Religion in FFX: Good or Bad??

Religion was a major part of Final fantasy X, right? Did you think it was giving us a negative image of religion in general?

I'm doing a paper on it for school, and would love some responses on what people thought about the religious themes in the story. What did you find strange/blasphemous/correct/logical/whatever about it?

P.S: Don't be bitching about Seymour in it or something, or how easy it was to kill Sin. This is a serious question I'm asking!

Oh, and if anyone replies, may I quote your words if they're particularly interesting? Just answer yes or no in the end.

Thanks for your time! :D

I think they gave it a somewhat of a negative response seeign as how everyone did what the "church" told them to and thus became racists and lived off of a false hope.

Thank you!!

Do you think that kind of image would be influential on younger players?

I think it left a negitive impression. In FFX the churches pretty much made up the laws as they were needed and benafited them. They made all the people fallow it blindlesslly not knowing the truth behind it all. (SPOILER)it was all a lie in there reality all yevon was was a mindless summoner who did nothing but summon Sin. FFX showed that religion was a scam that was made up to explain the unknown, Ya Know?

well, I didn't realy pay attention to that part of the game but now that you mention it, I think that just tells me not to be a religous fanatic like Wakka because it could all backfire on you (SPOILER) like how yunalesca had just told Spira that the Final Aeon would take away pain at the cost of one life. This seems to me like many of todays religouns. I can also see why they sacrificed Summoners. It was for the collective good of Spira. Not the soul good of the Summoner. Sad isn't it?
Yunelesca is a bad girl. Shame shame. anyway, I don't find any problem in religoun being icorpirated with the plot. ::shrugs::

You guys are the biggest help, you know that? Tell me anything you like, I need personal opinions here! Don't be shy (or if you are....vote in the poll!)

Thanks heaps.

It's creates an image that I'd like to see more of: it is showing that religion is a bad thing.

I hate religion - it's such a terrible thing in society. The only good thing about it is the moral values that it brings but these do NOT need to be drilled into people via the means of religion.

Yevon betrayed Spira and summoners. Even maester abuse they own power. Temples are control by Yevon but except all Fayths.

I think it showed the way organised religion can be. It's a good thing that we are starting to live in a world where kids can be shown religion in a different light.

Organised religion can be corrupted, it can inspire fear and hatred of others, and it isn't neccessarily based on truths. I was very impressed by the way Square handled this.

on the contrary to most of you, but i think it showed religion (in the sense of a belief) as a good thing. What i think it showed negatively was blind faith in the authority of religious leaders. organized religion is a strict sense of ritual in relation to teachings passed down as law from one generation of priest to another. This is good because it brings a sense of hope and faith into the followers lives. It is negative however, because following teachings based one teachings can be inaccurate and off from the original intent of the foundsers of the religion.

My examplanation for this is as follows. Teh CAtholic religion is based largely on the influence of the pope, if not entirely. but who was the pope taught by? anotehr pope. in this succesion of leaders with almost complete control, i belive the true intent of christianity has been givin up for ritual and law. the way one must follow a religion is to get a feel for the central tehme of the religion, then pick up it text, in this case, a bible, and learn for themselve how it should be followed. it moral code and major points.

In FFX i belive this was shown heavily. Wakka was the typical zealot. he belive EXACTLY what the yevon told him, without using his own judgment most of the time. He assumed, "maester said this" and often this would have lead to incorrect decisions. but in the end, he altered his views of yevon to encompass the central themes, diligence, hoppe, faith, peace, and the evil of sin. He followeds his own methods to encompass these themes, and in this way, was still following yevon when he defeated sin. he just followed his own path of Yevon, rather than the ritaul ahnded to him by the Maesters.

(*on a personal note, i am a dedicated christian, un named by denomination, marked by faith in the bible, not priests, pastors, or the Pope.)

Thank you all so much!! I can now write my paper with some workable material. You all rock!!

