at least the existence of their soul; about as irrational in Golarion as denying the existence of gods, and most likely the result of some black, nihilistic depression. Personally, I might have the goddess of death acquire a handmaiden in the goddess of atheism, a quiet, sympathetic nurse figure. She specializes in treating those souls' insanity, marking her successes with 'resurrections' where the soul can leave the Graveyard and enter the Realm of the Content.
I have now read The Great Beyond (and recommended it in a review!), and I've also checked the archived threads on this topic but I'm still confused on the matter. It's clear what happens to atheists: they are locked in crypts in the Graveyard of Souls, and occasionally one is given to Groetus to consume, to placate him.
Atheism in Golarion is defined on p. 176 of the setting document, under the "Philosophies" section of religion: "the 'gods' may be real, but not divine and therefore not worthy of blind devotion and worship." (Compare to agnosticism, which is the position that "no mortal can say what is divine and what isn't." Presumably followers of a god consider that god divine, and this word connotes something more complex than the mere difference between wizardly and clerical magic.) Page 177 tells us followers of the Prophecies of Kalistrade consider their way superior to "blind allegiance to a god." It would seem that the entire nation of Druma may be headed for an afterlife damaged beyond even damnation. James Jacobs, in an earlier thread, described the religious views of the iconic wizard Ezren, listed as atheist, this way: "Ezren, for example, thinks that faith is a dangerous method of abandoning one's responsibility, and that it's more important to be responsible to one's self. He doesn't deny the existence of the gods. He just doesn't think any of them are worth his attention." That certainly meshes with the description given above. But it's also, at least potentially, the basis for a decent code of ethics; it doesn't much sound like someone who deserves being locked in a tomb for eternity, does it? What's the logic here?
Now, on p. 185 we're told that it's atheists who "denied their own afterlives" that are locked in the Graveyard; this connects to the idea of them impacting their own solidity in the afterlife, so it makes sense, but it doesn't mesh with any of the previous discussion of one's opinions of the gods. Is an atheist someone who denies the existence of souls? When ghosts roam the planet and people can be resurrected from the dead while adventurers visit the afterlife?
I'm definitely confused here. This is a small thing, but I'm coming at Pathfinder from a Planescape background, where the Athar were a powerful and, frankly, relatively decent bunch, yet the old 2e book "Guide to Hell" described atheists as the truest damned of the multiverse, sentenced to head straight to Nessus to be consumed by Asmodeus and rendered up to oblivion. Tossing atheists into symbolic graves in the afterlife is a classic, really: it's straight out of Dante's Inferno. But Dante was writing a religious tract (and a political one, but that's not relevant), where of course atheism was counter to his thesis. I don't see what it adds to a work of gaming entertainment to have a group, regardless of their personal morality or ethics, sentenced to damnation and oblivion because they chose self-reliance or found themselves unable to muster the required sense of awe.
I'd like to know what the reasoning was for including this. I'd also like it quietly forgotten or, better yet, "clarified" away as much as possible when the matter arises in future products.
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I'd like to know what the reasoning was for including this. I'd also like it quietly forgotten or, better yet, "clarified" away as much as possible when the matter arises in future products.
So, on a topic that is still debated to this day in our world, and on Golarion the topic deals with dozens of *real* gods (that we know of), the mysteries of the afterlife regarding a god of the "end times" whose role is actually uncertain in the end times, and a goddess of prophecy in a world where prophecy is broken, and you except to have a single, consistent answer? :)
So, on a topic that is still debated to this day in our world, and on Golarion the topic deals with dozens of *real* gods (that we know of), the mysteries of the afterlife regarding a god of the "end times" whose role is actually uncertain in the end times, and a goddess of prophecy in a world where prophecy is broken, and you except to have a single, consistent answer? :)
I think the point is that there are two clear answers in two rulebooks that happen to contradict each other.
Personally, I'm going with the Athar version of atheism (e.g. the opinion that gods are just overgrown outsiders).
