Where I live there is a lot of contention about religion, not wars but more insidious biggotry so I appreciate the religion free world of the sims. I agree that I do not think it could be implemented without someone somewhere taking offense even if it was llama worship or something ridiculous as real religious leaders may use this to declare the sims and EA as evil or darkworkers.

Last edited by simsamu : 31st May 2011 at 06:44 AM. Reason: idiot spelling error

Although we don't have religion in Sims, there is, IMHO, a veering towards a certain kind of morality that I don't like such as was introduced in LN and what is coming in Generations, the Public Humiliation for cheating and having a child out of wedlock and getting a divorce - and it seems like there is something to do with one's Reputation in Generations. I don't really like this as it smacks of some kind of moral code which veers towards having a personal creed - therefore some form of religion. Yuck.

I have to wonder what is wrong with a child out of wedlock and getting a divorce? It's life and it happens. I don't think it's right to bring this sort of cultural overtone to a game.

They're seriously doing this? Wow that is... pretty tasteless. There's nothing shameful about being a single parent or leaving a marriage :\

Yups - in LN, a celeb is 'named and shamed' for it. I think it's awful.

Wellllll... private ethics are one thing, and public perception and community norms are something else. The way this is implemented in the Sims is all about community norms... which ARE very real, and completely independent of religion.

Of course, what it DOESN'T capture is that different communities have different norms. We as the sims community should be able to capture that pretty easily with mods though, as has already happened for the LN slander thing. Hopefully the reputation system in Generations will be xml tunable as well

O_o

Holy mackeral.

I've noticed this sense of moral infliuence in other ways, as well - such as the greasy moodlet with eating hotdogs or the "Wasted Food" moodlet when throwing away food, when, really, only sims with certain traits should have that type of thought.

I think we should have a new trait: insufferably pious. When a sim interracts with another sim they could have the following interactions:

Witness to them about their religion.
Tell them they are a sinner.
Tell them they are going to Hell.
Tell them they are not enlightened.
Tell them they are not saved.
Burn them at the stake

I dont think it is intended to be a moral code as it is only applied to celebrities and you know what the red tops are like, they are choc full of who did what to who with what, where, when and how many times. I simply imagine that Sunset Valley is full of sleezy second rate Journo's.
I must agree I was more than a little irked when my sim was publically disgraced for having three children out of wedlock then I wondered if this feature was more a reference to the time line, TS3 seems to preceed TS2 in terms of the time line so maybe they aren't enlightened yet and it like some 50's style world morally.

Sims who are insufferably pious who are also brave. Will not run in the face of supernaturals. They are so hardcore and fanatical that supernaturals will flee from them!

Sims who are insufferably pious and neurotic will have over-reaction to supernaturals and go experience a moodlet "end of the world is nigh!" This will reduce their happiness level by 50

Sims who are insufferably pious. When interacting with supernaturals they can choose, ask about after-life. This will cause the insufferably pious Sim's head to explode in disbelief. This is the only known way to create headless ghost sims.

ahhhh... i can dream..

Religion being the touchy subject that it is, I think EA has been wise to leave it out. Bottom line is, it's always going to offend someone.

However, if they ever did decide to include it, I think the safest (and most amusing) way to go about it would be a player-based religion, with sims regarding the player as God. After all, who can deny our existence? The Sims has always been a "God game" more or less, so I don't see any reason why sims shouldn't be able to acknowledge our presence and form some sort of religion around it. (Forgive me if this has been mentioned before; I wasn't about to wade through thirteen pages of posts to find out.)

Religion in a certain form wouldn't necessarily have to offend anymore more than the sims already offends. A faux-religion like simism, if only in existance without any direct reference to actual religious rituals and traditions, wouldn't have to offend a Cristian or Muslim (or else) any more than the nonexistance of heaven/hell in the sims (ghosts) or the existance of mythological creatures (vampires/werewolves). There is even the possibily to make a sim come back to life, you don't have to be jesus for it!!

Personally, I think the the biggest holdback for the implementation of religion would be the consequences of religion on the life of a sim. Does religion make you a better or worse person? Does religion have an effect on your luck in life? This is where the difference between religion and non-theism becomes dangerous and should be avoided.

But religion does exist! You are the almighty god of sims and you decide over their lives. You can also build yourself the biggest, boldest place of worship, but you are the only person to influence the lives of your sims.

If you want a place for birthdays, weddings and deaths they should make a partycenter and implement a funeral service in the graveyard.

(I hope I made myself clear, it's hard considering this is not my native language)

I 'd like to see a sims house of worship of some sort. People that didn't like it wouldn't have to play it -- just like some people don't play vampires or celebrities. As for people being offended? Well, maybe people need to learn to be more tolerant of each other.

I don't mind having it in my game. Though I think it should be kept to the players themselves to add it to their own world. I prefer the way things are now, EA not to ever include a specific 'place of worship' community lots

If you think about it, they don't need religion (I've mulled this over during the last 24hrs) because at the end of the day WE are their God, aren't we? It is heavily alluded to in Sims Medieval that 'we' the Watcher are their Diety of choice.

They already have religion in the Sims Medieval...Why can;'t it translate to the Sims 3? They had the Watcher (Us basically) with two types of houses of worships. Expand that to include a temple and mosque type building and you are set. maybe even make witches who are actually Wiccan! it opens a lot of doors and people don't have to make their sims religious, but it's a nice addition for those that do!

I remember playing a small PC game where I played as their God and that was their religion and there were the believers and the non-believers. I liked it up to the point where I had to convert the non-believers into believers. There's a part of me that says I wouldn't mind religion in my game and if they made a specific EP about it (or an EP that included it), I might or might not buy it, depending upon my mood. But EA's gotten into the habit of putting a lot of things from the EP into the patch and I wouldn't want religion forced into my game through a patch that I have to have. If it was a religion that worshipped the player, I don't think I'd hate it, but I'd rather it just be left out in the first place then have to avoid it or not buy an EP, especially since I'm a bit of a collector. Not having a complete set would irk me and not using it when I buy it would irk me more.

My thoughts as an atheist:

I wouldn't mind religious functionality being added to Sims 3 provided that the religion is a fictional one (and fairly non-specific in its implementation) and it's not inherently "better" for a sim to be religious. You could then add religious / atheist traits where each side gets specific dialog choices depending on their point of view (and perhaps mean-spirited sims could make fun of the other sim's choice :p).

I enjoy the religion side of Sims Medieval. My main beef is that I wish there were more dialog options (e.g. I want my Evil Jacoban to run around calling every non-Jacoban a heathen) and antagonism between the two factions.

Religion can always be a parody. As a simulator, the player, in a sense, is god.

I'll let the pieces fall into place now... *hint-hint*