>Subjectivists, terrorists? Never! Just folks with different viewpoints.
>MGF rules, beyond all else.
By insisting that other cultures must have exactly the same viewpoint viz-a-viz the gods as do the Orlanthi seems to be insisting in a reduction of MGF in glorantha IMO.
> What we're talking about here is not the nature of what the typical
>Gloranthan believes, but what is actually in existences within the God
>Time and the nature of Gloranthan Mythic reality.
Why should it matter? Nobody in glorantha knows the precise details of the nature of atomism in glorantha nor its precise shape. Yet people adventure quite happily within it just the same.
>These issues are
>vitally important because the the nature of Gloranthan Reality itself
>arises from the action of Myth. To say that Gloranthan Myth is but a
>cultural construct is to say that Gloranthan Reality in and of itself is
>to varying degrees false.
Gloranthan Reality does *not* arise from the action of Myth. Myths are only the stories people tell about what happened. Sun Worship does not depend on people knowing that many years ago the Sun vanished from the Sky in a period of the Great Darkness. Some people are even ignorant of the Sun Stop!
>I subscribe to the belief that the events as
>described in the Lightbringer Myths did happen in God Time,
Why are the Lightbringer myths completely and utterly right and the myths of all other pantheons an orchestrated litany of lies? For all your lenghty posts, you have not provided a meaningful answer to this one.
>To say that no myth is correct means that all Gloranthan Myth is a lie.
Is the story of the Noah's Ark a lie? Are the romances of King Arthur lies? Is Argrath's Saga a lie? To say that a myth is a lie misses the point. The Gods do not care about myths, all they require is worship. Myths are what people say to make the Gods more understandable in their eyes. Sometimes it will be a literal telling of what the God did. Sometimes it will be a fable. What matters is *not* whether it is true but whether the worshippers believe in it.
>To say that the Gods don't have an independent existence of
>their worshippers robs them of their uniqueness and fun potential, IMO.
I would be very interested to know who has said this. If you can't answer, then for crying out loud, quit the strawmanning. All that has been argued about so far is the subjectivity of myth.
>It also implies that Gloran
than Theists are simply chumps who have no
>idea about the true nature of the powers they use.
No it doesn't. It merely says that *nobody* knows what the Truth is. The Theists are just as correct as the Malkioni and the Hsunchen are about the true nature of the powers that they use. Who do you think has the truth if what you say is true?
>It also robs the
>universe of the meaningful potentials of faith and religion in
>Roleplaying
No it doesn't. Look at the writeups of the Sects and Heresies of the Invisible God. People *die* for their faith in the West yet the people who carry out the persecution more often than not follow the *same* god. Likewise the Arrolian Lunars have been persecuted by the Heartland and Carmanian Lunars for their faith. Temertain is going to get it in the neck in 1624 ST because he believes that co-operation with the Lunars is possible unlike the Humakti Assasins.
>A subjective Glorantha also raises problems for myself
>personally of what the causes are behind DI, Spirits of Reprisal, and so
>on.
Perhaps you ought to make yourself clearer. Why does the theory of subjective myth disprove DI, SoR and so forth? These are fueled by what the initiate's *community* believes.
>Oh, BTW, Deities can't fiddle with the universe, directly, anymore.
>It's forbidden by the Compromise!
Unadulterated tripe. Major Divine Interventions within the World have included: the Sun Stop, Orlanth battling Zistor, Nysalor walking the Earth and the Battle of Castle Blue. I don't know about you, but if the Great Compromise is able to be violated so often that gloranthans count time by it, then I have serious doubts about the Orlanthi claims of the Compromise.
>I've always held the
>view that the Gods in Glorantha had their own agendas, weaknessess,
>strengths, and petty jealousies.
And the opposing view is that such agendas, weaknesses, strengthes and petty jealousies are reflected by the Culture of the God. The Storm God among the Sartarites has different attributes than the Storm God among the Pentans. In short, the myths and most of the attributes are attached to the Masks by the culture and *not* to the God itself.
>But, in order for Glorantha to be an
>internally consistent gaming and literary universe, certain facts and
>truths have to be decided
And it is being pointed out to you that the precise nature of gods is *not* one of these facts. By insisting that the Gods should be like the Orlanthi say they are totally screws up other culture's beliefs and leads us into shallow handwaving in order to "save" Glorantha as an internally consistent universe such as: the Gods willingly bullshit to their own worshippers (even gods which value truth and honor!).
