Fallout and religion

Now some cynical and pragmatic point of view. Religions can be considered the most successful and effective mass-manipulation tool ever invented. Of course it will arise once again in the post-apo wasteland, as long as there will be at least one capable and smart enough manipulator.

I do like the Children of the Cathedral concept, it's a perfect example how easily a large group of uninformed and desperate people can be fooled, abused and misused for protecting someone's else sphere of interests.
 
Yamu said:
You make some valid points, but I think the key to the situation lies in the differences between the Black Plague and Fallout's nuclear apocalypse. The plague could subjectively be argued to be one of the most damaging cataclysms in history, but it left the society and the actual, physical areas it struck (if not their populations) largely intact. Losing a total war tends to have more drastic effects. Fallout's America has been completely torn down, its culture largely obliterated, and historically speaking there are at least as many cases of decimated cultures going extinct or receding to the fringes of society as of those cultures concentrating and fortifying under the strain. The in-game evidence points to pre-war religions falling mostly into the former category. A rare few, in scattered pockets, were reenforced, but mostly, believers are scarce and infervent, probably eclipsed in numbers and orthodoxy by post-war cults and tribal religions (which even still are still a minority of the population.)

Also, Fallout's wasteland differs from most other case studies not only in that the decimation wrought there was near-total, but that the society it was wrought upon was falling from a far loftier height of sophistication. During the plague, people turned to religion in droves out of desperate hope. In the pre-wasteland world, though, people had been taught that science was their hope, and it was that very hope that visited an unprecedented devastation upon them. For the hardcore religious faithful, it must have seemed a final judgment from which there was no salvation, so it was a real double-whammy: if not God, if not
Science!, what was there to believe in?

The Wasteland is largely a post-hope, post-faith kind of place, and I think that's integral to the bleakness of the setting.
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Now's the time for me to breathe in the wonder of this discussion. I miss intellectually stimulating debate so... =D

Very well said. I think, given the openness of both the interpretation of the fictional events, and the lack of concrete evidence for either of our assertions, I'll still opt to disagree. But it's one of those rares topics where there's no such thing as "You're wrong" (excluding, of course, the obviously nonsensical, but that doesn't apply here =D).

I dunno. I suppose the Fallout world during its peak just before the bombs might have found itself relying more on science than religion, but it was also a retrofuture that suggested a society in the US very similar to what we had in the 1950s, which was fiendishly zealous as a knee-jerk reaction to the red scare, and the anti-Chinese propaganda of the Fallout-verse mirrors that frenzy almost exactly. Historical 50s America was also very "reliant" upon science, in the sense that it's where we saw the popular rise of science fiction, and "science" was (for the most part, at least popularly) revolved around the booming consumer culture. ("It does this, and this, aaaand THIS! It's a wonder of science, you HAVE to buy it!" That kinda thing...)

I guess the only real factor that would be considered a near-absolute in contributed to a total decline of religion was the lack of social contact, which is how religious customs remain intact and spread. The fewer recipients there are of the good word, the more easily it will die out. Locations where small communities thrived such as Vaults could still see to keep them alive, and such was clearly the case with Vault 70, whose inhabitants would later build New Canaan.
 
As a Mormon, I found Honest Hearts to be great, though it saddened me that New Canaan had been crushed by the white legs. Though since Mormons generally are bashed relentlessly in media, it was nice to give a couple good examples of Mormons running around, though they did get it wrong that Mormons do not use cross symbols. Though I find it humorous that among my buddies who have played new vegas, the ones who have religion generally want to get Joshua Graham on the road to redemption, while the non-religous think of him as nonredeemable.
 
drgong said:
Though I find it humorous that among my buddies who have played new vegas, the ones who have religion generally want to get Joshua Graham on the road to redemption, while the non-religous think of him as nonredeemable.
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I'm not religious but I always lead Graham to redemption. I love how he finally finds peace after so many years of killing.
But not before killing any White Leg standing in my way. They killed my caravan bros and were a nuisance throughout the entire DLC. They deserved it. :twisted:
 
Well in fallout 3 you have the children of the atom guys that are quite sizeable in numbers inside Megaton.