You want to see if it have a negative impact on young players.........Well, I bet I'm the youngest player here that's qualifyed to post a forum......I been playing for a while.......even though I agree it does show you a very "different" side to religion.........I haven't exactlly being affected to do anything dramatic............yet

It may be possible that Squaresoft where showing there opinon of religion. They also have based it on facts. As Monks in the middle ages took complete advantage of religion to boss people about, but let they betrey their own teachings just like Yevon. I mean one of the comandents is thou shall not kill. Yet before modem times it seemed alright to kill none christains. Like in the Bloody Crusedes. It's even in the Bible, where Joshua and his men broke down a city wall and kill innocent people. On what seemed like Gods orders. So Squaresoft are probally trying to say beware of relgion. They could exploit us. I think that had something to do with wakka being so trusting of yevon and hated the Albed but then found out that the albed was good and Yevon was bad. Yevon made people hate the Albed. Just like Monks made Christians in the middle ages hate non-Christains.

religion is for squares

I saw corruption with the Yevon religion.

yea, u could consider it to be sacreligious (like one of my best friends did). or u could just be like screw it like tidus, auron, and rikku did

I realize that I am no expert on this, I haven't had the opportunity to play through the entire game, but, lacking the PS2, I did the next best thing which is read through the storyline, which has given me the following conclusion on the religion of FFX:

The worship of Yevon seems to be a reflection of the Roman Catholic church in the middle ages, in which they had the absolute authority. However, it also demonstrates how crucial religion is to human nature. Due to our need to believe in a higher power, some greater being to which grants our life meaning, or some reward waiting for us after we die, we create religion. However, it, like humans, can be corrupted. I think this was demonstrated very well in the game (from what I've seen and heard) giving it a very negative feel. However, the worship of Yevon in the game may not actually be BAD, so to speak, it seems that the major point is that the corruption OF the religon is the bad thing.

(This is all from the view of a Christian by belief, Roman Catholic by name, and one who chooses to live life as he believes is expected of him, not submitting to the trumped up, empty ceremonies of the church)

Final Fantasy X could present a negative or positive opinion on religion. The peoples prayers were useless and actually served to feed the demon which they prayed against. This (IMHO) is symbolic of people praying to god only to be killed by natural disasters which they beleive he caused. This theory assumes that Sin is cast in the role of god, which makes perfect logical sense considering that he is believed to be good and is worshiped by the majority of people.
However one could also assume that Sin is symbolic of satan and the worshipers of Yevon are devil worshipers who are destined to be destroyed by the one they worship. In this way FFX could be interpreted as a warning to satan worshipers. Of course one must always accept the third possiblity of this whole discussion being useless and there being no meaning or a completely different meaning behind FFX's story.
It should be known that I am an aetheist with a strong working knowledge and respect of Christianity. My opinions are in no way certain and do not take precedence of the opinions of others, but I do have an informed yet impartial view of the subject. I hope this helps if I'm not to late and you can quote me if you think i said anything quoteable.

It didn't give off a bad vibe about religion, just about a religion. It showed that blind faith is bad. Religion is not a fit form of government. And anything, given time, can become corrupt.

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Originally posted by Atma Weapon
Final Fantasy X could present a negative or positive opinion on religion. The peoples prayers were useless and actually served to feed the demon which they prayed against. This (IMHO) is symbolic of people praying to god only to be killed by natural disasters which they beleive he caused. This theory assumes that Sin is cast in the role of god, which makes perfect logical sense considering that he is believed to be good and is worshiped by the majority of people.
However one could also assume that Sin is symbolic of satan and the worshipers of Yevon are devil worshipers who are destined to be destroyed by the one they worship. In this way FFX could be interpreted as a warning to satan worshipers. Of course one must always accept the third possiblity of this whole discussion being useless and there being no meaning or a completely different meaning behind FFX's story.
It should be known that I am an aetheist with a strong working knowledge and respect of Christianity. My opinions are in no way certain and do not take precedence of the opinions of others, but I do have an informed yet impartial view of the subject. I hope this helps if I'm not to late and you can quote me if you think i said anything quoteable.

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Hmm here's my take on it.
It showed organised religion is kinda a bad thing if you look at it.
And the Yevonites are symbolic of christians and catholics.
If your not one of them your a heathen and must be destroyed.
What i dont like about organised religion is they make God out to be very insecure and lacking selfconfidence.
Now don't get me wrong i am not a god hater i do belive in a god just not the faith alot of people have formed around God.
And yes whoever said that organised religoin is corrupt i have to agree.
And correct me if i am wrong but wasn't one of the commandment's thou shalt not worship graven image's?
Then explain the pope or the easter bunny.