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So, on a topic that is still debated to this day in our world, and on Golarion the topic deals with dozens of *real* gods (that we know of), the mysteries of the afterlife regarding a god of the "end times" whose role is actually uncertain in the end times, and a goddess of prophecy in a world where prophecy is broken, and you except to have a single, consistent answer? :)I think the point is that there are two clear answers in two rulebooks that happen to contradict each other.
Personally, I'm going with the Athar version of atheism (e.g. the opinion that gods are just overgrown outsiders).
Would that be Atharism? Rather than Atheism?
He means the Athar faction from planescape. The believed the powers were just over grown outsiders, con men lost in there own power trip.
I myself an ok with the godless being locked up and having no after life, that is the choice they made, For them there is not a afterlife.
Denying worship to the gods does not equal denying a belief in the existence of an afterlife, so I don't think this person would be locked in the boneyard, he'd just go to the plane matching his alignment.
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He means the Athar faction from planescape. The believed the powers were just over grown outsiders, con men lost in there own power trip.
I myself an ok with the godless being locked up and having no after life, that is the choice they made, For them there is not a afterlife.
yeh, kind of a joke, sorry I forgot the ;)
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I don't see what it adds to a work of gaming entertainment to have a group, regardless of their personal morality or ethics, sentenced to damnation and oblivion because they chose self-reliance or found themselves unable to muster the required sense of awe.
You've answered your own question: They chose self-reliance, and after death they discovered that self-reliance doesn't get you very far when you're dead, because you are no longer able to rely on yourself. After death, they were forced to rely on others (in this case, the deities, outsiders, spirits, and whatever else dwells in the planes) to get to the afterlife, and after a lifetime of the atheist saying "I don't believe in you," in the afterlife the tables were turned and the powers of the planes said, "here beyond death, it is I who do not believe in you."
They assumed that they would be the masters of their own fate in death as they believed themselves to be in life, but it turned out that the afterlife was playing by a different set of rules. They believed in a certain entitlement to get to enjoy the afterlife just like everyone else, but discovered too late that the choice not to buy a ticket (by "muster[ing] the required sense of awe") meant that they would not be admitted. It turned out that the afterlife requires a ticket, and it's a ticket you can't make for yourself, you can't forge it, you can't copy it, you can't steal it, you can't borrow it, and you can't even buy it even if you're as rich as Scrooge McDuck; you have to be given it willingly by someone else.
The afterlife is not in the Golarion universe just a place where anyone can go anytime they want, like a plane shift to the Elemental Plane of Fire. It's an existential reality of spirits and souls that is actually governed by sentient divine beings, and whether the atheists like it or not, the divinities are the ones who decide who will and who won't get in. The atheist can choose their path, certainly, but after death they will have no standing with anyone on "the other side" to demand that they be given anything. In death, as in life, they are on their own, and it would seam that death outside the borders of the afterlife is a rather bleak place indeed.
Ya know Jason that was a very good explanation
And an especially appropriate explanation coming from a guy who describes himself as an "active and committed born-again Christian" -- it's got those good elements of free will, divine ominipotence, punishment of nonbelievers, etc.
Of course, an atheist player might prefer a slightly different take... ;-)
I would compare athiest souls stuck in the graves encircling the Boneyard as something they did to themselves by denying their own souls and afterlife. Similar to the way that damnation is seen in some Eastern Orthodox strains of Christianity: active, willing seperation from the love of God by the damned, rather than being a condition levied upon them by God like a penalty, but quite the opposite.
But worship and belief aren't the same thing, which is an important distinction here. Simplying choosing not to worship a deity, or not thinking them worthy or worship doesn't impact you at all (unlike a situation like FR's wall of the faithless where you get punished for all time for not paying into the deific protection racket, more or less). Most of the Athar for instance if transplanted to Golarion would, after death, find themselves in whatever plane matched their alignment most, just not within a distinct deific domain since they didn't worship any deities. I can easily see some NG agnostic souls finding a higher purpose after they die, and perhaps in greater frequency choosing to serve Nirvana as one of the agathions or angels, seeking some form of gnosis distinct from a deific path.
