"Reformed" religion VS "Unreformed"

[CrazyEight]

This isn't a question about gameplay mechanics, this is more general curiosity.

What traits define reformed and unreformed religion?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell unreformed religion is passed down through oral tradition, songs and maybe monuments or artifacts. Where as reformed religion is properly recorded with written documentation.

Unreformed: "Gather around, let me tell you the story of how the gods made the world. This story might change a little every time it gets retold, but I am pretty sure I have it figured out."

Reformed: "Here is the holy text, here is its laws, its traditions, and its structure. This is how it works. This is how you worship. Spread the good word."


Would this be accurate?

[brownacs]

It's more of a gameplay mechanic (a strange, ignorant, slightly bigoted one but let's not think about that too much) as far as I can tell. Quite a few of the Hindu religions (or Buddhist... the eastern religions in general) in the game, for example, which start out reformed, don't fit, "Here is the holy text, here is its laws, its traditions, and its structure. This is how it works. This is how you worship. Spread the good word." Neither do Judaism or Zoroastrianism in that they don't particularly encourage spreading the good word. The structure part's also a bit misleading. I'm not sure any religion entirely agrees on its own structure. Christianity's been arguing about that for about 2000 years, give or take. A lesson for future prophets perhaps.

I agree, very broadly, that there seems to be something there vis-a-vis oral tradition versus literate but it's not something which bears much inspection at all. The Kor'an, for example, is traditionally a recitation, not a book, and would only have been written down about 150-200 years before this game starts. Rabbinical Judaism maintains that the written tradition, the Tanakh, has always been accompanied by the oral law, the Midrashim and Talmud. We're also talking about a time period where a 5% complete literacy rate's probably pretty good so whether a religion's texts are written down or not, most of the actual day-to-day religion is going to be oral... it has to be.

In the case of I think all of the unreformed religions, they're at least partly fictional (/educated guessing). We know next to nothing about 'Asatru' (Asatru was created by white supremacists starting about 200 years ago... I really despise that they called it that). Norse polytheism almost definitely wasn't called that and probably wasn't one religion. The records we do have about it were either written by people who were extremely hostile to the religion(s) or are hundreds of years after this time period. I know that the same's true of Tengrism; we really don't know very much about it in this era. This er... well this is just fictionalising, also happens with the 'organised' faiths though. Al-Ash'ari was born in 874 so 7 years before he was born, according to the game, his teachings are the dominant form of Sunni Islam which itself didn't really exist yet. I'm also unsure whether to call Christianity a reformed or unreformed religion given that the reformation wouldn't happen for another 700 ish years (a joke). So yeah... I could go on.

Interesting aside from the oral history module I had to do in my first year yonks ago: "This story might change a little every time it gets retold, but I am pretty sure I have it figured out." Isn't actually something which would occur to a pre-literate people. The idea of retelling something verbatim only seems to show up when you have writing (how else would you know you weren't retelling it exactly the same? There's an interesting debate to be had there about the sapir whorf hypothesis).

[garthurbrown]

The game mechanics don't handle the real-world distinction very well. In reality, there was no single form of unreformed Slavic faith. There was no hierarchy organizing different villages and cultures into a cohesive religion. Each priest has their own way of doing this that was influenced by their local culture and traditions. One tribe may have considered homosexuality normal, another might have put homosexuals to death. They both worshiped sets of analogous gods (which they probably called by slightly different names) but there was no way either group could tell the other they were doing it wrong. It is really hard to reflect this in the in-game mechanics with the way tenets and doctrines are currently handled.

In the present there are reformed Slavic faiths with established doctrines and recognized authorities. Of course most people now are literate and written language plays a role, but it's really about authority and regularization. There is an orthodoxy established and people who diverge can be considered heterodox (astray) or heretical (hostile). This wouldn't really be possible for unorganized faiths.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

There is an orthodoxy established and people who diverge can be considered heterodox (astray) or heretical (hostile). This wouldn't really be possible for unorganized faiths.

I'm not sure where we draw the line vis-a-vis organisation but I'm fairly confident that most if not all religious traditions/cultures studied have had taboos (heretics) and religious differences (astray). But then I don't know that there's ever been a truly disorganised religion. In order for something to be a religion and not just a privately held set of beliefs, it has to be communicated and communication, either written or verbal, is (not to get too postmodern) a form of organisation, in my opinion.

