Religion in Terra

[Amazeroth]

Islam is simply a noun meaning "submission" in arabic, and the language spoken in Kafuristan and Badara is a rip-off of arabic. So Islam should be fine.

Ah, you're right. At least it would be all right without referencing Muhammad. As well, I suppose Catholic ('Universal') can also be fine, without referencing to Jesus.

If thats the case, Christianity can keep its name because it gets its name from the Greek word Khristós (or Christos), meaning "the anointed one" and not from the real name of Jezus.

Actually, I don't think any of these names should be kept, since while they may originate from common words, they have since long adopted a meaning of themselves that is much more than their original meanings. Islam is today not longer linked with the Arabic meaning of the word - especially since most of us don't speak Arabic - and even if it can be translated as sumbission, in all our heads, and everyone new to the game, it will always mean the Religion that worships Allah as only god, with Mohammed as his prophet, and all its other characteristics. The same very much goes for Catholic, and for Christianity.
After all, all these words are not just concepts - we don't use Catholic as a neutral synonyme for universal, we only use it in connection with the Catholic church. Also we don't use Christianity as a word for all religions focusing on an anointed person, but only for those focused on Jesus.

"God" on the other hand I think would be okay, because it is not limited to the "Christian God", but can be used for all the different deities. Allah can and often is translated by "God" too - it is both a way to refer to different deities, and to a single deity of a monotheistic religion.

[UniSocAll]

Actually, I don't think any of these names should be kept, since while they may originate from common words, they have since long adopted a meaning of themselves that is much more than their original meanings.

I'll have to agree with Amazeroth, we should try to avoid those terminology as a whole.

There was an announcement banning Christianity?

Well, why would it be necessary, when there's a rule in place?

It'd be like the government announcing that Theft is still illegal

[Amazeroth]

There was an announcement banning Christianity?

Well, why would it be necessary, when there's a rule in place?

It'd be like the government announcing that Theft is still illegal

Well, it was legal for a long time, and although the rules would have been pretty clear, the very long inactivity of moderation considering RL religions in particracy and the high acceptance of the community - for as long as I remember, nobody ever accused another for breaking the rules over this - make this something that should have been announced (although, to be fair, we don't really know the exact circumstances or if moderation has actually forbidden this anyway).

It would be kind of like, let's say, if theft was illegal, but the government and everyone ignoring for a long time, and obviously not finding illegal for a long time, the theft of, let's say, water in order to drink it. If people started to get arrested all of a sudden for something like that, they would be right to protest against it.

[UniSocAll]

Well, it was legal for a long time, and although the rules would have been pretty clear, the very long inactivity of moderation considering RL religions in particracy and the high acceptance of the community - for as long as I remember, nobody ever accused another for breaking the rules over this - make this something that should have been announced (although, to be fair, we don't really know the exact circumstances or if moderation has actually forbidden this anyway).

To my knowledge, Moderation has stopped people from using RL characters before, so they were enforcing the rules, I think they even stopped a nation from being named an 'Islamic Republic' recently.

It would be kind of like, let's say, if theft was illegal, but the government and everyone ignoring for a long time, and obviously not finding illegal for a long time, the theft of, let's say, water in order to drink it. If people started to get arrested all of a sudden for something like that, they would be right to protest against it.

To me, it's more like this: If someone stole a bank ten years ago, and the rules existed and the community knew about but accepted or tolerated it, and nothing has been done for ten years, and then the police shows up and arrest him for it and/or take away the money he stole, can you say that the police shouldn't have arrested him and that the money is his?

In any case, had they announce it, or just enforced it, the end-result would have been the same; older players who already got used to it will complain and say "it's been like that for a long-time, it shouldn't be changed."

My .02 is that we should avoid RL religion, and be creative, even if it means changing a few names. That way, you can RP with the religion as well, e.g. Prophets running for HoS, religious festivals, you can add or take from your own original religion, etc.

