Promoting Religions Should be Against the Rules!

"You may not organize nor be a member of any pledges or groups within Guild Wars that are based on or espouse any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hate mongering philosophies."

From the rules of Conduct...

Now for my opinion...

Why does it matter what religion you are, and most of all, why would you want to promote it in a game? -.- I'm glad you're religions (if you are) good for you. I have a lot of respect for religious people of any kinda because I lack faith.

But it's a game. :\ I join guilds for the people and the experience. I like talking and I enjoy doing missions/pvp/whatever with others. I don't care if you're Christian or Jewish, or Wiccan etc.

/partially signed - You can have your guild and have your faith, but don't deny or try to convert. Have a bit of respect for you fellow player.

Wow!
Really WOW!
That's crazy! In Italy we have the Church and the Pope, our politicians kneel before them (except few of them). The Christian religion is really strong, everyday on the national channels we see some high prelate talk about something. They mess with politics on every single subject (even togh by the law of the Concordate the Vatican State should stay out of politics of the Italian Republic, and limit themselves ONLY to religion, in exchange for a huge load of money and a lot of privileges. But the few that talk about the violation of those laws are accused of being cruel evil people who wants to deny the freedom of speech to the Vatican and the oh so good Pope... WTF!).

But... even whit such invadence, still we don't have those people who create restricted groups in videogames or feel the need to bring the word of whatever to the videogames community or are on a mission to convert as much people as they can.

I hope we'll never see such stuff in Euro Servers. I find it a bit creepy.

This is truth.
Anyway /notsigned.

Let them do whatever they want, as long as they don't abuse and harass others, if they feel the need to stay with people with the same values and belief there's nothing wrong about that.
I think nobody would be offended by a guild promoting "Wildlife Lovers is recruiting. Please only vegetarian people, and memebers of WWF/Greenpeace, we do PVE but don't farm Elona plants, we try to level them up."... so why have a problem with a religious guild?

Sure, it's a bit strange to me... I like guilds that have a place for everyone, I don't care about race/religion/whatever, I care about the people I'm talking to, and what they have to share from their point of view. You can really learn a lot of things. Dealing only with people who have the same point of view is closed mindedness IMHO, and it's the opposite of the Christian message (If I'm not mistaken is on the lines of "you should love everyone regardless of race/sex/bleief/etc..."). But not everybody thinks like me, i respect their opinion, so if they want to do their restricted guild is fine.

QFT!

ONLY Christian guilds are not so Christian IMHO.

___

P.S. - English is not my main language, so my message could have some mistakes, sorry.

I have no problems with any religions wishing to form or advertise their group/guild. Spam is another issue all together, dosnt matter what their spamming, be it selling, religion, or panty sizes, if its spam its an annoyance and not related to this. And trying to convert others to your religion in an online game?... pointless.
I've played with people from multiple religions in my 2 1/2 years of play including muslim, and have never once heard of anyone being banned for it. The OPs post looks more like a flame against one religion, with a baseless conjuring of an example to support his msg.
It is however incouraging to see the response to this post, most people are of the same opinion, and seem to be open minded and capable of cutting through the bs.

/notsigned
/somewhat flamed

a. We're not freakin communists, ever heard of democracy? It's their guild, don't tell them who to recruit. It's like some FF guilds only accept guys with X in kurzick/luxon title, and pvp guilds only recruiting players with X balth faction. You don't have to join their guild.

b. Well, if you brought up that issue, then I do say that religion being promoted by ANET, such as haloween and christmas (oh sry, wintersday) events IS wrong.

/not signed

If people want to form guilds with others of the same religious faith, let them; hell if they want to form guilds with people who all have green hair or eat only Marmite let them. They have the same right to advertise for members and state their recruitment requirements as the FF guilds, the "must have over rank blah KoaBD" guilds etc. So long as they act within the EULA (as quoted by Alexander Burn Victim) then let them fill their boots.

Spam is a different matter all together, and as Sheena Inverse rightly says has no relevance to this.

/signed
they should recruit but not say "christian", "jesus loves you", .....

God: Paladin lfg!
Allah: Hi, ping build please
God: Pings build
Rabbi Of Pwnage: Yo God, Mending isn't particularly useful, might wanna switch it for something more kosher
Allah: WTS mini pig, not allowed to touch it in the first place
Rabbi Of Pwnage: Pay attention please, we're trying to get a build together
God: How about holy damage then, I'm good at holy damage
Rabbi Of Pwnage: Get Gabriel to do that, he's got a fiery sword already, he would make an awesome wammo
Gabriel: who does the death necro then? I don't want satan in my team, winning is no excuse for dabbling in the dark arts!
God: Get a Rit/N minion bomber and stop whining, learn to be pragmatic, it's how religions survive nowadays
Gabriel: We can also go Holy Trinity.
God, Allah and Rabbi of Pwnage simultaneously: I like the sound of that, holy trinity, get some nukers and go aaight?
Allah: Still don't get why aNet gives ME a mini pig, it's a bloody outrage
Gabriel: Chill out man, just give it away or something. Trade it for a nice half moon or something to go with your ranger.

