Post-War Religions?

The Followers aren't a religion, they make it quite clear in Fallout 1. However they have nothing against religion as long as it doesn't harm others. They're purely interested in the physical needs of others then their spiritual ones, which is why they're skilled doctors, chemists, scientists and other duties, but not so many missionaries and priests.
 
They have anarcho-syndicalist tendencies, sure. But apart from a couple occasions all-out violence hasn't broken out between them. I'm pretty sure their differences are what led to the NCR OSI being formed.
 
Earth said:
They have anarcho-syndicalist tendencies, sure. But apart from a couple occasions all-out violence hasn't broken out between them. I'm pretty sure their differences are what led to the NCR OSI being formed.
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The OSI are basically the followers who work purely for the interests of the NCR, not the people.
 
The OSI seem like the new Think Tank, idiots who are more likely to accidentally nuke NCR then they are to make any real scientific progress.
 
If Doctor Hildern was hopeful that he would rise to the top branch of the OSI, it would seem that the OSI is made up of incompetent bureaucrats and, if the OSI lab at Mccarren is any indication they are underfunded.
 
Follower-sellouts that will likely spread a deadly plant parasite that will either destroy or woefully harm the people they sold out to, yeah.
On that note the canon ending of NV should be a Legion defeat with deadly plant toxins crippling the NCR, send Fallout right back to the apocalypse, I say!
 
Again, I'm not a particular fan of the Followers. They're definitely crypto-communists. I could see some of the more insane of them going off and making something akin to Jonestown.

On major religions, what about Judaism? Most Jews were probably wiped out by the attacks on Tel Aviv and the (possible) war that followed; and as the bulk of the population live in major cities, I doubt the religion survived. Christianity doesn't seem to have fared so well either.

I get the feeling that the Shi are buddhists. Considering the fact that they come from atheistic communist China, however, that's debatable.

We're also forgetting the tribals. They all seem to have their own land-worshipping religions. Also, how about everyone's favorite Children of the Cathedral? It's clear that the Super Mutants still retain some of their loyalty and connection to the Master.
 
The-Artist-64 said:
Again, I'm not a particular fan of the Followers. They're definitely crypto-communists.
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No they aren't. Their operation is much more akin to a humanitarian or relief organisation. They aren't a religion at all; they scarcely qualify as a political movement, and if they did, it would be an anti-government movement, pretty much the diametric opposite of a communist movement.
 
Ragemage said:
Judaism is actually one of the smallest religions still active today, with only 20 million members claiming it. It's most likely it didn't survive, or those that did may have simply converted to Athiesm or Christianity after the fact.
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As I thought. After losing Israel, I'm sure most of the Jews lost their faith.

This actually brings up an interesting bit of lore. Apparently, some sort of Arabic terrorist organization managed to acquire a nuclear weapon to attack Tel Aviv. That's a really big accomplishment for a guerrilla organization. They would have to be pretty well equipped and powerful to be able to take or build a nuclear weapon. On that note, I wonder if Islamic extremism was a big concern in the pre-war world.
 
The-Artist-64 said:
Again, I'm not a particular fan of the Followers. They're definitely crypto-communists. I could see some of the more insane of them going off and making something akin to Jonestown.
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You sure hate communism. It's not all that bad, you're just too fixated on the people not the idea.
 
The Followers are mostly anarcho-syndicalists. And even that sounds like a really pretentious way of putting it.
They're communists in the way that Doctors Without Borders are communists (i.e. not at all). And I'm disappointed anybody would bother with the comparison at all.

As far as religions go, Zoastrianism and Indian and Chinese religions older than Christianity. And those cultures are so old that they were once splintered regional ethnicities. Syncretism has had the time to make everything confusing as hell.

It gets even worse still when you consider that a religion like Buddhism started in India, then migrated all over the damn place and got adapted to whatever local culture exists. Japanese Buddhists might find nothing contradictory about petty gods of stream and pebble and Izanagi coexisting alongside Boddhisatvas. And Buddhism itself was an answer to a problem in Hindu theology. (Roughly analogous to Christianity being spawned from Judaism, which itself was spawned from polytheism.)

Islam is a young religion. The important thing to note here is syncretism.
Christianity has had the time to splinter into a dizzying number of competing sects, to the point that Mormonism isn't even recognizable to mainline Christianity and you can have people poo pooing Westboro, while historically, Protestants and Catholics killed each other. (Basically like Sunni and Shi'a.)

