"Offering to the Goddess" -> I don't like this

"

zSavage wrote:

The item is just a key to open a zone. It's not like it's something you place on an altar and pledge your soul to a made up NPC. You feed it to the map device and it allows you to access the zone.

Nice.

OP still did not answer why using magic from gems and items is ok for him while in the bible it is clear any use of magic that is not jesus doing is satans s work.

Op should play without any skill gem if he really wanted to stay true Christian.


Leviticus 20:27

'Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.'"




Exodus 22:18
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live




Leviticus 19:26
Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times.

SO Op can t play a witch, he can t play a templar either since he praise another god. HE can t play a marauder too since

Leviticus 19:28
28 “‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord

he can t even pursue spirits because:


Leviticus 19:31
31 “‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.


Leviticus 20:6

6 “‘I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.

Deuteronomy 18:9-14


When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.


2 Chronicles 33:6



He made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom; and he practiced witchcraft, used divination, practiced sorcery and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.




Galatians 5:19-21

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.





Revelation 21:8
"But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."





OP is hypocrite to create a thread like that but totally forget to apply half of what is god tell him about magic.

Any magic use is forbidden by god in the bible, but i doubt the Op ever read the bible if he think playing with magic in a video game is ok in his book but not doing quest offering to the goddess.

OP, idolaters AND magic users are at the exact same level in the bible god eyes.

Poor marauder can t do shit too since tattoo are forbidden too in the bible lol

@Head_Less
Way to let the point woosh you.

While the game is certainly not the best for a christian, it is just a game. None of that is being "done" in real life. Playing the game and doing those things in the game does not make one guilty of practicing any of those serious things. People also dream things and pretend to do things, neither of which makes them guilty of such things.

The problem that has already been expressed by the Original Poster, was that real value has been put on idols/offerings, in real life. The OP does not feel comfortable with this because, to him, it breaks that wall between pretend and real.

Whether one considers it to be "ok", to be playing a game that includes these bad things or not, is a personal conscience matter, and in this instance, has nothing to do with hypocrisy. There are many Bible principles at work here (many reasons one would chose not to play the game, or forego certain parts of it), but humans cannot judge one another on this choice.

I doubt anything that I would say would ease the mind of someone who's bothered by OttG, but IMO, the "value" attached to it isn't real at all, since it's in-game currency that's being traded, not real money. So they're only being coveted insofar as desiring to murder thousands of humans (Bandits) and animals is.

"

adghar wrote:

I doubt anything that I would say would ease the mind of someone who's bothered by OttG, but IMO, the "value" attached to it isn't real at all, since it's in-game currency that's being traded, not real money. So they're only being coveted insofar as desiring to murder thousands of humans (Bandits) and animals is.

Unless of course OP is RMT'ing... which is a whole different moral issue...

"

Zaludoz wrote:

@Head_Less
Way to let the point woosh you.

While the game is certainly not the best for a christian, it is just a game. None of that is being "done" in real life. Playing the game and doing those things in the game does not make one guilty of practicing any of those serious things. People also dream things and pretend to do things, neither of which makes them guilty of such things.

The problem that has already been expressed by the Original Poster, was that real value has been put on idols/offerings, in real life. The OP does not feel comfortable with this because, to him, it breaks that wall between pretend and real.

Whether one considers it to be "ok", to be playing a game that includes these bad things or not, is a personal conscience matter, and in this instance, has nothing to do with hypocrisy. There are many Bible principles at work here (many reasons one would chose not to play the game, or forego certain parts of it), but humans cannot judge one another on this choice.

You can t just pick what you like or not in your sacred book when your god himself specify that BOTH sorcery and idolatry are at the same value for him (and trading both magic and idols are bad in the bible anyway) .

While the offering is traded and so have value in poe reel life interaction, so do Magic items and magic skills gems. You even trade magical orbs when you sell items to vendor and the exalted orb you all love to exchange are magical powerful objets.

Using the offering on himself is the same as using magical skill gems on his virtual body to poop out magic lazers. In both cases Op is tainting himself virtualy.

Somehow OP think one is ok (trading/buying/using magic stuff) and the other one is not (trading/buying/using the goddess).


why GGG should believe OP? He created his own religious rules, he don t even follow the official ones.

"

The Bible clearly teaches not to worship any other Gods, and giving an offering to another god is doing just that. The act being done in a video game or in real life has very little difference, since they're all false gods apart from the one in the Bible. When Jesus was tempted by satan, he only wanted a single act of worship, that of bowing to him, that simple, and would have been a repugnant sin on Jesus' part, which he refused adamantly.

Considering the above quote was called as "understanding perfectly," it seems safe to say that's the best explanation for the beliefs in question, yes?

Regardless of whether that is the best summary though, I would be quite surprised if the name of the offering or the manner in which it is used was changed, for various reasons.

One of them is the fact that another "offering" of sorts to another deity also exists: Silver Coins. The lore surrounding Navali is she was sent by the Karui goddess Hinekora, Mother of Death, to do certain tasks in Wraeclast, and it is through Hinekora that Navali is empowered to give the player Prophecies in exchange for the silver coins.