[garthurbrown]

Originally posted by brownacs:

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

There is an orthodoxy established and people who diverge can be considered heterodox (astray) or heretical (hostile). This wouldn't really be possible for unorganized faiths.

I'm not sure where we draw the line vis-a-vis organisation but I'm fairly confident that most if not all religious traditions/cultures studied have had taboos (heretics) and religious differences (astray). But then I don't know that there's ever been a truly disorganised religion. In order for something to be a religion and not just a privately held set of beliefs, it has to be communicated and communication, either written or verbal, is (not to get too postmodern) a form of organisation, in my opinion.

But that's clearly a different type of organization than an organized religion, which contains some form of definite hierarchy. I see the difference as more akin to the difference between a community and a government, or a society and a state.

[CrazyEight]

I realize the game paints in very broad strokes when it comes to Paganism and other Religions other than the big ones.

But in general, would it be safe to say as loose assumption that "Unreformed" would be considered religion that is not well recorded, written down, or organized? I know that when compared to Muslim or Christian religions many Pagan religions aren't well understood and much was lost to time.

I know that GAME to REAL LIFE isn't well represented. But I just reformed Finland's Faith and i am trying to have a relative idea of what my character theoretically DID exactly...

[Mati_Lublin]

Originally posted by Crazy Eight:

I realize the game paints in very broad strokes when it comes to Paganism and other Religions other than the big ones.

But in general, would it be safe to say as loose assumption that "Unreformed" would be considered religion that is not well recorded, written down, or organized? I know that when compared to Muslim or Christian religions many Pagan religions aren't well understood and much was lost to time.

I know that GAME to REAL LIFE isn't well represented. But I just reformed Finland's Faith and i am trying to have a relative idea of what my character theoretically DID exactly...

Probably at minimum collected all the myths, chose the most fitting and made a scripture, then imposed it on the clergy. Those, who followed, were organized in some sort of hierarchy to make it easier to manage (and branded the opposition heretics).

It wouldn't be that different from council of Nicea.

[The Former]

I feel like essentially, unreformed means following tradition and personal preference, with local traditions coming into play regularly. Maybe one guy thinks you honor Thor by standing naked in a thunderstorm, another through the art of blacksmithing. Everyone takes each practice for what they think it is and mocks eachother accordingly.

Whereas reformed means everything is more codified. There's a unified understanding as to what's "correct" and "Incorrect" when it comes to such things. The lore hasn't changed so much as it's been brought to a universal consensus among the priesthood all over the practicing world.

So in essence I think you have the right idea, with a few little differences. This is assuming I have it right myself.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

But that's clearly a different type of organization than an organized religion, which contains some form of definite hierarchy. I see the difference as more akin to the difference between a community and a government, or a society and a state.

I see it as a linearity with amorphous personally held beliefs at the start and the Catholic Church at the end (kidding... a bit). I'm interested in which religions you think have definite hierarchies? Islam's been split for over a 1000 years over the proper succession of Mohammad (SAW) and Ali's place in it. Christianity's been arguing about whether the Pope, Ecumenical Patriarch, someone else or nobody is ultimately in charge for 2000 years. Most forms of Buddhism don't really have a heirarchy... neither do some forms of Hinduism (which debatably exists as a religious umbrella). It seems if that's your measuring stick then I'm still debating whether there are any truly organised religions. If we take your Slavic tribes as an example then I'd guess that there was a religious hierarchy to some degree, and there very likely were taboos and disagreements. The only real difference between it and the Catholic Church is scale... in my opinion.

