I'm making a setting that has human friendly gods and demigods vs gods/demigods that want man groveling...

A history buff? :) Or filthy unbeliever?

Your choice!

Really neither. And also, judging things based on "choice" is intellectually dishonest.

It might be interesting for me to change the game to the players seeking to enslave the gods of nature on behalf of the gods of civilization.

>judging things based on "choice"
I'm not quite sure what you're referring to.

But I am pretty sure people should be judged on the choices they make, if that's what you mean.

Do you think I should stick to one religion or go for multiple ones all mixed in?

I think you should direct the snarky comments about intellectual dishonesty towards , rather than someone who breaks down piecemeal how modern Christianity came to be.
Further, Yahweh's origins as a war god that demanded blood sacrifice strengthens his argument, whereas yours is... what, exactly?

Are the Gods cooperating?

For extra grimderp:
All gods are eldritch all-devouring abominations that drive people insane by their mere presence.
Some are still rooting for mankind, in the sense they want to make mankind into sustainable herd of cattle, culling the weak and taking choice cuts for themselves but besides that being kind and caring shepherds.
The others either don't care for the future of the mankind and just want to gorge themselves now or have intelligence of animal and are incapable of caring in the fist place.
Becoming champion of the "good" deity makes one defender or mankind but is still extremely taxing and carries a risk of becoming your patron's snack sooner rather than later.
Champions of "evil" deities are either complete madmen or vengeful and wicked individuals soon to become complete madmen.

I mean really, you can just make your own. Pick aspects of nature, shuffle em into personifications.

But you want to go with Earth ones, you might be too limited if you stuck to only one culture.

This has been done to death. It's not even realistic, since humanity acts just like other natural creatures, except with more tools. Ant societies, beaver dams, etc. "The rape of nature" is a theme born of ignorance, since every other creature does the same.

The story of Prometheus

Yeah, I was thinking that the gods backing man would set aside a lot of their issues for the sake of advancing this goal bit there would still be some politics and the like. The players have the goal of defeating the interests of the misanthropic gods but also have the side mission of pushing forward their patreon god's objectives.

Sorry, I think I misread your question, and that you were asking how many religions there should be in-game.
Please ignore my post.

Have you decided why they have the agendas they do? Like why might certain deities be misanthropic?

Nature example:
Fruit trees rely on animals like humans to disperse their seeds.
While other animals might compete with humans to do the same, and other plants might not want fruit trees to be helped.
So there's the potential to 'personify' that interaction.

Its not so much the rape of nature so much as mankind and their supporting gods getting tired of tornados, earthquakes and world consuming floods knocking mankind back to the stone age

Oh, hmm. That could be interesting.

Humanity getting constantly besieged by natural disaster deities that just want to do whatever the fuck they feel like.

Humans break out the chains, aided by art and technology deities that are equally tired of it.

Well if I go with civilization vs nature the nature gods wouldn't be exactly anti-human, more capricious assholes, while gods of civilization have huge egos but recognize that mankind are what allow civilization to actually exist. Both types of God also would have tunnel vision regarding their area of influence

There would be gods that don't give a crap either way as well

The picture is actually raises a good point. The full quote is "Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of God." This means people who are like the poor in how they live (below their means and with humility), not people who are literally poor.

Thanks for getting what I was going for

If you read the parable of the talents, he was more interested in the potential of the poor than their present state.

The 'humility' obsession was added from Judaism, while the earlier oral traditions seem instead born of stoic philosophy..

no that is not at all what I mean.
I was refering to the "Your choice" part.
>I think you should direct the snarky comments about intellectual dishonesty towards
nah do that yourself. Didn't care the slightest about >strengthens his argument
>hereas yours is... what, exactly?
thanks for displaying that you just sperged out as a kneejerk reaction based on the topic and not based on you having any idea of what I was reffering to.

Someone with a correct, informed opinion? Yes, we do.

All those things are proven influences in Abrahamic religion. Just because one or two things, like Mithra, get played up by ignoramuses as way more important than they were does not mean Christianity didn't incorporate tons of ideas from elsewhere.

I hope you're not arguing that Genesis wasn't cribbed mostly from the Enuma Elish. Because it most certainly was. Same goes for Ostara and modern angel iconography.

People make a lot of erroneous claims about religious influence in relation to the Abrahamic faiths, but these ones are correct.