As for Israel, I have serious doubts it ever existed in any meaningful sense. Sure people lived there, but it's hard to even say it was even a distinct nationality with it's own formed ideology we'd recognize as modern Judaism. The current Israel is as much a invented figment as anything. (And frankly it isn't "Jewish" land in any sense except that possession is nine-tenths the right.)
 
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Dr Fallout said:
You sure hate communism. It's not all that bad, you're just too fixated on the people not the idea.
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As one would hate fascism or any other radical idea. Communism, socialism, fascism, and even religious extremism all stem from the same issue- ignorance. That is something that can never be weeded out. It's important to know how these ideas start, the conditions in which they form, and how to prevent them from occurring.

Take the Russian Revolution. Tsar Nicholas II was a terrible man not because of cruelty or evil, but because of his indecisiveness and weakness. He let millions of his own citizens die because of famine and poorly planned military operations. The people wanted blood, and so they had their blood. The trouble is that ignorance took dominance once again in the form of communism. An even crueler leader killed even more people and did more damage than the Tsar ever did.

The people are the idea. An organization that follows a doctrine is essentially the definition of that idea. They carry the torch of ignorance. Call it fixation if you want, call it blind hatred, use every term you wish. You can't just give an ignorant person a hug and let them be. Sometimes, as terrible as it is, we must hate, we must kill, and we must end violent radicals before they end the lives of honest people.

Anyways, I stress again that in its initial days, communism was synonymous with anarchy. Rest assured, it's just as terrible as authoritarian communism, and it's still the very same idea fundamentally. For those who believe that they're different, yes, maybe the better term to use for the Followers would be 'anarcho-syndicalists'.
 
The-Artist-64 said:
As one would hate fascism or any other radical idea. Communism, socialism, fascism, and even religious extremism all stem from the same issue- ignorance. That is something that can never be weeded out. It's important to know how these ideas start, the conditions in which they form, and how to prevent them from occurring.

Take the Russian Revolution. Tsar Nicholas II was a terrible man not because of cruelty or evil, but because of his indecisiveness and weakness. He let millions of his own citizens die because of famine and poorly planned military operations. The people wanted blood, and so they had their blood. The trouble is that ignorance took dominance once again in the form of communism. An even crueler leader killed even more people and did more damage than the Tsar ever did.

The people are the idea. An organization that follows a doctrine is essentially the definition of that idea. They carry the torch of ignorance. Call it fixation if you want, call it blind hatred, use every term you wish. You can't just give an ignorant person a hug and let them be. Sometimes, as terrible as it is, we must hate, we must kill, and we must end violent radicals before they end the lives of honest people.

Anyways, I stress again that in its initial days, communism was synonymous with anarchy. Rest assured, it's just as terrible as authoritarian communism, and it's still the very same idea fundamentally. For those who believe that they're different, yes, maybe the better term to use for the Followers would be 'anarcho-syndicalists'.
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Except fascism improved the economy and living conditions. Hitler was too warlike and prejudiced, and the Duce allied the wrong side. It's entirely possible he would have remained a fascist state if he remained neutral or allied the allies. While I don't support it because of it's checkered past and overall totalitarianism it does work, especially as it seems in kickstarting the nations economy.

That's so incorrect. One, communism was made far earlier, by a group of intelligent and sadly idealist people, Karl Marx is one of the. Two, democracy was actually attempted, by the Dumat which did no better. It was still weak and apathetic, failing in making any good changes. Three, the Bolsheviks started out as a small group, not some massive revolution headed by Lenin. It succeeded due to strong leaders and extremely loyal followers. Sadly Stalin decided to shed the tenants of communism for a dictatorship, however life improved after his death. In fact for many, life was better in the USSR, before the fall of communism and onset of capitalism.

I see. The irony is how you want to end ignorant radicals, and yet be one yourself.
 
The-Artist-64 said:
As one would hate fascism or any other radical idea. Communism, socialism, fascism, and even religious extremism all stem from the same issue- ignorance.
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Socialism isn't a radical idea and doesn't stem from ignorance. It's a humanitarian idea that stems from extreme imbalance in a society's division of wealth and the resulting social dysfunction. The practice of it can be perverted, as can the practice of democracy/free market economics. Just saying something is radical isn't an argument. Furthermore, the claim that any form of charity equals socialism simply exposes a tendency towards radical thought of a different flavour.

Edit: Since this isn't General Discussion, though, and the thread isn't even about politics, but religion in Fallout, we're already quite far off topic.
 
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