"The game mechanics don't handle the real-world distinction very well." Doesn't make sense to me because I don't think there is a real world distinction. Say Islam, during the time of Mohammad (SAW), was Islam an unreformed religion? It was pre-literate and probably didn't have a very well defined hierarchy (it still doesn't). And then when the Kor'an and the ahadith were written down was that reforming the religion? Maybe but I don't think so. Religions and societies evolve a bit like organisms do. Each organism born is the same species as the one which gave birth to it (assuming no mad scientists) but over vast periods of time the tiny changes add up and create new organisms. Obviously sometimes you get massive seismic changes which radically alter things very quickly (also not unlike in biology) but the day to day evolution is usually very slow. If we take religions, compare Sunni Islam, which slowly coalesced together over hundreds of years and doesn't really have a definite date, with the Church of England, a religion created practically overnight by comparison (in the reformation funnily enough). And what really instantly changed when Henry VIII and his ministers reformed Christianity? Not a great deal. The real change happened over the next decades and centuries.

Oh also I would say that is the genesis of that kind of organisation ("But that's clearly a different type of organization than an organized religion"). If I communicate something with someone else then I've set in in stone to some degree. If I write it down I've really set it in stone (that's S tier organisation by the standards of human history really). That means instead of the previously mentioned amorphous collection of beliefs we now have a codified system of beliefs either written down, forever potentially, or held in a kind of trust between two (+) people. Once you've got that it's only a matter of time before the 'other' kinds of organisation kick in (which I see as being more of the same kind of organisation but that's a pedantic debate). Language can be seen to be all about power structures and from that point of view it's inevitable that a religion once given shape in language becomes, at least to some degree, about power structures too... at least in my opinion and now I am getting pretty postmodern.

EDIT: spelling mistakes

[brownacs]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, the Paradox Knight:

I feel like essentially, unreformed means following tradition and personal preference, with local traditions coming into play regularly. Maybe one guy thinks you honor Thor by standing naked in a thunderstorm, another through the art of blacksmithing. Everyone takes each practice for what they think it is and mocks eachother accordingly.

Whereas reformed means everything is more codified. There's a unified understanding as to what's "correct" and "Incorrect" when it comes to such things. The lore hasn't changed so much as it's been brought to a universal consensus among the priesthood all over the practicing world.

So in essence I think you have the right idea, with a few little differences. This is assuming I have it right myself.

My main issue with that, much like with G Arthur's points and the OP's, is that I still don't think there would be any reformed religions by your standards. If we take one of the more monolithic and structured religions, the Catholic Church, there are constant disagreements over doctrine and how to practice/worship. The Catholic Church is no more impervious to that than the Thor worshippers probably were really. They're currently arguing about whether women should have a role in the church and whether homosexual marriages can be blessed, for example (I'm sure they're arguing about a lot more than just that). There is no universal understanding... it just doesn't exist.
I think this is a totally arbitrary distinction which only exists so the game can have a slightly offensive mechanic vis-a-vis feudalising (I don't know what's so special about Buddhism that it teaches you something about feudal/clan vassal relationships you couldn't have figured out without somehow changing your old religion... not a system I would've included... I'd have raised the pretty big red flag of "Er... this is kinda racist guys." actually... but maybe that's just me).

[garthurbrown]

Originally posted by brownacs:

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

But that's clearly a different type of organization than an organized religion, which contains some form of definite hierarchy. I see the difference as more akin to the difference between a community and a government, or a society and a state.

I see it as a linearity with amorphous personally held beliefs at the start and the Catholic Church at the end (kidding... a bit). I'm interested in which religions you think have definite heirarchies? Islam's been split for over a 1000 years over the proper succession of Mohammad (SAW) and Ali's place in it. Christianity's been arguing about whether the Pope, Ecumenical Patriarch, someone else or nobody is ultimately in charge for 2000 years. Most forms of Buddhism don't really have a heirarchy... neither do some forms of Hinduism (which debatably exists as a religious umbrella). It seems if that's your measuring stick then I'm still debating whether there are any truly organised religions. If we take your Slavic tribes as an example then I'd guess that there was a religious heirarchy to some degree, and there very likely were taboos and disagreements. The only real difference between it and the Catholic Church is scale... in my opinion.