You do realize that sharing a common mythic lineage due to proximity to various other tribal cultures doesn't equal to fanfiction tier appropriation Right?

Also
>Didn't even mention the fact that the flood myth is basically the exact same as the Sumerian one, right down to the ark

I can't believe how people choose to believe the abrahamic god, hwo can people believe that Jesus, his mother and father are all the same person?

I swear religion is fucking retarded.

>his mother

>what is the trinity
fuck of christfag

Lol'd
Top tier bate.

Trinitarism was decided upon in the First Council of Nicaea.

'The Trinity' did not always exist, it was opposed by Arianism, and at the council with the formulation of the Nicene Creed, it was decided that promoting Trinitarism was correct.

Of course, one might then examine that it was no divine revelation, but a considered political decision. Which many people don't like to do.

There was a lot of appropriation and false-author works in ancient times. Anyone could (and did) claim they were the Apostle John for example.

Religions however are predisposed to claiming that they came up with something first, as was a major discussion in Trinitarism versus Arianism, since primacy implies power.

>hwo can people believe that Jesus, his mother and father are all the same person?
>his mother
Get out of here Muhammad

Arianism was in itself a form of trinitarianism though, they mostly had an unorthodox view on the nature of God the Son (Jesus).

Not that dude but I am a bit sceptical to the whole idea that "trinitarianism" was decided. If we examine the history of the nicaean creed, it's pretty apparant that the whole meeting came about as a result of practically every christian disagreen with Arius and his arianism. Essentially, Arius and his few followers were the only "christian" group that believed in the unorthodox views regarding the nature of "God the son".

And also, it needs to be mentioned that Constantina practically urged Constantin to disregard every other denomination or sect other than arianism so the downfall of arianism can barely be called the result of a "political decision", as you put it.

In my view it seems like Arius was simply someone with an unorthodox idea abot the nature of Jesus, and that his ideas where pretty much unsuported both by the bible and by how people commonly interpreted it back then.

To me, this sounds hardly like some conspiracy to promote trinitarianism over Arianism, as much as it sounds like people simply not agreeing with Arius.

>Arianism was in itself a form of trinitarianism though
It is by definition not.

In the Nicene Creed, Trinitarism declared the unity of essence between the Father and Son, which became dogma.
Arianism, which declared the separated progeny of the Son from the Father, was declared anathema.

>To me, this sounds hardly like some conspiracy to promote trinitarianism over Arianism, as much as it sounds like people simply not agreeing with Arius.

This is correct. I don't think that guy you're replying to promotes the idea of a conspiracy though.

What you don't really understand, it seems, is that neither was the 'orthodox' view by that point. Trinitarianism was just the more popular one, so it was a shrewd political move to adopt it over Arianism.

This isn't a conspiracy, it's simply how religions develop. Deuteronomy, now, THERE is a legit conspiracy.

>this sounds hardly like some conspiracy to promote trinitarianism over Arianism
By literal definition, that's what councils are.

There were many variants of Early Christianity, Manichaeism for example, very popular in the Aramaic speaking world.
Yet to consolidate power, all interpretations of scripture contrary to the central Nicene authority tended to be declared heresy, and once their followers were stamped out they could claim full primacy.

Interpretations of sacred dogma were very tightly controlled back then, as evidenced by the Council of Trent.

Much of the religious world (ex. Medici Popes), was entirely political. And is to this day.

OP, what you are described is literally Asura's Wrath.

A race of demigods (basically magic cyborgs) are waging a war against demons to protect humanity. The magic energy, Mantra, comes from the souls of humanity, given through their prayers. One of the Demigod Generals, Asura, has a daughter named Mithra who's really good at channeling Mantra and buffing the Demigod Generals to DBZ-levels of power. Asura has a really, really short fuse but he loves his family and ultimately fights to protect them. His thing is getting mad and punching things with 6 arms.

This war has been going on for millions of years (Asura himself passes through a token time skip of twelve thousand years with no changes) and the head General, Deus, decides the war must end now, and for all time. He figures they'll need lots of Mantra to do it, more than could be offered through prayer - so he plans to genocide humanity to kill the geese that lay golden eggs and just power themselves and their armies with wholesale Kirkland-brand souls. Problem is that Asura, while an angry, angry man, has a very rigid moral compass, and would never stand for such action. So they rest of the generals kill the Emperor, frame Asura for it, kill his wife, kidnap his daughter to use a a Mantra battery, and cast him out so they can start turning humanity into a world of martyrs.