And unless it was chopped, there was also the notion presented that such self-denial damages such souls' ability to cross the Astral. Those that make it to Pharasma's spire are almost a rare population, because most of them are probably devoured by astradaemons in transit like packs of wolves taking down the sick and injured at the fringes of a herd, or they never leave the material plane in the first place, and wander as variant strains of undead.
And an especially appropriate explanation coming from a guy who describes himself as an "active and committed born-again Christian" -- it's got those good elements of free will, divine ominipotence, punishment of nonbelievers, etc.
Of course, an atheist player might prefer a slightly different take... ;-)
Well the ew I have known would have been fine woth just cesing to be, as they had no belife in an afterlife. YMMV
Well the ew I have known would have been fine woth just cesing to be, as they had no belife in an afterlife. YMMV
Like Jem, I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint ("horrible things are in store for those stupid nonbelievers in the afterlife!") as opposed to an atheistic one ("nonbelievers simply cease to be when they die") or a neutral one ("no one knows what happens..."). This is one area in which I feel that some referees might wish to veer from the published "canon," or even leave things ambiguous, depending on their group -- sort of a "separation of church and game."
I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint ("horrible things are in store for those stupid nonbelievers in the afterlife!") as opposed to an atheistic one ("nonbelievers simply cease to be when they die").
Is lying in a nice quiet tomb really that bad compared to going to spending the afterlife in Hell (say)? :-)
Personally, I like the Boneyard version of the afterlife where you keep doing roughly what you did in real life and it's up to you to decide whether that's heaven or hell. In a case of parallel evolution, I came up with something very similar for a homebrew setting.
Is lying in a nice quiet tomb really that bad compared to going to spending the afterlife in Hell (say)? :-)
Try lying quietly in a tomb for a couple of years, and see how much sanity you retain! If any -- try it for eternity instead. So, yeah, I'd say that's fairly hellish, unless the dead are given plenty of crossword puzzles and a permanent protection from insanity effect.
Yeah I know what ya mean, but as a non Christian myself I shall be going with their souls simply cease to be.
However if your locked in the boneyard ya can come back from the dead. Simply ceseing to be you can not. I think that has more for going that way then anything
Like Jem, I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint ("horrible things are in store for those stupid nonbelievers in the afterlife!")
I wouldn't say that at all. Contrast FR's Wall of the Faithless where you're punished and tormented for lack of active worship of the gods, versus Golarion where worship or belief in the worth of the gods or their true divinity doesn't matter, and it's only when take a very extreme position of denying the existance of your own soul that something happens to you (and in that case it's caused by yourself rather than an external punishment).
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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And an especially appropriate explanation coming from a guy who describes himself as an "active and committed born-again Christian" -- it's got those good elements of free will, divine ominipotence, punishment of nonbelievers, etc.
Of course, an atheist player might prefer a slightly different take... ;-)
Hey, just callin' em as I see em! :)
But the world is the world, and we're all just playin' in it. Of course, a true atheist might very well balk at playing in a game where gods are undeniably, inarguably real.
Ironically, my past 2 campaigns were intentionally vague on the subject of which of the religious traditions were "true" - divine power certainly was REAL and could be tapped by people of all alignments, but its true source was opaque. I should post it sometime - I thought it was kind of a clever idea.
Of course, a true atheist might very well balk at playing in a game where gods are undeniably, inarguably real.
Well, not if they're able to distinguish "fantasy land" from "real life" (which is an ability pretty much all players have in common -- religious and non-religious players alike -- very much unlike those sad charicatures from Jack Chick and/or Mazes and Monsters).
Divine power certainly was REAL and could be tapped by people of all alignments, but its true source was opaque.
