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I think mindless creatures being evil undermines what evil actually is. It's like a cartoony caricature of itself.
Cremation and the scattering of ashes, or collection in an urn is still reverence of the dead, as is burning on a boat, or on a high pyre, or building a high platform for them to be claimed by the elements and beasts.
All these are reverential. As I said, no culture treats their own dead with contempt (though they may desecrate other cultures bodies). The exorbitant amount of money people spend only shows how important it is considered.
Attempting to restore a corpse to the semblance of what they looked like in life if a cultural sensitivity but hardly exploitation. The U.K. Doesn't have the same tradition of open caskets to the extent of America so maybe I don't see the level of exploitation that you do. I do know what reverence for the dead has nothing to do with religion. Having spoken to a few people about this I am confident that most people would be horrified to discover someone was using parts from a cemetery. You only have to look at the rightful outrage where bodies were used for experimentation without permission. It is an extremely powerful emotive subject. Here ya go.
In the case of zombi, you have kind have made my point that it was/is used as a punishment. Slavery is generally considered to be evil.You cannot enslave the mindless and soulless. Which is what skeletons and zombies are in D&D/Pathfinder.
There is plenty of justification for the animation of the dead to be an evil act - even without delving into the hungry dead/negative energy elements which may vary game world to game world.No, there really isn't. I've proven that there isn't in the past. Literally the only justification is that they have the evil alignment slapped on them, which is only 1.5 editions old and has been a point of contention since the change was made.
Virtually every "justification" that is given doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny, conflicts with existing rules, or is outright disproved by the mechanics of the game because it tells you exactly what does happen to souls, where they end up, and what affects them.
Cremation and the scattering of ashes, or collection in an urn is still reverence of the dead, as is burning on a boat, or on a high pyre, or building a high platform for them to be claimed by the elements and beasts.
All these are reverential.
They could be reverential. Or it could be for entirely utilitarian purposes like cost or prevention of disease. In our case, it's the first. Bodies have to be disposed of in our society, and because of the various laws surrounding funeral practices, incineration is a cheaper alternative.
As I said, no culture treats their own dead with contempt (though they may desecrate other cultures bodies).
What does contempt have to do with anything?
The exorbitant amount of money people spend only shows how important it is considered.
Or it could be that most people aren't rational but emotional and easily preyed upon by those looking to make a buck. I think Adam Ruins Everything actually did a piece on this one. Here ya go.
In the case of zombi, you have kind have made my point that it was/is used as a punishment. Slavery is generally considered to be evil.
You cannot enslave the mindless and soulless. Which is what skeletons and zombies are in D&D/Pathfinder.
There is plenty of justification for the animation of the dead to be an evil act - even without delving into the hungry dead/negative energy elements which may vary game world to game world.
No, there really isn't. I've proven that there isn't in the past. Literally the only justification is that they have the evil alignment slapped on them, which is only 1.5 editions old and has been a point of contention since the change was made.
Virtually every "justification" that is given doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny, conflicts with existing rules, or is outright disproved by the mechanics of the game because it tells you exactly what does happen to souls, where they end up, and what affects them.
Not just likeness to the living, but to specific people. I suspect even most of those talking about how the body is just a pile of soulless matter and it doesn't matter what happens after you die would still be shocked and horrified to find their parent's or lover's or child's corpse defaced or mutilated after death. Much less reanimated and shuffling around as cheap labor.
Which has nothing to do with morality.
Intellectually it's one thing. Emotionally, seeing your loved one's rotten corpse pushing a plow is going to be something different entirely.
Or they could be skeletons and then you couldn't tell Adam from Abel.
We were talking about Zombi in the context of voodoo, which is living people enslaved to the practitioner. Please note I said Zombi not zombies.
It is possible for something to be a functional evil without being a moral evil. Shambling dead that hunger to feast on the living are functionally evil even though their lack of free will means they can't be morally evil.