Ontopic: religious guilds don't bother me, I don't know why you would do something like that, but it doesn't bother me at all.
People advertising their beliefs in local are pathetic and not to be taken seriously, they don't bother me as well.
Who is worse? the troll? or the guy who feeds it?

Thats the reason they call it wintersday in game.

/signet

Dont mess the game with any non-game gods, they, as well the game gods, does not really excist.

Would I get banned for promoting my beliefs?

Darwinism

Atheism

Probably


I do not have a problem with people promoting such things as long as Anet do not discriminate between different groups.

Don't state as fact what you cannot prove.

I don't mind a guild all sharing a common belief (whatever it is) as long as they don't try to impose it on me. Although, I've never actually seen a Christian guild recruiting

I did run into a guy once that was recruiting for his guild and he explicitly stated there were no coloured people allowed. Kinda....odd :S
Humanity is overrated.

lol. The OP has shamelessly stolen God of Spammers's avatar. He copyrighted that pic y'know.

And btw, Yahweh loves to play DS.

I saw Jesus in Tahnakai temple kicking out the merchants, pretty inconvenient :P.

You've obviously never met a hardcore Christian. They have to tell you about EVERYWHERE.

/signed for equality for religious guilds

OR

/signed for no religious guilds

LOL! Nice one.

I once met a scientologist playing TF2.

Anyway...this is a dumb thread.

No one should be repressed because of their relegion/color/creed/lifestyle/choice of pvp or pve/choice of armor/class/gender/name.

If they are personally harassing you and you politely said NO, then take it up with a moderator. Otherwise, let it go.

^^^
This man speaks the truth, just don't bother. People nowadays want to report others for the most insignificant reasons possible. Nobody's perfect, play a solo game if people are bothering you.

Truthfully I have not much knowledge about religions. I did start reading the Christian Bible purely to remove some of my ignorance. I would say I have read enough to form an opinion which, if I am to read more it would not change.

I found out that Jesus died for our sins. I found this out by someone on youtube in fact and later read about it. Quite interesting to note how I had been born into a debt that I should repay.

With such guilds I often think of the bible where it says 'do not be like them hypocrites and pray in public standing up'. This certainly gives me a cynical view on Churches but about guilds too.

My religious teacher once said god talks to us in need. That's right, you can be hit by a terrorist plane, washed away by the ocean, buttf'cked in a bunker and this won't happen; however, if you're laying in a hospital bed and you have lots of time on your hands. You have been told you will be ok and get discharged. This can be god talking to you. Those doctors that train for years, who knows why they do it. After all, if they perform a really well executed surgical procedure, it is not to them as to why you lived but God.

Considering that god can talk to us I find it very interesting he talks to religious people. Think of it like this, you know there's a room with something special in it. To enhance everyone's life and future. The cure for aids, all illnesses, etc etc. Two people know it exists. Do you waste your time convincing these people further or do you tell the people who don't realise it? Personally I think God is a low I.Q'd creature if he exists. Why is he wasting his time talking to people who believe in him? Why not the people who don't?

Then to send messages through insane ways. I often hear of pain where ever religion is involved. It could be through writing messages in blood or it could be through being punished for a sin.

In the bible it says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but it also says if someone is to slap you on the cheek turn your face and let them slap you on the other. Even with the most metaphorically adapted mind I can not find much logic in this.

See a guild with religion could be organized crime. It is not that the religion itself is bad. Yes, despite it clearly hating the Jews, what the problem is this:

The bible is not descriptive, if it was. It would be so easy to prove it wrong. People can than interpret it to mean something, this something can end up exaggerated and the next thing you know people distort it even more. Once hatred gets involved begins crime.

This has been majorly talking about the Christian religion. Each religion has it's own views, about food, Gods, all sorts. Christians believe in one God, but other religions believe in more. With this information you can determine out of ALL The religions at very BEST - only one can be correct. Then even this is bastardized by the fact their holy book is edited. Very few bibles are very good, I would say the hard backs are better (can whack sense into people on the head).

Now if at VERY best only one religion is correct that must mean it is also possible that none are. If each guild is pushing their religion, you have say 100 religions. 100 Guilds, of different religions.

