>creator deity is evil aligned Can this be made to work?

>>51745495
literally Gnosticism

Yes, for example if the creator's goal is to create suffering and misery with the creations, or simply creates so that he can derive a cruel pleasure through death or destruction.

Also, PoE is the dank shit

>>51745495
How do you know this isn't the state of things?

>>51745505
resist the demiurge

Sure. Life is suffering, and the sole purpose of the creator deity is to create it.

Of course, for despair and suffering to mean anything, hope must exist. Without hope, without ambition, the desire to fight on and try to make things better, you just see people fall to ennui and utter apathy.

It could actually be a really great basis for a nobledark setting. A grim, terrible world ruled by a laughing tyrant-god, but one who is to some degree fair. Heroes have a real chance to slay monsters, to win back the fragments of peace, of light, of hope from his clutches. Their struggling only makes his eventual victory sweeter, after all.

But that shining hope remains... That if you push just a little further, if you fight just a little longer, things might change. That even if you die, someone else might rise up, and that one day the tyrant-god will fall and you'll retake the world, shattering despair and bringing about a new age of light and hope.

>>51745495
Isn't our world like this?

>>51745505
fpbp

>>51745527
Anyone have the spurdo demiurge comic?

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>>51745505
>>51745527
FUCK the demiurge

Not a new idea by any stretch - in the real world, gnosticism is pretty much this

For fictional worlds, it's kind of what the Thalmor believe in Skyrim, or the Elder God from Legacy of Kain represents

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>>51745583
here you are

>>51745495
PRAISE SITHRAK

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>>51745495
Yep

>>51745521
Shame it's become casul

I still like the artstyle

>>51746757
Idea of Evil isn't the creator.

It's just a god that mankind believed into existence because they couldn't accept a just world as being 'real'.

>The reason to create things is to see them die

>>51746794
It's also not technically canon, even if it's been heavily implied.

>>51746816
Like winding up a toy, just to see it fall off the table at the end.

>>51745495
Id imagine its like our actual creator.

Beyond moral scrutiny, but existentially terrifying.

>>51745495
PoE is so grimdark, that the final boss of act 5 is the god emperor of mankind.

>>51746816
Life and joy must exist to impart suffering and death.

You must also give them hope so they will perpetuate the cycle.

I honestly think this is the plot of KD.

>>51746816
Not inherently evil.

As in >>51746887 's example, is the toy not better off for having been wound, than to have never been wound at all?

Death is a natural thing, and hatred/fear of it is only intrinsic to the human condition because it represents a leap into the unknown and unknowable.

>>51745495

If you game with fedoras. They love that shit.

>>51747053
> justify the cycle from within the cycle

You are truly sheep, mortal.

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>>51745495
I would imagine that he likes to build things just to see them crumble. Like he would spend hours to make an enormous tower of cards just to get the satisfaction of seeing them topple.

I'm fond of the idea that the world is fucked up in large part because it was never intended to work the way it does. "We were created as bioweapons/slave labor/food" is the super short form of this, "Our home was actually a research lab/prison colony/kitchen nook" would be the common scifi version.

So in that vein, the idea that The Creator is/was "evil" in some sense is pretty easy to justify if you assume he had concerns you aren't/weren't aware of. These concerns can be as simple and asinine as "I thought I wanted pets but now I don't" or as inscrutable and unfathomable as your players can stomach.

>>51747124
Personally I have accepted the absurd and believe death represents nothing more than a cessation of consciousness, but as in all things perceived through our flawed mortal lens there is no certainty or objective truth that can be believed.

I still hold no fear, though.

>>51745495
This is not a game welcome on /tg/, because it has no spears.

I cannot imagine a more revolting flaw in a piece of fantasy media.

It is particularly ironic that at the end of the trailer there is a sculpture where you kill Kitava with a spear - fuck okay maybe I play it

>>51745495
Of course, especially considering cases where elder god's are overthrown like in greek myth.

>>51746754
Live as long and as well as you can, cause Sithrak is gonna fuck you up!

No worse than us, mind!

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>>51745495
>What is Kill Six Billion Demons - YISUN?

Before there was anything, there was everything.
And everything was One, and One was perfect in all ways.
One knew all things, but there was no One to tell all things too.
So One told the Lie.
The Lie that there was more than One.

And so there was. Creation born, not to be perfect, but to be flawed, to spin continuously along the edge of cataclysm, forever melted and reforged, always with an inherent flaw that will doom it and continue the cycle.

For that is the Lie of Life - That there is more. And One is the greatest Liar of all.

>>51747242
How can we go beyond this?

I feel like one cool option would be the whole "made in God's image" thing.

The creator made the world and populated it with what to them are basically effigies of everyone they hate (IE the other gods uninvolved in his creation). Odds are the creator looks pretty similar, but theirs is the ONE type of person who will never be born into this world.

While the deities themselves live a pure, unsullied, and eternal existence, the creator drags these dolls through the dirt, inflicts disease, age, injury and death on them literally just to act out a mockery of its peers. They have to kill and eat things, and defecate afterwards. They have to fuck each other, whatever.

Why on earth is there a sense that all these things necessary for our survival are impure, if not that the deity to whom we are so similar doesn't need to do these things and is disgusted by them?

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>>51748869
Also:

>Reach heaven through violence!

>>51748869
>>51748966

mah nigga of superlative taste

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>>51745505
>literally Gnosticism

Almost every non-monotheistic religion ever.

It's a recurring theme in real world ancient religions to have the world be created/ruled by older and more savage/primal deities that are at some point defeated and overthrown by the "good" gods (i.e. your religion's gods) that are currently worshiped.

Even if your gods can be assholes, they tend to be more tolerant to the simple idea of allowing humanity exist and even doing nice stuff for them compared to their predecessors.

>>51748966
https://youtu.be/7t6JfuaSW_4

God as an antisocial 10 year old standing over an ant-hill with a magnifying glass.

Or, conversely, God as a story director who wants to "make things interesting."

>>51745495
I did it in my setting. The creator knew it was imperfect, but created a legion or servants to create many perfect worlds anyways.

They've failed and made horrible, flawed, worlds. Now it's time to return them to dust.

>>51748869
Aww shit nigga, I was just about to post this

Also thanks guys for reminding me to catch up on this shit, I stopped reading to let it accrue some

>>51751108
Sounds like an end game plot twist for a Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign

>>51745495
That's basically the way I interpreted the Pathfinder cosmology. Asmodeus is the creator of the world (or world known to humanoids) because he was able to write the first contract, binding the power of the other gods to contain Rovagug (basically chaos incarnate). It's why he's the only evil deity who has openly public churches and shrines.

Evil creators work if they're Lawful aligned - because having stuff is a much better state for a being that wants to rule and dominate than not having stuff.

>>51748869
YISUN is not evil.

>>51751160
The heavens are in disorder. Many have realized the pointlessness and impossibility of the Creator's Plan.
Fate allows mortals to cut their threads.
Life spawns only abominations, in hopes to annihilate all its past creations- After all, if life can make life, why should its creator remain?
Only Death stays faithful to its mission, but the living grow ever more clever, ever better at evading It. And so It considers breaking its own pacts, acting above its rank, and ending this damnable world.

>>51748869
More neutral than evil imo.

>>51745495
>creator god
>creates two absolute babes as rival goddesses
>evil

good man, that creator.

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>>51747524
Hegemony's Era is pretty close, being a staff you stab people with.

>>51750418
Interestingly, Cronus was a much more chill overlord towards humans than Zeus was.

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>>51745495
Why call the creator evil? Look, he even made a pool for you!

>>51751350

Chill only in the sense that he gave absolutely zero fucks. While he couldn't be arsed to fuck with humans (literally), he also couldn't be arsed to go out of his way to aid one or sire a demigod or protect them anything.

He was pretty much preoccupied with being the embodiment of the ravages of time and cutting his dad's nuts off and tossing them in the ocean and eating his inbred children.

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Saturn ate his kids.

Gygax solved a great problem when he made the Mother of Chaos, Tiamat, a five-headed dragon.