You also have the christian church in Rivet City. And your own mother had something about water from the bible on the wall that your father read for you when you were a small child.

A don't forget the treehuggers that worships ol' Harold.

And aren't the BoS and Enclave pretty religious in their ideas? Especially the BoS resembles more some form of christian order from the dark ages than a normal military organization.

In New Vegas you have... well not much in the vanilla game... again you have the BoS, and of course the legion are vorshipping Ceasar as the son of march, altough you don't see much religious action in the game. In the dlc:s you have pretty religious stuff in Honest Hearts.

And don't forget about Antler.
 
Mormonism is present in minor doses in the vanilla game, too, and you've got O'Hanrahan at Camp Golf talking about how he joined the army "so's the little ones wouldn't starve and Jesus would love us" and other minor mentions of "generic" Christianity throughout the games, but more often than not when you hear anyone mention God it's as a mild oath passed down from pre-war society. (Interestingly enough, apart from influences apparent in Shady Sands and the distorted and stereotypical ancestor reverence of the Shi, the game never really touches on real-world religions beyond the judeo-Christian sphere, though this could possibly be explained by the fact that so little of American culture survived the war that only the majority religion in the xenophobic God, mom, and apple pie society of the era would have any statisical chance of suvival. More likely, it's just ground they didn't feel like covering, though Obsidian's incorporation (to mixed success) of real-world sects and LGBT issues into the game world leave the question of other real-world social issues/constructs open.)

You underscore quite well here how liberal (some would say heavy-handed) Bethsoft was with the Christian themes as compared to Black Isle and Obsidian, too.
 
Here is something you need to think about why religion is not prevalent in fallout.

During the black death civilization is slowly dying. Preventing the spread or minimizing the death toll was the top priority.
- The church was the institution available to relieve grievances and offer help

In FO time the civilize world was destroyed in an instant. Survival and finding necessary resources and necessities was the top priority.
- The church was not available as most of the civilization is gone

This is the key reason why most religion in FO are cult like as there are no real organize religion in that time and most are busy trying to survive the wasteland and its hostile inhabitants to even look salvation for the soul.
Emphasize on "CIVILIZATION was gone in an Instant"
 
I think that your average non-tribal wastelander probably follows some form of christianity, probably a watered-down protestantism down to the bare minimum, perhaps a catholic-protestant blend. Would't surprise me if in some place in the wasteland (probably southaways to Mexico) there was somesort of "New Papacy".

Vault 15 was VERY multi-cultural, which explains how you have three very diverse raider groups coming from it as well as Shady Sands, which is clearly renowed for being very culturally and religiously (Aradesh and Tandi seem vaguely indian), with references to oriental religion.

Modoc had a church, which was empty because nobody felt like thhanking for anything with the drought they had.
 
"Bad Religion"

The old religions are well portrayed in their current state, with minimum members and influence ... what else to expect after the Apocalypse?

With old society's downfall there is room for new religions and philosophies to emerge. It was due this massive lack of faith and ideals that post-apocalyptic cults were created ... such as megaton "atom", "plutonius" gravestone ghouls or the children of the Cathedral (which was by far the largest one).

However after the new icon of religion, the children, showed their true colors i doubt new cults could grow into regional powers as it once was ... least in the core region people should remember their treachery and look upon similar groups with suspicion.
 
SnapSlav said:
I guess the only real factor that would be considered a near-absolute in contributed to a total decline of religion was the lack of social contact, which is how religious customs remain intact and spread. The fewer recipients there are of the good word, the more easily it will die out. Locations where small communities thrived such as Vaults could still see to keep them alive, and such was clearly the case with Vault 70, whose inhabitants would later build New Canaan.
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The religious institutions will crumble, some practices will be adopted/forgotten, new sects will rise and personality cults will rise from its aches, but overall it will flourish in the wasteland, which is ripe for it.
 
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