The rest of the game is Asura killing the Generals one by one to rescue his daughter and avenge his wife. The world is a distant third until he finds out exactly what the Generals are doing - then it's a close third. Asura himself hates being worshipped and wishes the humans would stop bowing to him.

>What you don't really understand, it seems, is that neither was the 'orthodox' view by that point
well this is the part that I would argue, it seems like the NT is pretty clear about Jesus being God. Take Philippians 2:6 where Paul talks about how Jesus does not CLING to his godhood but instead empties himself. This implies heavily that Jesus was already God, but that he felt no need to cling to that fact and instead chose to come as a human. And ofcourse there are many other passages in the NT that promotes trinitarianism, such as 1 John 5:7 which says "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.". This yet again is pretty clear indication of trinitarianism. Not to mention that back in the days judaism itself had the "two powers" theology, before it was declared heretical because they feared that jews would convert to christianity based on this. So the bible, atleast the NT, seems pretty clear on its trinitarianist ideas, hence why everyone disagreed with Arius.

Further on, the fact that trinitarianism was adopted over Arianism in the political arena was not at all as straight forward as some seem to imply, the fact that Constantina implored her brother to declare all who did not adhere to Arianism . heretics. Seems to be a strong case for a roman support, at least for a short while, in favor of arianism.

>which declared the separated progeny of the Son from the Father
What I mean is that it did acknowledge Jesus as God the Son. it simply argued for the Son's inferiority to the Father rather than equality. It wasn't unitarian in the sense that it denied Jesus' divinity.

Weren't Constantine's two sons both Arians as well?

>Seems to be a strong case for a roman support, at least for a short while, in favor of arianism.

Arianism would reduce the declared 'power' of the popular mythological figure of the Messiah. Thus, while closer to the meaning of the word 'Son', it was politically disfavorable to the church constituency to put the Messiah in a subordinate position.

If you want to do ancient religion studies, you definitely should start looking at it from a political and social approval standpoint.

Example: When Yaweh became the primary deity of the Hebrew people, their prior Canaanite deities were placed in two categories.
'El', deity of the city and patron of Israel, was said to be "another name for" Yaweh.
Baal, patron of outside hunter factions, was said to be a 'demon'.

And so the new priesthood of Yaweh consolidated power over the city's holdings.

>well this is the part that I would argue, it seems like the NT is pretty clear about Jesus being God.

The NT is a document that formed over many centuries and has been reinterpreted multiple times. What you're reading now is not always congruent with the belief structures that existed at the time, or with how writings were phrased at the time.

Do you have any idea how much writing Christianity has shed and taken on over the years? How much time has been devoted to scrutinizing every belief and determining how viable it is?

well Arianism and support for Arianism was certainly strong within that family. But this is exactly what I mean, it seems pretty clear that Arianism had the support of the emperor, or atleast of some in his family, not teh opposite which is what people generally try to imply when they mention the Nicaean creed. As if it was some sort of conspiracy, and that trinitarianism is not supported by the NT (which it is)

Well I am partly familiar with the things you mentioned, but I would also like to point out that the narrative you mentioned, regarding the origin of Yahweh is one among multiple origins for Yahweh when it comes to history. As far as I am aware, and I claim by no means to be an expert on the subject, the bronze age origins of Yahweh are a bit hard to trace. Example, we know with some certainty that Israelites originated from bronze age caananites, but we also know that Yahweh was not a caananite God. Hence when Yahweh was introduced he more or less was equated with El as you mentioned. But the idea that this would imply that an active conspiracy was ongoing to demote the other gods (Elohim) to demons (such as the shedim) seems a bit like a stretch considering the fact that deities frequently went from God to demon and the other way around in ancient near east mythologies, and many times, it didn't need any political involvement, it was merely a consequence of how the deity was portrayed. Many deities in ANE were a blend between demonic and deific, deities such as Ereshkigal come to mind as I wirte this.

We mustn't forget that many people genuinly believed in the existence of these beings, so the ruling class couldn't do as they pleased with these sects/religions, even though they many times favored one sect over another for whatever political reason.