>>51751505
Basically Tiamat and her mate made the gods, and the gods were rowdy shits. When her mate went to quiet them, they killed him.

In her grief she made a fuckload of monsters to kill her children, but she was betrayed and slain, torn in half to make the Heavens and the Underworld.

To put that into perspective, the gods just want to sleep. So when you pray to them, the only reason why they reply is to shut you up so they can go back to sleep.

>>51745495
The mortal world was created as a means to kill immortal beings.
An immortal is sacrificed into a race of creatures who eventually die out.

You have to go convoluted when your an immortal evil 12 dimentional entity tring to kill your peers.

>>51745495
My idea of it is just a trickster god who made the world as their form of TV, just watching us fuck up and act retarded for their amusement, occasionally stirring the pot a bit when things get dull.

>>51751505
>>51751561
S-source... ?

>>51751696
Mesopotamian creation myth, as interpreted by Gary Gygax and Zak Smith.

>>51751376
I was just coming in to mention this.

The Sims is an excellent example of what motivations an evil god would have. Your happiness is just an incidental byproduct of the humorous death or maiming god is planning for you.

>>51748869

YISUN feels strongly chaotic neutral in the true sense of it

>>51745495
See the old testament.

People might call me edgy but as a biologist it's pretty obvious to me that if everything was created by an all-powerful deity it not the one that holds much interest in people's well-being.

“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

>>51748869
>What is Kill Six Billion Demons
Is it good? I've heard it takes inspiration from Kirkbride's writing.

>>51751074
"It's a Good Life" Twilight Zone episode would be a good model for this kind of deity.

>>51752162
This is obvious to anybody other than cunts who lean on the fedora meme.

>>51752273
I haven't caught up with it for quite awhile but it's not so much about the writing or story as it is fucking great to look at. The amount of detail in the panels is insane.

>>51752273
The story is honestly not super great, but the art (if you like that kinda style) is very cool. Every random character you see has a lot of detail written into them, and you could almost imagine every single one's story.

>>51751441
You're conflating Kronos and Chronos.

Not surprising given it was common even in antiquity, but Kronos/Cronus was the titan of the Harvest.

The time in which he ruled was called the Golden Age, because everything was great. (Well, unless you were the gigantes, or the cyclopes, or his children)

>>51751503
Specifically, he did so because of a curse from his father, Ouranos the heavens.

Ouranos, pissed that his son had castrated him, declared that just as he was defeated by his progeny, so too would Kronos.

Kronos was kind of worried about that, hence the child eating.

And then it turned out the one child he was tricked into missing, grew up and overthrew him. Because that's how fate works.

(Interestingly, Zeus cut out the middle man sort of. Metis, an Oceanid, was prophesied to have a child much greater than the father. So Zeus slept with her, and then ate her. Hoping to stop the child ever being born. Too bad about that headache.)

>>51752056
Yeah Yahwe/Allah/God is a furious petty incompetent asshole.
But it can fuck you up so better submit and call it nice.

>>51752362
>my imaginary best friend is the bestest
It was also once obvious that Helios drove the sun though the sky...

>>51752646
Of course, that's how gods worked back then. Nice and divine don't mesh well.
And of course, creator is an interesting question.
If you make the universe by drawing up and slaying the primeval Deep, are you the creator or not?
Is Marduk a creator god for slaying Tiamat?

>>51751074
>Or, conversely, God as a story director who wants to "make things interesting."
Princess Tutu.

>>51752690
No I don't think so, since it was Tiamat and her mate that kicked things off in the primordial sea.

>>51752937
Which of course raises the question of the Abrahamic god and his creation. Bringing up the Deep (Tehom or Rahab) and separating it into the heavens and the earth isn't necessarily creation. Neither for Marduk, Yahweh, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzacoatl, or others.

Problem of Evil.

Any creator diety is by its nature pure evil.

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His act of creation wasn't evil, but he eventually did realise that his act of creation caused evil, which he sought to rectify with... major implications.

An all-powerful deity can't be all good, because there is evil in the world.

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>>51754295
indeed
But im afraid if way to "mundane" or limited to understand this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

Dear OP, problem is that you clearly dont understand what "good" and "evil" even is
Even for christian religion, that is

Good actually is: everything God think is nice.
Like slavery, killing your neighbours(Jericho), destroying cities (Sodoma&Gomorah), and wiping most of humanity (flood) AND child sacrifices.
Surprise! yahve actually demanded child sacrifices for a LONG time, but then he and Abraham have a talk about that, and they switched from those into circumcision (ritualistic blood sacrifice)

Bad is: any thing God consider not nice, like not fucking your dead brother wife (Onan) turning around to watch a burning city (wife of Lot). Or masturbation
Also all sins are sins only for human, god in incapable of comiting sins even when hes doing exact same thing as sinners (like killing humans)

>>51745495
A good creator deity wouldn't have let stash tabs cost real money.

>>51746649
>>51745607
>>51745527
The better question is,how would making Superior evil and Demiurg good work?

>>51745495
After years and years of watching mortals ruin everything, constantly betray their promises, kill and rape each other, and in general, be giant turbo shits, he decided that the only correct solution is to make life so fucking shitty, that humans have to either work together, or just go extinct.

If they do work together, congrats! Humanity is back on track!

If not, oh well, time to restart with a new race.

>>51754544
In order for Good to exist, there must be Evil to compare it to.

>>51754852
Demiurge created the universe in a way so that it will constantly die and be reborn, the souls of the living being reborn with it, with new experiences and new worlds for the inhabitants to discover
Superior acts as the harbinger of misfortune and ill will, a disease of sorts that sunders the joys of life. In some cycles, it completely overtakes the universe, leaving it a bleak place for all life, while in others, it is smothered out near completely.

>>51754675
Im gonna bait.

What's your source for sacrificing children? Im gonna have to argue you on that one.

>>51748869
YISUN is both good and evil, and neither, and everything in between.

That's kind of the point.

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>>51745495
We're sorry for the inconvenience.

>>51755163
Isaac. Come on anon, that one is really easy.

>>51755163
God killed the children of Egypt in the Moses saga.

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>>51755163
but this is like common knowledge anon, good luck on arguing part
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithpromotingrumor/2010/01/child-sacrifice-a-traditional-religious-practice-in-ancient-israel/

http://www.usbible.com/Sacrifice/sacrifice_israel.htm

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/07/excerpt-from-my-book-on-child-sacrifice.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-tarico/polytheism-and-human-sacr_b_777340.html

its ALL in the Bible, old testament

btw -you dont even need to read it, why do you think God actually killed all firstborn in Egypt?
And why Abraham started to sacrifice his son, but was stoped by Yahve (and thing turned into circumcision)
Yahve used to be bloodthirsty god from the start, he goes "civilized" way later

>>51745495
surely that would just mean that your concept of morality is wrong?

>>51754996
Nope. Good can exist without evil.

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>>51754852
Tales of Xillia, but with an evil god reigning over the outerworld.

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>>51756204
once again, you are unable to even untherstand a concept of "good"

Good means what exactly for you?
Peace, love and understanding?
Then there was never in human history any civilization like that. You either killed your enemies or be killed.
Conquest new teritories or starved
Wipe the wildlife like crazy -btw one more proof that humans are evil to the core, they only consider human race as equals but all others creatures are as good as meat/resources

And good cant exist without evil, cos you need something to compare. its still wrong, cos your "good" is only (at best)
good for my god/religion
good for my society
good for me

>>51745495
Wanted slaves to worship him. Wanted eternal conflict. Maybe just wanted something to watch because the cosmos are so boring.

No.

>t. Trinimac

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>>51756329
theres also Grandia 2, where Evil actually win the fight in GoodVSevil conflict

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kut62VEt_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCLPc2yi76w

>>51745495

The Cathars, until there were exterminated by the pope, were a sect of Christianity that believed that there were, in fact two gods. The god of the material world and the god the the spiritual.

The god of the material world made the universe and everything in it. He is kind of a dick, as he is responsible for all suffering within the world. When you die, you just reincarnate as a new person in the material world. Normally, there is no escape.

