The religious impact

[Anubis]

Now some more violent religions...

Ahem. What exactly makes you think Christianity is not violent? They've done some pretty horrid things in the name of their religion.

Bah, 99% of Christians TODAY could care less..... it's the mormons ya got to watch out for....with there pesky door knocking thing..... and 90% of everyone else would be like meh ok so what

HEY DIPSHIT!

WATCH YOUR MOUTH!

I"M A MORMON!

[Teh_DarkJokerWolf]

Okies...I should have seen that coming..


Alright folks no religion slam PERIOD We will respect everyone from here on out or this thread will be locked asap. I know the rest of the Mods an Admins will agree this can quite possibly get outta hand really fast, so lets clear this up folks right now Fenrir..there was no need to say that..I'm sure you know from being on here so long that comments like that can be a bad move, so please watch what you say please

[BlackWolfDS]

Uh....Anubis?

I think Fenrir was just joking.

[Scott Gardener]

Perhaps I have been too much of a basher. The intent of my criticism has been towards fanaticism, closed-mindedness, and the insistance on literal interpretation of religion, resisting science and facts that point to the contrary. None-the-less, this could be construed as a bashing of Christianity (or Islam, for that matter) in general. It's the radicals I oppose, and they occupy every religion, including my own. Before about 1917 or so, I could have said that the religion with the best track record of not hurting anyone was atheism, but Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong pretty much undid that, between the two of them bolsting that belief system quite possibly to the top of the list in terms of collective damage to humanity.

Bottom line is, I solumnly swear from this point onward to ensure post quality standards that keep the emphasis on topic and do not imply bashing religions.

[Terastas]

Anubis, I personally find your reaction to be more offensive than the comment you are responding to. I could tell Fenrir was joking by the way his post was written.

I think the majority of the Pack also understood that much of the "bashing" going on here was against militant/fanatical religion. Christianity is, in all fairness, a broad term that can be applied to any number of faiths, many of which directly conflict and contrast each other.

I believe Scott is on the right track. Anything can be abused to the purpose of militant fanaticism, so I have no doubt that there would be extremists on both sides -- religious purgers and werewolf supremacists. It's worth noting, however, that fanatics of any variation will pretty much target anyone not directly associated the cause, especially members of their own kind that do not share the same level of fanaticism. Militant Christians like Rick Warren and Fred Phelps often demonstrate the greatest resentment towards mainstream Christians.

What I think would happen is the fanatical religious movements would label anyone sympathetic, curious or possibly even just indifferent to the existence of werewolves to be "servants of the devil" and target any advocates for any and all alternatives to genocide. At the same time, fanatical werewolf packs would label other packs that favor diplomacy or reclusion to be dogs of humanity and attack them in turn.

What that would wind up doing is unifying the non-fanatical humans with the non-fanatical werewolves. Since both of them are essentially enemies of both groups, that classically makes them friends. The feud between religious fanatics and werewolf supremacists would wind up looking like more of a gang war with the two aggressors killing each other until the law enforcement rounds up the survivors. There would be plenty of problems, but after the religious fanatics attack so many peace advocates and the supremacists attack start attacking their own kind, both humans and werewolves would start to feel more threatened by the fanatics among their own kind than the moderates of the other kind. That's when the conflict would degenerate from a civil war to a gang war.

[Scott Gardener]

Unfortunately, a lot of neutrals would get dragged into the fight. It's an easily foreseeable plot device to see someone who was previously indifferent suddenly thrust into the conflict when a radical lycanthropist randomly bites him, or tries to kill him, but he survives, bitten.

[Anubis]

I'm sorry for that out burst, when i saw that post i just lost my temper, my bad.

but even in joke, that is highly offencive to me. Members of my church have been victims of this type of narrow mindedness. In the early days, we have been driven out of New York and Illinois. By mobs of people who wished to distroy us.

Fenrir some things you shouldn't joke about.

[NetherMoon]

Understandable, Anubis.

[Kaebora]

A couple of Mormons knocked on my door a few months ago. I was curious and actually talked with them for awhile. I was given a copy of the book of Mormons. I may be a Baptist Christian, but I like to learn about other religious groups and their sacred texts. It doesn't mean I'll believe any of it, but it's interesting to find paralells between religions. I get a greater deal of respect for cultures I have learned to understand. Mormons can knock on my door any day for a chat.

