Shenism or Shendao would make more sense as the official Chinese religion than Confucianism, IMO.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
no such thing
EDIT: I'm not trying to make a political statement here, I just don't jews had enough influence for it to be a judeo-christian civilization rather then just christian (christian-roman-germanic is most accurate)
Last edited:
- 6
- 2
I don't like discussing my own Judaism, I'm not a particularly religious person, but still: thank you. Sincerely. It's nice when people are allies.
- 3
Do you think Shenism describes the state's relationship with the divine? It seems like Chinese Folk religion was mostly organized at the local level and not fully promulgated by the state and the Emperor's buddies, who were more interested in debating Confucian texts and doctrine?
I guess it depends on your perspective on what a "state religion" is. The fact that US has a state religion in Victoria 3 is a bit ahistorical but it reflects what the on-the-ground policies actually were.
Regardless of going on a Shendao or a Confucian option, we should all agree that choosing Mahayana Buddhism is definitely the worse option.
- 3
I mean, giving Hong any sort of Christian religion and setting the law to Freedom of Conscience should do it. That would make all other Christians tolerated, more so then they likely would be under the Qing.
I didn't mean to sound rude, it's just a thing like 'cultural-marxism', some extra-conservative made up and they use to justify being against "gay things", it's just that every Jew I knew didn't like that term, there is even a Jewish YouTuber telling why Judaism is closer to Islam's view of Faith than the Christian one
- 3
- 2
- 1
- 1
If you will indulge me, just sit for a moment with the statement "secularism in general is certainly a very christian thing." Just really marinate in that. The idea of separating religion from political authority is a religious idea. What? The idea of secularism predates Christianity. How do you even make this claim? Do you think the idea of a government founded outside of religious justification was invented in 1779 in Paris? Are you doing some Hegelian thing where the antithesis can only rise from the thesis? Does that imply Christianity is the only religion that could possibly make people think outside of itself? That makes less sense though??
What a wild claim.
It's pretty rich to come out and make sweeping declarations about religion and society, and then openly admit you're only even vaguely aware of the religion and society of one place. Like "I'm pretty sure all houses have 3 bedrooms. The more I live in my house, the more I notice it has 3 bedrooms. Now you're over here talking about some other house, and I'll openly admit that I don't know any single thing about any other houses, but my house sure has 3 and surely my house is the most normal house so all houses must certainly have 3." The unmitigated gall. The absolute audacity. The best part is, your house used to be about 50 separate houses, some of which had 2 and some of which had none at all. The house metaphor is breaking down. But Europe has very plainly and repeatedly been influence by the Muslim world (the guitar, algebra), the Americas (the idea of individual rights, half of the cuisine (no tomatoes in Italy before columbus, natch)), and Africa (if you've listened to music created in the last 150 years, you've been listening to West African forms and rhythmic concepts. Yes, this includes Brahms.). To say you are uninfluenced by "over a thousand years of Latin Catholicism" would be absurd, but to argue you are only influenced by it would be equally preposterous.
You go on to create a ridiculous strawman; nobody is saying religion did not influence politics in pre-modern China. Religion influenced China in a way that is impossible to represent by binding a single pop to a single culture to a single religion. These are significantly different claims.
Thank you for blessing us with the groundbreaking definition of "religion" taught in middle school. Once again, though, nobody is saying daoism, various buddhisms, legalism, confucianism, etc etc aren't religions. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm saying that people weren't one of these at any one time and the Chinese state didn't enforce one as a state religion, even as it very plainly endorsed some more than others at different times in Chinese history. This is the only way to model it in Vic3 and that's unfortunate.
You then bring up modern China, and while there are continuities I think most people would agree that the CCP is fairly different from the Qing Dynasty in several important ways, and the only way to ignore this is to be so completely wrapped up in "cIvIlIzAtIoNaL IdEnTiTy" that you can't look beyond how you identify someone at all in discussing their political positions.
Thank you for your contribution to the discourse on this matter.
- 5
- 3
- 2
- 1
Yeah that would work. Call it "Han Spritualism" or something like that.
Yes, it's good to see you around on the forums again.
So the thing is, I originally had a much longer post, talking about why this sort of abstraction occurred both in games and real life, but it was rather rambling and when I tried a couple of times to rewrite it it just ended up getting tied up in knots. Eventually I gave up and gave the post you're replying to, but in retrospect I think it oversimplifies and doesn't really get across what I was wanting to say very well?