The second god, the god of the spirit, is responsible for souls. Its because of him that we have free will, and he is our only shot at getting out of the first god's control. Only by living a life that separates you from the material trappings of the world can free yourself from the material god, and give the spiritual god a chance to free you of the world on your next death.

They got in trouble with the rest of Christianity because they didn't believe in any of the sacraments, and they considered the accumulation of wealth to be a sign of having fallen to the trickery of the material god. The Eucharist was a food made from the soil, and your body would shit it out when you where done with it. It was material, and thus no trace of the divine was to be found in it. Likewise, baptism was seen as bathing a baby with an audience, water was just as material as anything else and therefore again in the domain of the material god.

The only 'rite' that Cathar's observed was the Consulation, which could only be taken once per life. It was you disavowing yourself of everything you had done in your life up until now, good or bad, and asking to be judged only on what you did with your life from here on. Which it sounds like getting your sins forgiven, it just resets your karma to 0. And since the only two options are reincarnation or being freed and joining the spiritual god, 0 is no better than being sinful. You had to do it and then devote the rest of your life to good deeds for it to help you.

>>51745495
Sithrak hates us all unconditionally! Stay alive or be tortured forever, no matter what you do!

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>>51756373
>implying any predator sees its prey as equals

Put any animal in our place and it'll act the same. And do you want to know why?

Mankind is merely a symptom. The disease is Life. From the smallest bacterium to the largest tree, all Life leaves scars upon this universe which can never truly heal. The roots of plants break the stones, and the worms dig through the resulting soil. "Live" spelled backwards becomes "eviL." Coincidence? No.

The crime is Life. The sentence is Death.

>>51756373
>And good cant exist without evil, cos you need something to compare. its still wrong, cos your "good" is only (at best)
>good for my god/religion
>good for my society
>good for me
So basically the "good" concept is divorced from God, making it lose any metaphysical significance. Good and evil exist only relative to each other in a relativist framework, in more ideological frameworks, such as that of Christianity, good can absolutely exist separately.

>>51758014
Have you read Echopraxia? The Bicamerals believe that life is a blight on otherwise elegant code and they seek to destroy all of it so the simulation can run better,

>>51745495
Yes but be wary lest ye create the land of thinly veiled anti-christian soapboxing and other faggotry.

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>>51745495

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>>51745495
In an RPG setting, sure. If you look at Pathfinder's "Book of the Damned", it states that the devil Asmodeus is one of the twin primeval entities that helped create all things, along with his brother Ihys.

He then killed his brother, and created hell, where he resides at present time.

So taking notes from that, you could easily replace Asmodeus with any other deity from any other game system and just roll with it. It does make things a bit bleak for your heroes, but makes for some nice background lore in your setting.

Source: http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Asmodeus

>>51750418
>Posts Parashurama

You know that Parashurama was an incarnation of Vishnu who came to Earth to punish Kshatriyas who were abusing their power, right?

Also, Brahma, despite being a bit of a prick, is generally considered a benevolent deity.

>>51745505
Who was the author who made a cosmology of gods based on Gnosticism?

For the life of me I can't remember.

>>51752378
Athena is most probably not the child destined to dethrone Zeus.

>>51745495
God is evil because he was created by man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcvU2y7WvGY

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>>51758014
anon, i have some objection for your reasoning
>implying any predator sees its prey as equals
humans are NO predators

>"Live" spelled backwards becomes "eviL
true, but only in english. Why da fack should i care about some unimportant language?
Or maybe english is actually language of angels?

in chinees folks are afraid of number 4, cos its spelled like "death"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Unlucky_numbers


anyway i actually follow gnosticism, and my biggest idol is this fella. My wish is to do same thing hes trying to do

but i dont think life is disease. its a curse, and "sweet poison" and we all are more or less addicted to it.
Do you know whats the ultimate goal in buddism?
"Nirvana" - permamenly relasing yourself from material world and reincarnation.
Or "ultimate soul suicide"
So buddism is actually gnostic religion too

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>>51759544
>humans are NO predators

>>51745547
I made a setting like this, only after the evil overgod fucks it up and gets overthrown. Now he's a bitter laughingstock of the divine community, and struggling desperately to reclaim his own world.

>>51745495

He simply needs to define whatever his actions are as "evil" in relation to the universe. He's the one writing the laws, after all.

>>51746794
The world was never just in Berserk, the idea of evil was created because humans wanted something they could blame for their suffering.

>>51754295
Maybe the creation happened as a side effect of the existance of this being, and he doesn't fix things because, being Omnisufficient he does not pay attention to or need anything external to itself

>>51752377

Kind of felt like it started getting worse when the main character went from being a confused lady in a world of demons to a repressed nerd girl wanting to be the real true Sailor Moon hero she wanted to be.

>>51758503
According to some myths, he feared what would happen if she bore him a son.

>>51745495
Very well in fact. It could become the story of a whole universe emancipating itself from a selfish creator and founding transcendent values itself, i.e. a grownup's tale of religion. Good not out of servitude, but out of its innate worthiness.

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>>51748949
I like this idea, you good sir! Have a YOU for your good idea!

Pic unrelated

>>51745495
Is that actually a canon image? Where can I find more?

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>>51745607
and his Black Iron Prison, too!

>>51761764
Exactly. Son, not daughter.

>>51752162
Must not be that good of a biologist then :^)

>>51745495
Did it for fun, realized the value in building and how enjoyable it is, became good.
Yes it is cliche.

>>51745495
Give dorf fortress lore a looker

>>51752362
>if everything
>IF
>somehow supporting theism

>>51745495
The Outsider from Dishonored is a bit of this. The world has an evil deity, but no others.

>>51763009
He was created by Man, not the other way around, and he's not really a deity. He's more of an observer who can occasionally empower people he finds interesting, who will shape events regardless of his gift.

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>>51745495
Yes, if you also make him an incredibly egotistical scientist
Also, give him an irrational hatred for gears.

>>51752690
>that's how gods worked back then
I'm sick of people who have only ever been exposed to Greco-Roman mythology who say this. No, the gods being dicks to mortals is by no means a universal thing.

>>51763417
To be fair, that is really the only mythology(aside from abrahamic) that is relevant to the development of today's society, so unless a person searches for alternate mythologies on purpose they're not likely to learn about others.

>>51763506
The thing about Abrahamic religions is that the manifestations you know of today were all heavily altered and informed by non-Abrahamic religions. Early on by Zoroastrianism before they even split, and then later by the various Pagan religions of the homelands where they were preached or created. Thus all major preceding religions in Europe and the Middle East are relevant to modern Abrahamic religions, in that sense.

>>51747524
Fuck spears, polearms are where it's at.

Glaives 4 lyfe

>>51763560
I know this, it doesn't really matter because it's only relevant if you're going back farther than most every history class in most American high schools go.

I know it's important in the grand scheme of history, and I do see your point, it could get very tiring to see that kind of shit all the time if you were, say, a historian whose focus is history or a bibliophile who had a penchant for religious history.

>>51763665
whose focus is religion* Fuck, I need to get some sleep.

>>51756995
They also had a bad habit of communally raping female converts. Priests would sometimes demand a man give up his wife for a gangbang if he fancied her.

>>51763744
Source the proof for that shit or it just goes on to the huge pile of bullshit Catholicism spread to disincentivize other interpretations of God, and Jesus, and so on.

>>51763782
I don't recall her name, but a countess who ran away to convert to Catharism talks about her experiences such as this. Look it up.

>>51763864
This countess later came back to the catholic church? and of course had to do something to get her excommunication reversed? Hmmm, seems to me, that spreading lies about the religion you left Catholicism for, would be a great way to get back into the Popes good graces, doesn't it seem that way to you?

>>51763913
Anon why are you do desperate to defend a dead medieval religion from all sources talking about it as if you had anything proving they were perfect and benevolent? Are you some kind of Neo-Cathar?

>>51763744
>>51763864

Unless you can source the claim, I'm disinclined to believe it. Cathar beliefs were remarkably feminist for their time, and claimed and discriminating based on sex or race was stupid because if you were still stuck on Earth you had definitely been male and female multiple times by now, and the chances of you having been different races was just as good.

