@Dalek posting images is merely a case of uploading them to the tvtropes imageserver and then copying their direct image server link to here Without any quotations or [[]]

There's also the fact that they would need every pegasi pony to do it. One of the pegasi in the beginning even reads the notice, and it says "MANDATORY meeting for all Ponyville pegasi."

@Story: Yeah, I've been meaning to reorganize it for a while, but I just haven't had the time.

Spike Plushie

Minerology Today.

Folks, could I ask you all how 'religion' might work within Equestria without things getting nasty?

I first want to say, that I don't see Tia as a god...nah, she's more like the pope, or the Dalai Lama. And their religion worships the concept of friendship itself. Their nation and society is built on it.

Any suggestions?

Well, EP drew another picture of Firefly with a shaved off horn. It might just be EP's headcanon at work...or Firefly is just that badass.

Twilight Sparkle sent many letters to Princess Celestia detailing what she learned about the magic of friendship. These letters, along with many other writings, were collected into a book. The "Book of Friendship, " as it was called, contained many teachings of love and tolerance, sharing and caring.

And an organization based around this book sprang up, called the Fraternity of the Joyous Friends of Princess Celestia. And whenever a Brother (or Sister) comes of age, it is their task to spread the word of the magic of friendship across Equestria and beyond.

Eheh.

edited 8th Nov '12 9:32:19 AM by Pannic

How far in the future is it?

Neeeever did decide on that. Decided to just leave it vague.

edited 8th Nov '12 9:43:03 AM by Pannic

Ah, ok.

Is Twi and the others still alive?

Religion is actually an interesting notion... I mean in my headcanon I've worked out effectively how their afterlife works(red: It does not. They have reincarnation and spirits, but no proepr afterlife), but the only ponnies who would know this for sure are the gods, and they aren't talking.

I imagine it could develop in a lot of ways. It's very clear that the ponies have a level of reverance for the goddeses, but it's never made clear how much of this is over divinity versus mere royalty. IT's very probable that the 'main' religion is the worship of one's patron deities, and in this case there'd be little need for overt worship since... well, they have the word of god handed down to them directly. It's called 'the law'.

What mkaes it most difficult to judge is that we don't HAVE any uber-powerful beings to deign as deities, so it's hard for us to predict them. I don't think it's impossible that there would be at least some form of cult that worshipped other things - nature is probably a big one, and It wouldn't surprise me to see an organization that treats magic as a blessing from some unseen god - I recall reading a story that referred to 'the providences', although it had nothing much to do with religion in and of itself. And of course there's always the notion of discord-worshippers, or possibly harmony-worshippers as well. For my own headcanon I consider Harmony and Discord to be twin eldritch abomination who just sort of accidentally made the world through their eternal conflict, so I'm inclined to lean towards that answer...

TL;DR: Society is most likely barely religious, or completely areligious due to a 'god' being a part of every day life and literally governing them anyways, but I imagine there are several smaller religions, so... make shit up, really. Nobody's going to blame you for it. Well. Some people will, but they're well worth ignoring.

That's not new to me. Different time zones and all that. This chapter has a huge Oh Crap moment in Princess Celestia apparently trying to hush up the Ancient Conspiracy and keep Dresden out of the loop as much as she can.

I wonder if there's a pony Discordian Society.

@ Sinclair: Oooooh dear...Harry's gonna love that.

Well, atheism can't possibly exist in pony society due to the gods living among them. They can't have faith either. Faith implies you believe in something despite lack of evidence but, again, the gods are right in front of them.

Celestia, Luna and Discord would definitely be considered deities of some kind. I'm not so sure about Cadence.

@Applelight: Going solely by the show's canon; they don't seem to have any form of organized religion. Their society is based around the central idea that friendship is awesome, but it isn't really religious in any notable way. The basic idea is compatible with both religious and secular philosophies, so you could really spin it either way. They obviously won't bring up the subject in-show, though.

Likewise, races or other countries might have different core philosophies (Again, we have no idea), and some of them might be formalized as religious in nature, but it's really entirely conjecture.

Honestly, I don't even necessarily buy that Celestia and Luna are even deities. The reverence they receive from the ponies borders on it at points, but there's no indication that they're anything other than ponies who happen to be powerful and long-lived. The only being who approaches the level of power of divinity is Discord, and even he got his butt kicked by the elements. Honestly, if anything the abstractions of the elements of harmony are the guiding forces of the setting. They're the only things that haven't been defeated in some fashion; every time they're used, they end up winning.

Also, That it is not at all what faith means in a religious context, at least not most of the time. It's something more akin to trusting someone or something. It's entirely possible for the ponies to have faith in Celestia; in fact, that's practically been shown. They have faith in the sense that they trust her to do the right thing despite the fact that it's impossible to quantifiably prove that she will. It's a character thing, not a "does this thing objectively exist or not exist" thing.

edited 8th Nov '12 10:59:42 AM by JapaneseTeeth

@Mio, I don't, I think the people that have that thought process about Hurricane Fluttershy are irrational and need their heads checked.

In other news, I am acquiring the pony game from gameloft to see what I can see.

@ JT

That's interesting...harmony is Equestria's binding trait, and it could be either religiously or secularly followed.

@Librarian: She did order said conspiracy to disband back when it was (semi-)official, but still doesn't want Harry to personally handle interrogations (even if all he did was scare the last suspect a bit), wants him to travel with an elite palace guard escort (and really, how well would that work when anyone could be in on the Kill Harry plot), and most important of all, wants him to only limit his investigation to Ponyville.

Sounds pretty suspicious to me.

No it's pretty much, she doesn't want to risk harry, well being Harry, and hurting/killing a pony out of anger if he finds out they put his friends at risk. Also Bon Bon is SO FUCKED!

it's pretty clear she doesn't fully trust harry, she believes he has a good heart, and is overall a good person, but he's still a person, violent, prone to anger and rage, a bit unstable, and willing to go far far far further then anypony would think to avenge/protect his friends.

edited 8th Nov '12 11:16:25 AM by Seraphem

And here we see Michelle Creber, voice of Apple Bloom, descending into madness.

Another new game on The Hub's website: Twilight Sparkle's Magical Mysteries

Gilda is bestpony.

Don't mind me, I'm just performing an experiment.

   BURN FOR YOUR OPINION