But essentially it boils down to the fact that it's much easier to treat people as a coherent blob with roughly the same opinions than deal with the complicated reality. This sort of thing gets done more often that not even IRL and is likewise done often in Grand Strategy games because the considerable simplification it provides is often more valuable than the depth being lost (at least when the balance is struck in the right place : P ). It's not a coincidence that the PDX game series which makes the most effort to differentiate different religions is the RPG-hybrid.
The point I was more thinking about though was the way religion is treated with regards to politics. As far as I am aware, there is only a single, monolithic, religious IG, which only represents the state religion. This makes it difficult to represent a lot of things, for example a country where the state religion isn't actually the largest one or where you have several different groups with distinct political concerns - or even when one group gets dominant enough that the differences between the subgroups within it start to overshadow the conflict between that group and others.
In particular, this leads to the worst results when looking at periods of relative peace - once things start to break down and groups become more tribalistic and defensive about things they feel are important to their identities, modelling people as being all the same works better, and once there is open conflict even just modelling them as "the state" and "the rebels" works well enough, but when we're looking at things like the jockeying between two groups who are nominally aligned but have no significant outside threats, and so are mainly competing with each other, modelling them as a single group starts to cause problems. (Non-China example, but for the UK, high church vs. low church Anglican was, I believe, pretty important during this period?).
So I agree that representing individual pops as having only one religion isn't terrible (although I still do feel that it would still be nice to represent things like syncretism and sub-groups to some extent), and you raise some good points about the advantages of flat representation in modelling unrest which I was certainly undervaluing when I was thinking about this yesterday, but I do still feel that it would benefit the game to have a higher level of granularity on the IG side of things?
- 2
I one hundred percent agree with this, I think this is a great idea.
Honestly, I think Victoria 3 looks like it'll come out with a foundation on which Paradox (and we) can build. We have religions, we have IGs and we have the concept of non-core religions, so it won't be hard to build on that in future to represent other religions (or minority cultures) as their own interest groups.
Keep this thread on topic please. Discussions outside the context of the game should go to the OT forum.
If Confucianism was regarded as the official religion of the Qing Dynasty at that time, Confucianism was a religious interest group who presided over private schools that taught Confucianism as a kind of religious school. Although such a setting still seems like a joke, it is relatively closer to reality than Mahayana Buddhism as the state religion of the Qing Dynasty.
Yes, Confucianism was never a religion, just as Aristotle's metaphysics was never a religion. The problem with the game system is that it assumes that in the world from 1836 to 1936, any country must have one and only one state religion, and that this country also has and only one state religion believers form religious interest groups. If the state religion can be set to be empty, or multiple religions can be set, I think it will be more able to restore the complex and diverse social reality.
Additionally, the White Lotus Revolt, which takes place shortly before the game's start year, is related to a belief that may be an offshoot of Buddhism. The Taiping Rebellion that followed was a very strange branch of Christianity. However, studying its essence, the outer shell of religion is just another variant of folk superstition. The peasants did not revolt because their beliefs were different from the state religion, and the Qing Dynasty did not treat infidels specially when suppressing the rebellion.
Mahayana Buddhism has a famous religious taboo, that they can't eat meat or drink alcohol, they only eat vegetarian food. If we bind this taboo with Chinese culture, we will get a very funny result. In fact, only the most devout Buddhists refuse to eat meat and drink alcohol. However, a Han Chinese who never avoids meat and fish will usually walk in and pay homage when passing by a Buddhist temple. Does that mean he is a Buddhist? The granularity of the game system is seriously underrepresented in places like this.
Yes, Confucianism was never a religion, just as Aristotle's metaphysics was never a religion. The problem with the game system is that it assumes that in the world from 1836 to 1936, any country must have one and only one state religion, and that this country also has and only one state religion believers form religious interest groups. If the state religion can be set to be empty, or multiple religions can be set, I think it will be more able to restore the complex and diverse social reality.
Additionally, the White Lotus Revolt, which takes place shortly before the game's start year, is related to a belief that may be an offshoot of Buddhism. The Taiping Rebellion that followed was a very strange branch of Christianity. However, studying its essence, the outer shell of religion is just another variant of folk superstition. The peasants did not revolt because their beliefs were different from the state religion, and the Qing Dynasty did not treat infidels specially when suppressing the rebellion.