Not saying it couldn't have happened, but it would be pretty out of character for a movement where the first crusade sent against them defected and sent a letter back to the pope saying "We can't kill these dudes, they are better Christians than we are."

>>51763950
Nope I'm actually an atheist, just don't like it when lies/rumors that no historical source other than that countess corraborates, are put forth as fact.

>>51763966
Didn't Cathars believe though that you only had your chance at salvation when you were born as a man, though?

>>51764018

Nope. The soul was a sexless spirit, and it was the condition of your soul that determined what happened upon your death, not the condition of your body.

Remember, the body is material. Like everything else material, it is a lie and a trap to keep you from the embrace of the good god. Thinking it is important is just as much a mistake as thinking that gold is important.

>>51764018
A cursory amount of wiki'ing suggests that this was a later development of the religion and therefor probably not core to their belief.

>>51764048
>>51764056
>Despite women having an instrumental role in the growing of the faith, misogyny was not completely absent from the Cathar movement. Some seemingly misogynistic Cathar beliefs include that one's last incarnation had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle.

The source is attributed to The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars, by Stephen O'Shea.

>>51764093
Have you never heard of the Original Sin? according to the myth of creation that I know, Eve committed it and then dragged Adam down with her, it seems a perfectly logical belief that only being a man on your last cycle through life would break it, considering that myth.

>>51764144
Guess that would make sense within the context of that belief system.

>>51764144
apologist

>>51764093
>>51764144
It should be noted that female perfects did exist and Catharism was not anything close to organized.

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One fantasy idea I kind of like kind of don't is the idea of the cyclical age of darkness and light, like in Myth. Every so often an apocalypse happens and a new age of evil or good starts over.

Synthesizing some of the ideas in this thread.

How about we take the hindu narrative of a Godhead dividing itself into smaller ignorant parts (one -> many gods -> mortals -> etc.) so as having something to do. Conducting a cosmic stage play of sorts with itself. But either on the onset in a timed prophecy or maybe through a sort of unconscious hive mind consensus among divine beings the godhead has decided that it wants to experience and experiment with "evil". So the universe that the characters are in is descending into an age of darkness. Essentially the creator has decided to put fun and light high fantasy on the shelf for a little while and try out a grimdark setting.

It's "okay" in the grand scheme of things because ultimately we are all one with creation, in theory, and the cycle will eventually end. So really it's just an act of experimental divine masochism, but that won't make it any easier on the mortals that experience this.

>>51764193
On Saturday look for the Elder Scrolls General.

>>51764169
Here have a (You).

>>51764187
>>51764164

Yeah, I always heard that it was a relatvely large movement, but very fragmented, mostly thanks to Rome.

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>>51745495
Isn't pic related kind of like that?

The Headbands more or less control the world, and they are the seeds of evil.

>>51764242
>mostly thanks to Rome
Mostly thanks to their egalitarian beliefs not lending itself to an ecclesiastic hierarchy more complicated than perfect/priest/acolyte, with perfects seeming to gain that status through recognition rather than appointment, degree, or initiation, much like the Muslim imam.

>>51764333
Well, that as well, but Rome definitely had a hand in keeping them as disorganized as they were, they didn't come out on top by leaving them be.

>>51764193
How does he really look?

>>51764401
No, they came up on top through counter-proselytization and open persecution. Are you one of those guys who thinks that Islam is a Church conspiracy that got out of hand?

>>51764804
No, I'm not, is it? Are you? what the fuck is going on here?!!!!

>>51764242
Thanks to Rome and thanks to the fact that it was never a cohesive movement.

It was less organized than protestants were, and I'll remind you that "Protestantism" technically includes Mormons who believes your eternal fate is literally based on knowing the secret handshakes.

>>51764894
I maintain that since Mormon belief relies on a third revelation of gospel, that they are, similarly to Islam, simply another Abrahamic religion and not truly Christians.

>>51763417
I mean, the Norse pantheon had Odin who was a gigantic fucking douche towards humans for sport, we've got Freyr who was basically a rapist by modern standards,

Then we've got the Semitic and Mesopotamian pantheons which are just filled with douchetastic gods that keep getting portrayed as wanting their followers to rape women and murder babies.

Then we've got the Loa who aren't exactly nice (Baron Samedi causes AIDS), and the Aztecs most powerful deity was openly malicious (Tezcatlipoca if you want to look him up, and of course every other deity in their pantheon is a fucking dick by modern standards), and so on.

Yehezkel Kaufmann postulated that the main difference between God and gods is that gods are capricious bullies.

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>>51764670
Mostly the same as what you can see in the bottom panel

>>51765142
>Odin
The important thing to do in regards to Odin was not to harass strangers or travelers, and to show kindness and hospitality to guests. Odin generally only fucked you over if you did things like this, because he basically behaved as the fairies in fairy tales did when he was wandering.

>Freyr
Eh, he did rape a woman he was in love with and wanted as his bride, true, but remember that the vikings had the same belief in regards to foreign women (raping a Norsewoman was a horrible crime, though.) So from a cultural standpoint, he's perfectly in line with their morals.

And of course the rest of the pantheon doesn't have much you can complain about, unless we're talking about villainous figures.

>Semitic and Mesopatamian
Yes, these two related religious groups were even worse than the Greeks. An impressive situation.

>Voodoo
With loa, they represent both negative and positive spirits. Much like other pantheons, it has its demons. The main difference is that they worship the demons too.

>Aztec
Yes, horrible monsters.

The issues I'm seeing here is that I said not all deities were bastards. That doesn't mean the pantheon doesn't contain assholes. Moreover, the fact that there are other pantheons of assholes doesn't mean pantheons of non-assholes didn't exist.

For examples on my end, see Egypt (most deities were positive, even Set, only Apep was pure evil), Hinduism (the ones you actually worship are for the most part very benevolent), and the Japanese kami (most major deities are ambivalent at worst, not a lot of evil deities here, as an animistic religion of course some minor spirits were bad)

>Yehezkel Kaufmann
Kaufmann hasn't read his torah recently. The Abrahamic god started out as a right bastard and it took a long time for him to move away from his Semitic roots and morph into the more modern conception of the deity. Again, this is probably down to Zoroastrian influence. The ancient Jews had a big boner for Persians.

>>51765297
I think you need check up on Odin, sure he's often used to teach stories about what is essentially manners, but he's also used to talk about the capriciousness of fate.
Like him manipulating battles so that the bravest and best die.

>With loa, they represent both negative and positive spirits. Much like other pantheons, it has its demons. The main difference is that they worship the demons too.

Well no.
The gods are dualistic, just like they are in Greek mythology. There is no "Counter Loa" like Aesir and Vanir have Jotun.
Baron Kriminel is the god of murder and criminals, but he is also the god of those acts being leveraged unto the guilty and so has an aspect of avenger and god of justice.

Papa Legba is the god of understanding, and the facilitator of communications, he represents knowledge, and imparting that knowledge.
He is also, literally, Satan.

>>51752174
my nigga. best post in thread.

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>>51752378
>Zeus cut out the middle man sort of. Metis, an Oceanid, was prophesied to have a child much greater than the father. So Zeus slept with her, and then ate her.

>was prophesied to have a child much greater than the father
>So Zeus slept with her

>>51758503
If she is not, then it's inevitable that he will someday father a son by her. Fate is never denied.

>>51764144
I can see that interpretation, but it also seems reasonable to believe that it means breaking out of the cycle is more symbolic as a woman (though perhaps a bit harder).

>>51745495
Easy, life is suffering. Nature is brutal as fuck. It's expected that might makes right and it all ends in tears.

God created this place as a giant sadistic "fuck you" to the inhabitants for a sense of schadenfreude or some other sick pleasure.

This whole "civilization" thing where people play nice and team up violates his principles and he takes pleasure in throwing disasters and monsters and plagues to disrupt it.

>>51746821
It's canon. The chapter was removed from reprints because it gave away too much of the plot, not because the plot was changed.

