Gods and worshipers (Again!......)

From: Dave Pearton <pearton_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Fri, 20 Jan 1995 10:54:36 -0800 (PST)


Mike Cule:
>
> I've attracted a lot of flack about how much I believe a god knows about the
> thoughts of his priests, Lords and initiates.
>

That is not all that surprising considering how divided people have shown themselves to be over this issue in the past.

> I'm sorry but if the god can't take direct action to counter 'sinful' actions
> (Whatever he conceived that to be) by his priests and initiates then you don't
> have a universe like Glorantha where the gods are imminent and active.
> ("And they come round and kick in agnostic's doors..." Yes thank you Terry.)

Unfortunately, Glorantha as it stands does not appear to agree with this position. Lokymadon gives us the example of a wilfull manipulation of a cult,  and indeed even the God of the cult. The actions of the God learners would seem to be contradictory to this veiw as well. The Gods are "immanent and active" only in terms of the compromise and I don't believe that the actions permited by the compromise include the sorts of actions that you envision the Gods performing.

>
> A god is a big, powerful being with no direct concept of Time and what it's like
> to live inside time. But he is not NOT NOT!!!!(Sorry, getting irritable there)
> the creature of his priests. They cannot remake him at their pleasure.

The "reality" of Glorantha shows us differently. It might not be easy but a God can certainly be changed in some ways. As Greg put it, the God can be recognised as showing a different "aspect" if enough people believe that the God does indeed have that aspect. Thus Ernalda could become assosiated with chaos. This does not change the "underlying goddess" but brings to view an aspect that was previously not seen (and did not exist before - I'm not sure?). This might require some heavy duty heroquesting, but it can be done. Who gave the example that Zorak Zoran used to be a clever God?

 That's
> what got me so infuriated with the Elmal thing. The Orlanthi would not have had
> to have a myth about the sun nor a sun god to worship. The gods are real and
> pre-exist the cultures that arose to worship them. There is mutual
> interdependence between mortals and gods but that doesn't make the god helpless
> to act in his own interests.

I believe that you differ in this from a number of people. A god is not "helpless" to act in his own behalf, but he is highly constrained. His actions, powers, etc are dependant on those aspects which are recognised by the cult that is worshipping him.


My thanks to all who organised RQConII. I must admit I had an absolute rave. Kudos to all involved.


Re: RQCon in Chicago.

I was under the impression that Avalon Hill had said something about limiting cons containing the word "Runequest" to one a year, or have I been misinformed?

Cheers.
Dave


Dave Pearton				* ....As I was saying before I
Biochemistry Dept.			* was so rudely interrupted
University of Washington		* by one of my multiple
Seattle					* personalities....
pearton_at_u.washington.edu		*
pearton_at_unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za		* Naked Lunch (W.S. Burroughs)
************************************************************************


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End of Glorantha Digest V1 #97


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