Regional/Indigenous Faiths

AKA - A Word/Essay from the Moderator

There are a good number of other religions in the world, some of them, like dialects, determined by region. I.e. Shuuraian inhabitants of what used to be Asia, sometimes believe in tenets similar to the ancient religions of Taoism or Shintoism, Buddhism or Hinduism. You get the idea. Torah tends to be the exception, due to the extreme amount of control that the country exercises over its inhabitants.


However, I will not allow you to take a New Age religion and call it an ancient faith that goes back to the dawn of mankind, etc. I will allow "Neopaganism", so long as you, the player, actually understands WHAT that means, instead of spouting off a bunch of dimestore mumbo-jumbo about "history" and "heritage" and all that. "Wicca" is not a religion dating back thousands of years, blah, blah, blah. It does, however, have basis in practices that date back that long. Wicca itself, however, is little more than two decades old, if memory serves.


Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against "pagan religions", being Shintoist myself in real life. However, I do have a major peeve with people insisting, "Oh, I'm Pagan!"


... What sort of pagan then? Are you Celtic Pagan? Norse Pagan? Are you Shintoist? Pagan is a word that means nothing aside from the fact that you believe in multiple deities. Pagan does not constitute a religion in and of itself, and Paganism is the practice of believing in multiple deities and paying homage to them, -not- a religion.


New Age religions are a bit of a gray area, considering that they're still ranked amongst the minority of practices in the world today, and are generally regarded with a less than enthusiastic opinion as it is today.


Again, I reiterate, I have no issues with any religious practices of the world, be they New Age or steeped in tradition. I have problems when people come up with pretentions and try to insist that their religion is better, or that such-and-such religion is evil because they did "such and such" to "my" religion. Intolerance and ignorance is what bred the first crime - and those who continue such snipping are just serving to further those two, ultimately disastrous states.


I have no issues with people who are exploring a religion. I have issues with "trendy insert-religious-adherance/moniker-here"; I view them the same way as I do "trendy Goths." "Trendy" anyone (not just religion-wise), means that you're following what you perceive to be the way that you should act if you want to fit in - i.e. generally you embrace the stereotypes and make the rest of us look bad, considering that society generally has fairly negative stereotypes of the lot of us that it finds different.


It may seem like a lot of words, but I mean what I say, and this is a fair warning.


This is turning into one hell of a long essay, so I'm cutting my losses here and now, and will shortly, I suppose, be posting essays on the other religions, now that this one has me on a roll.


But take what I said to heart, when designing your character.

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