*INCOMING FINAL FANTASY X SPOILERS (ALL DISCS!)*

Hmm...This may seem a bit out of the blue, but it's also my opinion that...Hmm...How do I put this...

Well, first off, if you consider Yevon to be an actual religion in the first place, I would more than likely not relate it to symbolism between religions such as Christianity/Catholicism (Forgive me if it has been spelled incorrectly.), and "common man" (People outside the governing powers inside the church.). And when I say symbolism, I mean it. I do not think it was SquareSoft's true intention to point at specific religion, but instead to spread a certain moral.

The moral, I believe...Is that sin (can) exist within all men, and when "one" (In this case, an all-governing religion) is given a tremendous amount of power and left unchecked when having it, that "person" can and/or will use it for the benefit of only those he/she deems worthy. If not at the founding stages of this religion, then later on as power makes a transition from person to person.

To clarify, I am not saying that religion will always be on a path to destruction, as religion in its purest form is a beautiful thing. I am saying that if the "governing faces" of this religion are left unchecked, that atrocities might occur. To go a bit deeper, I believe the moral is that one should not invest so much faith in a religion/government/governing religion that it becomes blind, and that your defenses are torn away from you.

But I do not think that is the true case with Yevon, to some degree. I believe Yevon was a creation used to control the populace, using the summoning magics as pressure. Because of this, war between different colonies in Spira, if not stopped by Sin's rampage, was stopped by the sudden unification of Spira through Yevon's charisma and the action of the summoners.

In other words, it used the Summoners' "grasp" over Sin and in turn, the people's hearts, to create a religion/government that could make world-changing decisions with ease in the name of good. In Yevon's totality, the only truth in the ways of Yevon was the way of the Summoner. The restriction on Machina, although in some ways used for good, as to stop another outbreak of war to occur, was betrayed by the people who created the law themselves, and used to create a military in Bevelle (To some degree, I'm only speculating.). The rule in where the Summoner should send and bring peace the souls of those who die, it was also betrayed in order to prolong the life of two Maesters. The teaching that once the people of Spira had "repented for their Sins", Sin would disappear, was untrue as well, and was most likely the base for many restrictions.

Even the ways of Summoner, to some degree, were inhumane, as a Summoner must sacrifice a Guardian to take form as the Final Summon, then sacrifice themselves in order to summon it. Yu Yevon would then possess the Final Summon, and after years of a "Calm", Yu Yevon would return with a reborn Sin. This created a "Spiral of Death". Until Tidus, Yuna, and the party had found an alternative solution, which would destroy Sin permanently, there most likely wasn't even a thought of another solution to rid Sin, because of the teachings that Yevon had implemented.

To summarize, I do not believe that Yevon was a true religion to start with (Or at least, that's a concept I find believable.), as it simply exploited the Summoner's ways to climb into power, and place rules that would keep a fixed hold on Spira through the power of false teachings and blind faith, and therefore keep the "Spiral of Death" intact.

That is a really good point. I would not at all be surprised if that was what Square was trying to say with the game.

it was what wakka was all about

However , you know the religion can convey the hope to the people in Spira in the condition like that .
There is also a reason for existing .
Just as maester Mika said , they destroyed Yunelasca ,
they had destroyed the hope of Spira .

What the heth are you talking about? It was part of the story and made game good. The religion in game had nothing to do with real life religion, just more stuff to complain about! If you hate religion fine, keep it out of the forums and stick to game!!!
Xenosaga has more religion in it than FF10 and it has christian religious beliefs in it!. I heard no complains there. But IN FF series, so called fans complain about everything!

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Originally posted by Kalel
What the heth are you talking about? It was part of the story and made game good. The religion in game had nothing to do with real life religion, just more stuff to complain about! If you hate religion fine, keep it out of the forums and stick to game!!!
Xenosaga has more religion in it than FF10 and it has christian religious beliefs in it!. I heard no complains there. But IN FF series, so called fans complain about everything!

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That's because they didn't take XenoSaga sewriously.
Now tack the religous implacations onto a game where they paid attention and you see what i mean?
IMHO it mirrored religion quite closley!
Remember where this game was made the western religions are a minority nor a majority.
So they got a outside view of thier religion in a nuyshell.