>So I can't see most people being willing to
>admit that some other culture's god of whatever (if it
>is important, like the sun usually is) is superior to
>their own culture's.
Because they don't. I said in a specific area, Elmal is weaker than Yelm in the command of Fire and the Orlanthi acknowledge this by knowing Yelm to be the King of the Fire tribe (they don't worship Yelm because he's evil). Secondly the Orlanthi do not think Yelm is a superior sun.
>I'm searching for good examples. There are not that
>many where two theistic cultures worship different
>gods of a single rune and one is great god where the
>other is not.
Yelm and Elmal, Orlanth and Entekos, Heler and Magasta...
>I can't remember who the Dara Happans worship as their
>Earth Great Goddess. Is it an Ernalda cognate?
Oria. I think she is great, but the rune is different (and weirdly related to the rune for Carmanos!).
> > >As an alternative example (one that helps prove my
> > >point, of course), consider Orlanth and Storm Bull
> > >for a Praxian.
> > A bad example to use. We have been talking about
> > theistic cultures yet the Praxians are animist and
> > play by different rules.
>I don't buy this explanation. You used the yellow
>elves as an example,
I didn't. I said "If there were worshippers of a Lesser Sun God in and around Teshnos (perhaps among the Yellow Elves)...".
>and the elves play by extremely
>different rules, since they can mix and match theism
>and animism without even identifying them as such.
The incapability of the elves from distinguishing between theism and animism is irrelevant. If it is a god, then it is by definition, a theistic entity and thus not their Sun spirit Halamalao. And when they do worship it, they will be aware that it is not the ultimate fire god.
> > There can only be one great god of a given rune and
> > any theist that investigates the cosmos will recognize
> > the great god behind a given manifestation.
>I doubt the second half of this statement. How does a
>theist recognize that a particular god is a Great God?
Through observation. I sacrifice to the Storm, I end up in the Storm Realm. I sacrifice to the Earth, I end up in Daleel, the Earth Realm. The God at the centre of that Realm is the Great God.
>None of the descriptions of Orlanth in his hall on
>the God Plane seem to imply this to me.
Not even the bits about him being surrounded by other gods? I forbore to mention the ninth door.
>In fact, aspects (with which our heroes on the god plane
>seem to interact) seem to exist precisely to bring the
>unknowable down to comprehensible levels. Do you
>recognize a Great gods because he shifts aspects?
Since lesser gods only have one aspect, having multiple aspects is a sign of being a great god, no?
> > Hence Praxians won't recognize Orlanth as the source
> > of Storm and thus they won't recognize Storm Bull as
> > being weaker in storm than Orlanth.
>Bull. (Heh. Sorry.) They don't recognize Storm Bull's Little
>Brother as being stronger because he isn't.
Because they are animists. If the Praxians were theists, then they would recognize Storm Bull as being weaker as do the Orlanthi.
>I think a better argument is that a theistic Great
>God's power does not fully emanate into the Spirit
>Plane.
The power of a Great God (and other theistic entities) does not emanate into the Spirit Plane at all, except in the case of misapplied worship. That is why I have been busy restricting myself to theistic emanations when describing Great Gods over the past week.
>The implication of this, though, is that the Great Gods
>are not universal. You could have a Great Spirit that
>is the animistic "rune holder" from a GL standpoint that
>is not the equivalent of the theistic one.
I did say something of the sort in v8 #512, over four days ago. It also happens to lead to the same sort of reasoning why Praxians don't think Orlanth is great that you so politely dismiss as "bull".
>Since I don't buy this argument either (I only said it
>was a better argument, not a true one), I think the
>real answer is that ordinary Gloranthans are not able
>to rate the gods of their own cultures compared to
>those of other cultures.
So the Orlanthi can't tell whether Magasta is a greater god than Heler? And if they can tell, then why can't they do the same with other gods?
>They will use the exact same sort of evidence (and be subject
>to the same sorts of physchology) as people in the real world.
Except that gloranthans have access to _magical_ evidence. Unless you believe in the uncanonical belief makes reality position, the gods have real existence on the godplane (although it doesn't work like the mortal world does) and given such a existence, they can be compared with one another. How else do you think the gloranthans could come up with the concept of Great Gods?
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