[Amazeroth]

Well, it was legal for a long time, and although the rules would have been pretty clear, the very long inactivity of moderation considering RL religions in particracy and the high acceptance of the community - for as long as I remember, nobody ever accused another for breaking the rules over this - make this something that should have been announced (although, to be fair, we don't really know the exact circumstances or if moderation has actually forbidden this anyway).

To my knowledge, Moderation has stopped people from using RL characters before, so they were enforcing the rules, I think they even stopped a nation from being named an 'Islamic Republic' recently.

I don't know about a recent incident - but yes, Moderation has stopped people from using RL characters before, but, at least for most of the years since the Pax Cynica was created, not from using or referencing RL religions - that is, a party with Jesus Christ as their HoG-candidate would have been warned, but not a party that used "Christian" in their name.

{quote]

It would be kind of like, let's say, if theft was illegal, but the government and everyone ignoring for a long time, and obviously not finding illegal for a long time, the theft of, let's say, water in order to drink it. If people started to get arrested all of a sudden for something like that, they would be right to protest against it.

To me, it's more like this: If someone stole a bank ten years ago, and the rules existed and the community knew about but accepted or tolerated it, and nothing has been done for ten years, and then the police shows up and arrest him for it and/or take away the money he stole, can you say that the police shouldn't have arrested him and that the money is his?

In any case, had they announce it, or just enforced it, the end-result would have been the same; older players who already got used to it will complain and say "it's been like that for a long-time, it shouldn't be changed."

My .02 is that we should avoid RL religion, and be creative, even if it means changing a few names. That way, you can RP with the religion as well, e.g. Prophets running for HoS, religious festivals, you can add or take from your own original religion, etc.[/quote]

Well, it's not only that the community tolerated and accepted it, it's that moderation has done the same thing - this has been going on for years and moderation was mostly cool with it - apart from single critical voices, but they never did anything about it.

Although, of course, you're right, since nobody was banned (which would be the equivalent of getting arrested here) or anything, nothing bad has happened, and the end-result is just the same.
And I'm absolutely with you, we should be creative and avoid RL religion as much as possible.

[Farsun]

To have real life religions with different names would just be stupid, lets be realistic here people would just carbon copy the existing religions and give them an eerily close name. To be entirely honest, just stick with the current religions and leave their back story a mystery...because lets face it...it would turn out to be the same back story.

[Amazeroth]

To have real life religions with different names would just be stupid, lets be realistic here people would just carbon copy the existing religions and give them an eerily close name. To be entirely honest, just stick with the current religions and leave their back story a mystery...because lets face it...it would turn out to be the same back story.

There's no reason why that should be stupid. Most parties in particracy are carbon copies of existing parties, and are just named a little differently. This is about consistency, and not creativity, although the latter would of course be appreciated.
Apart from that, most religions in the game named and fashioned after RL religions aren't exact copies of their RL counterparts, but have already changed a little. Deltarian catholicism had a dead pope for centuries.

[Farsun]

To have real life religions with different names would just be stupid, lets be realistic here people would just carbon copy the existing religions and give them an eerily close name. To be entirely honest, just stick with the current religions and leave their back story a mystery...because lets face it...it would turn out to be the same back story.

There's no reason why that should be stupid. Most parties in particracy are carbon copies of existing parties, and are just named a little differently. This is about consistency, and not creativity, although the latter would of course be appreciated.
Apart from that, most religions in the game named and fashioned after RL religions aren't exact copies of their RL counterparts, but have already changed a little. Deltarian catholicism had a dead pope for centuries.

Yeah, I mean of course divergences exist because everyone is striving to create a perfect version of what they are a part of.

[UniSocAll]

Not only carbon-copy parties, but there are plenty of nations that are basically carbon-copy of real-life nations. Some add in more creativity, while others are simply the real-life nation under a different name.

[JuliaAJA]

I have never done a carbon copy of any real life thing.