Hypothetical: If religions had power, regulate them or not?

[ShadowDragon8685]

RAR.

Okay, so here's the hypothetical question. Supposing that religion gained power all of a sudden - maybe new religions, not old religions. Suppose that by enacting certain rites, otherworldly, typically-violent beings with their own agendas and the ability to dematerialize and walk wherever they please - as the least of their powers - could be beckoned into this world. Beings with an agenda that includes altering Earth to be inimical to human life and distinctly pleasant to those from their homeland.

Suppose that the rites in question don't involve anything illegal - no human sacrifice or any such nonsense. Suppose even that the rites could actually be improvised by someone with the knowledge and resources to do so, so that even forbidding certain rites or rite paraphernalia is no defense.


Could one argue, say you, morally for the regulation of religion, of belief? If so, how? If not, how might one most pleasantly and reasonably argue for something so unpalatable as the lesser of two evils?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Basically, I think in your scenario we're screwed no matter what we try. I'm reminded of one of the speculative solutions to the Fermi Paradox; that the reason we see no evidence of aliens is because eventually any technological culture reaches the point where a single individual can render it extinct. Sooner or later someone will summon one of the entities that has the agenda of "altering Earth to be inimical to human life" and let it get away from him. Possibly even on purpose; a murder/suicide on a grand scale.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I should point out that, in the game that prompted this question (Exalted, in a modern setting,) there are characters capable of hunting down and killing those otherworldly beings. (I'm playing one, in fact.)

See, thing is, my group just busted up a plot by exactly such a group of cultists, with their own supernatural allies (on our level and below,) but they released some kind of necromantic time-bomb that would have turned a couple of vats of solid living goo into unholy necromantic abominations. We resolved the situation with nukes, and only later interrogated the few survivors and learned they were a cult.

At which point I say "that's it, we're fucked. There goes the Freedom of Religion." The other characters proceed to disagree vehemently.

[Simon_Jester]

At this point, the arguments for religion-control become very compelling. If demon summoning is actually possible, then outlawing those who consort with demons isn't merely a point of theology; it's a matter of one's own survival. After the first time some eldritch abomination eats Poughkeepsie and the effects are traced to a cult, we're going to see that crackdown.

Freedom of religion is a widely accepted premise because the really important parts of religion are in your mind- this is why even people who despise all religion generally accept that people have a right to practice it. But the court precedents are clear: your religion cannot be used as justification for acts that harm other people. That applies quite firmly to "no summoning demons to eat Poughkeepsie."

[Darth Hoth]

Indeed; this would not so much be about whether they should be regulated as whether they could be, effectively enough and by human agencies.

In a society affected by this, joining the nicest monotheistic religion around and placating its (omnipotent) deity might well be the best option left, because that would probably be the only way to protect society from general chaos and democide, if any idiot can summon up Cthulhu or the Archangel Michael in his basement.

[ShadowDragon8685]

At this point, the arguments for religion-control become very compelling. If demon summoning is actually possible, then outlawing those who consort with demons isn't merely a point of theology; it's a matter of one's own survival. After the first time some eldritch abomination eats Poughkeepsie and the effects are traced to a cult, we're going to see that crackdown.

Freedom of religion is a widely accepted premise because the really important parts of religion are in your mind- this is why even people who despise all religion generally accept that people have a right to practice it. But the court precedents are clear: your religion cannot be used as justification for acts that harm other people. That applies quite firmly to "no summoning demons to eat Poughkeepsie."

This is what I'm on about. However, some of my fellows maintain that it should only be illegal for the same reason we can outlaw religious practices that create public health nuisances, like slaughtering goats and spreading their entrails around the town square; not that simply the belief in the religions that compel people to do so should be outlawed.

I disagree, and here's why: the over-fiends, the beings that control the demons, are the imprisoned Titans that (presumably) wrought the world in eons past, long before the Big Bang as we know it. They're known as Yozis, and their own agenda is simple: escape the plane on which they have been imprisoned by making our realms so similar to those realms that there ceases to be a cosmic difference, allowing them free reign again. They call it the Reclaimation, and they have minor and very major minions at their disposals.