Interestingly, that's sort of how I do it, to. I always like to keep one or two cosmic unsolved mysteries around -- not things with answers that as DM I'm withholding until they get "solved," but things that actually have no answers (or at least none that the PCs could possibly understand).
Like Jem, I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint
Unless The Great Beyond (which I haven't read yet) says otherwise, the PF Campaign Setting says that only those that deny their own afterlives are locked in the boneyard.
Paying the gods worship has nothing to do with aknowledging their existence, and aknowledging the existence of higher beings outside the material plane has nothing to do with the belief or lack thereof of an afterlife, so unless you paste a quote from The Great Beyond saying otherwise, then what the Campaign Setting says holds.
Ironically, being Golarion a fantasy world, it's a world without faith, as faith requires belief without proof, and every cleric in Golarion doing miracles in their name is living proof of a deity's existence, and said proof is only accentuated by arcane scholars who travel to other planes and bring official documentation of the afterlife, the planes, and state the academic differences between arcane and divine power. The average golarian worships the gods not because he -believes- in them, but because he -knows- they're there.
Unless The Great Beyond (which I haven't read yet) says otherwise, the PF Campaign Setting says that only those that deny their own afterlives are locked in the boneyard.
I get the impression that what's intended is not so much atheism, but the more extreme nihilism. It's not just cursing the gods, it's denying the gods, the universe, and one's own metaphysical self.
Unless The Great Beyond (which I haven't read yet) says otherwise, the PF Campaign Setting says that only those that deny their own afterlives are locked in the boneyard.I get the impression that what's intended is not so much atheism, but the more extreme nihilism. It's not just cursing the gods, it's denying the gods, the universe, and one's own metaphysical self.
Or those that take the "afterlife is BS you only get on shot at this life and you damn better take it because when ya die, that's it my friend"
Again, I just want to point out that Todd has very kindly answered my question promptly, and it's the answer I wanted to hear: he was using the p. 185 definition. An atheist isn't someone who doesn't worship the gods; there are plenty of people who don't, and they get judged by their alignment like anyone else. An atheist in Golarion is someone who doesn't believe he, himself, has a soul. Indeed, more than just being factually incorrect about the state of metaphysics in Golarion, an atheist is probably spiritually invested in not having a soul, self-hating and hoping death is the end. Thoroughly suicidal. And, in a way, he gets his soul's wish, like anyone else.
The fact that Athar and casual non-worshipers (and probably Ezren, given the description we've seen here) get a fair judgment from Pharasma makes Golarion's afterlife infinitely better than the intimations this subject received in some Planescape materials, and I'm very happy to hear it. With Todd's explanation, I feel comfortable in saying that the book hasn't taken a Christian doctrinal position ("external aid is required for salvation") any more than it has taken a Buddhist position ("enlightenment can be achieved without recourse beyond the self") or what our world might call atheist ("gods are frauds"). The official word in TGB is that gods don't seem to require belief; unlike Planescape, while gods can perhaps die there are no deific corpses floating in the Astral for lack of worshipers. Planescape fan that I am, I'll miss the cute color but only for a split second, because I'm happy with the results.
Right, then. Less theology, more gaming! Here, inspiration I took from all of this:
Rinne
The Black Nurse, Pharasma's Handmaiden
Demigoddess of atheism, despair, and hope
Alignment: N, with good leanings (no NE clerics accepted)
Domains: Healing, Mind, Repose
Favored Weapon: Dart
Centers of Worship: none
Nationality: unclear
From what Rinne remembers, she was a Pharasmite cleric during a time of war in her nation. She served behind the lines and treated wounds not just physical but spiritual, seeing soldiers and civilians whose minds had been shattered by tragedy and violence, or whose bodies were whole but no longer under their control after a blow to the head left them alive but invisibly maimed. After too much of this, she not only lost faith in Pharasma, she began to doubt the existence of souls themselves. When damage to the grey stuff of the brain affected someone's behavior so profoundly, was there really anything else there? Were the undead and the spirits said to migrate through the Astral nothing more than magical echoes of malfunctioning meat? She became an atheist, but she also redoubled her efforts to heal the minds of the wounded, trying to bring them stability and hope in troubled times, for if these were the only times they would see, they needed to make the best of them.
