Martin Laurie states the two positions very clearly:
i) GODS ARE REAL and ii) GODS ARE CREATED (BUT REAL).
I do not find these two positions mutually exclusive (indeed I think that the two opposing side are far closer then they might think. Just on reading their arguments, I find it difficult to tell which side is which! Perhaps there is difficulty in the way the arguments are interpreted rather than in the real content).
I play it that the gods did and do exist. There was a gods age when they went around doing god things (largely incompetent!). However these great spirits are not immutable, by interaction on the Hero / Gods plane, myths can be changed. So it is a bit of both, you have big entities on the 'myth' plane. Being big they attract worship (they have lots to offer followers), which makes them bigger, and changes them.
Also some time back people were having difficulty with the idea of a timeless gods age. I do not it necessarily means that there is no (semi) ordered sequence of events, but it could just mean that these events are not fixed in time. So they could change, and still can through interaction with the 'myth' plane (Hero questing etc.).
So I think peoples positions are not as far apart as they think. They simply have varying tastes to the degree the god 'forms' the worshippers (i.e. they and their deeds are the basis of the culture) and the worshippers 'form' the god. A bit of both.
Also I think some of the exchanges have been (unintentionally) harsh. Please bear in mind how difficult it is communicating by e-mails, which are so short as to make it difficult to express yourself fully. Very often it is easy to get carried away in an argument and for it to come out looking a little nasty.
Stephen Lucek.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #241
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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