How did this subject get off its original course anyways?

[Faolan Bloodtooth]

I've no idea Kaebora

But about learning about other peoples religions, I'm a Totemic Pagan (Focusing On Celtic Influences) and its a pastime of mine to study other religions for theological debate

I've even gone so far as to write a simple essay about my views on the Biblical Satan

Laters

[Anubis]

Religion bashing

[Set]

Religion bashing

Or rather, the fear of. And one joke that got out of hand.

If I say Christians have done bad things, I'm not doing it to bash. I'm just tired of hearing "Oh, we've never done anything wrong." You have. That's blatant ignorance of history and it annoys me. I'm not blaming people today for the Witch Trials, I just want you to acknowledge its existence. And hell, forget history. Just look at all the crap being done today. People are still getting killed in the name of stupidity.

[wolfsangel]

amen set (and im very God fearing a.k.a. "christian")

[Scott Gardener]

The subject itself unfortunately almost begs for conflict, through no fault of anyone. Projecting in our own minds what would happen tends to stir up strong emotions as our experiences filter and bias our extrapolations. It's very easy to present these projections with a rather insulting picture of our philosophical opponents. I'll freely admit I'm the worst offender.

[Terastas]

Unfortunately, a lot of neutrals would get dragged into the fight. It's an easily foreseeable plot device to see someone who was previously indifferent suddenly thrust into the conflict when a radical lycanthropist randomly bites him, or tries to kill him, but he survives, bitten.

*nods* It would be when the neutrals become targeted that they would band together.

The first order of business for both sides, I believe, would be to force everyone else on "their side" into unifying under them. The religious fanatics, I believe, would start by attempting to silence anyone speaking out against werewolf genocide. What they'd wind up doing instead is giving the werewolves their own Martin Luther King. People that were once indifferent to the existence of werewolves would wind up supporting werewolves over the outrage of the assassination.

The supremacists pack, on the other hand, I think would want to keep their location and numbers concealed until they had all the other packs banded together in an army, so their first move I think would be to kill off one pack -- not just one werewolf, the entire pack, either to scare the other packs into joining, or by blaming it on the humans in order to outrage the other packs.

Chances are, however, they would intentionally target the pack of an opponent -- an "alpha" advocating peace or a werewolf that revealed himself, for example. They wouldn't target him alone -- they'd target his entire pack ("guilt by association" I'm sure would be the excuse) either out of sheer malice or a calculated assessment that this is the pack least likely to join the cause. If they admitted to the crime, at least one pack would be outraged enough to stage a counterattack of some kind. Also, if they tried to blame the humans for the massacre, there are just too many things that could go wrong for it to be successful. Even if they could account for no survivors, no witnesses and no feelings of guilt among their own members, they'd still have a very hard time convincing the rest of the werewolf population that it was just a coincidence the humans chose to murder the pack of the peace advocate. Even if a werewolf did reveal himself, I seriously doubt he would do anything that could endanger the rest of his family, so only another werewolf could have known which pack was his pack.

So yes, there would be casualties on both sides, but that's what would bring them together. After the assassination and the massacre, the peace advocates on both sides would recognize their common ground and unify against the aggressors.

[Morkulv]

probably see them as the spwns of there satan..

With good reason, that is.

[Terastas]

Don't want to start a flame war or beat a dead horse, but Anubis, just think of the Mormons as being to Christians what Canadians are to Americans. Their the ones that always get poked fun of. Nobody knows why, that's just the way it is.

[LightPaws]

Well, you've got to remember that there are different denominations in Christianity, and clumping them all into one group is rather insulting to some of us. It's like saying all Pagans are virgin-sacrificing, devil worshippers(and I know a whole bunch who you wouldn't even suspect to be Pagan) The real question isn't 'What religion?' but rather 'What kind of people?' I'm a Seventh Day Adventist christian, and while 3/4 of us are Vegans and would say something along the lines of 'Meat is EVIL!'(mostly the older folks) there are many of us who eat meat. Just because we are of a certain faith doesn't mean we are all the same.

As for the Werewolf thing, the Older people would mostly be where the problem, but since most of us are Fillipino(including myself), the reaction would most likely be 'WereWolf? Are they Edible?'
The younger people would be all like 'Oh, hey cool, you're werewolf. So wanna play PS2 with me? If anything, our youth paster and one of the head elders are Werewolf fans.