When Rinne finally died, she managed to make it through the Astral, wracked by doubt but driven by purpose. At her turn in the line, she faced Pharasma defiantly, well-trained enough in life to know the fate that awaited her heresy. And so it was, as the laws required. She was sentenced to the Graveyard of Souls. But to her utter surprise, Pharasma gave her dominion over this realm, giving her a tiny spark of godhood and a mandate to continue her healing. The Black Nurse now oversees the wardens of the Graveyard, those atheists who have accepted their fate and are conscious and mobile. She measures her success by the number of souls her ministrations and counsel, and those of her underlings, manage to coax out of their self-buried, huddled pain in the stone crypts. She measures failure by the souls that in insane despair hurl themselves from the roof of their mausoleums into the maw of Groetus at his maddening approach. To the world of the living, she sends only the message that, whatever else you believe, believe in a purpose, whether given to you or chosen by you: life is a finite thing too precious to be frittered away.
Rinne is a minor deity without personal rituals. Pharasma's clergy venerate her along with others of Pharasma's favored servants in internal church proceedings. Her dedicated clerics are vanishingly rare; they are vested as Pharasmite clerics but choose to serve a servant, usually because they, personally, were brought back from the pit of madness by such a cleric. Her holy symbol is Pharasma's spiral superimposed over whatever the cleric's culture uses to indicate healers or pharmacists. Her combatant clerics' darts are often coated with poisons to induce sleep or paralysis, which are also spells they often use.
I think the point is that there are two clear answers in two rulebooks that happen to contradict each other.
Read again what I said. :)
I think the point is that there are two clear answers in two rulebooks that happen to contradict each other.Read again what I said. :)
I scanned it again for the phrase "rulebooks contradicting each other is cool" and came up empty.
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I scanned it again for the phrase "rulebooks contradicting each other is cool" and came up empty.I think the point is that there are two clear answers in two rulebooks that happen to contradict each other.Read again what I said. :)
I think a better way of looking at these rules isn't that they are rulebooks, think of it like you are in the world and reading historical textbooks. In that case the reading of "historical" texts shows inaccuracies as well as contradictions as they do concerning religion, philosophy, politics, etc.. To put this into real terms:
The gods don't even know what's going to happen, and contradicting themselves in "fluff" arguments like this is a good way of showing that. The DM can use this to their advantage and have whichever situation suits them best in their own game.
The gods don't even know what's going to happen, and contradicting themselves in "fluff" arguments like this is a good way of showing that. The DM can use this to their advantage and have whichever situation suits them best in their own game.
I'd be inclined towards something like that.
Now, some time ago, an old friend of mine described the "no afterlife if you didn't show faith to a deity" like this: "If you choose not to bother with the gods, why do they bother with you?"
And I...couldn't really argue with that. Anyhow. Forgive the interruption. :)
I think a better way of looking at these rules isn't that they are rulebooks, think of it like you are in the world and reading historical textbooks. In that case the reading of "historical" texts shows inaccuracies as well as contradictions as they do concerning religion, philosophy, politics, etc.
I find that about as convincing as: "Whenever you notice something like that...a wizard did it."
Well the ew I have known would have been fine woth just cesing to be, as they had no belife in an afterlife. YMMVLike Jem, I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint ("horrible things are in store for those stupid nonbelievers in the afterlife!") as opposed to an atheistic one ("nonbelievers simply cease to be when they die") or a neutral one ("no one knows what happens..."). This is one area in which I feel that some referees might wish to veer from the published "canon," or even leave things ambiguous, depending on their group -- sort of a "separation of church and game."
No kidding.