Mahayana Buddhism has a famous religious taboo, that they can't eat meat or drink alcohol, they only eat vegetarian food. If we bind this taboo with Chinese culture, we will get a very funny result. In fact, only the most devout Buddhists refuse to eat meat and drink alcohol. However, a Han Chinese who never avoids meat and fish will usually walk in and pay homage when passing by a Buddhist temple. Does that mean he is a Buddhist? The granularity of the game system is seriously underrepresented in places like this.
- 11
to add my two cents to this discussion, frist just because there is a specifc religous IG does not mean that said IG is pro religious conversion, the devs have stated, in relation to the Sikhs, that in such cases they lack the pious idology, meaning they do not actively seek to convert everyone to their religion as a mater of course.
Second, caveat emptor, i'm pro confusionism as both the dominant religion of china and it's devout IG, so if you heavily disagree with such a notion, the following is essentially worthless, since I'm basically going to describe a admittedly gameplay centric ideal set up in my head.
so In my view the set up would be such, the majority of the religion of china would be confusionism, now key word majority, not absolute majority, this would broadly represent the overall adhesion of the populace to confusian governing principles more than anything else, with budhhism representing well Buddhism in china, tibet and mongolia, as well as folk religion, note this folk religon does not represent chinese folk religion per se, but rather it represents the various religious practices of the southern non-han groups as well as those peoples who did not have the strongest adhesion to chinese governing principles.
the confusian IG, would have has it's main Ideology, one that encourges it towards the freedom of conscience law, which has the devs said represent the broad toleration amongst similar religions, in this case all the aformentioned ones. The main goal of this set up is, as alluded to in this thread, to represent that most of the time there was a peaceful coexistence between these faiths and violent persecution amongst them was not the norm, but it did happen, such times of persecution could be represent by journal entries or when the leader of the confusian has a personal ideology that encourages persecution.
Another point of this set up, is also to take into consideration ahistorical play from the part of the player, Say yuor playing has the Quing, and want to gain more auhtority, going the rout of greater nationalism is suicide, because at the highest levels of the nationalism law that would be Manchu nationalism, as opossed to the broader "cino-sphere cultural tolerance", so going the rout of great religious fanaticism is the only avenue, while yuor devout IG is not necesserely in favour of such, having the state religion laws and religious education law don't piss it off, it's in this particular context, that minority chinese relgions must exist to represent how such a centripetal move would still generate quite allot of unrest, specially in the south.
Second, caveat emptor, i'm pro confusionism as both the dominant religion of china and it's devout IG, so if you heavily disagree with such a notion, the following is essentially worthless, since I'm basically going to describe a admittedly gameplay centric ideal set up in my head.
so In my view the set up would be such, the majority of the religion of china would be confusionism, now key word majority, not absolute majority, this would broadly represent the overall adhesion of the populace to confusian governing principles more than anything else, with budhhism representing well Buddhism in china, tibet and mongolia, as well as folk religion, note this folk religon does not represent chinese folk religion per se, but rather it represents the various religious practices of the southern non-han groups as well as those peoples who did not have the strongest adhesion to chinese governing principles.
the confusian IG, would have has it's main Ideology, one that encourges it towards the freedom of conscience law, which has the devs said represent the broad toleration amongst similar religions, in this case all the aformentioned ones. The main goal of this set up is, as alluded to in this thread, to represent that most of the time there was a peaceful coexistence between these faiths and violent persecution amongst them was not the norm, but it did happen, such times of persecution could be represent by journal entries or when the leader of the confusian has a personal ideology that encourages persecution.
Another point of this set up, is also to take into consideration ahistorical play from the part of the player, Say yuor playing has the Quing, and want to gain more auhtority, going the rout of greater nationalism is suicide, because at the highest levels of the nationalism law that would be Manchu nationalism, as opossed to the broader "cino-sphere cultural tolerance", so going the rout of great religious fanaticism is the only avenue, while yuor devout IG is not necesserely in favour of such, having the state religion laws and religious education law don't piss it off, it's in this particular context, that minority chinese relgions must exist to represent how such a centripetal move would still generate quite allot of unrest, specially in the south.
