There are so many great aspects to this game, and I get that this game is full of humor and is quite tongue in cheek in many aspects. However, the heavy polytheistic overtones of the giants with their shrines (ie, multiple gods) and the devs playing "God", in many cases will come across as quite offensive to many who take their monotheist religions to heart (Jews and Christians - I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods above me; Muslims - "La-il-la-ha-illa-Allah" (ie There is no deity but the God)) and could even offend those of the Atheistic belief system (ie, belief in no God).
I get that this is a game, and I can choose or not to choose to play. I get that some will think that I'm being overly sensitive or silly to voice this opinion. However, I already know of some folks that once they saw this aspect of the game on the wiki page, refused to sign up as either alpha or beta testers because they felt these aspects of the game compromised their belief/value system. I opted to play, to see if I could ignore/not participate in these aspects of the game and hopefully offer a different view to those that may not be offended by this aspect of the gameplay.
While many people, even of these faiths (or non-faith), may be able to overlook this aspect of the game, is it really a smart business decision to potentially alienate up to 55% of your potential players if they can't? (percentage taken from www.adherents.com/Religions... ). As a business decision, it doesn't seem to make sense to keep people from even trying your game because of this type of content.
Frankly, I like the idea of having a spiritual aspect to an online game, and keeping this spiritual aspect could work if you would allow the religious part to be personalized to each player's preferred religion. However, this could be cumbersome/unrealistic on the coding side due to requiring to get the specifics of each denomination or sect correct within each of the over 4,300 different faith groups.
If you want to keep the premise of the 'giants', which I think you do, recommend morphing it into some sort of secular aspect to these 'giants'. (Not exactly sure what that would be at this point). However, instead of shrines, recommend making them charities...I'd be willing to donate goods to a charity in a heartbeat, but I'm not going to donate anything to a shrine of a fake god, and I suspect this will eventually severely hinder me in this game.
Also, while I am fine with the meditation, having to meditate with an orb and some of the others areas of the 'spiritual' aspects are a bit too new age/eastern for me to participate in based on my belief system. Again, another aspect of the game that will likely keep me back unless I compromise my belief system, which I am personally not willing to do (and yes, I understand that is my choice).
I think a game can be fun without being offensive to anyone's personal beliefs...though frankly there are very few out there that are succeeding in this arena since so many are about mysticism and various dark arts. This game has promise to be that unique game that can be a fun game and still cater to a broader audience. Even though I have a lot of gamer friends here (yes, one of the many Faunasphere Refugees), I will stop playing before I compromise myself in this area just to advance in a virtual game. I also think you are missing out on some great players joining your game due to these aspects of play.