[Wulfur]

'WereWolf? Are they Edible?'

I'm sorry if this is out of place but that line made me laugh.

But on a more serious note, I would have to say I agree with that it is not so much the religion to worry about but the people themselves. As LightPaws said.
even though there are those that follow their religion a number of them do not follow it as it should be and make exceptions to their own personal wants and desires.

[John Wolf]

Still, the only way to know what really would happen would be if an actual lycanthropy epidemic occurred. So, how about it? I'm a doctor. Any of you got a lab I can borrow? Any of you good with nanomolecular transhumanistic genetic engineering? Oh, that's right. There's a ban on something as basic as human cloning. Something about being against God. I rest my case.

Still, there's a lot of extrapolation, and what happens at one point affects the next. My timeline probably wouldn't happen per se. But, I think it's a good guess about what would, and a lot of similar events might occur.[/quote]


You can do it Doc, get the Republican backing for these experiments with advanced molecular genetics, create the wolf shifter formula and spread it across the globe with the aid of missiles.

[Fenrir]

Now some more violent religions...

Ahem. What exactly makes you think Christianity is not violent? They've done some pretty horrid things in the name of their religion.

Bah, 99% of Christians TODAY could care less..... it's the mormons ya got to watch out for....with there pesky door knocking thing..... and 90% of everyone else would be like meh ok so what

HEY DIPSHIT!

WATCH YOUR MOUTH!

I"M A MORMON!

Hey, ya retard I was only joking in fact I even said I was....another point for the Anubis leaps before he looks board........but while we're on the subject why do you people keep knocking on my door in your suits and stuff

[Silver]

Okay, I think, perhaps we are loosing sight of the gist of this. How would religious society accept Were's? How would the religious community accpt them? I'd prefer to look at it as a whole, as history seem to prove that people, as a whole tend to act in similar patterns to new races and culture.

My guess is close to Scott's, I think. In the beginnnig, those who cannot see beyond their own preudices, whether religious or not, would reject them as equals: either inferiors, or evil that must be destroyed. There'd be reasons, some based on religious "logic" , political 'logic', social "Logic" or just plain prejudice based on differences. There would be those who use these attitudes to rob, steal, abuse, the minority. My guess is that we would have to take our rights just as other minorities did.

It would take time to be accepted by the majority. Once they were, the religions would accept them too.

[Scott Gardener]

I was about to comment about drawing parallels with the Holocaust. It then dawned on me that today is Holocaust Rememberance Day (for about fifteen more minutes, anyway). So, I'll post in the non-were-related about that. Suffice it to say, early on, there might be some disturbing similarities between lycanthropes and Jews, until a breaking point happens--and it would long before the gas chambers. I did picture at one point my character Gardener making a comment about expecting "what's next? Will I have to wear a pentagram tag with the word "wolf" in Hebrew?)

Early on, the Nazis started out picking at seemingly trivial rights--being in certain places at certain times, or owning certain things. It's not a big leap to see those kind of restrictions being placed on lycanthropes--first you can't shift in public or go to certain places during full moon nights. (Not that in my storyline werewolves are even actually affected by the full moon, but that doesn't stop the politics.) Then an incident happens when a kid gets bitten in a playground fight, and to "protect the children," werewolves are almost segregated into seperate schools.

[Silverwolfman]

Put it simply this way, you are all correct in ur own ways. I am catholic but dont go to church and yet my parents dont see werewolves as demons just people with a gift/curse (depending on what people see it as) that gives them the power to change their shape. Christians i bet like you all have said may not be too welcoming thinking a lycanthrope will become the anti-christ and annihilate all of humanity leaving only lycans to live on. but other religions we dont truly know of until one of us finds out more about them and their beliefs. some other religious fantics might see them as just people with a gift, while others as demons that must be sent back to hell. either way we all have a right to live in this world, no matter what we are. Like all predators, lycanthropes have a right to live we have a spot on the foodchain just like humans. that my opinion anyways, if i have offended any one i apoligize

[JoshuaMadoc]

<Live your life the way you want, for SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!>

If there's anyone who would be offended by your 2 pennies, amigo, it would be the senile, geriatric clown of a joke pastor Fred Phelps. Guaranteed.