If someone worships them, the Yozis can hear it, and can reply. While they can't directly interfere with our world (IE, you can't call up Great Malfeas (the boss of the Yozis) and have him smite New York City in nuclear green fire,) there are a number of ways they can project their influence into the world. The most direct is that they can twist a petitioner into an Akuma, a person with no free will of his own but access to those same Yozi's actual power-sets (which are quite powerful.)

They can also educate the mortal, potentially Enlightening them and teaching them Sorcery, or else teaching them the ways of Thaumaturgy (like sorcery, crappier but more accessible to mortals,) which includes especially the Art of Demon Beckoning. If they teach a cult to Beckon Demons, they can either beckon minor servants like blood apes (who, frankly, are dangerous only if they use their powers to great effect; if they don't an infantryman could probably kill one with his rifle,) up to second-circle demons, actual low-ranking members of the Yozis own soul hierarchy. (It's complicated.)

A demon alone is bad enough. Every single one of them has two extremely dangerous powers: Materialize/Dematerialize, and Principle of Motion. Materialize/Dematerialize is just what it sounds like, for a cost of half a Demon's mote pool it can use Materialize to become material; and without Materialize it's immaterial, meaning it can walk through walls and doors and shit at will, is intangible and invisible and basically undetectable. Even magic users don't by default get a means of detecting/hurting the immaterial, they have to learn it. Principle of Motion lets a creature take as many actions as it has banked at once, so for example a blood ape could launch up to seven attacks simultaneously. This is more or less enough to pulp anybody who's not magically prepared to resist it.

Putting two and two together, a Blood Ape (or two or three) could simply "ghost" into the White House and annihilate the President, Vice President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in under six seconds. The Secret Service would probably be able to kill them after the fact, when they're low on motes of Essence and they're splurged Principle of Motion and don't have enough left to Dematerialize, but the damage would be done.

Worse, though, in the setting we're in, there is a certain class of Exalted known as the Solars. Basically, they're the Limitless Power schtick. For instance, it would be believable for a group of five of them, at Essence 5 (out of a maximum of 10, and you start at 2-3), to actually kill one of the Yozis. The Yozis have their own Solar-level Exalted, the Infernals, with access to their parent Yozi's own charm set, which are made when a Demon stuffed with the Exaltation "stuff" is beckoned into the world and finds a mortal that the Yozi deems suitable.

We already know there's at least one of these guys running around.

Under the circumstances, and bearing in mind what I believe about the capabilities of the Yozis, I feel that the chance can't be taken that someone will be merely a "benign" Yozi-worshipper. At the very least, that worship sends power to a Yozi, which while negligible to the Yozi could be directed at an Infernal Exalt, which would be a considerable boost in their power. However, as I said, Yozis hear worship directed at them, and they can respond; with instructions, with orders, with education and commands. Basically, giving anyone who prays to them means and motive (direct order from their personal god) to commit acts towards the goals of the Reclaimation.

Under the circumstances, I personally (and I have argued this point with my fellows, in-character,) feel that it is justified to change/repeal the Establishment Clause and make laws prohibiting certain worship. (The Yozis are hardly the only dangerous thing that could get empowered/get ideas from mortal worship, just the most dangerous.)

The concerns of the others are that it could be the slippery slope towards banning harmless religions like Catholicism which don't actually empower any authentic deities, and that it is unacceptable to violate people's right to faith to the point of making Yozi-worship itself illegal, and that we should stick to only criminalizing demon-summoning and other things of that nature.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, the details of power and capability are kind of irrelevant; the basic point is that if a religion has a concrete ability to turn any worshipper into a major menace, the suppression of that religion is almost inevitable and damn the consequences.

[Niz1]

I cant see a reason why this religion wouldn't just be oppressed to the point of extermination. The risk to others would be too great. Like Simon_Jester says, religion is allowed so much freedom purely because it doesnt impinge on anyone else by turning them into zombies or sorcerers or blood apes or whatever. Bear in mind that other religions have been oppressed and exterminated for lesser practices in the past for example the Thugee.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I cant see a reason why this religion wouldn't just be oppressed to the point of extermination. The risk to others would be too great. Like Simon_Jester says, religion is allowed so much freedom purely because it doesnt impinge on anyone else by turning them into zombies or sorcerers or blood apes or whatever. Bear in mind that other religions have been oppressed and exterminated for lesser practices in the past for example the Thugee.

Oh, I'm certain the oppression is coming.

