The magic bias. Even praying isn't as effective. I know why. God is obeying his own laws. God made the universe flatlined, so God even limits Himself in those worlds. The versers, who are not bound by the laws of that universe have a bit of an edge. Makes perfect sense.
The magic bias might be raised if the indigs discover magic. God does not limit himself. Once magic is discovered anywhere, God lets it happen. Then prayers become more effective. Prayers to ANY god, that is. Who do the indigs follow?
(EDIT) OK MJ, I see now why you call praying magic. It makes sense.
Makes sense to me. Your deity tends to be fairly good about keeping his own rules. *looks somewhat askance at the Greek pantheon and is glad to be Asatru*
Ya know, I think I just found a hole in MJ's magic bias. Would religion even exist if the universe was flatlined for magic? If God answering prayers is magic, then God could not answer any prayers from the Indigs. Why would the Indigs follow a God that does not answer prayers? I mean NEVER answers prayers. Nobody anywhere gets a prayer answered. Would religion even exist?
Religion would probably exist in some form or another owing to the origins of the concept of religion - namely the need of primitive man to explain that which cannot otherwise be explained.
It might not exist in any familiar form, but people would still see lighting and think it was the wrath of /someone/, even if they didn't call him Zeus, and they might attribute their existence to someone's will, even if they didn't call him God.
It all depends on the world - maybe a flatlined magic world would explain the unexplainable in other ways, depending on what biases they did have. If it were a null-magic, high-psionics world, for instance, they might have a very Zen or Jedi-ish philosophy of life, believing that the world is the way it is because people believe it is, or something like that, without the need for a higher being outside of themselves.
Bear in mind that any atheist players probably believe that this world has a 0@ magic bias and that no prayers are answered anywhere, ever. Obviously, we have religion here, so why not in "other" worlds with flatlined biases?
Well, God can answer prayers through people. That young lady I was talking about on the other thread needed people to pray for her friend, and ended up learning to pray herself. I had a large part of that. God leading me to do it was the reason I did it. I don't give myself all the credit, but is a 50/50 split too much to ask for? Maybe that's how God answers prayers in a flatline world. Through other people. Maybe there's no rule in a flatlined world for that.
(EDIT) Yes, a 50/50 split of the credit is too much. 99/1 would be more like it, with the 99% going to God.
In a private discussion I'm having with a friend, he suggested the possibility (as near as I can express his idea) that the devil might have created all the religions of the world to distract man from what God really wanted us to do, which was love and care for each other. (I pointed out that Christianity, at least as I understand it, is the basis for the assertion that this is what God wants us to do, and that there have been many other theories of what it is that God wants us to do over the centuries, but that's not the point here.) If we assume that he is right, that at some level it is self-evident that God created us with the intention that we should act in a certain way toward each other, there would be religion expressing that. It probably would not be magical or miraculous religion, although it might be (that is, it might contain unhistoric accounts of miraculous events supposed to have happened either in the distant past or in another realm), but it would be a morally relevant one. The "modern" debate in such a world would begin with the question of how anyone knows that there is a god or what he intended, and the available answers would be a lot thinner, but there are still some arguments for the existence of God or gods and for the moral imperative as a religious fact which do not require any miracles or answered prayers.
And Scott's point was not that he (a Discordian worshipper of Eris) believes that this is a flatlined mag world, but that atheists believe it to be so. They obviously have explanations for why religion developed in a world where there is no magic, and even though you and I may think their assumptions incorrect, their conclusions are reasonable given those assumptions. It thus is clear that there are explanations for why a belief in magic and deities might develop in a world where neither existed (or had been revealed).
And yes, God obeys His own rules and treats other spirits equitably.
--M. J. Young