[maximara]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Sanctity is not a matter of belief.

Very true. An Object of Power will being cranking up the Sanctity level of the area regardless of what the person holding it believes.

Originally Posted by whswhs

The Catholic Church distinguishes theologically between sacramentals, such as prayer and blessings, which depend on the faith of the person who performs them, and sacraments, such as baptism, holy communion, or ordination, which do not—God said they would work, and they work. The bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ regardless of the mental, moral, or spiritual state of the priest. They are officially, theologically like the folkloric joke that a Saint Christopher medal protects you whether you believe in it or not. Trying to stop this would be like trying to stop a gun from shooting by asserting the belief that it's not loaded, or trying to withstand the bullet by believing in your own invulnerability.

This, IMHO, is a horrible example as it gets into the sticky issue of schisming. One thing GURPS Religion does not make clear enough is that no religion is monolithic.

Paul himself talks about Christianity becoming fragmented via his warning about accepting teachings from "another Jesus", "another scripture", and/or "another Spirit".

Things were such a mess by the 2nd century that Against Heresies was written to try and clean it up. Even as the The Council of Nicaea of the 4th century tried to hammer out what would become Catholic Church Orthodoxy the religion was happily schisming itself into Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syica, Armenian Apostolic, and Malankara denominations.