I'm looking for a way to argue that it's the right thing to do so for it to be out in the open, with the repeals - or adjustments - of laws guaranteeing the blanket freedom of religion on the grounds that some religions are actually dangerous. I'm not very good at debating, as you all may know, and several of my colleagues have been comparing my character to the very same cultists.

[Freefall]

Any ritual capable of actually summoning such beings into our world would obviously be considered a clear and present danger to national security, regardless of what is involved in the ritual itself, and pretty much anyone willing and able to perform such rituals would likely be considered something equivalent to a nuclear terrorist and swiftly find themselves on the bad side of the FBI/CIA, or whatever appropriate agency for the region they are operating in. They will be abducted, interrogated for all information they possess on the subject in the hopes of devising effective countermeasures, and then imprisoned indefinitely, for possible later intelligence in the case of an outbreak, or, if imprisonment is deemed too risky, probably executed outright.

Obviously, any legitimate information on how these rituals work or could be performed would immediately become highly classified, and traces would be put out on anyone attempting to discover this information on the internet, via phone, or any other way that could possibly be tracked.

Attempts would also be made to locate practitioners with a possibly more patriotic bent, again in the hopes of using their abilities and information to create countermeasures. If possible, I wouldn't be surprised if a special branch of anti-ritual agents was trained in these rituals or counter-rituals specifically for the purpose of monitoring, tracking, and neutralizing ritualists and demons.

The idea that the government would not attempt to regulate something with such obvious destructive potential is absurd. Just consider America. There are a lot of people in this country who make a huge deal about our constitutional "right to bear arms." Even so, ordinary American citizens cannot legally purchase and own high-explosives, military war machines, or weapons of mass destruction. There's a certain point at which the potential danger someone might pose to everyone around them simply outweighs any government granted rights they may have as citizens, purely as a matter of pragmatism.

[Sarevok]

People would be turning to religious orders for protection. Presumably you would see secularism disappear and things like militant church based orders with weapons and actual supernatural abilities would arise. I am sorry but this IS a grim dark scenario akin to WH40K. There would be no calm response from friendly competent governments. Rather theocratic movements and zealots would be gaining control over society because they offer the only credible defense against the supernatural.

[Metahive]

What I don't get is why beings who supposedly have the power to depopulate Earth and the intention to do so would need some shmuck to invite them here. What exactly would be stopping them from just carrying out their plans regardless of what the hairless apes here do or not do? Or are we talking fairy tale logic here, where there exists some obscure set of arcane rules set up by no one in particular that governs such actions "just because"? In the latter case, discussing such an event is moot since the circumstances and the makeup of those rules are completely up to the fiat of whoever concocts the "murderous demon summoning" scenario. We could be screwed no matter what, or we could be saved just by stomping out all Fairy Circles or something similarly simplistic.
I'm afraid you'll have to flesh out your RAR a bit before it can become more than just wild speculation.

[someone_else]

For me this is trivially simple to solve legally:
the rituals have an effect, if you don't want the effect you outlaw the effect since the effect itself is clearly against Life on Earth and a bunch of other laws.

Example:"It's forbidden to summon Cthulu".

This doesn't outlaw the religion itself, but only an unwanted effect.
If that specific religion's only purpose is "summoning Chtulu" (heh, sucks to be them really), then you have a good reason to hunt them down like vermin without screwing up the general "freedom of religion" thing.
Since you aren't arresting (and possibly executing them) for their religion, but for "attempted summoning of Cthulu" or "conspiracy to summon Chtulu". Their religion is totally irrelevant for their arrest (and possible execution).

What I don't get is why beings who supposedly have the power to depopulate Earth and the intention to do so would need some shmuck to invite them here.

What about "they are too lazy to check zillions of worlds constantly for prey"?
That's the usual handwaving used in these situations.

[ShadowDragon8685]

In this case, the reason the hairless apes are necessary is because way back in epochs past the same Titans who want to enact this sort of thing were defeated and imprisoned by the Solar Exalted. They weren't killed outright because the resulting mess when you kill one is.... Nasty with permanent necromantic pollution, so they offered the others the chance to surrender after they whacked several of them.

