more theology

From: Jeff Richard <jrichard_at_cnw.com>
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:07:19 -0700


Howdy hi,

Sorry about that earlier post, I forget to fix my Exchange format.

Mark wrote:
> Anyway, Glorantha subjectivists don't seem to have
>much problems kicking stuff out of the canon. The Yelmalion
>cult write-up is treated as a tissue of lies. Inconvenient
>older sources are retroactively attributed to god-learners and
>dismissed.

The Yelmalio cult is a tissue of lies. I hated the cult (except for the Sun County variant - which is marvelous and inspired) back in RQ2/3 (because it made no cultural sense as far as I was concerned - it seemed to be a bad legacy of Greg's "elemental culture" days), thanks to King of Sartar I now have something to hang that hat on.

Part of the charm of Glorantha is that Greg has written a large amount of contradictory material from the perspective of many cultures. Back in the old days, most of that was from a perspective that I now attribute to the heavily Jrusteli-influenced Lhankhor Mhy sages of Nochet. Nochet is a grand city and fabled for its cosmopolitan literacy (indeed many Grey Beards sneer at the pretensions of the so-called "civilized" Lunar Empire) as is only proper for the restored entrepot of Kethaela. Nonetheless, why should I say that the rantings of a Nochet scholar is a particularly persuasive authority on the myths and practices of the Heortlendings, let alone Peloria?

Carl, though, is impressively unrepentant in his commitment to the Nochet neo-God Learner heresy. Perhaps the Gift Carriers need to be summoned again:

>It still makes no sense to me that one can ask Yelmalio
>questions ("Are you the god worshipped by the Aldryami as "Yelmalio"?
>and "Are you the god called "Elmal"?) and get different answers,
>depending on *one's own opinion at the time*. Oh, abolish
>heroquesting, too.

I have never thought that divination can answer questions like that - or more precisely, the answer you would get would be rather meaningless. If Heorl the Storm Voice sacrificed a ram to Orlanth the Thunderer and tried to divine if Orlanth was the god known by the Dara Happans as "Rebellus Terminus", the answer would depend on if the local cult of Orlanth the Thunderer identifies itself with "Rebellus Terminus" - in otherwords a pointless request.

Personally, I think most priests have better uses for divination than satisfying such teleological questions.

>What I'm saying is that I can accept ambiguity in historical data recorded
by subjective observers. >Ambiguity in philosophical debate is inevitable. Ambiguity in *direct experience of the world*, however, I >find as repugnant as Einstein did. (Yes, I know he was wrong.)

Personally, when Boltho throws a Thunderbolt to smite his foes, I doubt there is ambigiuty in the direct experience of the event. Asking whether Orlanth the Thunderer, Shargash the Destroyer or Lanatum was the direct source of the Thunderbolt is likely to have a subjective response - Boltho would say Orlanth, Plentonius would have said Lanatum, and maybe an Alkothi would think that Boltho worships a barbaric variant of Shargash.

Jeff


Powered by hypermail