>Now a question. Correct me if I'm wrong Peter but from what I've read you
>seem to believe that what a society's elites and intellectuals believe is
>all that's important. What about the great unwashed masses?
The unwashed masses do hold different beliefs than that of the literai. I was merely objecting to the assumption that the literai know the belief is false but conceal the truth from unwashed masses. More likely the literai have given up on educating the unwashed masses. However some beliefs do change but these are most relevant to politics rather than natural philosophy (ie the faith of the king is more relevant to the peasant than the shape of the earth).
>Now another question. Working from the supposition that in our world the
>only way you can accept a religion is through faith (if this is even true)
>what would it be like to live in a world like Glorantha where there is
>tangible evidence of the divine? It would really IMO be a different kettle
>of fish than our own situation.
Not really. I don't really see tangible evidence of the divine as being a different kettle of fish. The impartial observer would view the beliefs of various religions (Malkionism, Orlanthi Theism, Praxian Shamanism etc) as being merely beliefs.
Merely the fact that a Godi prayed to Orlanth for a thunderbolt and was rewarded does not prove that what the Godi believes about Orlanth is true (or whether 'Orlanth' has a concrete existance independant of his worshippers). All the impartial observer can conclude is that the Godi has interacted with the Otherworld using the spiritual beliefs of his culture to call down a lightning bolt.
If he had tools to observe the Otherworld, then he would see some evidence of the Godi's belief system there. But he cannot disprove the hypothesis that the section of the Otherworld that he observed was created by the Godi's culture.
What does not matter is whether the beliefs are true but whether they actually _work_. A RW medieval alchemist's recipes work (the mundane ones anyway) regardless of the fact that his worldview bears little or no resemblence to modern chemistry. His beliefs are modified by the results of his recipes. A gloranthan magic worker is in the same boat IMO. The Godi's faith in his god is reinforced (but not confirmed by the impartial observer's standards) by the fact that his magic works - he prays to Orlanth and his wounds are healed, he can talk to Orlanth and recieve advice (but then everybody has voices in their head) and so on. If the Godi's magic is not successful then he might modify his behaviour (mend his ways) or change to a new religion.
Thus I do not view Glorantha in terms of independant gods but rather in terms of cultural groups interacting with their environment and each other. It makes better history for starters IMO.
Pam Carlson:
>Quite arguable, IMO. In the RW, most western religions make a big deal
>about faith, but I don't think many others do.
Well since reincarnation is pretty much an article of faith for buddhism and hinduism (they don't make sense otherwise), I don't think this statement is true. Faith is about belief in things which are by definition unprovable (or unfalsifiable).
Philip Hibbs:
>This is a point that I try to get across to my players - that a
>sorceror certainly *believes* in a god, in that (s)he accepts
>that it has some form of existence, but that is distinct from
>*worshipping* a god or believeing that that god had merit.
Some sorcerers and wizards may believe this. Others do not and view the god as a collective hallucination of natural forces.
>Did the God Learners' mythical meddling only affect the areas that
>they could mundane-travel to?
For the most part yes. Much of their meddling was confined to regions that they could control. This was done by forcing their subjects to do such and such in their holy rites or face the tappers.
They could cause mythic happenings to occur in other peoples territory (notably the Two Year Winter and the battle of Tanian's victory) but such undertakings are hideously expensive and were only used for a certain purpose in mind (ie to disrupt the enemy to gain the upper hand in some area).
So although they could have buggered up Orlanthi mythology, the influence of Orlanth and the Orlanthi at the time begs the question of why? If they did it to get at somebody else, then this presumes the God Learners had foresight that was lacking in so many of the other things that they did (Sea of Flame and Goddess Switch).
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