>I roll up my arms to defend my Universalist subjective-Objective point
>of view against the pure subjectivists.
Perhaps you could do your cause some good by actually bothering to understand what your opponent's PoV actually is. HINT: It's *not* pure subjectivism.
>Debate here on the Digest has also made me
>understand that all Gloranthan cultures have a degree of truth, or at
>least fact, elsewise they would have no magic and no place in the world.
Why? A gloranthan can believe a something about his or her god which can be proven to be false and yet he can still gain useful magic from it. An example: for a long time Shargash was thought to be Yelm's son and so the two cults were associated. Then there was a period in which the lies of the past were hunted down and exposed and suprise! Shargash was found *not* to be the Son of Yelm. So how did the worshippers managed to gain the spells? Through their *Faith* and not through the literal accuracy of their myth.
>I do not like a purely Humanocentric Gloranthan universe.
>Gods ARE People! They have quirks, vendettas, good points, and bad
>habits!
It may surprise you but the same god found in different cultures can have manifestly different quirks et al. An obvious example is the Sun God who is known as Yelm, Kargzant, Somash, Elmal and Yelmalio. Likewise the Storm God is Dorburdon, Orlanth, Shargash, Four Winds of Pent, Storm Bull and Brastalos.
>Orlanth worship has been outlawed in Sartar as of 1621 ST for
>political reasons as well as mythic ones.
Wrong. Orlanth worship is still legitimate in Sartar. The temple is closed in Pavis but they still have Orlanthi worship there.
>According to the River of
>Cradles book, the Red Emperor supposedly declares a year of celebration
>throughout the Lunar Empire to celebrate the death or Orlanth with the
>fall of Whitewall.
Learn to quote correctly. RoC speaks of his 'final defeat'. In KoS, Orlanth is not dead, he has 'fallen and the outlaw gods of the world were brought low. The chief of the barbarian gods was revealed to be nothing in the light of the Red Moon. The deities of Heaven had once again re-asserted their primeval claim to leadership in the universe'. (KoS p149). Even the Fortunate Succession talks about Orlanth being allowed to live 'within reasonable limits'.
>Why does not Yelm strike evildoers down as they walk down the street,
>for example?
This is a totally fallacious argument for the existance of the Great Compromise. Many people in this world believe in an Almighty yet do not rely on the existance of a compromise (with the Devil?) to explain why He does not smite the Evildoer with Extreme Prejudice. So why should the Gloranthans?
>Also, its
>been stated several times here on the Digest that GRoY and Entekosiad
>are oftiesm thinly veiled Luanr propaganda, written by humans.
I would be suprised if the GRAY is lunar propoganda as it was written a thousand years before the rise of the Red Moon. The Fortunate Succession (which may be what you're thinking of) is partial Lunar Propoganda but concerns itself with history rather than myth.
The GRAY was written at the Glorious Return of the Emperor Yelm to the Throne of the World at 221 ST. (Yes, there's a discrepancy between this and the Dawn). It reveals that the History of Dara Happa is but an Epic Epiphany of the Great God Yelm.
The Entekosiad was written by a Lunar heretic and documents her struggles to understand where she went wrong (she thought that Entekos and the Red Goddess were the same being but it turned out this was a subjective error).
But this is no different from Orlanthi myth as all myths are written by Humans (or humanoids).
>Yes, I believe Gods can lie, when it suits their purposes.
Even those who honor Truth and Honor (like Yelm and Orlanth for example)? Yuck. I want Gods to *care* about their worshippers not screw them the very instant it conflicts with their purposes (which no one can coherently explain). Having the divinations and myths attached to the masks allows this to happen.
>The two Gods wish peace, but are forbidden to directly order their
>worshippers due to arcane aspects of the Compromise. Thus, these two or
>more potentially hostile PC's must quest to make peace in the world, and
>HeroQuest to demonstrate to their people that their Gods no longer wish
>war.
It has already been done by Hwarin Dalthippa, Hon-eel, Temertain and countless other people in history. Many of the Orlanthi chose not to follow these new ways and have stubbornly insisted in following the old.
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