Well, I'm not sure if Chris' last two posts, totalling 35K, actually included much _less_, though it's true his own comments were rather more evenly sprinkled through the quoted text this time.
> If the full truth of something is not known, then
> perhaps viewpoints regarding the subject may be subjective, but if the
> subject itself has phenomena that manifest within the world, there must
> be a cause for that particular phenomena.
Well, yes. Therefore Freyr really does control the rain over Cork, then?
> What we're talking about here is not the nature of what the typical
> Gloranthan believes,
But it should be! What's the purpose of arguments about the nature of the "objective underlying reality" if it _isn't_ something Gloranthans can have viewpoint-independant, or "repeatable" experience of? If we have a better basis for determining Gloranthan reality than what the "typical Gloranthan" believes it to be, then I'm most keen to hear it.
> but what is actually in existences within the God
> Time and the nature of Gloranthan Mythic reality.
What is "actually" in the God Time, or Gloranthan Mythic Reality, if not what Gloranthans perceive when they experience it? How it _got_ there is surely a secondary question at most.
> To say that Gloranthan Myth is but a cultural construct is to say that
> Gloranthan Reality in and of itself is to varying degrees false.
Well, I dunno. The Federal Reserve is a "cultural construct"; does that mean that North America is "false"?
> As I've stated before in other posts to the digest, I feel that the
> faces that we see of the Gods are partial influenced by the worship of
> their followers, but their fundamental natures and mythic acts remain
> the same. For example, King West Wind in Pent and Orlanth are two ways
> of seeing Primal Storm.
Chris, you appear to be asserting, either simultaneously or in rapid alternation, that the Gods are "Persons", and they're "Masks". Now, perhaps I'm just insufficiently Illuminated, but isn't this a more inconsistent belief than the ones you're trying to explain away thereby?
> The Alternative? [to gods being immutable self-aware entities]
> Gods are simply impersonal power sources, templates and
> filling stations from which to get spells for going through the right
> motions.
Light Straw Man and Retire. In Chris' zeal for a nice, neat choice (cum dichotomy) between a "Subjective" and an "Objective" reality, he ignores most of the ground of the discussion of the subject. It seems to me that the positions taken up cover a fairly graduated spectrum, which I'll now, as a public service, attempt to discretise and enumerate.
Disclaimer: Terminology is brazenly made up, categories are loose, characterisations are drawn with a broad brush -- so please go easy on me if you think you've had an unfortunate label slapped on you, ended up in the same camp as your hated enemies, or no camp at all, or have had your personal position wickedly misrepresented.
OK, who did I miss this time?
> To say that the Gods don't have an independent existence of
> their worshippers [...] also implies that Gloranthan Theists
> are simply chumps who have no idea about the true nature of the
> powers they use.
And conversely, doesn't your version of mostly-Theyalan One True Monomyth make chumps out of everyone in Glorantha who doesn't subscribe to it, namely most of 'em? Certainly the Westerners and the Mystics, but even a large swathe of Theists, to one degree or another.
> For myself personally, it helps me suspend disbelief when
> I RP and I know that the Gods are real and that the realtionship that my
> Sword of Humakt or 7 Mothers Rune Lord has with his or her deity is a
> real, immediate, and personal one.
Let me first say, before I'm excorciated as a Wicked Evil Subjectivist Oppressor, that however people want to run (or play in) their own games, it's entirely hunky-dory with me. Whatever Floats Your Boat, the More the Merrier, and Go Forth And Do Likewise.
But: the issue here isn't the experience of the _character_. All the obj/subj stuff has, at least largely, not been to do with what _they_ experience: all seem agreed that religious experience is entirely, to use that notorious FGSism, "real for them". So this is a matter purely of the _player's_ belief. If for some strange reason a player and ref. entered into a deep, ongoing out-of-character discussion about the nature of Gloranthan reality, then possibly about the least disbeliefsuspending answer I could think of would be that each culture is "somewhat" correct, and here's a pan-Gloranthan explanation as to the _real_ situation, before post-GodTime perturbation errors started sneaking in. Answers such as for example, Humakt being a Mask of Primal Death (not a very Orlanthi belief), or the RG and pre-Dawn Dara Happan myth being governed by "the Compromise", which is a very non-Lunar one.
> In a world without true, real, objective gods, this reduces Rune
> Masters to the status of mere technicians.
I find this characterisation truly baffling. It would seem to, if anything, "reduce" them to the status of religious leaders with a sincere belief in their god. I can see more of a case for exactly the opposite argument; if you treat the Gods as Manifestly Objective, and not conditioned in any way by belief, then it would seem that worship-by-rote would be rather _more_ feasible. (Not that there isn't reason to believe this happens anyway.)
> A subjective Glorantha also raises problems for myself personally of
> what the causes are behind DI, Spirits of Reprisal, and so on.
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but might it possibly be The Gods? The question isn't "are they?", is "_what_ are they"? (And "does it matter, anyway?")
> For my purposes of Storytelling, I
> need to decide what the nature of the cosmos is [...]
I find this is very odd attitude. Isn't this a bit like saying that without a Unified Field Theory, or knowing if the Copenhagen Interpretation of QED is true, that it's impossible to write, say, a detective story set in the RW? Why is the True Nature of the Cosmos (something that if you lined up every person on the Lozenge, they still wouldn't reach a Conclusion over) necessary, or even relevant to, telling stories about, or otherwise gaming in, Glorantha?
This has been batted around many times before, but I have never seen a convincing answer: for what Storytelling, Playing, or GMing purpose is a True Nature of the Cosmos necessary?
> The local aspects of Orlanth have been swallowed and
> subsumed by Lunar magical conquest, God-Learner style.
Please place 10 Imperials in the "gratuitous and inappropriate rhetorical use of the term God Learner" Teelo Noori charity box.
Tax(on)ingly,
Alex.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #500
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