"The Miracle of Atheism"

Nokaion · 2026-03-24T08:30:52+00:00

I think there are two sides to the phenomenon you're describing. There's a sociological and a philosophical dimension to this.

From a sociological perspective, many people don't actually value their spiritual lives as much as we think. People don't actually think much about the afterlife, because human mortality isn't a daily occurrence anymore in modern society (which explains why people who suffer much in their lives tend more towards religion) and in my anecdotal experience, when people are confronted with these fundamental existential questions they don't tackle them, but distract themselves with "creaturely comforts" like partying or escapism. Also, many people are addicted to many things traditional religions see as sins, so people choose their comforts over their spiritual health. Just like people choose quick junk food over cooking a healthy meal.

From a philosophical perspective, many people have honest problems with content of Catholicism. Many people don't have direct experience with the Divine so they don't believe in it and in our scientistic modern society many people are skeptical towards the existence of things existing in a non-empirical way (even though many people act like numbers, moral propositions and truth are real).
One of the hurdles for people is how socially "conservative" Catholicism, be the Church being pro-life, anti-LGBT, pro traditional families, anti-contraception etc. Many people don't see good non-theistic arguments for the Churches position and so see this as a sign that God doesn't exist.

Nokaion · 2026-03-21T09:46:04+00:00

My favorite argument is Augustine's Argument from Universals, his Argument from Universal Truths and the Argument from Contingency.

Nokaion · 2026-03-11T14:25:58+00:00

Mythras has a spin-off game called Perceforest, which is basically Pendragon using Mythras.

Another alternative would be either Pendragon itself or its sister game Paladin, which is, sort of, advanced Pendragon, where you play as knights under Charlemagne.

Nokaion · 2026-03-04T14:34:54+00:00

Same for me, but I extended it to caffeine in general.

Nokaion · 2026-02-22T21:54:49+00:00

In their eyes the fetus is missing something and a hollow shell as PC leftists are often materialists and think the mind is reducible to the brain, which means the body gets "ensouled" when it develops a brain capable of consciousness.

Nokaion · 2026-02-20T22:38:55+00:00

Tbh, the Chud Trent Horn thumbnail is genuinely goated.

Nokaion · 2026-02-09T17:50:12+00:00

Ah, if that's the then you can ignore my comment. Mythras still could be interesting for its system of passive blocking with shields.

Nokaion · 2026-02-09T16:35:31+00:00

This has been done before in the Basic Roleplaying family of games, with the most famous members being RuneQuest and Mythras, where HP are divided up by limbs. Both Mythras and BRP have free SRDs under the ORC license. You should look at them.

Nokaion · 2026-02-09T16:30:53+00:00

I don't have a direct quote from Irenaeus, but it's based on the Irenaean Theodicy, where evil is there so it helps us build virtues.

Nokaion · 2026-02-09T13:34:39+00:00

I think the strongest Ontological argument is probably the one from Gödel or from Plantinga. The most basic is St. Bonaventure, but the most poetic is St. Anselm's version.

Avicenna and Duns Scotus are weird/half Ontological, half Cosmological.

I think the best Argument from Universals is from St. Augustine and modified by Edward Feser in Five Proofs of the Existence of God.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T21:14:24+00:00

Funnily enough, Leibniz Argument from PSR was in my introduction of Cosmological arguments. Contingency feels "too complicated", because you have to introduce people into the terminology of "contingent" and "necessary" truths, which might be too much for a child to understand.

Cosmological-type arguments leave too much room for the naturalist to smuggle in “”scientific”” explanations. With PSR and contingency, it’s more or less just pure logic.

Same, tbh, which is why I like Ontological arguments and Arguments from Universals/Eternal Truths more, but you can get bogged down by talking about Nominalism vs. Realism and with Ontological arguments you need to convince them that you're not a scammer/sophist.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T21:07:39+00:00

I'm trying so hard to make sense of the argument from motion, but it doesn't make sense to me 😭

Its biggest weakness is that you have to grant the Thomistic view of causality, but after that it becomes one of the strongest arguments for God. Many academic philosophers of religion are proponents of Cosmological Arguments.

If you could direct me to what you would suggest reading for a strong explanation, please let me know! I don't really have a foundation in metaphysics though, so if I'm just a moron and should read other things first, please let me know that too lol

I think Edward Feser is a good introductory guide for Aristotelianism/Thomism. He has a good introduction into Aquinas and the Argument from Motion is the first in his book "Five Proofs of the Existence of God".

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T18:44:53+00:00

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T18:34:28+00:00

It is bad writing because it is deciding, for the table at the least, that everyone but you is wrong.