We know that burial traditions aren't purely for utilitarian reasons like the prevention of disease otherwise we wouldnt have traditions of saying goodbye to the dead with touching as in Africa or open caskets in the west.
Incidentally some oriental cultures saw the dead as being unclean and considered those that touched them unclean as well.
D&D and by extension Pathdinder draws its inspiration from real world tropes and legends which consistently portray undead as evil. The exceptions being recent vampire stories and older ghost stories. That with the ramifications of being fueled by entropy and the desecration of the dead is enough for me.
It is possible for something to be a functional evil without being a moral evil. Shambling dead that hunger to feast on the living are functionally evil even though their lack of free will means they can't be morally evil.
No, it isn't. In fact, the game even notes that creatures incapable of making moral decisions are Neutral even if their mannerisms or general functions would be evil by alignment standards (such as animals that kill for fun, and they do, oh they do).
We know that burial traditions aren't purely for utilitarian reasons like the prevention of disease otherwise we wouldnt have traditions of saying goodbye to the dead with touching as in Africa or open caskets in the west.
Incidentally some oriental cultures saw the dead as being unclean and considered those that touched them unclean as well.
All of which has nothing to do with alignment.
D&D and by extension Pathdinder draws its inspiration from real world tropes and legends which consistently portray undead as evil. The exceptions being recent vampire stories and older ghost stories. That with the ramifications of being fueled by entropy and the desecration of the dead is enough for me.
Which, again, has nothing to do with alignment.
I think I fixed it. Somehow I accidentally ended up with two different tabs open and editing two different post boxes. It was a huge mess. XD
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D&D and by extension Pathdinder draws its inspiration from real world tropes and legends which consistently portray undead as evil. The exceptions being recent vampire stories and older ghost stories.Wow, this is just...I don't even know where to start. Neutral and Good undead are a standard in Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, Celtic, Irish, Tibeten, and Vietnames mythologies, and even early Christianity, so it's not like there isn't overwhelmingly abundent precedent for neutral and good undead. If anything, it's the all-undead-are-evil stories that are the odd ones out.
As someone who has read up a fair bit on folklore pertaining to undead around the world, I don't really agree with this. Yes there are exceptions in various cultures, but for the most part undead are bad news, and usually arise from horrible or tragic deaths or breaking traditional taboos. A lot of the "neutral or good" spirits in these cultures are less undead in the sense of pathfinder, but more spirits that have moved onto the afterlife, but in cultures that generally lack discrete Christian-style heaven. So in Pathfinder terms, they would be outsiders, not undead.
How you treat undead, there creation, and their role in the world is down to how you want to set up the setting your run and its cosmology.
So i guess a totally utilitarian society would be evil lol
Like the society in 1984? A totally utilitarian society looks at people as functional units, not as persons. So yeah.
So i guess a totally utilitarian society would be evil lolLike the society in 1984? A totally utilitarian society looks at people as functional units, not as persons. So yeah.
Actually, a totally utilitarian society would in fact be super good.
Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility. Utility is defined in various ways, but is usually related to the well-being of sentient entities.
u·til·i·tar·i·an
yo͞oˌtiləˈterēən/
adjective
adjective: utilitarian1.designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive.
synonyms: practical, functional, pragmatic, serviceable, useful, sensible, efficient, utility, workaday, no-frills; More
plain, unadorned, undecorative
"she traded in her sporty little coupe for a utilitarian station wagon"
antonyms: decorative
2.Philosophy
of, relating to, or adhering to the doctrine of utilitarianism.
"a utilitarian theorist"nounPhilosophy
noun: utilitarian; plural noun: utilitarians1.an adherent of utilitarianism.
So i guess a totally utilitarian society would be evil lolLike the society in 1984? A totally utilitarian society looks at people as functional units, not as persons. So yeah.
1984 is a satire of a totalitarian communism written by a British socialist. It has nothing to do with utilitarianism.