Shin Megami Tensei, religion and philosophy

[Gnash]

I'm a big fan of the Shin Megami Tensei (Megaten) games which includes many spinoffs like Persona. The first time I played these games I was a bit shocked, maybe not shocked but thoughtful, about how the games portray deities, religion and philosophy. If you have played the games bear with me.

The game basically uses alignment quite a bit, just like Dungeons and Dragons, and many other role playing games. So you basically have three main alignments: Law, Neutral and Chaos. Which are divided into three more: Light, Neutral and Dark.

Chaos doesn't mean evil just as Law doesn't mean good. Although Light usually stands for good and Dark for evil. So there's nothing really crazy about this until you start to see what powers are in conflict in the game.

All supernatural beings in the game are considered demons. So goblins, pixies and even angels are considered demons. With a struggle between the forces of Law and Chaos.

I took some stuff from the wiki page so you can better understand, this is info from the first Snes game of the series.

Alignments

The alignment of a demon is measured by two attributes:

* Light - Neutral - Dark

* Law - Neutral - Chaos

Law

This alignment is associated with God, order and peace. In the game it is represented by the Messian religion, and the colours blue and white. The Law alignment promotes order and safety, but taken to an extreme it leads to dictatorship and elitism. The main goal of the Law factions in the game is to establish the Thousand Year Kingdom, a paradise on Earth ruled over by God. The truth is that only a select few who are judged worthy would be allowed to live in the Thousand Year Kingdom, while everyone else would be killed. Those who do live in the Thousand Year Kingdom would be subject to its strict, absolute laws.

Chaos

The alignment is associated with Lucifer, freedom and war. In the game it is represented by the Gaian religion, and the colours red and black. This alignment promotes freedom of choice, thought and action above all else in stark contrast to the controlling nature of the Law alignment. However, this freedom can lead to a vast amount of suffering and anarchy, leading the world into a primal state of unsuppressed vice and survival of the fittest. The main goal of the Chaos factions is to crush the Messian forces opposing them and attain complete and total power over Tokyo.

Neutral

Also known as "Balance", this alignment accepts the need for laws to govern the world but not at the cost of personal freedom. It rejects the concept of relying on Lawful or Chaotic powers to focus instead on personal empowerment, individuality and the inherent strength of Mankind. Although the most idealistic alignment, it is also the hardest alignment to attain because of its isolationist nature and requires the person to make enemies of both the Law and Chaos factions, destroying everything to gain everything.

So the game basically says that god is the force of law which means that there's a belief that if you follow the rules and restrictions there will be peace. But your freedom is gone as your opinion and self thought. And the Devil is Chaos which gives you freedom but without laws there's suffering and anarchy.

After playing a bit and seeing the points of view it really got the old hamster ticking. The arguments presented in the game are quite close to what religions believe and maybe neither choices are good for us. I always try to go Neutral in the game which gets tough as you have to fight both factions instead of being allied to one. And choosing one of them doesn't mean your good or evil it just means you value one thing above an other.

So I'm wondering if you guys are religious and how you view this? I know this is just a game but taking it out of context and if you make a difference between Evil-Chaos, Law-Good things and think over what each really stands for you things are not as easy to judge with our morals.

My analysis of this is quite larger but I wanted to give you guys a quick view of it and how this game got me thinking into what is good and bad. And maybe we can build on this and what your points of view and philosophy on this subject.

Just to add something controversial to the mix Adolf Hitler could be considered a person of Law alignment...

[Schloss Ritter]

I recently discovered this series and plan to play through it; however, I urge people to take the games' portrayal of Judeo-Christian beliefs with a grain of salt. Much of what is presented is not what these real-life belief systems are about, but rather a Japanese outside interpretation of them. Also, keep in mind that Japanese philosophy values Balance above all else, thus the games encouraging you to take this path, while true Western religions rarely follow this. Rarely is Western faith portrayed correctly in entertainment (games, movies, etc), so one much look more deeply than the shallow interpretation many of these stories take. For example, unlike Jewish, Islamic, and even Catholic worship that seems to be the main source for interpretation with its mindless religious ritual, most churches allow much more freedom in how someone comes into relationship with God. And no, God isn't looking down with thunderbolts ready to strike people down for the smallest infraction; that is mainly drawn from the old stories of Zeus instead.

The biggest point in the real Christianity is that God is not just some authoritarian dictator who wants to force everyone to follow his rules or else. If He wanted unquestioning automatons, he could have just stuck with the angels (though even some of them were led astray). Instead, He created mankind with the ability to choose whether he would follow God or not. Unfortunately, the first man and woman went their own way and thus set up mankind as a pattern to follow. The good news is that God knew this was going to happen and set in motion plans to both give people another chance at the choice, while still seeing that somebody paid the price for human disobedience. Jesus, being part of God, was fully obedient to God in fulfilling this task, and now mankind is free again to choose to follow their creator.

I'm really still not good at debating this, so please cut me some slack if things still don't make sense. And, I know there are many out there that deny the existence of God outright, as I was almost at that point at one time of my life. But again, I urge people to look beyond the portrayal of "religion" found in popular media and perceptions, and look more closely at what what most believers truly believe. (and please dismiss those judgmental jerk people that make the rest of us look bad)

[Gnash]

Nice reply BTW.

I agree with you when it comes to the view of judeo-christian beliefs of japanese developers, even my christian point of view is a catholic one which is more strict for certain things. What the game did was make think about the subject since it really doesn't go very deep into the philosophy of each "side".

Leaving the "real reason" for god to do things out for a bit since the god of the old testament seems to me very different from the one in the new testament or Christ. I'm basically thinking about how humans interpret the will of god, which in the end is, in my opinion, written on the bible and other religious texts. Islamic extremism has strict rules of dress and ethics that go to extremes killing women for wearing "unproper clothes" and such make think of a Law-Dark alignment. If you read the old testament you will see many times when god makes his rules absolute to keep the peace and order, many of which when broken were punished with death.

I really don't want to go into what chaos believers believe because to a certain extent do to my catholic background some of the pages where I can find that info scare me a bit. But I have been told that some of the commandments that chaos religions follow actually make sense and promote self thought. Not too sure about it since I haven't read them myself. There's a cost to too much freedom, when you let people follow their will and dreams without consideration for others it leads to pain, war and suffering.

So this leads to an old argument if one great thing is worth the cost of thousand or if you would kill one person if it will save thousands?

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this since I think I'm all over with my thoughts. But I hope you guys are getting the idea on what I'm debating. What is good and what is evil? What is law and what is chaos? What does God represent? What does the devil represent?

About your post Schloss I agree that god gave us freewill, but if you think about it, it's not really freewill to live and be as you wish. There are rules, if you follow gods rules you go to heaven and be happy, if you don't you end up in hell in eternal fire.

Think of a slave in the old south. A slave had the freedom to either stay and work or run away. He had the freedom to choose those options but one would keep him in slavery and the other could mean his death. Not much of a choice when you think about it.

BTW this thread is not to bash religion it all it's to think. That's why I said leaving gods true will out of it and just based on a human interpretation of it.