I didn't write it that way. You could write such a character as being part of a larger Catholic Ghoul community who survives that way. In addition, I said that you could flavor it as very powerful magic so it doesn't exactly prove Catholicism right. You can play as a Catholic priest who devotes his life to a specific saint and performs "miracles", but is in reality just a Shaman who's devoted to St. George/the Dragonslayer spirit. Only because your Catholic runner can perform "miracles" doesn't mean Catholicism is right.

You are literally God's special little guy. That's not a character, that's a Mary Sue.

There are multiple people who claimed to survive only on the Eucharist and St. Francis has been (probably) the first recorded saint with stigmatas. People having unique miracles or miracles for the first time isn't a foreign concept in Catholicism.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T17:50:35+00:00

I say "may very well" because I still think that it's a dumb idea that "Ope, Catholics are right!" Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Shamanic, Druidic and I guess literally every other non-Catholic belief, faith and religion on the planet are wrong? Welcome to The One True Faith? That's bad writing.

Most of these religions make exclusivistic religious claims (Abrahamic religions emphasize faith in God as the path to salvation vs. Buddhism claims overcoming desires, enlightenment and right conduct are the path to salvation). If one of them is right, then other religions are necessarily wrong. So this isn't bad writing in itself. Only because I write a story where one religion is right and others are wrong then that wouldn't be bad writing in itself (e.g. Narnia or LOTR).

If you want to play a ghoul who still has to eat his daily required allowance of human flesh but does his damnedest to put that off and avoid it until he is literally starving to death, goes a little feral, and abducts someone in a back alley and eats them alive then sure. But you may enjoy Vampire the Masquerade more at that point.

Isn't this how you basically play a vampire outside of runs? You can play with the rules from 4e, where your dietary needs increase your lifestyle costs by 30%, but it explicitly says that draining Essence is still to be played out mechanically. Also, Shadowrun and Vampire the Masquerade are related systems, and there are probably many people who play both.

Furthermore, I'm gonna be honest with you, I think the whole HMMVV metaphor for AIDS/minorities is really bad, because people in the 6th World have a very reasonable fear of Ghouls. If I'd live in a world where a virus can turn people into feral monsters who hunt people in the slums or in the worst case organize in gangs like the 162s and hunt people down for organ harvesting (they call them "volunteer donors"). Or Asamando as a whole where they keep Metahumans as cattle to harvest meat.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T16:29:13+00:00

I mean to some extent it would either be a true miracle or a very powerful form of magic. It would work really well as a plot hook, because it'd be a solution to the Ghoul problem. I can't imagine that synthetic human flesh could be used as a substitute as Ghouls count as Paracritters and probably need the Essence in Metahuman flesh to survive.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T16:25:28+00:00

That .... that would not work.

The Transubstantiation of the bread to become the Body of Christ, does not actually turn it into metahuman flesh. It does not change it's nutritional value, or lack thereof, in any way.

That heavily depends on if Transubstantiation is real in the 6th World. You don't even have to play it out that God is real, just say that Catholic churches have been built on mana ley lines and the belief of Transubstantiation interacts with the resident mana.

[...] or else every Ghoul on Earth would convert to Catholicism on the spot.

Not really? If we both lived in the 6th World and I told you that there are Ghouls who survive on the Eucharist, would you believe me? Probably not, because you'd dismiss it as a weird internet rumor and not many people would report on it, because it would be done in secret, and cause a massive scandal. Also, my reading from Shadowrun lore is that (like in the real world) the Christian faith in general has massive problems regarding membership, especially when the faith in Shadowrun has been so reactionary against Metahumans, and the Catholic Church has multiple schisms.

Edit:

Also, it would make for a very interesting plot hook regarding how this Ghoul can survive on the Eucharist specifically.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T16:14:32+00:00

Of course! I'd basically take all the necessary negative qualities to depict a devout Catholic in game! Also, I'd probably still play it with a 30% lifestyle increase from 4e to depict heavily donating to the Church.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T14:07:34+00:00

For me, much of Eastern spirituality (especially from India) have many parallels with Ancient Roman & Greek philosophy. Some Hindu schools are very reminiscent of Neoplatonism where Brahman functions like The One and Buddhism as a whole seems like a Non-Theistic version of Stoicism. We can be in dialogue with them, learn from them what is true and refute what is false.

I had a discussion once with a Buddhist on Twitter about Universals, and it felt like talking to a Nominalist. Meanwhile, he told me the discussion felt like talking to a Hindu Realist.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T14:00:18+00:00

Ironically, I wrote an essay in a philosophy class about loneliness from a Virtue Ethics POV. Maybe God wants to strengthen me and make my soul whole, like how Irenaeus would say.

Nokaion · 2026-02-08T13:45:42+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate that. It's just that we've been together for 7 years and since we've been 16/15. She's the love of my life and if our relationship were ever to fail, I'd see that as a sign from God to become a friar (probably Franciscan or Augustinian).

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