Actually I am well familiar with the New Testament and it's origins. And teh notion that the modern NT is vastly different from the "ancient" NT, is frankly a psuedohistorical pov. Especially considering the fact that we got over 1 million quotes from the early church fathers from the NT of their time, esentially the whole NT can be reconstructed from 1st and 2nd century quotes. Even famous historians such as Barth Ehrman and Bruce Manning Metzger, despite their different religious views (Metzger is christian and Ehrman is atheist) seem to agree to a profound degree about the reliability of NT.

Here's a quote from Bart Ehrman regarding his and Metzgers view on NT.

"Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands. The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament." - Bart Ehrman about his Menotr Bruce Metzger.

Now I am no expert on the subject, but it would seem like two of the best NT textual critics of our time seem to disagree with the notion that the NT has been profoundly changed.

>is one among multiple origins for Yahweh when it comes to history
I discount all the religiously motivated ones for scholarship purposes.

The earliest records I believe were from wanders near Sinai, referred to by the Egyptians as the 'Shedu'.

You must understand, the 'religious narrative' was always very much the subject of the desires of those wiring it.
Example: The Heresy of Akhenaten
He just straight up removes Amun-Ra from power in favor of Aten, and commands his subjects to grow the cult.
After he dies, the Temple of Amun-Ra goes about a reconversion.
In between: Rights to tariffs owed the temple by traders, shifting between priests of Aten and those of Amun-Ra.
Amun-Ra himself born of a unity of cities whose patrons were Amun and Ra.

Egyptian deities changes with the cities that patronized them, the power of the deity ebbing and flowing with that of the city.
Once it was Ptah supreme, and the city Hikuptah became to Greece Hikuptos, became Aegyptos, became the Roman Aegyptus, and so to the English Egypt.

Egypt is named after the deity Ptah, just like Thursday is Thor's Day. But how many people know or care now?
Deities, in historical study, are political tools.

For the Abrahamaic deities, the councils of their definition cared not so much for the natural world around them in figuring out what attributes they should have:
For upon their dogma the natural world was created for them to rule and passively enjoy. (See the Middle Ages writings on the subject, like Hildegard von Bingen.)

The councils instead decided matters between the meanings of pre-written (received) scriptures (revelations), and more directly the power exchange between the priest and apostolic lines that promoted them. (See the writings of Tertullian.)

It's an interesting subject, but very demanding that you treat it like Mythology and Politics, rather than as an object of worship.

>Actually I am well familiar with the New Testament and it's origins. And teh notion that the modern NT is vastly different from the "ancient" NT, is frankly a psuedohistorical pov.

The NT has remained mostly the same since the primary canon was established.

It took quite some time for that to be established, however, and the NT was not always a monolithic slab of text. It had to be put together.

>I discount all the religiously motivated ones for scholarship purposes.
well in a sense I can very much understand this, although I personally think that one should go teh extra mile to read and analyze even religiously motivated accounts, exactly for the scholarly reason. Note, I do not mean that just because you read them, that you are obliged to agree with them, instead I mean that they should be read and taken with a grain of salt (like with most other things).

However, I must also add that I do not disagree that religion can be used, and many times is used, as a vehicle for politics, the many examples you gave are spot on in that regard as far as I am aware.

However the point I've been trying to make since the beginning is that from what I've read, and from what I know, the trinitarianist view was not picked in favor of the Arianist view based on strictly political reasons. Instead what I mean is that trinitarianism had the popular vote BECAUSE the NT seems to be so heavily in favor of trinitarianism and not Arianism.

So essentially what I am saying is that the amtter of trinitarianism vs arianism was settled more by
>The councils instead decided matters between the meanings of pre-written (received) scriptures (revelations)...
and less by
>and more directly the power exchange between the priest and apostolic lines that promoted them. (See the writings of Tertullian.)

One of my reasonings for this, beyond what the NT seems to imply, is that trinitarianism won in spite of teh fact that portions of Constantins own family supported Arius.

But putting all of this asside, I see a great many things that I agree with in your post, so it would be very unfair of me to merely disregard everything you said, note that this is not what I am trying to do.

>It's an interesting subject
it is indeed

I agree

Any books I should read to get a better insight into the mentality of various gods from a bunch of different religions.

Ironically, probably a science book on atmospherics or oceanics.