>>51747053
>is the toy not better off for having been wound, than to have never been wound at all?
No.

>>51762396
Yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFAPw_F3jyg
Big announcement a few days ago. SIX NEW STORY ACTS in a few months. They're going to be rehashes of the old four in all likelihood, but it's still pretty amazing compared to Daiblo 3 gets Necromancer in the meantime.
(also, the pantheon was pretty easy to figure out before but I didn't expect them to go full "yup the Beast was just a pet, Kitava is an actual god and the final boss")

>>51754675
>Good actually is: everything God think is nice.
>Bad is: any thing God consider not nice

Confusion of words. It is obvious that God and I use the word "good" to refer to two different concepts, and that when I speak of "good" I am referring to the concept that I care about, not the one that he cares about. To say that wanton murder or child sacrifices are "good" is equivalent to saying that the sky is "green," in that words are only useful for their ability to represent concepts and one word is just as useful as any other so long as all parties involved in the communication know which concept which word refers to.

tl;dr: No.

>>51745495
Good is putting the group over yourself
Evil is putting yourself over the group.

So an evil Creator would simply be any God/Creator who puts themself over their creations. Think of any selfish parent who uses and abuses their child to live the life they wanted for themselves and you have the basic archetype of an evil God.
it could simply be a Creator who forces their own harmful ideas onto everyone else.
It could be a Creator who takes pleasure in tormenting or harming their creations.
it could just simply be a Creator that values itself and its entertainment above all else. And fucks or fucks with it's creations.

>>51765525
>Like him manipulating battles so that the bravest and best die.
He had a good reason, had to make sure Valhalla was full for Ragnarök.

>>51750418
Like the Titans of Greco-Roman and Thursar/Jötnar of Norse mythology.

>>51745495
>Implying all creation isn't agony

>>51765828
Zeus probably thought it was somebody trying for a get out of rape free card, and either thought that nobody pulls that shit on his watch, or saw it as a challenge

>>51769613
No. He just didn't care.

It's like Cronos, when told his children will overthrow him, he didn't stop having kids.
He just ate them.

>>51745495
Define "evil". In Treasure of the Rudras the creator destroys all life and creates new life following the wheel of time

>>51752162
As a physicist its really hard to argue this opinion.

The level of goldylocks syndrome that our universes physical laws happen to exhibit is astoundingly convenient. We are already so lucky, why complain?

>>51745495
It works IRL. Anyone with a brain can see that god hates us.

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>>51758444
>Brahma
>benevolent
Life is suffering. The cycle of life and death gotta be litterd with mania of ego. Brahma aka Mara is not my god. he is samsaric and probbaly delusional as well :DD. Impermanence and noble truths, not intoxication and karma ok. praise non-being.

>>51770251
Great kekiliocosm

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>>51747061

Can someone explain to me whether it's actually considered weird to be atheist in america?

Americans always talk about non-religious people as if they're edgy attention seeking teens rather than just the norm.

>>51770822
>Americans always talk about non-religious people as if they're edgy attention seeking teens rather than just the norm.
That's because they usually are. Most atheists tend to be atheist as a form of rebellion against strongly religious parents from the 80's-90's. They're the type of people who "liked" the I fucking Love Science facebook page and then ignored all of the ACTUAL science that would get posted there and just retweet "ohemgee I'm so nerdy"

That's recently calmed down though now as we've been calling out atheists on their shit, so they've been calming down about broadcasting how "enlightened" they are for not believing in god.

The norm for right now is just silently believing in whatever you want, religious or otherwise.

>>51770822
>Can someone explain to me whether it's actually considered weird to be atheist in america?
That depends, more than on anything else, on the question: "WHERE?"
America is a big country and there are perhaps more drastic differences between different regions than you would imagine. In big highly urbanized areas, along the eastern coast in particular, it's completely normal: nobody is going to give you a stink-eye for being an atheist in down-town New York or Boston, I can assure you of that. Things are going to change pretty quickly even as you move between cities and sub-urbs or countryside though a bit. Declaring yourself an atheist in the countryside, or in southern states may make people look strange at you. Less if you are a foreigner, more if you are a native. It's not so much about the belief itself though, as it is about the set of associations people have with loud proclamations of atheism: in america, the religion and Bible itself aren't NEARLY as important, as the fact that being religious is generally associated with sense of local community and generally pro-social attitude. That is actually why it's more of a problem in sub-urbs or small towns, were you are EXPECTED to participate and integrate yourself into local community: the religion often being just an important tool for social bonding and shared time and space. Declaring yourself loudly to be atheist is more interpreted as an act of anti-social and rebellious attitude than as an actual problem of belief. Frequently, I've seen a don't ask don't tell mentality being practiced, in which people had no problem about you being atheist as long as you did not go around telling everyone at first opportunity.

One more thing too (and this is something that fascinated me about discussing religion across the U.S.A. is that people are far more tolerant of diffierent beliefs (or different, often very mild interpretations of common beliefs) than I'd expect as long as you believed in SOMETHING.

>>51770915
Funny. In Russia there was similar problem but from the other end. 80 years of Soviet Union meant that after its collapse new "true believers" were always trying to get in your face.

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>>51771052
What about when it's not being loudly declared and you just are?

>>51771442
In my experience, they will probably not ask you. Partially because in urban regions, they don't care and in country-side/suburban regions they automatically assume you believe in something and don't even have much of a need for confirmation of that. If you are moving in a small country-side town or something, you MIGHT run into an issue if you don't go to church on sunday (though again, that might be highly variable depending on state and region), as the local community might find it disturbing and might ask for an explanation (where saying that you are a jew or follow different conventional belief system) is more acceptable answer than than saying that you are an atheist. But again, that kind of thing is more about the community being weary of the fact that that you are not participating on communal events than the issue of religion itself.

We lived in Boston sub-urbs for two years without anyone around really bothering us about anything. Some of our friends did however tell us much more horrific stories. When I later on traveled the US on my own, I usually found people considering religion to be a sort of a "baseline" state: and when I told them I'm a non beliver, they were suprised and found it somewhat odd: the degree of hostility depended on their need for security and shared identity with me. In most cases, they "just" found it weird, sometimes tried to "help me" by politically and non-invasively proposing ways to fix it, but usually still being fairly open-mindend and polite about it. Experiences may vary though.

>>51745495
Azathoth
Yisun
Yabalchoath

>>51770915
Anon, you were just a teenager and exposed to edgy tryhards. Most atheists aren't rebels and it hasn't "died down", they just grew up and stopped being shitheads, being replaced by the next generation of teenage tryhards.
Actual, adult atheists generally just don't care about having faith in anything

>>51752273
The setting is good, and some parts are excellent.

Isnt that the deal with Earthdawn? Too bad it got split from Shadowrun.

>>51771586
To be fair to him, most public adult atheists are still edgy tryhards.

>>51745495
aint that pretty much Crom ?

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>>51771622
>public adult atheists
That makes them sound like a government funded service provided for communal use

>>51771622
>>51771586
These are both true.

Most adult atheists are just getting on with things like everyone else.

The ones who make it a core of their identity and need to bang on about it are edgy. Or at least insecure assholes.
And would continue to be so with or without atheism.

>>51771760
I do agree with that.

>>51764193
This gave me a fun idea for an overarching plot of a campaign, combined with the K6BD discussion.
So you have your regular pantheon of gods, worshipped widely in various manners. You have theological debates, but everyone accepts that they generally exist.
Then, their respective cults start getting omens that seem to point to do their usual sacraments in a more evil fashion. The God of Battle and Honour starts demanding slaughter and bloodshed for the sake of it, the God of Unity starts starting divides, basically perverting what they stand for.
Then raiders arrive from across the ocean, worshipping these gods in these more horrific forms, seemingly buoyed by divine luck. Shit is getting bad and nobody is sure why.
The reveal is, as I'm sure you've guessed, that each god is part of a great creator god, who has grown bored of benevolence and has decided to start supporting malice and hatred for an aeon or two. Good clerics still got their powers because it thought that'd be interesting. Hopefully this is the point where the PCs decided to kick the shit out of God in a battle to end all battles. God isn't even mad about that.