- 4
- 1
While I understand the rationale and agree with it, the reality is that it doesn't model well to many parts of the world. When I say that I am not even referring to non-Western or non-European countries either. The South-North German split exists almost purely because making a unified German culture either Protestant or Catholic in its main religion would be equally ridiculous either way, for example.
While I think that some compromise of the various game mechanics can be utilized to represent China better (maybe Confucian IG, Taoist state religion, Buddhist population? Possibly limited religious toleration for the whole religious group? or some combination of these, I am not an expert on Chinese religion and I won't pretend to be one), it has to be said that the system, as it exists, is just really bizarrely rigid and maps out terribly in many cases.
- 2
I think we will probably have to wait for the inevitable east asia expansion or update to get this fixed or improved.
- 1
Is it really not possible for pops of the same culture to have different religions? Then what is even the point of religions being in the game? Why can't they just be a special kind of trait cultures have?
- 1
- 1
Pops of one culture can have different religions. But a culture has one "associated religion". An Italian can be Jewish, Muslim, or whatever but the Italian culture has historically been heavily influenced by Catholicism, so the "Italian religion" is Catholicism. This only has extremely limited effects on any individual pop though, since it only impacts the pop by impacting the culture.
- 3
- 1
Confucianism must be in the game and be the state religion of Qing and Joseon Dynasty (and Vietnam?).
Although it's not about China, I should talk of Korea. It's ridiculous that the state religion of Joseon(Korea) is Mahayana Buddhism.
Neo-Confucianism was the ruling ideology of Korea at that time. A lot of people from various classes believed in Buddhism(even some kings did), but Buddhism itself had been suppressed in many ways. The bureaucrats and intellectuals made an effort to exclude Buddhism from politics. Special corvee was imposed on monks, and temples in towns were seized or destroyed.
Such policies succeeded in weakening the Buddhist orders. Many monasteries couldn't ordain a new monk because they didn't have just ten monks. (Korean Buddhists need ten existing monks to appoint a new monk.)
Also, Joseon Dynasty had persecuted Catholics several times. There were various reasons for those persecutions, but the major reason was because Catholics opposed to the ancestral veneration which the Church perceived to be a sort of idolatry. For Confucianists, veneration to parents and ancestors are the basis of morality and loyalty to the king. So those who refused bowing to their ancestors were considered those who had neither morality nor loyalty.
That sounds... like a religion, doesn't it?
Although it's not about China, I should talk of Korea. It's ridiculous that the state religion of Joseon(Korea) is Mahayana Buddhism.
Neo-Confucianism was the ruling ideology of Korea at that time. A lot of people from various classes believed in Buddhism(even some kings did), but Buddhism itself had been suppressed in many ways. The bureaucrats and intellectuals made an effort to exclude Buddhism from politics. Special corvee was imposed on monks, and temples in towns were seized or destroyed.
Such policies succeeded in weakening the Buddhist orders. Many monasteries couldn't ordain a new monk because they didn't have just ten monks. (Korean Buddhists need ten existing monks to appoint a new monk.)
Also, Joseon Dynasty had persecuted Catholics several times. There were various reasons for those persecutions, but the major reason was because Catholics opposed to the ancestral veneration which the Church perceived to be a sort of idolatry. For Confucianists, veneration to parents and ancestors are the basis of morality and loyalty to the king. So those who refused bowing to their ancestors were considered those who had neither morality nor loyalty.
That sounds... like a religion, doesn't it?
Last edited:
- 5
In fact, many pre-modern cultural practices can be regarded as religions in a sense. In traditional Chinese society, people will use Feng Shui to determine the structure of houses, fishermen who go out to sea always pray to Mazu, and some bandit gangs worship Guan Gong as the Martial Saint. The boundaries between such beliefs and general concepts of religion are quite blurred.
However, on the other hand, it is not limited to Victoria 3. The modeling of religion in various grand strategy games under Paradox is designed around the religion of Abraham. In this case, the unity of church and state is the default state, and the complete separation of church and state is regarded as the goal of liberalization reform. Religion has always been more than a civil matter, it can also determine whether countries are friendly or hostile, determine whether a group of people is discriminated against by law, and even create religious taboos for certain commodities.
Such modeling is difficult to simulate the performance of religious beliefs in eastern countries, and it is inevitable that there will be errors of one kind or another.
- 1