Religions reactions towards people with powers?

I have a modern-earth setting with people who have powers, they are closer to “psychic” powers than anything but they are often called/associated with magical terminology and people with these powers often call themselves mages, witches, etc. There are also a handful of “magical” creatures.

One beautiful day The Masquerade breaks and I wanted to know how world religions would react to it?

I can only think with any certainty the reactions of two religions, Buddhism and Catholicism.

Buddhism: for what I understand they are somehow… relaxed and wouldn’t mind if you have any kind of power, as long you use it properly.

Catholicism: The church official posture will be that “powers” are gifts or test from God, and that it is okay to use powers responsible. They won’t however recognize non-human creatures as having souls or being in the same level as human beings (albeit they discourage outright disrespect and hatred towards them). I am considering implying that the Catholic Church was manipulated to take this position as a means to minimize damage.

Do you guys think that I got it right? Can anyone help with the others relevant religions?

edited 17th Nov '13 8:13:05 AM by Bluelantern2814

As far as I know, the Anglican/Episcopal stance is to have the preacher read a passage from the Bible, tell the congregation what he thinks on it and how it relates to some world issue, take their donations, bless them and send them home to look over what he read and if they agree with his conclusion or not. (his or her the local building seems to alternate between priest and priestess). Christians have not been too much into magic over their history but the New Testament does talk of four girls with the gift of prophecy being accepted by the local community so maybe they can take a positive view toward the whole "powers" thing. For any form of Christianity you can just read the Bible, Jesus's example in particular trumps all else in religious matters.

The Bible does not have much to say about "magical creatures" beyond "Them is scary, keep your distance and pray to God if you cannot and above all not worship them". Christian response I imagine would be somewhere between intrigue, fear and aversion (you leave me alone and we cool).

Hinduism's mantra is to change according to new information its practitioners acquire so exactly how anyone reacts? I guess look at a history book, preferably one of Indian origin and judge from there. They are pretty big on self reflection and austerities though so I guess the general stance would be "use wisely and responsibly". They might be more likely than Christians to see them as gifts from God and care less about the "witch craft" stigma. They may even retcon some of their religious texts to include the newly discovered powers or add comparisons to the modern discovered powers to better explain some of the miracles.

Magical creatures would probably be along the lines of "Does it think like a human? Then it should be treated like a human. Does it think like an animal, treat it like an animal." The exceptions being the ones that resemble their own religious figures enough to cause confusion. "It looks like a Yaksha, maybe if I venerate it those snakes will stop crawling in my bed."

Buddhism stresses constant revelation so, I guess there would not be much radical reaction there, religiously. Probably "use wisely and responsibly" again, with a stronger stance toward powers not being more important or particularly helpful in achieving enlightenment.

Magical creatures? I guess they would be interested in the ones smart enough to understand the religion and not care too much about the others in religious matters.

Islam? Read the Qur'an. Preferably in chronological order and just guess how someone who takes it literally would act. If you feel the topic is not adequately discussion in the Qur'an you can then turn to six "authentic" Hadith collections to go through and a biography of the prophet to read. If you still cannot find anything well, I guess that is up to an individual Muslim's discretion and having read all that material you will have a pretty good grasp on the Orthodox way of Mohammad. Regardless of anything else, countries under Sharia will try to codify something into religious law on principle, even if the religious texts themselves are silent. Traditionally, they do even worse with the whole "witch craft" thing so followers from those religions would be stress the non-magical nature of their abilities even more.

Magical creatures. Like the Bible, there is not much to say about them beyond "They is scary, pray to the God if you have to deal with any." In fact, rather than a unique response I imagine it would be more interesting in how they deal with others. "That is the problem with you Christians, crying out 'Oh Jesus', you should cry in fear to Allah alone, then you will get results."

That is all I have for the "world" religions. Going further than that, well where is your story set? Knowing that I could maybe comment on anything else big enough to make enough noise for the general population to care.

I'm also sure there are some people who would jump the Jesus Message straight to THOU SHALL NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE.

Considering Exodus is one of the first books of the Old "Tanakh" Testament, that would not so much be skipping as it would be starting and not finishing.

But yes, I am sure someone would but I was just talking about how the religions as a whole would react. Granted, that was also written with the assumption that the people with superpowers would still be mostly decent people. If they prove to largely violent trouble makers people are going to fight them regardless of what any religious book has written in it because self defense is a pretty strong desire.

You underestimate the selective power of Fundamentalists.