>>51771622
>To be fair to him, most public adult atheists are still edgy tryhards.
Not most of them, but those who are form a vocal minority: it feels like there is more of them because they are the only ones you commonly hear about. People like Dawkins or Sousa contribute a lot to this generally negative public image of atheists. Interestingly enough, most of the most rabid, aggressive public-speaking atheists in the U.S. are actually British, though they only turned into rabid dogs after moving into U.S.

>>51759544
>humans are NO predators
Of course not. We just hunted countless species into extinction over the course of our existence. We hunt for sport, because we actually have fun killing things and we even used our intellect to create farms and domesticated animals for the sole purpose of feeding off them.
We are the greatest predators to ever exist in this earth.

>>51758503
They said the child could. Athena chose not to. Being the Goddess of Wisdom she knew how catastrophic the war would be and decided to maintain the status quo.

>>51772347
He's probably a loony vegan.

>>51772347

>We are the greatest predators to ever exist in this earth.

What about velociraptors?

>>51772347
>We just hunted countless species into extinction
Pretty sure fucking up your food supply isn't a positive trait.

>>51772347
>Of course not. We just hunted countless species into extinction over the course of our existence.
It's one thing to deny that predation is part of human lifestyle, and the other is to claim that it's a major part of it, or that the extinction of most species was caused by predation. Most species were driven extinct not because humans hunt excessively, but either as a sideproduct of other activities and resource gatherings (for things such as pelts, whale oil and sperm etc...) or the simple fact that humans are so god-damn over-populated.

Other than that, predation is actually a rather small portion of our main survival strategies. Humans are omnivores and for most part of our history, gathering and scavenging were much more prefered to hunting.

>>51772532

We're such good predators we even predate ourselves into extinction.

>>51772347
Domestication is like what would happen if a herbivore got a taste for meat. It's not actually good at catching things that run away from it so it tries to grow the meat in a controlled environment as if it were grass

>>51772541
Anon, I hate to break it to you? But humans are omnivores. Everything about our biology points to it. Our bodies evolved for endurance hunting. All of our relatives except one do it. Without carefully balancing plants that aren't even native to where we evolved, we require nutrients from animals to be healthy.

Don't be in denial.

>Gathering
Hence omnivore.

>Scavenging
Again, look up endurance hunting.

Also on that point, almost ALL predators are scavengers. Certainly all mammalian ones. Predators such as lions and wolves will ALWAYS scavenge over hunting if the opportunity presents itself, because said food comes with no struggle. Scavenging does not make you less of a predator.

>>51746757
"The Idea of Evil" is a fucking great name
>>51766894
>If you retcon me now, I will become more canon than you can possibly imagine

Supernatural God is pretty good at this. I'd always wondered what the actual cosmology was beyond a basic Deism, and it's apparently Deistic Dualism.
Except while both Darkness and Light are awful, Darkness at least has a rockin body.

>>51751503
The story behind this is great. Goya got sick, went deaf and became a shut-in. When he died, people finally entered his house and found this, among a dozen other works referred to as "the Black Paintings" because fuck that shit's dark

>>51772635
Are you implying that humans weren't good at catching things?

>>51767678
But that's the thing anon, that's essentially as those Christians you see assuaging their grief by saying that "God needed another angel"

>>51745495
it does in TES with Sithis

>>51772635
What would happen if a herbivore got a taste for meat is carrion feeding.
To control the entire lifecycle of an animal is using abilities far above those used for simple chasing. It's predation elevated to a level that shapes the ecosystem.

>>51771622
You've met way more atheists than you think you have

>>51774721
I am an atheist. Notice my qualifiers. Specifically, 'public'.

>>51772343
>though they only turned into rabid dogs after moving into U.S.

When in Rome, anon.

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>>51745495
>deities are perfect beings
>evil deity, desiring the negation of those beings, creates imperfection: mortals and the limited reality
>other good deities try to uplift the imperfect races tempting them out of their flawed instincts to obtain ascension
>ascension is practically indifferent from nonexistence for what mortals are concerned

>>51754544
What if suffering now is necessary for more joy and happiness later?
Is sparing someone a few short decades of suffering good if it reduces their joy for eternity?
Or what if our souls/whatever go through a life cycle, and it is important we understand how suffering feels and how to empathize before we move into the next step?
Is an eternity of stagnation worse or better than a few decades of struggle?
And how do you know you haven't already made that choice, and just don't remember?

>>51752162
Yep. Came here to say this.

>>51769920
It's just the observer principle. Universes where this wasn't the case wouldn't be able to observe and comment on it.

>>51774649
>What would happen if a herbivore got a taste for meat is carrion feeding.
Is that not what we all do when we shop at the supermarket?

>>51773005
We weren't, we hafd to create things to throw at our targets because we were hopeless when it came to getting into melee range with anything with even average senses and would easily be killed by anything that didn't just run away from us. We were the worst predator so we had to cheat

>>51775233
If the deity must obey some cosmic laws of necessity, then it isn't all powerful

>>51775759
You are wrong. Look up endurance hunting.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everything-else-2/

The Goddess of Everything Else has an interesting take on this sort of mythology. All life is created by the 'evil' goddess of Cancer, and then given purpose and civilization by the Goddess of Everything Else.

>>51775669
No, that's specalization. Which I agree is a bit insect-like.
Okay, as a whole humanity is the apex predator, but most individual humans aren't.
>>51775759
>implying throwing shit and being inventive don't count towards being a good predator
Stop trying to compare us to lions, we're ten times better predators than lions.

>>51775799
they threw things at their food too. Easier to dog your prey to exhaustion when it's bleeding out from stab wounds.

Actual dogs did it better anyway, so we cheated again and got them to help us

>>51775892
They didn't start out doing so. They chased things down and beat them to death. The use of throwing weapons came later. Learn your evolutionary biology.

Though I'll go one step further. Your complaining about humans using tools when they evolved to use tools is asinine. It's no different than any other animal using its environment, so don't make exceptions for humans. In the specific case of throwing, look up research into the evolution of the human elbow and shoulder and how scientists think we actually DID evolve to more effectively throw shit, proving once again that such tool usage is naturally evolved and under no sane definition 'unfair' or 'cheating'.

>>51745495
>in the beginning there was nothing
>then the big bang happened

>this is generally seen as a bad move

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>>51776059
>we actually DID evolve to more effectively throw shit, proving once again that such tool usage is naturally evolved and under no sane definition 'unfair' or 'cheating'.
>mfw human is girly weak thing that not strong like neanderthal
>mfw human throw stick at food instead of beat it with rock
>mfw it actually work
>mfw it work better
>mfw human take all neanderthal food
>mfw human take all neanderthal women
>mfw human say "is not unfair"
HUMAN GO AND STAY GO

>>51750418
>Literally every non-monotheistic religion

Someone isn't familiar with non-monotheistic religions that aren't Indo-European.

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>>51745495

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>>51748869
>shill six gorillion trannies

>>51776259
Neanderthals were actually smarter than contemporary humans.

Current theories is that they were less aggressive which was part of their downfall.

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>>51752174
>mein negro

>>51758078
Wait, what? The shit about the Bicamerals I skimmed over quite a lot - it was nowhere near as interesting (or at least well-written) as the consciousness stuff in Blindsight. All I really got out of it was pic related.

>>51776862
The theories I like is the recent discovery that they required more than twice the calories we do each day to maintain homeostasis. We need 1500, Neanderthals needed 3500. So each Neanderthal needed twice as much food.

When the climate started changing and food became scarce, we could survive the interim period before the ecosystem recovered while they couldn't.

>>51764670
like a big guy

>>51775799
>endurance hunting
>HFYfag
>>>/out/

>>51777067
>A real hunting strategy used by our ancestors and some still-living tribes in Africa.
>HFY
I guess humans are innately HFY then, or you're just innately retarded.

>>51776862

> Neanderthals were actually smarter than contemporary humans.

Reminrder that populations in North Africa onward have Neanderthal admixture.

