Faith on Rifts Earth

[GoldenGorilla]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

[The Beast]

There is no faith, only Zul.

Petty tyrants thrive when they have authority backed by vague regulations.

[HWalsh]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

Oh this has been mentioned.

It basically boils down to this:

The religions with active Gods and Goddesses seem to have flourished somewhat. It is, after all, easy to garner faithful worshipers when you show up now and again to do stuff. It is really hard to denounce the existence of a God when they are sitting in the bar down the road after all.

There are preachers in New West so it seems Christianity survived, but in small numbers, and only mentioned in New West really so we assume that it is kind of a "fringe" religion.

There was a debate on if the CS would even allow its members to worship a supernatural being openly. My belief on it is that they would have serious problems with it and would likely outright ban the practice as it would "encourage" humans to seek out the supernatural.

There is the revival of the worship of the Jade Emperor in Mystic China of course as well.

All in all it seems to be a can of worms that Palladium has chosen (probably wisely) to leave closed.

[Riftmaker]

There is no faith, only Zul.

You are incorrect there is only Xy power incarnate.

[Molydeus]

I started a discussion on this about two months ago, hoping for a reasoned discussion. And there was a little of that. But it got hijacked by religious people who (I think purposely) got the thread deleted.

Here's hoping your thread doesn't get wrecked like mine did.

[Rallan]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

I get the feeling that Palladium deliberately steered the hell away from christian themes and deliberately avoided in depth discussion of how real world religions (especially ones that are mainstream in the US) fared on Rifts Earth as part of their broader "Aww hell nah!" approach to controversial themes in general.

As for non-christian religions it runs the gamut from "We ain't touching that topic with a ten foot pole" to "We never thought of those guys" to "Their gods are real and they turn out to be incredibly twee caricatures and here's a nice side order of Noble Savage cliches because ain't cultural insensitivity awesome?", depending on how far they are from being mainstream American faiths irl.

[taalismn]

The thing about faith on Rifts Earth is that you have to figure that if you expect something out of the relationship with the Higher Being of your choice, you've also got to expect that there's a reciprocal responsibility.....the Hgher Being is going to want something of you, and may keep tallies of what you contribute to the relationship.
THat could make more than a few people uneasy, especially if their part of the relationship isn't clearly outlined with regards to what they're supposed to do.

That having been said, the old pre-rifts beliefs that don't have visible avatars, are likely rather esoteric, bit believe HARD, and likely follow the line that they're being tested constantly in a world of pretenders. Ironically, these true believers may espouse and support the more clinical outlooks of people like the scholars of Lazlo who seek to uncover and define what 'high beings' are...with the belief that this will reveal the pretenders, and vindicate the faithful. An odd state of affairs that would delight those scholars with the proper prospective and appreciation of irony.

[Natasha]

There's a catholic priest NPC in.... Russia.

[bobharly]

Faith/Religion gives people hope. In an apocalyptic world it would make sense that religion can be found everywhere. Some will worship powerful beings who seem godlike (or hellish), while others will put their stock in a god that can't been seen or known, but is all powerful and subtly, "helping those who help themselves." I'll come back to this in a moment.

I once learned somewhere, a long time ago, a THEORY that the historical origins of monotheism was the product of ancient slavery. Each city state had it's own unique god or pantheon. The idea of monotheism came about as a way for slaves to retain their cultural identity when taken to other city-states, a way to resist the assimilation of being forced to worship a new god or pantheon. Even enslaved their will and identity could not be broken. And as slaves were bought, traded and sent to other city-states the monotheism spread and became codified into a unique culture that is both an ethnicity and a religion. It gave the slaves a common bond, no matter where they were sent to.

In a world like Rifts, cultures are highly regionalized and most people don't travel and intermix ideas too much. Most communities are likely to worship something, whether it be benevolent or maleficent. But each community is likely to be different. I also bring of the origins of monotheism because slavery is a common theme as well. This should help with the old, "Who worships a region pantheon vs. who is monotheistic?" Since the game is fictional, let your imagination run wild and don't restrict yourself to the religions of today. In fact I would almost advise against using a modern religion as your players might be sensitive to it, even if they say they don't mind (I've seen that a couple times).