"The game mechanics don't handle the real-world distinction very well." Doesn't make sense to me because I don't think there is a real world distinction. Say Islam, during the time of Mohammad (SAW), was Islam an unreformed religion? It was pre-literate and probably didn't have a very well defined heirarchy (it still doesn't). And then when the Kor'an and the ahadith were written down was that reforming the religion? Maybe but I don't think so. Religions and societies evolve a bit like organisms do. Each organism born is the same species as the one which gave birth to it (assuming no mad scientists) but over vast periods of time the tiny changes add up and create new organisms. Obviously sometimes you get massive seismic changes which radically alter things very quickly (also not unlike in biology) but the day to day evolution is usually very slow. If we take religions, compare Sunni Islam, which slowly coalesced together over hundreds of years and doesn't really have a definite date, with the Church of England, a religion created practically overnight by comparison (in the reformation funnily enough). And what really instantly changed when Henry VIII and his ministers reformed Christianity? Not a great deal. The real change happened over the next decades and centuries.

Oh also I would say that is the genesis of that kind of organisation ("But that's clearly a different type of organization than an organized religion"). If I communicate something with someone else then I've set in in stone to some degree. If I write it down I've really set it in stone (that's S tier organisation by the standards of human history really). That means instead of the previously mentioned amorphous collection of beliefs we now have a codified system of beliefs either written down, forever potentially, or held in a kind of trust between two (+) people. Once you've got that it's only a matter of time before the 'other' kinds of organisation kick in (which I see as being more of the same kind of organisation but that's a pedantic debate). Language can be seen to be all about power structures and from that point of view it's inevitable that a religion once given shape in language becomes, at least to some degree, about power structures too... at least in my opinion and now I am getting pretty postmodern.

I can see you clearly want to bicker, but there is serious misunderstanding here caused by the multiple meanings of "religion." In the game, religion is an umbrella, under which there are different faiths.

Each of those faiths can be organized, which means they do not have the same hierarchy as the others, but they have their own hierarchies. There is not one single structure to any religion, only to its individual faiths.

This is distinctly different from a tribe doing its own thing in an unreformed faith. Yes, people communicate ideas to each other in unreformed faiths. But that's like people in a community voluntarily interacting. There's nothing that forces one community to do business with any other community in any way except on their own terms. Just like there's no organized connection between the various pagan tribes who all supposed follow the same faith.

If that gets murky with some of the Dharmic faiths, then that's just another example of how the game mechanic fails to handle the issue very well. But this system certainly makes a lot more sense than in CK2. It handles Islam a lot better too, making Shia and Sunni into doctrines, rather than faiths.

[garthurbrown]

Originally posted by brownacs:

My main issue with that, much like with G Arthur's points and the OP's, is that I still don't think there would be any reformed religions by your standards. If we take one of the more monolithic and structured religions, the Catholic Church, there are constant disagreements over doctrine and how to practice/worship. The Catholic Church is no more impervious to that than the Thor worshippers probably were really. They're currently arguing about whether women should have a role in the church and whether homosexual marriages can be blessed, for example (I'm sure they're arguing about a lot more than just that). There is no universal understanding... it just doesn't exist.

I feel like you are the one applying an unrealistic standard. Is feudalism an organized system? Yet, feudal vassals and lords are always squabbling, so by your logic, it can't be.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

I can see you clearly want to bicker, but there is serious misunderstanding here caused by the multiple meanings of "religion." In the game, religion is an umbrella, under which there are different faiths.

Oh I'm sorry if you read that from my tone. It wasn't intentional. I love talking about religions. It's my passion really. I just want to have a friendly conversation. That's always my aim. Sorry just had to address that quickly and I'll answer the rest of your points (which I haven't really read yet) in a minute when I'm done cooking. Again apologies if my tone was argumentative; not my intent.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

I feel like you are the one applying an unrealistic standard. Is feudalism an organized system? Yet, feudal vassals and lords are always squabbling, so by your logic, it can't be.

Well no for that analogy to hold up you'd have to have been suggesting that say tribalism (to use the game's systems) was a disorganised system and feudalism was organised (with no overlap so you go from disorganised tribalism straight into organised feudalism). It would then be fair to point out that they're not. One might be called slightly more organised, sure, but there's no organised/disorganised dichotomy (my point: this dichotomy doesn't exist). I was responding specifically to what Lock said also ("Whereas reformed means everything is more codified. There's a unified understanding as to what's "correct" and "Incorrect" when it comes to such things."). I maybe should've made that a bit more clear. My apologies.