Their personalities are based on the observed natural occurrences.

To the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the lightning WAS Zeus. See: The writings of Emperor Julian.

>It's an interesting subject, but very demanding that you treat it like Mythology and Politics, rather than as an object of worship.
I think you've missunderstood me as much as I've missunderstood you. I do not treat this as mythology and politics, as a matter of fact I thought you were doing exactly this. I must in that case apologize for not catching on quick enough.

>rather than as an object of worship.
This is exactly what I've been trying to say that the matter boils down to.

The Idea that I don't agree with is that, as I mentioned in is that trinitarianism would be nothing more than a conspiracy that was decided during the Nicaean creed, and that it did not exist prior to this point and that it can tehrefore be disregarded.

And the reason I went down this path of reasoning is not because you've implied any of these things, instead I mentioned this because it seems like the generally motive behind people mentioning the Nicaean creed these days, at least on Veeky Forums, is because the want to promote some psuedohistorical doctrine of "look these evil people were tampering with and changing the "original" doctrines". To which I would respond that it's not that simple. The creed was there to resolve an issue, and it can't simply be reduced to conspiracy theories about how trinitarianism was made up on the spot, or how politics alone is the deciding factor behind the result. What I'm trying to say is that the creed was a complex issue, and that people should look more into it rather than resort to the obvious memes about "le ebil creeds-men". If you get what I'm saying.

What would be the most interesting demigods to read about or gods who spent a lot of time among humans

I mean, you could watch the Hercules series with Kevin Sorbo.

But myths usually tend to be more purpose-bound. I suppose there's stuff with Gilgamesh. Or Inanna's human 'husband' Dumuzi.

Possibly the tale of Sita and Rama. Ignore the part where he shafts Sita. There's disagreements among vedics as to whether an avatar of Vishnu would actually do that.

Actually reading religious texts or folklore would be the best way to get an insight into the fictional mentality of the gods in question. Folklore more than religious text, as the latter is often bogged down in the specifics of ritual.

Most books on the subject are more about understanding WHY those traits existed. A good springboard in that area, at least for the Abrahamic religions, would be Karen Armstrong's A History of God.

The early stuff on the Annunaki and the Igigi is pretty fascinating. It's pretty interesting to see them discuss mankind and eventually get into a philosophical debate about the rights of a created being vs the rights of a creator, and what responsibilities a creator has.

It's also interesting in that the worlds of man and god are fully integrated, much how, in Gilgamesh, the titular character's goddess mother is just around in his palace for when he needs to consult her. Much like an old mother in Sumer, she seemingly lives in her son's house.

I always liked Hestia. Eldest child of Cronos and Rhea, and therefore the most mature of the Olympians. Very few stories of Hestia survive to the modern day, which given what sort of stories the Greeks told of their gods is probably a mark in her favor. What stories we do have portray her as a kind and moderate goddess who did her best to be a peacemaker between her siblings and who demanded nothing from humanity save a place by the hearth. And in return she taught humans those arts that turn society into civilization: art, craftsmanship, governance, architecture, all sorts of things. She was a pretty cool lady.

So I'm thinking of making all gods, humans, locations, etc. A part of one God which is the world itself. There is no outer space the stars and sun are just part of the World. Mankind and the aspects of civilization vs monsters and nature itself as kind of an ID vs ego thing for the world.

So the players are going to have to fight an earthquake or wrestle the sea. The gods of civilization will have actual bodies and personality, nature gods will be the force of nature themselves no human or animal forms. Also lots of huge beasts that represent the entirety of a species so if you kill the elephant God all elephants die, enslave him and all elephants serve but he will always try to free himself

Honestly, read the books of said religion. From someone who reads a lot of texts that has to do with religion, the best advice I can give is to always make sure to read the source material and then read the various later writers opinions about them. Since the source material often is the foundation and without it you only get people's, sometimes warped, opinions.

I like what Final Fantasy XIV did with like the twelve gods and then a shit ton of primals. Maybe something like that, OP?

>gods/demigods that want man groveling
Deities of Civilisation (hearth, harvest, craft, walls, law, art, hospitality, war what have you)

VS

>human friendly gods and demigods
animistic spirits of nature (particular locales such as forests, rivers, mountains; phenomena such as storms, rain/drought, sun/moon, the sea etc)