[HWalsh]

Faith/Religion gives people hope. In an apocalyptic world it would make sense that religion can be found everywhere. Some will worship powerful beings who seem godlike (or hellish), while others will put their stock in a god that can't been seen or known, but is all powerful and subtly, "helping those who help themselves." I'll come back to this in a moment.

I once learned somewhere, a long time ago, a THEORY that the historical origins of monotheism was the product of ancient slavery. Each city state had it's own unique god or pantheon. The idea of monotheism came about as a way for slaves to retain their cultural identity when taken to other city-states, a way to resist the assimilation of being forced to worship a new god or pantheon. Even enslaved their will and identity could not be broken. And as slaves were bought, traded and sent to other city-states the monotheism spread and became codified into a unique culture that is both an ethnicity and a religion. It gave the slaves a common bond, no matter where they were sent to.

In a world like Rifts, cultures are highly regionalized and most people don't travel and intermix ideas too much. Most communities are likely to worship something, whether it be benevolent or maleficent. But each community is likely to be different. I also bring of the origins of monotheism because slavery is a common theme as well. This should help with the old, "Who worships a region pantheon vs. who is monotheistic?" Since the game is fictional, let your imagination run wild and don't restrict yourself to the religions of today. In fact I would almost advise against using a modern religion as your players might be sensitive to it, even if they say they don't mind (I've seen that a couple times).

This is an interesting read.

My current character is a CK and in his case he's an Atheist. This doesn't mean he doesn't believe in God's, he'd be foolish to do that. This means that he doesn't worship them or think of them as divine.

One of his team mates is a Godling who claims to hail from the Greek Pantheon.

He thinks "Gods" are just very powerful supernatural beings.

[Library Ogre]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

Generally not. As mentioned, there's a Catholic Priest OCC in Russia, and a Preacher in New West, but the latter doesn't have much institutional support. We also know that there are at least some Muslims remaining, as one is shown in Rifts: Mercenaries. We haven't seen Rifts: India, so we don't know about Hinduism, but I know that Japan had Shinto and Buddhism still common, and of course the Aboriginal religion from Australia is still going strong.

[GoldenGorilla]

Well, me and all members of my gaming group are atheists, so I do not have to worry about hurting any feelings there. The reason for my question, besides the fact that it is rarely mentioned in the sourcebooks, is because I would like to adapt a short story by Clive Barker that has religious overtones. In it, a madman, after spending his life trying to find god and failing, decides to try and get into contact with Satan by building a hell on earth, creating a massive building full of traps and torture implements. It is also heavily implied that he sacrifices people or at least allows them to have "unfortunate accidents".

The chaotic nature of Rifts Earth seems conductive to such kinds of madness and, given the power of human sacrifice, such an undertaking might have dire consequences...

[HarleeKnight]

Why choose a "God" that never shows, to that one sitting in the bar drinking a beer? Faith is obviously still around, though I have to wonder why, when proof actually exists.

[ShadowLogan]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

Generally not. As mentioned, there's a Catholic Priest OCC in Russia, and a Preacher in New West, but the latter doesn't have much institutional support. We also know that there are at least some Muslims remaining, as one is shown in Rifts: Mercenaries. We haven't seen Rifts: India, so we don't know about Hinduism, but I know that Japan had Shinto and Buddhism still common, and of course the Aboriginal religion from Australia is still going strong.

Pantheons (don't have it) covers some of the non-monotheistic religions (Roman, Greek, Norse, Hindu) IINM, and SA2 (or SA1) has the Inca Gods of old, Africa has the Egyptian Pantheon (imposters IIRC), etc. So religions are out there in various books, but the monotheistic ones of today aren't heavily represented.

[guardiandashi]

I know it may not be Canon... but the main Gm in our group took something from the D&D book Deities & Demigods, and gave them "divine Ranks", partially based on their number of worshipers (Devoted Followers) basically as a simple explanation part of the reason Deities in the campaign in many cases actively tried to recruit followers was because they actually get something from it. Prayer effectively counted as meditation for the follower, but also gave a bit of power to the Deities what this means in a practical sense is if you are a Deity with 1000 followers you will get a small amount of "deity power" to work with, that can be used for buffing yourself in combat, Divine interventions, and other things. If a Deity with 1000 followers and a deity with millions of followers are competing the one with millions of followers is much more likely to win due to the larger power pool they have to work with.

however Deities tend to be selfish and lazy, plus people are fickle meaning you have to work harder to maintain a large number of followers. which is one reason Deities in a Pantheon tend to be more powerful as a group than individuals, partially because they are more likely to help other members of their group (Pantheon) and they can transfer or share power among the group.

the Practical effect is that say Zeus may be weaker (on his own) then Odin but because his Pantheon is more cohesive they work better together so they are much closer to an even match.

