Posted by Zix on February 20, 2000 at 10:50:33:
In Reply to: "Good" is abundant, actually... posted by The Arcane(VIP) on February 20, 2000 at 04:12:23:
> ...just not the narrowly-defined explicitly-Christian conception you have in mind. Allow me to elaborate. > Consider the Pantheon of deities available... more than one of them embrace ideals that we would consider the polar opposite of the evil that Satan symbolizes in your mind. Take a look at Selric's religion, or Bria's, or Shokai's. They are different components of a moral whole that we would describe as "good." The missionary, the inquisitor, and the crusader of the Christian world can all find rough parallels in these available religious constructs. Nothing is lost by keeping explicitly Christian terminology out of the game, and if anything, something is gained. > The world of CF is a fantasy world... it is patchwork in a sense to be sure, in that a river and some hills are all that separates the White Tower from Mirkwood, but the result is a unique synthesis where these realities blend together, with the common thread underlying them all being their detachment from the real world as we know it. Yes, even including Hell. Dante's Divine Comedy is no more a religious text than any of the other fiction cited in CF areas. However, to introduce "real" religious elements would spoil the suspension of disbelief that is possible within the framework provided. > I enjoy debating Scarabite dogma, or discussing the merits and pitfalls of civilization with an Imperial. But if I want to argue Christian theology with someone, I'll pick a fight with one of my religious friends here at school. It's not what I look for in a game, and certainly not in the fantasy environment that CF purports to be. > As an aside, this has been one of the most restrained posts I've ever made on this forum, on a topic that is a very sensitive one with me. My initial inclination was to write a polemic that would have had no place on the forum. In any case, suffice it to say that I am saddened by your (collective) inability to recognize and consider good and evil in a framework detached from the religious one to which you are accustomed. > PS: Have you ever read Inferno? Have you ever been to CF's version of it personally? Aside from the name of "Satan" there is precious little resemblance to the conventional "Satan" and "Hell" of the Christian world, unless you're going to tell me that you believe in a conception of Hell that is bounded by the Acheron and the Styx, home to the guardian Cerberus, and the like. Sometimes a name is just a name. > (This is also about the most incoherent post I've ever made--I need some sleep.)