IConrad wrote:but you've certainly failed in your attempt to restrict the conversation to citable facts.
This is uncalled for.
You're right. I apologize.
IConrad wrote:
As to the rest; please do remember that individuals are not organizations. It doesn't matter what select individuals said or did; it matters how the organization responded.
I'll try respond in a manner that's relevant to the making of this game, but let me point out that the response of an organization is the collective response of the influential individuals of said organization. St. Peter's square doesn't pontificate - the Pontiff does.
- Galileo popularized the Copernican model and was almost excommunicated for it. "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved. -- remember?
Psalm 93? I believe a metaphorical interpretation is in order... Actually, to my knowledge, a lot of Catholic religious leaders were interested in the Copernican model; the trouble started when he began teaching it as a proven fact, rather than as the theory it was.
At any rate, since an organization is a group of people, the question has less to do with what advances that organization will reject, but whether or not the ideology of said organization inspires its members to engage in rational, creative thought, thus encouraging the scientific process. You can definitely say that a few advancements were slowed down by the Catholic Church, but how many of those advancements would even have occurred if it weren't for it's influence?
Once again, I have to say that I disapprove of the use of predefining bonuses and maluses for any type of government whose name would have religious connotations. You can't help but make a statement about religion in general, and in turn offend somebody, and you certainly can't define a set of bonuses/maluses that would apply to every form of theocracy or fundamentalism. Definitely specific races should have their cultures and their ideologies, but these should simply be reasons for having specific race picks, not the picks themselves.
Its quite simple, when you only have humans its reasonable enough to assume that "fundamentalist" means theocracy,
Tortanick,
please go back and re-read what the rest of us have been saying. We have all been specifically
excluding the idea that fundamentalism is tied exclusively to theocracy. Why do you insist on making this connection? It's counterproductive, and inflammatory.
Just because we've decided to talk about it in different terms doesn't mean that the average player won't make that connection and see that word with that particular connotation. In fact, its rather counter-productive to talk about any word an a way different from the way the player will interpret it.
Actually, all this being said, I can't help but think we're taking the wrong approach to this. We should really be focusing on the specific strategic options we want to enable with different government types rather than taking a bunch of government types out of the real world and deciding what bonuses they should give.
). We don't intend to offend anybody and I don't like to exclude such a fun topic(from a story and design point of view) just because some people seek to be offended.
however I see no reason why fundamentalist rationalists who do adhere to "Reason" can't exist just because currently there arn't any. 