The Titans themselves are absolutely imprisoned, which is why their plan is to basically terraform other places until they're indistinguishable from the plane they're imprisoned on, effectively making it part of that plane and expanding their "prison" until the word has lost all meaning because the prison is everywhere. Their lesser servants are less absolutely imprisoned; they typically have an "accidental escape" clause, but they can all be summoned or beckoned.

[Simon_Jester]

What I don't get is why beings who supposedly have the power to depopulate Earth and the intention to do so would need some shmuck to invite them here. What exactly would be stopping them from just carrying out their plans regardless of what the hairless apes here do or not do? Or are we talking fairy tale logic here, where there exists some obscure set of arcane rules set up by no one in particular that governs such actions "just because"?

In this case, it can reasonably be supposed that the very reason hairless apes exist on this planet is because some outside agency on roughly the same power level as the big supernatural beings made it demon-proof: they can't get here. If they could, we wouldn't be here.

In the latter case, discussing such an event is moot since the circumstances and the makeup of those rules are completely up to the fiat of whoever concocts the "murderous demon summoning" scenario. We could be screwed no matter what, or we could be saved just by stomping out all Fairy Circles or something similarly simplistic.
I'm afraid you'll have to flesh out your RAR a bit before it can become more than just wild speculation.

Yes, this is a point. If it were easy to make demon summoning impossible, we might well see someone taking action to make it impossible, at which point worship of hostile deities becomes a moot point. If it is impossible to make demon summoning impossible, the only possible defense would involve going to a grimdark 40k scenario and trying to suppress all knowledge that it's even possible to summon demons.

[Garlak]

Why exactly are people assuming that people would flock to religions as a safety umbrella against the eldritch horrors? The OP only says that certain actions may bring doom; it says nothing about how certain religions can actively stave them off.

So why go for a religion? They never did anything before. They don't do anything now.

[ShadowDragon8685]

In the mythos in question, worship can be directed to many different things.

Technically it can be directed to anything, but a mortal, or an ordinary rock, won't get much benefit from a Cult rating no matter how big it gets. But it can be directed with effect to gods (which is really more of a way of saying "things ranging from river spirits to Norse deities to the Celestial Incarna, without implying actual, overrules-everything omnipotence or omniscience,) Elementals (more spirits,) Demons, Yozis, Enlightened Mortals and the Exalted.

Such beings (collectively, Essence Users, from the least to the greatest thereof,) gain benefits in mechanical terms from worship, in terms of increased Willpower gain per night of sleep and increased Essence respiration (regeneration) per hour.

But that's only part of it. Any schmuck mortal can direct worship under a priest's guidance, or even under his own sole faith, but anyone with skills in Performance can undertake a very, very difficult roll to actually petition their essence-using higher power du jour. Gods, Demons and Yozis can hear such petitions naturally, and Gods and Yozis (and sometimes very powerful demons) can reply, wherein the danger comes from; if someone petitions Malfeas for his will and his will is "summon a blood ape to murder the President, here's how you do it," then the shit gets deep indeed.

Also, point of problematicness, the difficulty of the roll to make the contact drops with a sacrifice. While technically anything of value will do (you could just toss a zippo into a vault full of bank notes that were soaked in kerosene, for instance,) Yozis and the like tend to be fond of eviscerated little girls and other such horrors. They find that sort of thing aesthetically pleasing.


So, religions on their own are powerless; the power comes from the ability and willingness of the being being prayed to to take action on behalf of the petitioners. As I said, the traditional Earthly religions have no actual powers behind them, so that worship is basically being sucked up by the automated systems - not important, really. Of course, some rogue spirit could come along, claim to be (for instance) the Judeo-Christian God, and if he's successful at convincing people it's true, their worship will get automatically directed to him, even if he's lieing through his teeth.

[Metahive]

A, so we're up against the Ori, the C'tan and Chaos?

We're so screwed. The only question that remains is who of them is going to devour/enslave us first.

[Todeswind]

How in the hell do you regulate an organization capable of summoning elder gods from the eldritch nightmare worlds in the unseen realms that feed on nightmares and suffering? Ostensibly one would need to have some sort of "justice godling" in place specifically to make sure they don't just destroy everything on a whim.

[ShadowDragon8685]

A, so we're up against the Ori, the C'tan and Chaos?

We're so screwed. The only question that remains is who of them is going to devour/enslave us first.