Given that it is a sin to push your religion, and 99 of these guilds are going to be pushing false information. I think it is as good as brainwashing. This is terrible. I can not make a guild saying: NO BLACK PEOPLE. So why have a guild that says no non religious people. They're still a set group of people which is in effect a race.


/signed

If God is coming to you and telling you to stop playing a video game, you need help.

/signed

It is, think about it. YOU have the ability to turn the chat filter on and off. Other games have a filter that you cannot turn off at all. Very rarely does anyone get banned for the crap that comes out of their digitial mouths, even after the /report feature was added. There are no moderators sitting in districts watching what people say.

You could get reported, but likely will not. Religion itself as a topic is not covered by the EULA, just behavior. The problem isn't religion, it's people spamming, people being rude, people trolling.

The first amendment does not cover what case law deems as 'fighting' words, which is interestingly a lot of how the EULA works. If what comes out of your text offends someone, you can be banned. You can turn the filter off instead of it being permanently in place.

It's not quoted or protected at all, but if you look at the EULA, it's not specificially ignored either. It isn't like there is a section going "This is a list of stuff you cannot talk about".

Figured I should post in here.

I am against spamming. Spamming X Guild recruiting, whether its about religion, science or whatever is bad. You only make yourself and your guild look bad.

However, there is nothing wrong with a religious guild. Its up to individuals what sort of guild they want to make. If it wasn't, I doubt many people would play this game. Freedom of belief is essential, to some extent.

My guild is multi-cultural. From guild chat and forums, I can see that we have Atheists, Theists etc, and it causes NO problem whatsoever. The thing about religion, or lack of it, is that it makes most people peaceful. People are happy to be able to have their own views and opinions. Our guild does not discriminate in any way, and when we are clearing FoW/UW...we dont suddenly have a religious debate. Heck, we dont have religious debates at any time - whats the point?

Everyone gets along fine, regardless of whatever religion they support. Religion is NOT an issue in a video game, unless you want to make it an issue, in which case, GTFO.

Oh, and I'm an atheist...so dont dare to call me biased /endsarcasm

If religion is an issue to you, dont mention it. If you dont like your guild's opinions or beliefs, then leave. But learn to respect other religions and beliefs, for what they are, and you can expect the same in return.

No you can't expect the same in return though. They do not respect others or they wouldn't keep pushing their views upon one. .

Anyways, I think they're a bad idea simply because they're a sin and they won't gain any reward in heaven.

I have two views on this...

My anti religion view

I personally dislike organised religion and preaching and all that jazz. Whether it be devout christians, jews, muslims, catholics or protistants. I personally would get annoyed at seeing someone advertising a religious guild because I would be suspicious about trying to convert those members.

I dont see a need for going to church or reading a bible, when god is part of us all and we shouldnt have to take part in meetings and stuff to "prove" our faith and dedication.

My open minded view

Despite what I wrote at first, I am also extremely open minded and there is nothing wrong with having a strong faith in your religion. If that means you want to create a christian, jewish or muslim guild then fine.

I and no one else have any reason to stop you or complain if you are hurting no one.

You could only complain if you had evidence that members were using that guild to convert young people who are easily influenced or insight inghatred towards other nationalities, religions or ways of life.

For example if a christian guild didnt accept you because you were gay. Then you could complain about prejudice.

Final point

Are these new religious guilds trying to upset anyone? hurt anyone? insight hatred or convert? The chances are very slim and I dout they mean anyone any harm.

There are going to be members of the GWs community who are anti-christian or anti-muslim or anti-catholic and will have negative views towards such guilds being created.

But is that the fault of the guild or the individuals prejudice and arrogance?

Its more likely the fault of the individual and their lack of understanding surrounding the religion or culture. Should we ban the creation of religious guilds purely because a number of people in GWs are prejudice or anti-religion?

ofcourse not!

Aside from anything else, Anet could get sewed for alot of money if they banned someone from creating or naming a guild purely because it has religious over-tones.

Concider this

Would you complain if someone started posting "Hetrosexual guild looking purely for straight members" or "Homersexual guild looking to recruite purely gay and lesbian players."? Its exactly the same principle and they have the right to do that even though its treading a very thin line!

You might be gay and find it reasuring to join a gay guild online, with people you can talk to and open up to. Is that a bad thing? The same applies to christians, muslims, african americans, jews! Any demonination you can think of!





You can say and do what you like aslong as it abides by the law and you dont hurt anyone!

I can even simplify it further.

"PVP Guild Looking for PVP players"

Lets ban all guilds who wont let PvErs join.
Lets ban guilds that promote PvP and the deep and meaningful concepts of PvP.

I really dislike this thread.

Please, I'm not entirely sure what the forums rules on religion are, but I feel until I know that I should close this.

Until then, I'm feeling a bad vibe from this thread.

Closed.