The thing that annoys me about all this "afterlife" talk is that the gods don't generally "own" their afterlife. They've just got a house in whatever plane. They're not actually in charge of the whole thing. Maybe that's different in Golarion, I'm sketchy on details.
But yeah, I cut my teeth on Planescape. Athar all the way.
Not that it matters, because if the talk of "you just have to believe in SOMEthing to get an afterlife" is true, then most of my characters are fervently looking forward to steak, chicks and beer for eternity.
I think the point is not believing in gods is not enough for you to end up in the bonmeyard. Yours just go to the plan that matches your aliment.
However there will be people, just as there is in this world that find the afterlife a lie. Your soul if you have such a thing really does not move on. All you have is here and now and anyone that thinks otherwise are fools and puppets for the "gods"
"And you ask about clerics and people coming back from the dead? Well wizards can do that stuff, all "gods" are simply powerful being, they can die too look at Aroden. They can bring anyone from the dead but do souls go anywhere? or do they use them as fuel like a mage crafting a powerful spell or undead like a lich catching his own soul? All that is smoke and mirrors. Lines to feed to fools who stand and ask to be guided sheep one and all.
No if ya ask me all you have is right no, everything is is all sugar coated lies."
And thats the kind that end up in the boneyard.
Does no one else see an ethical issue in this boneyard? We're talking about people who choose to use their lives as they see fit, and who don't believe in or need some further existence. They are forced into this existence anyway by the nature of the universe, I get that. Denying your soul will make it weak. But should they get away from the prime material and make it through the astral; do they get a hand in acclimating with this new and unwelcome reality? Do they get pushed aside to wander as they see fit? No, some goddess they never cared about suddenly takes it as her right to judge them based on her own criteria. So is it okay just because she's a goddess who claimed death or whatever as her domain? Just because they can't stand up to her as weak, lost, spirits; it's just fine that she chooses to torture them? Where are all the paladins when people who never did anything but deny, perhaps foolishly, the existence of a greater cosmology are being kidnapped, tortured, and fed to a monster?
Seems to me that this should be item one on some good busy-body's agenda to rectify. I'm looking at you, good gods. If you want to keep being "good" you need to at least protest on the behalf of those who can't protect themselves, even if they never liked you.
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Well the ew I have known would have been fine woth just cesing to be, as they had no belife in an afterlife. YMMVLike Jem, I do find it interesting that Golarion as a setting has "officially" taken a distinctly Christian viewpoint ("horrible things are in store for those stupid nonbelievers in the afterlife!") as opposed to an atheistic one ("nonbelievers simply cease to be when they die") or a neutral one ("no one knows what happens..."). This is one area in which I feel that some referees might wish to veer from the published "canon," or even leave things ambiguous, depending on their group -- sort of a "separation of church and game."
Actually, the true Christian view, taken from the words o' the Son, is, basically, you cease to exist. It's either Heaven or nothingness. Hell as a place is a Greek infestation into the Christian religion.
It's either Heaven or nothingness.
Score! Heaven always sounded pretty lame.
Actually, the true Christian view, taken from the words o' the Son...
When's the last time you met a self-identifying Christian who follows the words of the Son, vs. the words of whatever church they belong to? There are a few -- some on these very boards -- but for the most part they're few and far between.
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Actually, the true Christian view, taken from the words o' the Son, is, basically, you cease to exist. It's either Heaven or nothingness. Hell as a place is a Greek infestation into the Christian religion.
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!
Gehenna (hell) was just a place where they burned trash (and, in time of plague, corpses), in the really, real world. Kinda anticlimactic really. Hell is a dump. Takes some of the mystique out of Dante's Inferno to imagine people showing up on weekends with their little stickers and sorting out their recyclables and rummaging through other people's cast offs for 'perfectly salvagable' stuff...
(Raise your hand if you know someone who leaves the dump with more stuff than he brought!)