The Heros can punch out Cthulu with their fists. Leave dealing with the big boys to them - the thing we're talking about is those mortal worshippers, who can be investigated and tracked down by mortal means, and certainly dealt with by mortal means.

How in the hell do you regulate an organization capable of summoning elder gods from the eldritch nightmare worlds in the unseen realms that feed on nightmares and suffering? Ostensibly one would need to have some sort of "justice godling" in place specifically to make sure they don't just destroy everything on a whim.

Just because someone can summon Cthulu doesn't mean they have. Besides, they can't summon Cthulu, only Cthloid Prawns. Nasty, very dangerous and essentially unstoppable by mortals in a first-strike scenario, but they're not invincible.

You keep harping on the big guys; the big guys are imprisoned tightly and they're not getting out. That's why their plan is to make Earth so alike their prison that it becomes metaphysically the same realm and they can move in.

Like I said, their actions have to go through their intermediaries, and all of them have to start with the smallest and weakest of intermediaries - moronic schmucks who want a taste of new power. In almost all cases, before a cult's gotten its summoning on and its been reinforced with demons (or worse,) the cult won't have any magic to their name. In short, they're basic, standard mortals, Joe Averages, who can absolutely be tracked by the porn charges on their credit cards and handcuffed by mortal steel or shot dead by mortal lead.

A government can effectively regulate such cults, the question is, and always has been, is it moral to regulate religions if the religions have power, and even if not, what would be the most palatable argument to that effect.

[Feil]

Of course it's moral. Jesus Christ. If somebody is trying to murder everybody on the planet, it's moral to carpet-nuke their continent of origin, doom the Earth to nuclear winter, and enslave the remaining population of mankind towards the single goal of getting humans the hell off Earth, just in case you missed one. Everything becomes moral if the alternative is the annihilation of the human species.

If the government can keep them under control without hurting anybody who isn't affiliated with them then there isn't even the slightest shred of moral dilemma.

By the way, your OP is internally inconsistent and thoroughly impossible. Conspiracy to murder is a crime, therefore the rites in question involve something that is (very!) illegal.

As for how one would phrase an argument, it would go something like this:

"They want to murder us all. They have the means to murder us all. Let's prevent them from murdering us all."

[Simon_Jester]

And I'm going to have to say that the answer is decisively yes.

Once you accept the premise that there really is such a thing as cults in contact with demonic entities out to destroy civilization, and that have the magical wherewithal to do it without too much trouble, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" stops being pure psychotic bigotry and becomes self-defense. In real life we don't have to worry about that; it's impossible for me to imagine any civilization that doesn't have a death wish not worrying about that in the context you describe.

[wautd]

RAR.

Okay, so here's the hypothetical question. Supposing that religion gained power all of a sudden - maybe new religions, not old religions. Suppose that by enacting certain rites, otherworldly, typically-violent beings with their own agendas and the ability to dematerialize and walk wherever they please - as the least of their powers - could be beckoned into this world. Beings with an agenda that includes altering Earth to be inimical to human life and distinctly pleasant to those from their homeland.

They should but I doubt it. As it is now, megachurches don't even get taxed, even though they are making millions of dollars and meddle with politics.

[someone_else]

A government can effectively regulate such cults, the question is, and always has been, is it moral to regulate religions if the religions have power, and even if not, what would be the most palatable argument to that effect.

Nonsense. Government of most nations can already stop any religion that have rituals that go against his law like human sacrifices and/or cannibalism.
That religion has "mass murder" as goal, and I think it is enough to grant intervention.

Also, the question you posted would have to be altered a bit to be closer to reality:

"is it more moral to let the government handle the situation or let angry mobs and/or KuKluxKlan-ish organizations splatter any cultist's (and his dog's) interior all over the place?"

Because that's the actual choice you need to make.
It's ludicrously unlikely no civilian will do a fuck about it when learns of their goal, and then you can either arrest the cultists and keep them "safe" and alive in jail or leave them free to be hanged to the nearest tree by abovementioned angry mob.

Also think of the amount of innocents that will be killed if they don't get a fair trial to actually see if they were true cultists.

Government intervention is the best interest of those people. You are protecting them.

[Simon_Jester]

A point. And interestingly, most RPGs cast the player characters in the role of said angry mob: private actors unsanctioned by government, whose job is to intervene and prevent the Evil Cult from performing its dark ritual.