>>51777507
Reminder that this includes Melanesians and Australian Aborigines, who consistently test lower than Sub-Saharan Africans on IQ tests.

>>51777507
>>51777556
reminder that many northern europeans also have neanderthal in their bloodline
it's almost like intelligence isn't genetic

>>51777693
You misunderstand.

The first anon is claiming Neanderthal DNA is what makes non-Sub-Saharan Africans intelligent.

The second post is saying that since Melanesians and Abos are stupider than Sub-Saharan Africans on average, then Neanderthal DNA cannot be responsible for this intelligence gap.

Intelligence certainly IS genetic, at least in major part. But Neanderthal DNA absolutely CANNOT be the sole factor for any kind of ethnicity intelligence gap, if Neanderthal DNA is a factor at all.

>>51776862
>>51776952
They were also physically incapable of throwing things a worth shit, which was the point of the post
>>51777507
Reminder that there is only evidence of female neanderthal male human mixing
>KEKED

>>51777822
The scientific reason is that neanderthal babies couldn't fit through a sapiens birth canal.

But in reality yeah, sapiens probably physically conquered Neanderthals, and as we do even now, the men got slaughtered and the women raped. Scientists just tend to avoid stating that kind of thing.

>>51777203
Its likely terribly overestimated how much humans actually relied on it. Its also used as evidence that humans have high natural endurance, ignoring the fact hunters brought water with them

>>51777922
[Original Research?]

>>51771694
>A religious group recognized that atheists, by extention of their disbelief, can not go to heaven.
>Nor can they commit a sin.
>Nor can they be sinned against.
>Religious officials activly hunt down atheists as "recepticals for sin." An individual whose sole use will be as an outlet for those to "deposit their sins" into.
>Non believers are regular put into stocks for the use of the public as they see fit.
>Those particularly Holy could recieve their own receptical to encourage good behavior and keep themselves pure.

>dareyouenter.jpg

>>51745495
That's how pathfinder works

>>51777939
The african tribes carry water. Its not a big secret

>>51778275
I'm more referring to the first part senpai. That is, your claim that humans didn't hunt and aren't design for endurance. That's a pretty big claim that I'm sure you've backed up with lots of sources.

>>51777693

> intelligence isn't genetic

>t.blank slater

>>51772343
Britain has plenty of opinionated assholes, they just don't put them up on a pedestal of wisdom like America does. See also: Lindybeige.

>>51745495
Duh, ever heard of the Christian or Muslim religions. They are inherently evil.

>>51778320
I'll just answer the hunting point cause phoneposting is frustrating as fuck.
I didn't say that we didn't hunt, I said hfyfags overestimate it's importance. We clearly arent specialized predators; we're fairly fragile omnivores that'd get wrecked head on with damn near anything bigger than a housecat. It just makes sense we'd rely as much on or moreso on gathering/scavenging, which doesnt break from the tendencies of other great apes.
>https://m.phys.org/news/2015-08-early-human-diet-habits.html
>https://newrepublic.com/article/121080/early-humans-ate-everything

>>51750418
IS that indian thor?

>>51779142
>Humans are omnivores.
No shit. Doesn't stop us from being predators. Same with bears, who eat much more plant matter than they do meat.

>Muh gathering/scavenging
See >>51772666

>First source
>Says Neanderthals weren't our ancestors
Not entirely true, as we now know.

Also, as you can tell from his talk of "3-2 million years ago", he's talking about humans as in the homo or even Austraelopithicus genus. That is, not homo sapiens as a species, but our ancestors and related species after they split from chimps. Shouldn't have to tell you how that differs from this individual species.

Otherwise it quotes a study that makes an argument, but doesn't have a claim on its own, not the one that supports you.

>Second source
This one too is about early homo and australiopithicus. So again, it is not definitive on homo sapiens.

You can't make an argument of homo sapiens' diet based on fucking homo ergaster, anon.

>>51779645
Filenamen.

>>51778853
Don't cut yourself on that edge, boy.

>>51779645
Yes, he's leveled up since the last time you saw him.

>>51751922
I always flip a coin when making decisions I really can't tell the outcome of, is god screwing me?

>>51778853
Christianity aint so bad. Judaism is the one with the crazy murder god

>>51779795
To be fair bears are kinda shitty hunters too. They're not really built to chase down things, or even ambush. They just bully other pedators

>>51777693
Hate to tell you this, but intelligence is strongly heritable.

There's plenty of studies showing this, but it's not super popular to talk about. It's used by racists a lot. But there are plenty of intelligent people in all races.

Now... If it wasn't.... how do you think humans got smarter than apes?

>>51751275
>>51748869
True Neutral.

>>51780219
Bears are worse hunters than us, yes, but they're another example of a non-specialized omnivore that can and does catch its own meat. Especially fish and insect protein, but still.

My entire problem with that guy is the whole 'predominately scavengers' thing and his annoying belief that scavenging means you're not a predator. He's akin to that idiot who memed around in the media shouting out how T-rex couldn't hunt for shit despite inconclusive evidence. For the record, modern science is that the t-rex was a fast and efficient hunter, sometimes operating in packs even, who scavenged when it could, just like almost ALL predators, which was one of my points.

My setting is actually like this, it's a sort of inverted gnosticism.

It boils down to:
>Godhead = most powerful and tyrannical spirit in the outer spiritual universe
>Demiurge = spirit that escaped with a bunch of others (Archons) to create the material world as a sanctuary from the Godhead

The Godhead isn't necessarily an actual creator, but it is certainly and undeniably the most powerful spirit in existence and dominates the universe to its nightmarish will, thing are as they are because it willed it. Then the Demiurge did its thing. The Archons are hiding the material world from the Godhead. Its domain is the entire spiritual universe, it's incomprehensibly vast, but if it ever found out what happened...

>>51780231
>Now... If it wasn't.... how do you think humans got smarter than apes
Thats not really a fair argument. The physical structure is different between the species. There's barely anything phyically different between people. We've all more or less got the same hardware

>>51780042
I wont let him surpass mee!!

>>51780759
Not exactly true, there's differences in skull shape, as well as some small differences in limb proportions. As far as soft tissues go, some races do respond better/worse or rarely not at all to different drugs (there are drugs that are only used for black people for this reason), and some peoples do seem to put on muscle better etc.

The differences are smaller than you'd see between different species, but they are there.

>>51780372
>My entire problem with that guy is the whole 'predominately scavengers' thing and his annoying belief that scavenging means you're not a predator.
Okay, I must've fucked up pretty bad because I never meant to imply that. I was trying to say our diet was more rounded than what you'd see in a more specialized predator.

>>51780858
If you're not >>51772541 then you didn't, and I made the mistake of conflating you.

If you are, it's the 'much more preferred' part that mislead me, since it implies hunting was a very rare thing.

In the case of what you're saying in this post, then I agree. That's the advantage of being an omnivore, the huge adaptability. This is what your sources DO say, though it's not their main argument, and it's the generally held belief in regards to human diet. Like boars and bears and other omnivores, we will eat anything available and generally be able to survive on most things that don't require dedicated herbivore adaptations (fucking cellulose.)

>>51780908
I'm just the sources anon

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>>51745495
True Detective, Rust Cohle, "Death created time to grow the things he will kill." Simple, to the point and an eerie concept.

>>51745495
"What is Shin Megami Tensei, Alex?"

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>>51745495
>>51745547
>>51746816
>>51747053
>>51747162

I actually really like the idea of the Evil Creator Diety saying something exactly like >>51747124

Make the Creator Deity see life as nothing except a vessel for suffering, make the Creator Deity simply -not get- why humans cling to life and hope outside of simple biological processes.

When the protagonist or PC says >>51747053
The Creator Deity laughs it off and sends his champion to crush the PCs in one of those "GM intends you to lose this fight" style combats.

If the PCs pull off the miracle victory the Creator Deity gets all butthurt and angry, the PCs victory is made sweeter by how genuinely upset they've made him.