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Actually, the true Christian view, taken from the words o' the Son...When's the last time you met a self-identifying Christian who follows the words of the Son, vs. the words of whatever church they belong to? There are a few -- some on these very boards -- but for the most part they're few and far between.
You know I don't concern myself with "Christians" any more than I concern myself with "Environmentalists", "Feminists", "Republicans", "Santa Claus" or any other mythological critters. I go to the source, dammit!
Does no one else see an ethical issue in this boneyard?
Sure, that was my first response to it too. :^)
...They are forced into this existence anyway by the nature of the universe... do they get a hand in acclimating with this new and unwelcome reality? ... No, some goddess they never cared about suddenly takes it as her right to judge them based on her own criteria.
There are a couple of points here. First off, a lot of "atheists" don't make it to that stage. We're talking here about not just people who have made a fully rational observation about the state of the universe that happens, as we as players know from setting information, to be wrong; these "atheists" are depressed, probably self-hating, nihilists whose souls are damaged. Many don't make it through the Astral; they end up as undead, like ghosts or allips. Others dissolve... as they might have wished. (If you don't like that, perhaps the dissolved soul is washed clean into a tabula rasa, and Pharasma sees to it that it's reincarnated somewhere for another go.)
Your point on the imposed, one-sided contract ("welcome to reality; now worship me or you have earned death" or, in another form, "you were born deserving damnation") is also well-taken. It's a standard real-world atheist comment on the inherent immorality of religion. In this case, however, from Todd Stewart's description it appears that it isn't a life choice that's at issue; it's that the souls in question are damaged goods. A committed and mentally healthy non-worshiper falls under the category "agnostic" in these descriptions.
So is it okay just because she's a goddess who claimed death or whatever as her domain? Just because they can't stand up to her as weak, lost, spirits; it's just fine that she chooses to torture them?
For those that do get to Pharasma's judgment, it's entirely possible that she doesn't have a choice in the matter; the Graveyard of Souls is explicitly defined as more of a "quarantine" than a "punishment." It's possible that those souls, who barely made it across the Astral, would be further endangered by shipping them off to yet another plane. (And whether Pharasma had the choice to be the goddess of death to begin with is also debatable, as godly origins are deliberately obscured.) Now, it's a pretty medieval and barbaric practice to quarantine or imprison the mentally ill, to be sure. But then, Golarion is a medieval setting.
Where are all the paladins when people who never did anything but deny, perhaps foolishly, the existence of a greater cosmology are being kidnapped, tortured, and fed to a monster? Seems to me that this should be item one on some good busy-body's agenda to rectify. I'm looking at you, good gods. If you want to keep being "good" you need to at least protest on the behalf of those who can't protect themselves, even if they never liked you.
I really dig everything you're saying. Maybe it's a Graveyard because that's Pharasma's instinct, and everyone there would be better off if it was a hospital, where there was a way to treat and release those souls, and possibly even to attract atheist souls across the Astral before they dissolved. Maybe some intrepid investigator could explore into the abandoned length of the Spire below Pharasma's Boneyard, and find out something about Groetus' nature as part of that obscure ancient pantheon, and about what attracts or repels him in these imprisoned souls. Maybe they could figure out a way to hold him off through conscious effort, without tossing him a poor mad depressive every now and then. You could use Rinna, the Black Nurse, as I wrote above. Or, better yet, I think your character ought to do it in your game. Change the world, hero! :^)
I really dig everything you're saying.
Watashi mo. I'm enjoying your responses. Honestly I'm not that concerned about it, but I get to being contrary and I start stomping my feet. Plus it all touched a real-world nerve for me about various religions.
I might just have to get into the setting a little bit though, check it out. There could be an interesting campaign in here somewhere.
Without saying too much, everyone interested in the fate of atheists and their place in Golarion's afterlife should get "Beyond the Vault of Souls". Since it shipped only today, I will not say more, but there is a very good reason that atheists are treated the way they are treated ... ;-)
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So, where did I put this blasted key?