Re: Athiests in Fantasy Settings ( Was: some help please (druid))

psychohist wrote:
> Arthur Boff posts regarding the needs that religions fill:
>   - Social glue. A coherent moral philosophy, some basic
>   laws, perhaps even backing the political status quo (or,
>   in the case of Judaism or Christianity during the times
>   when those faiths were persecuted, keeping a
>   community together through a common faith when
>   everything else had been taken away from them).
> 
> Con****ianism does provide this part, and from my perhaps biased
> viewpoint, Buddhism and Taoism don't particularly.  Perhaps the key
> here - at least for the nonminority philosophies - is the underlying
> moral philosophy, which can be provided by nonreligious philosophies
> as easily as they can be by religions.

I'd argue that Buddhism offers a very strong moral philosophy, as well 
as a haven for opponents of, say, the Hindu caste system. (Buddhism, at 
its simplest, being all about hopping off the wheel of karma, while 
Hinduism is about riding it to the top.)

> I'm curious as to how you see
> the moral philosophy and legal framework as relating to what keeps
> minority communities together, though.

It's a matter of saying "We're the Jews/Christians/whatever, we believe 
that this and this and this are the right thing to do, we conduct our 
wor****p in this this and this way to show we're all part of the 
brotherhood".

>   - A focus for the community.
> 
> I guess I don't see this as an issue of either religion or
> philosophy.  I agree that churches can fulfill this role, but it seems
> to me that the keep or manor house may do so equally well.

All it takes in that case is for the current lord of the manor to be an 
antisocial cur who doesn't want the unwashed m***** running about in his 
house for the community focus to be lost.

Conversely, to continue the medieval Europe analogy, churches pretty 
much have to let people come and wor****p unless they're under a Papal 
interdict.

> Does that seem a reasonable analysis of the difference of your three
> items?

More or less.