(just using that as an example)

because of various factors like that it makes the whole system a lot more complicated, but opens up a lot of "interesting possibilities" if you ever wanted to do the whole "gods game" and also explains why godlings and or lesser gods would be interacting with mortals, which in lots of ways is to try to grow their long term power base.

[glitterboy2098]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

Generally not. As mentioned, there's a Catholic Priest OCC in Russia, and a Preacher in New West, but the latter doesn't have much institutional support. We also know that there are at least some Muslims remaining, as one is shown in Rifts: Mercenaries. We haven't seen Rifts: India, so we don't know about Hinduism, but I know that Japan had Shinto and Buddhism still common, and of course the Aboriginal religion from Australia is still going strong.

Pantheons (don't have it) covers some of the non-monotheistic religions (Roman, Greek, Norse, Hindu) IINM, and SA2 (or SA1) has the Inca Gods of old, Africa has the Egyptian Pantheon (imposters IIRC), etc. So religions are out there in various books, but the monotheistic ones of today aren't heavily represented.

Pantheons also discusses the 'triple omni' type deities ala YHWY/Allah/God, in the 'types of dieties' section. Short version, it can be super powerful if the gm has them get involved directly, but that same power makes for boring stories most of the time, so they are better off used as a unseen entity that works indirectly through its believers.

[Svartalf]

I am not certain if this has ever been mentioned but how did the human faiths fare in the aftermath of the Apocalypse? Are the main world religions of today still around in any sort of significant numbers?

I get the feeling that Palladium deliberately steered the hell away from christian themes and deliberately avoided in depth discussion of how real world religions (especially ones that are mainstream in the US) fared on Rifts Earth as part of their broader "Aww hell nah!" approach to controversial themes in general.

As for non-christian religions it runs the gamut from "We ain't touching that topic with a ten foot pole" to "We never thought of those guys" to "Their gods are real and they turn out to be incredibly twee caricatures and here's a nice side order of Noble Savage cliches because ain't cultural insensitivity awesome?", depending on how far they are from being mainstream American faiths irl.

Away from Cheiqtian themes, and yet there's the Preacher in New West and even the "Catholic" Priest in Russia... that's not what I call ignoring christianity.

[taalismn]

Faith in Superior Firepower....that, if anything, will have received a MAJOR boost with the Coming of the Rifts.

[Library Ogre]

Pantheons also discusses the 'triple omni' type deities ala YHWY/Allah/God, in the 'types of dieties' section. Short version, it can be super powerful if the gm has them get involved directly, but that same power makes for boring stories most of the time, so they are better off used as a unseen entity that works indirectly through its believers.

I prefer my solution... Gods lie. "Oh, I am all-powerful and the only deity in the Universe!" Well, if you're significantly above the goat-herder you're talking to, you can look all powerful, and if you're diligent about killing priests of other gods, you look like the only one... but it doesn't make it so.

Really, the JCI God looks like an alien intelligence, to me. It allows you to interpret some things in game mechanics (an essence fragment being both an independent entity and the entity itself, some being granted extreme powers in exchange for service, etc.), that makes a fair degree of mechanical sense.

[Zamion138]

I would be suprised if religion at least as we picture it was around much during the golden age before the comming of the rifts. Religion around the world is on a steep decline , I have read as high as a 25% decline in western nations to as low as 12% decline in the last 10 years alone.
By the time we have space cities on the moon and mars, undersea biodomes and golden age super medicine and science it was probably as low as 10 or 20% max of the population "beliving" . With literacy falling heavy and the comming of magic to the world for 200 years after the rifts to think it would jump back up before "GODS" started showing up I just dont see. It was probably down to 5% to 10% before say the SA gods came back.