Meh. While it's certainly a common trope, I doubt that sort of thing would happen anywhere with an efficient police force. Out in the boonies, maybe, but even then it'd be the work of a few efficient lunatics.

Fact is, most people aren't comfortable with murder, what with it being illegal and all. Moreover, lighting someone on fire is really difficult. You ever tried to burn a human to death? It's pretty difficult. We're too soggy.

...Granted, you could cover them with gasoline or something, but that sort of ruins the atmosphere.

But anyways, most of the oppression—if any—would be bureaucratic. Murder is uncivilized.

Look at how they already deal with people that are different from the mainstream. Maybe not carrying out full on "BURN THE WITCH!" actions, but there will be prominent groups that demonize these people with powers. They could do things like hold protests at funerals, for example.

edited 12th Nov '13 5:29:46 PM by stingerbrg

Regarding Christians, you have to consider that they're not a homogenous mass of people with the exact same beliefs, or the same degree in which they'll enforce those beliefs on others. (Same goes for any religion, really. But anyway...)

You can expect a few groups of hard fundies screaming "BURN THE WITCHES" and all that.

You can also expect more accepting people, who think that these powers could be some very unique gifts from God. Perhaps even the return of spectacular, overt, "turn water into wine and heal leprosy"-tier miracles.

edited 12th Nov '13 6:19:46 PM by KylerThatch

Right. It's also important to remember that there is often a difference between what a religion officially teaches and what people do in their daily lives. Remember, there are devout Catholics who consult psychics and even practice magic.

This wouldn't be an official stance by any means, but as a Mormon, I'd believe that any supernatural powers were gifts of God, not evil or of Satan or anything.

Regarding the whole BURN THE WITCH thing, it depends on whether power is considered to be "miracles" or "magic". In The Bible, "miracles" come from the holy spirit, while "magic" comes from demons. For instance, the daughters of Philip the evangelizer are noted as prophetesses (Acts 21:8-10), but a demon-possessed girl also had the same powers (Acts 16:16). So it really depends on how the person defines those powers.

Also what those power may influence how the church views them. As someone noted healing abilities would more likely be accepted but say being able to throw around D&D fire balls around might not be.

Each sect of Christianity has a lot of room for variation. Never mind the other religions of the world.

As an actual Roman Catholic, I'd say your guess about the Church is basically correct. I personally would see people gifted with supernatural powers as chosen by God for some task beyond regular people, and they would have an obligation to use that power responsibly.

As for nonhuman creatures, I'll leave that to the Magisterium to figure out if that ever occurs. But the Church would definitely never allow disrespect or hatred towards those beings by anyone, same as we do for any other group.

General answer: I know that is downright impossible for any group of people to agree (and react) with everything, much less world-changing events like the discovery of actual magical powers, but I can at least try to get some general direction for things.

I also know that you would see plenty of splinter religions (or groups in general) that separated because of different ways of dealing with supernatural people.

True, and there are supernatural folk that actually have both, others have desirable abilities like different grades of immortality

Also true, in my own country there is... religions that say that follow Christ but end up pretty much worshipping money, those would be fun to deal with in a unmasked world

I was raised Roman Catholic, so yeah... I can't say that I admire the Church that much, but I know they (or most of they) know better than start a fight with "D&D fireball" throwing people, specially when there are others with the ability to do jesus-like miracles

yeah, again "D&D fireball" throwing people, albeit I know that most people in the Church don't actually want to see beings suffering because they fairies or animal-headed humanoids. nonhumans people are actually pretty rare in my setting, but I still think it would be a point of content.

This is EXTREMELY helpful, thank you.

One thing is practically guaranteed: There'd be schisms all over the place. This would be an extremely polarizing issue, and there'd likely be a significant share of believers of any faith who couldn't live with whatever the official stance ends up being...and their best shot would be to strike out for themselves as a new sect. Roman Catholicism would likely shed a few more subsects, but they've been doing that for two millennia, so they're probably used to it by now. The Anglicans are already on the verge of fracture between the "home" and "colonial" branches, this would probably shatter them. Islam would see a veritable storm of fatwas, most of them mutually contradictory. And so on.

edited 15th Nov '13 7:35:24 AM by MattStriker

True, I probably should focus on the more "imediate"/local setting, the religions in the pacific north-west (currently, but it should be in Canada at very least), and mention in passing the others areas around the world.

