The short answer is that any given initiate is not required to believe everything. The other short answer is that Elmal is no longer thought of as an actual Sun God by those who understand the Yelmic religion (by and large, those who bought into the Dara Happan Yelmic stuff ended up in Yelmalio).
A longer answer, to summarise very roughly and briefly, is originally the Orlanthi had a god called Elmal, and a god called Orlanth who fought an evil tyrant, the Emperor. Different tribes were keener on one or the other. They knew that killing the tyrant was a Bad Thing, because the world got all messed up and it had to be put right. Later, both sets of Orlanthi (the Summer and Winter Wife tribes) met the Dara Happans, and a bunch more people besides, at the First Council. It was there they heard the stories of the Dara Happan Rebellus Terminus, who slew the son of the Sun, and caused all the trouble. Once they worked out that the Dara Happan Yelm was the Emperor, they started to think about Elmal. They did have differing opinions, some people believing that Elmal was on Orlanths side, and others believing that Elmal must be somehow connected to this ruling Sun god. But then again, at this time the Orlanthi disagreed on all sorts of religious questions anyway. Shortly thereafter, a great Storm Voice, called Lokamayadon, tried to reconcile all this disparate Orlanthi mythology, on this and other issues. Particularly on the issue of whether they should all venerate him. And not too long after that, the various Orlanthi tribes began hacking each other apart, in part because of religious differences over issues like Elmal, and whether Lokamayadon was Orlanth, and so on. Basically, the people who thought that Elmal was a sun god who was part of the Solar religion got chopped to bits, by Orlanthi, then Humakti, then trolls.
Cheers
David
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