[Marcethus]

Doesn't the Rifts Adventure Guide address religion to a point? Saying something along the lines of most people believing that the coming of the Rifts was the gods punishing mankind for various things? Mostly too much reliance on Technology and that is why many communities don't care much for alot of the super high-tech items? IIRC it also says something about how many of the communities don't trust magic either because of all the demons that wield it. Though some communities are willing to realize that magic can be used for good or bad.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I the faith is not of the god listed in the the RCB2 and the PF:D&G they are not mentioned in the PB gamebooks.

[eliakon]

My personal view is that I like the fact that they have not covered it.
Really. It lets me run my game the way I want with out having to worry about a lot of canon cluttering up things.

When I run my games I tend to punch up my 'gods' significantly (the stats you see in game books become the stats of avatars). With the addition of a rather complex (and to most mortals not clearly understood) set of rules, some social some 'laws of nature'. In my games Lore: Religion can be rather useful... or not depending of if the group is going to get involved in the shenanigans of the 'gods' (And yes, the quotation marks are used specifically. They claim to be gods... but not all of them do, and many claim that the other gods are posers, or demons, or...)

I may or may not have the Judeo-Christian God. Basically when asked my answer is "how would your character know?".

[Riftmaker]

In a world where the paranormal is mundane why have faith in anything you can't see? Whats the difference between a line walker and the cleric of some " god "? I think people on Rifts earth would have faith in whatever kept them alive and out of bondage.

[Blue_Lion]

Why choose a "God" that never shows, to that one sitting in the bar drinking a beer? Faith is obviously still around, though I have to wonder why, when proof actually exists.

Because the proof is given as a reward for faith. I would find it hard to see the drunk in the bar as a god and not just D-bee pretending to be a god. After all gods have better thing to do than hang out with humans drinking the swill at the bar. With so many things with great power it would be easy for any number of things to provide fake proof that they are a god.

[Zamion138]

Why choose a "God" that never shows, to that one sitting in the bar drinking a beer? Faith is obviously still around, though I have to wonder why, when proof actually exists.

Because the proof is given as a reward for faith. I would find it hard to see the drunk in the bar as a god and not just D-bee pretending to be a god. After all gods have better thing to do than hang out with humans drinking the swill at the bar. With so many things with great power it would be easy for any number of things to provide fake proof that they are a god.

As opposed to real proof?
If rifts gods dont equal gods what does a "real" god do to show its realness?

[Nightmask]

Why choose a "God" that never shows, to that one sitting in the bar drinking a beer? Faith is obviously still around, though I have to wonder why, when proof actually exists.

Because the proof is given as a reward for faith. I would find it hard to see the drunk in the bar as a god and not just D-bee pretending to be a god. After all gods have better thing to do than hang out with humans drinking the swill at the bar. With so many things with great power it would be easy for any number of things to provide fake proof that they are a god.

As opposed to real proof?
If rifts gods dont equal gods what does a "real" god do to show its realness?

That's often the problem in speculative fiction bordering on the 'no true scottsman' fallacy as well as 'moving the goalposts', where someone will argue no matter what they see that someone isn't a god no matter how well it actually does meet the criteria. So you can have Thor in Marvel comics, clearly the god of Norse Myth running around and people insist he can't really be a god because of all the mortals who display god-like power or ability (ignoring the fact that even in the myths oftentimes there were mortals who proved themselves virtually gods themselves with the feats they achieved). Or the characters in DC like Mr Terrific who insists gods can't exist even when he's met actual angels and other supernatural beings, or Dr. Thirteen who would rationalize things to insane lengths in order to deny a supernatural bent to them (such as insisting that one house's hauntings were the result of aliens dropping by).

[Axelmania]

Why choose a "God" that never shows, to that one sitting in the bar drinking a beer?

Obv. because beer-god will want you to buy the beer and/or keep up with their drinking, and then want to metamorph you into their preferred gender to partner up for antics. Absent gods may not help as much, but they probably ask for less too. So you won't get drawn into some plot that makes you a target of enemy gods.

Faith is obviously still around, though I have to wonder why, when proof actually exists.

You can still have faith in beings you know exist, like how you can have faith in a parent or a friend to come through for you.

Plus... it's not clear how much proof exists for the average individual. A lot of gods can turn invisible at will (or with the aid of magic they or allies can use) and may not need to show up to an area to act upon that area since they can use worshiper's senses. Many gods probably don't show up in person a lot to avoid being vulnerable to targetting from enemies.