There'd also likely be people who, while religious, insist these powers must have a scientific explanation, rather than a mystical one, and are annoyed when theology (which they see as dealing with higher concerns like morality, the afterlife, and the nature of good and evil) gets mixed up with the more earthly and, to a certain point of view, kind of tacky realm of superpowers. They'll be like, "So you can throw a fireball through the air; what's that got to do with spiritual enlightenment?"

Please note that the craziest places in Muslim world is populated by people who are not that knowledgeable in Islam, much less read the Quran in chronological order as well as the hadith and the sirah. Let just say weird happenings will be regarded as God's will as nothing can go against God's will. God create all all the Djins to worship him so supernatural creatures are God's creation, nothing more, nothing less, and cannot harm nor help humans any more than natural creatures can. And they are NOT to be feared. A true believer fear nothing but God.

edited 21st Nov '13 11:35:11 PM by Blurring

One very big aspect is "How are people using these powers?" If there are five good psychic heroes and twenty villains of the day, it doesn't matter how good the heroes are: clearly something about this masquerade was no good. If these psychics are seen as mean or dangerous, public opinion will work against them. One of the most critical challenges of the civil rights act and gay rights was overcoming powerful stereotypes.

Second big aspect is "Who can make money off these powers? Who can lose money?" If you have a psychic that can generate as much energy as a nuclear plant, you can bet the coal lobby will be talking closely with their congress critter in strong negative terms. On the other hand. A telekinetic able to safely handle radioactive materials from afar without a crane.

Third big aspect: "Who will gain power and lose power off these abilities?" Closely related to the second, but not the same thing. Power doesn't always translate to and from money. The NSA would hate telepaths that can pick state secrets. The CIA would LOVE them. If televangelists feel the existence of these powers will diminish to faith of his followers, he'd be a fool not to act.

Don't forget anybody with healing powers could put doctors out of work.

Your comments about the NSA and CIA remind me of Darker Than Black.

edited 23rd Nov '13 2:09:14 PM by shiro_okami

   Disclaimer - I forget to say something really important, it is possible for non-empowered people to become Differently Empowered People with Personality Powers.   

That raises the question? Which religions would be against or pro the voluntary awakening of powers?

Oh, you have no idea how much this is useful. Really this could give a very solid basis for Islamic acceptance of Differently Empowered Individuals. Thank You.

In recent years, before The Masquerade fell, the former "Supernatural Government" became increasedly paranoid over The Masquerade ending, becoming more ruthless over it, to the point of being all it cared about, ironically that led to it's downfall and replacement with a "new management" that was far better, but still tried to keep the masquerade through more humane means and failed.

I would say that the "average" gifted individual is too paranoid to do too much harm.

One of the things that the new government did was exactly trying to exploit such abilities, even reverse-engeniring powers and creating new technology. It also built economics relationships in such way that would make the most-likely-to-be-bigoted-against-empowereds-people to be economically depedent. I understand that this is relevant, but it is sort of out of the more religious aspect that I aiming to understand.

The first part of this question has a answer similar to the above.

About the use of super-powers: While not everyone will survive the fall of The Masquared, the empowered won't be completely defenseless *likely* corporations and government agencies won't be able to force telepaths to work, but deals, contracts and arragements can certainly be made (of course there are the ones that will try to pull a genosha, but the keyword is try)

Going back to the religious sphere.

I think that televangelists would likely:

• Try to take advantage of the situation and pit people against empowereds(no surprise here). They would be undermined many ways including the ones already mentioned above.
• Try to take advantage of the situation by performing false miracles, since it *is* possible to cure people with your hands in this world.
  • If they don't have any powers but still say that their powers come from any given source, this is a pure "muggle problem" (might count as fraud in some places) and the Supernatural Government don't get involved unless it is a opportunity to take down a enemy.
  • If they do have the "psichic" powers of their setting but say that they aren't the same powers than of "the others" have. The Supernatural Government will intervene. Same goes if they are using these powers in a harmful way.

making a quick calculation and consulting the internet. I think that the number of Healers won't be above 0,5% of the Doctor's population world-wide, and that is being generous... well, from that I am going to say that some Doctors might lose their jobs, but the profession won't stop being necessary.

edited 24th Nov '13 6:19:54 AM by Bluelantern2814

Sorry for foggeting to answer to you, this is really accurate. The bolded part reflects why I think Buddhism would be so okay with empowered people. In general, I think that eventually the majority of world's population (and religions) would navigate towards that "powers exist, but they don't exclude spirituality".