If the PCs lose (as GM intends), the Creator Deity stops his champion from killing them all and waxes all mustache twirly about how he'd rather let them live and let them hope so he can see their dreams crushed next time. (But in this monologue he lets slip a few hints to the PCs as to what trick they can use to defeat his champions next time, however you wanna play it)

A whole lot of people in this thread seem to be assuming that this hypothetical universe is running on the same laws of morality as ours, and that it cannot be changed by the diety in question as needed.

Evil is a variable like everything else in the world regardless of the fact that it's possibly subjective or objectice, and if you have access to the universe's source code it can be changed at will like a command console in an RPG; such as how Bethesda RPGs allow one to insert as much or as little karma as needed for the moment, or if you're derganged can manually go into the code using the Developer Kit and literally swap the variables around to screw with the game royally. Good is bad and bad is good, and if you want to make it really stick, have normally "good" actions lead to negative consequences, and "bad" actions lead to rewards.

A truly evil (or at least intelligent) god would say "hahah, you caught me red-handed, but now you have to relearn the meaning of "good" since I'm going to change it right now; not so I'm good, but so you're evil too!"

>>51754996

Then he's not all powerful if he is constrained by human capacity to conceptualise good and evil.

>>51782131
>Moral relativism

>>51758259
God wasn't evil in HDM though. It was the mouthpiece, Metatron, subverting the truth of the universe that was the real baddy.

>>51783227
My pastor always said it portrayed God as evil tho

>>51765297
>Jews regarding the Persians.
Well they would, their book mentions them being enslaved by the Assyrians (wrecked by the Medes-who-would-be-Persians) and the Babylonians (wrecked by the Persians).

>>51783233
It depicts God as weak, kindly, an impotent. He's killed in the last book, which is pretty blasphemous to an Abrahameic standpoint. But the actual antagonist is Metatron who takes on a Kronos type persona and supplants God's place as master of the multiverse. In the end its just a book series, and reflects only the authors own views on religion, and any portrayal within merely a mirror.

>>51783289
Sure, Persians were pretty cool guys before Islam ruined it. Rival to the Greeks and Romans, pretty big on religious freedom and other such things long before their time, a god who wasn't a dick for once, loved math, science, and medicine almost as much as their rivals (and indeed are how the Islamic world got a hold of a lot of its Greco-Roman literature.)

>>51783337
Zoroastrianism wasn't all roses and Islam didn't ruin Persia so much as the new rise of Conservatism that swept the world in the 70-80s did. And even then, Shia Islam was never as dogmatic or skeevy as Sunni. Sure modern Iran isn't a very pleasant place, but it's objectively better than our dear allies the House of Saud; though that's not a discussion for the here or now.

>>51783368
>Islam didn't ruin Persia
Yes, the oppressive regime of beheading and suppression of local culture and religion surely wasn't a huge step down from how it used to be, no siree, and Persia was definitely still one of the most powerful polities on Earth up until those dastardly 70's.

>Shia was never as dogmatic or skeevy as Sunni.
This is true. Which is part of why Iran is, internally, nicer to live in and more stable than its neighbors. That doesn't mean it still isn't garbage.

>>51776862
>Neanderthals were actually smarter than contemporary humans.
Where's your evidence? Back in the days of the Neanderthal, the average Homo Sapiens brain was also significantly larger on average. Room for about an extra tennis ball sized chunk of brain.

>>51784212
Really makes you think, huh?

>>51779987
Don't you have some kids to rape, Mohammed?

the Drakengard/Neir multiverse seem to work on this concept, though there is some implication that humans might be the ones at fault for offending God.

>>51750418
Not all of them my dude.

>>51784988
>Playing Drakengard
Why? It is a fucking terrible game series, and even Nier was a pretty mediocre game.

>>51772359
Wasn't Zeus also relatively benevolent towards Athena after she got out of his skull? That may have helped.

>>51785167
an example is an example, even if it's one you don't like.

>>51782522

Still a variable, still something that can be changed at will if you have access to it.

>this entire thread
>no mention of Kult

You're all useless wankers.

>>51783368

>Islam Dindu Nuffin

Next you'll be saying Islam is a religion of peace that has much to do for the West.

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>>51781326

>>51780149
Oponn pushes and pulls you

>>51784212
>implying mankind hasn't gotten worse at problem solving now that we have massive infrastructure to support us, leading to the shrinking brain size

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>>51746754
YES

If our world had a creator deity, it would be evil aligned.

>>51745495
So the Lord of Nightmares from Slayers? Only created reality on accident and she would really like the material used to make it back.

>>51751636
I did run with the concept that humans were made from dirt and shattered angels, to punish angels for disloyalty against God. The more the humans bred, the less soul there was to go around, which explained the descent from a golden age.

If 'your' soul gets damaged, the body starts failing to hold itself together. Why do demons want your soul? To rebuild themselves into what they used to be.

The big twist was that all matter, was actually made from God, who destroyed himself took create an early torture chamber for angel souls, which would be slowly ground down unroll nothing was left. The world existed to materialise the conveyor on entropy, which hadn't existed prior to it's creation. Humans were more divine in their nature than angels.

>>51781974
I'd propose the opposite though.

An all-powerful creator deity, the only one there ever was, the only one there'll ever be. A god that through the aeons only knew infinite loneliness.

Until we were created.

At first, it was just a game. But then, the creator realized something: If he created, he had a purpose.

And so, the creator wound up toy after toy even though he knew they were all doomed from the start, even if he knew it was just an exercise on futility.

Because although there was beauty in watching his creatures soar high, there was something sublime, something mysterious and magnetic in watching them crash and fade, where did they go?, despite, or rather, because of his power, the creator could never know what laid beyond death. But it fascinated him.

And so, he sat in eternity winding and watching, observing the lives of his creatures, he felt their joy and felt their sorrow, fancying himself a benevolent deity, a father to all that was good and beautiful, just so that he may have a purpose.

But that wasn't true. Purpose was not the reason. The Creator is never as watchful of mortals as when their time comes. He observes in hopes maybe, just maybe, he may be able to have a glimpse at the incommensurable beyond. Through his creatures, the Creator experiments death over and over, as he tries to ignore the ugly truth.

That he's tired,
that he doesn't care,
that there was never a point,
and if he can't find one, existence truly is meaningless.

He would stop, but what would be of him?, Even the thought of returning to the absolute blackness of eternity, where there are no such things as sound, color or emotion is unbearable. After so long, it's just too much to ask.

And so, he'll keep up winding and he'll keep watching, forever cursed. Not even God chose to be born the way he was, but he'll have to live with it.

>>51789788
>to God life is kerbal space program

>>51776862
Neanderthals weren't smarter than contemporary humans.

They just had bigger brains.

All evidence so far strongly implies neanderthals were basically autistic. "Human" calculators. Lots of brain power, but no brain functions to use it.
This mainly is about how Neanderthals were completely incapable of inventing new technology or social and cultural concepts until humans came around and changed shit up.

Neanderthals rose up, invented the tools they used, came up with some cultural concepts, and just stuck with it for thousands of years, until humans showed up with their continiously changing ideas and influenced neanderthals to change things too.

>>51791156
It is also important to remember that having a bigger brain doesn't automatically mean you're smarter. How smart you are is dependent on how densely connected your brain is. All brain activity is just a matter of linking neurons. If your linking system is better, faster, denser and more energy efficient, you're going to be smarter, even if the other has a bigger brain.

Birds have evolved all kinds of ways to reduce weight, including packing a lot more brain activity in less material. This means that a bird with a brain the size of a mouse is much smarter than a mouse. Let's say, a scientist would create a human with a brain built like a bird brain, that altered human would be significantly smarter than a regular human.

>>51787732
That's certainly one interpretation.
>>51791156
Contemporary humans would be humans from the same time as Neanderthals, right? In that case, Neanderthals actually didn't have significantly larger brains. Cro-Magnons had some pretty fucking large brains too. As did most human populations of that era. That's not taking into account the ratio between brain and body mass.

Neanderthals do have significantly larger brains on average when compared to modern humans, but that's only true for modern day modern humans. Not the Homo Sapiens from their own era. A modern day Neanderthal probably wouldn't have a particularly impressive brain size.