[brownacs]

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

I can see you clearly want to bicker, but there is serious misunderstanding here caused by the multiple meanings of "religion." In the game, religion is an umbrella, under which there are different faiths.

Last but not least, I answered the first bit of this earlier but I'd like to reiterate nothing but friendliness and a desire for intelligent conversation. I thought we were talking about real life, not the game. I've consistently been talking about real life unless I've made it clear that I'm not. In real life, as I see it, there is no actual distinction between a faith and religion; it's pretty arbitrary and where one ends and the other begins... who knows.

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

Each of those faiths can be organized, which means they do not have the same hierarchy as the others, but they have their own hierarchies. There is not one single structure to any religion, only to its individual faiths.

Sure but in real life that's not what happens, as I see it. The distinctions between religious family/religion/faith/sect/whatever are inherently arbitrary in my opinion. Let's say Christianity, the religion, and Evangelicalism would then be a faith (or would it be a sect, being a subdivision of Protestantism? Wouldn't pretend to know). Evangelicalism doesn't agree internally much more than Christianity in general does. And, as I think about it, that'll apply no matter how small we make the units of scale until we're left with two people standing in a room with all the same beliefs but slightly different readings of the same bible passage which they've both just read (probably where it all started). Does that slightly different reading mean they're different religions, faiths, sects or whatevers? Wouldn't pretend to know.

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

This is distinctly different from a tribe doing its own thing in an unreformed faith. Yes, people communicate ideas to each other in unreformed faiths. But that's like people in a community voluntarily interacting. There's nothing that forces one community to do business with any other community in any way except on their own terms. Just like there's no organized connection between the various pagan tribes who all supposed follow the same faith.

We don't know what those tribes did in their 'unreformed' 'faiths' really by and large. For all we know, 'Asatru' was 100 times more organised than the current Catholic Church is with a much more developed hierarchy. We just don't know. I'd suggest it was probably less organised but I suspect there probably was a degree of organised connection between the tribes. There seems to have been sharing of pilgrimage sites which I'd say is suggestive.

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

If that gets murky with some of the Dharmic faiths, then that's just another example of how the game mechanic fails to handle the issue very well. But this system certainly makes a lot more sense than in CK2. It handles Islam a lot better too, making Shia and Sunni into doctrines, rather than faiths.

Totally agreed CK2's systems handled this even worse. I think we've maybe gotten our wires crossed a bit... I'm talking about how this applies to/relates to real life. I'm only tangentially talking about the game (which I thought was the OP's request. Could be wrong?). You seem to be talking more about the game, unless I've misunderstood? If you think we're just going to argue then we should probably drop this, who needs the stress, but if you think we can get back on track, so to speak, I'm happy to continue.

[garthurbrown]

Originally posted by brownacs:

Originally posted by garthurbrown:

I feel like you are the one applying an unrealistic standard. Is feudalism an organized system? Yet, feudal vassals and lords are always squabbling, so by your logic, it can't be.

Well no for that analogy to hold up you'd have to have been suggesting that say tribalism (to use the game's systems) was a disorganised system and feudalism was organised (with no overlap so you go from disorganised tribalism straight into organised feudalism). It would then be fair to point out that they're not. One might be called slightly more organised, sure, but there's no organised/disorganised dichotomy (my point: this dichotomy doesn't exist). I was responding specifically to what Lock said also ("Whereas reformed means everything is more codified. There's a unified understanding as to what's "correct" and "Incorrect" when it comes to such things."). I maybe should've made that a bit more clear. My apologies.

Are you talking about the game or real life here? In the real world obviously there are shades of organization. No system is entirely disorganized just as no system is entirely codified. The dichotomy applies in the game because of how you'd have to code faiths. In real life feudalism slowly emerged, or clan structures, or other types of systems. You weren't a tribal barbarian one day and living in a castle the next.

That being said, codification allows a process for dispute resolutions as well as giving people the authority to enforce the decisions. In a folk faith, that doesn't exist. You can argue with others, try to convince them, or even go to war with them, but there's nothing in the faith that allows you to press a point of contention and convene a council to resolve the issue. There are no bishops to oversee each individual spiritual leader.


That's the difference, and if you don't think that's a legitimate distinction, you need to explain better why you don't.