That mechanic is definitely not going to change, so even if the Offering to the Goddess was redone a bit (and to be fair, it could be since there's so little lore surrounding The Goddess" in the first place that the item might as well be called "Key to the Final Labyrinth") then there is still another false god being paid tribute to in some way through a game mechanic.

Alas, these sorts of situations will inevitably come up within video games since games are an interactive medium and an expression of their creators' ideas. Sometimes those ideas will involve religious material.

It is unfortunate when a person's faith is at odds with the game designers' expression, but that's just how things happen. Once the conflict has been identified, it's then up to the parties involved to see if any sort of compromise is reasonable or can be achieved.

In the case of the Offering, a compromise could probably be done since I've already mentioned the lore surrounding The Goddess is quite lacking and thus easily changed as far as players are currently concerned. I obviously don't know how easy it would be from the dev side of things since more lore might be in the works. Is it reasonable to ask for such a compromise though? So long as the person, in this case Bwam, realizes that the answer can be "No" and is graceful in accepting that possibility, asking for such a compromise ought to be okay.

In the case where both parties can agree to a compromise that they are okay with then all the better, though of course there will be people wanting to call the "PC Police" or whatever for such things, though they should be reminded that a lot of proper Political Correctness is based on respect.

If a compromise cannot be found then both parties should be graceful in accepting that. GGG could say something like "We're sorry, but these mechanics are integral to the game and its story and we cannot change them to accommodate your case" in a similar way to how the David statue isn't going to suddenly have underwear put on it even if someone who doesn't like seeing the full detailed nudity were to go to that museum and exclaim "I don't want to see his penis! Cover it up!" That person would just be told to not look at the sculpture since it clearly offends them but has value to others.

Eh, I guess I'll go TLDR on this.

TLDR: Always be aware of a game's current and possible future content, and if it offends you then maybe if you ask nicely something might happen, but don't count on it because that offensive thing is still someone's artistic vision. Tough luck if they say no.

I genuinly feel bad for anyone in this thread trying to prove any point, any discussion about religion will end up with no winner or loser, cause in their mind they are the one correct/right, regardless of the arguments presented.

Well yeah technically games are Art, like Movies, Pictures, Books and whatever.

However it is totally fine for someone to dislike Art, however I wouldn't expect the Artist to change his mind. PoE is a world that is crafted by a few people to be like it is. You can't just remove some parts of it.

And a lot of people already explained if you are a christian and believe so strongly in the bible that you are offended by the offerings... you should never have played Path of Exile or any game in the first place.

a) Games are basically a form of creation, so if you are such a strong believer you shouldn't take part in Art that aims to recreate humans... and there are christians that do just that

b) Magic should be a no go, and this would limit you to Autoattacks, because even the attack skills are magic

c) You can't play Duelist, Scion and Shadow because they are technically murderers (yes gladiators are murderers as well), you can't play marauders because the Karui have their own gods, you can't play the witch because she is actually a witch (not like those woman the church burned) and you can't play the ranger because she is lesbian. And you likely can't play the Templer because he doesn't wear pants (and technically he also has another god).

"

If a compromise cannot be found then both parties should be graceful in accepting that. GGG could say something like "We're sorry, but these mechanics are integral to the game and its story and we cannot change them to accommodate your case" in a similar way to how the David statue isn't going to suddenly have underwear put on it even if someone who doesn't like seeing the full detailed nudity were to go to that museum and exclaim "I don't want to see his penis! Cover it up!" That person would just be told to not look at the sculpture since it clearly offends them but has value to others.

They shouldn't even give a fuck. Honestly, if you are a christian just ask your god if he would mind giving you an upgraded 21st century version of the bible. I mean considering how flawed humans are he propably assumed we would have killed ourself before being able to develope computer games and create a virtual reality so he likely didn't consider adding those parts to his rulesets.

But like most of the old laws fail in our modern world and need upgrades, so does the bible increasingly fails. Likely in this century or maybe the next humans will start engineering their own genetical code to fight deseases, they might start shaping other planets, we might even change or whole reproduction so that it doesn't have so many disadvantages for woman. Since the development of nuclear weapons mankind has propably already surpassed any threat a god could pose. For many centuries judgement day was what people were afraid of and never would they have imagined that it could come at their own hands.

And if we were made by god, why did he made us that way, he created humans that for most part of their existence tried to surpass him. If god would not have wanted that we engineer our genetical code, that we are able to create our own life, that we are able to reshape planets he wouldn't have made us that way.

Or to make it short it is very easy to proof that religion has a very basic fallacy in it.

So god is unfailable and god created humans. Obviously not few humans question is his existence. Which means god created us in a way that allows us to question him. This was either a mistake, meaning he is not unfailable or on design and he actually wants us to question him and replace his guidance by our own. And the later is actually the belief a lot of religious scientists have, they believe god created us but he doesn't want to hold our hand all the time.