>> I suppose that, say, Orlanth would not allow a religious war among >> orlanthi. It simply makes no sense. [snip] In Glorantha I assume the >> god would solve the conflict before it turned into war by signalingclearly
Trotsky:
> I think there's pretty strong evidence that gods aren't capable of this.
> The Invisible God certainly isn't, since the various Malkioni sects are
often
> quite hostile to each other.
IMO, as I say time and time again, taking examples based Malkionism when answering theist questions leads us nowhere. Because I think that the Invisible God does not belong to the same set to which belong other gods.
Anyway, since they are monotheists and believe that the Invisible God is everywhere and explains everything, fights among sects don't concern the true nature of the Invisible God, but only the subjective, partial and frequently wrong beliefs of mundane people about the IG. These are not fights about what the IG is or is not, but fights about unperfect and limited people believe and perceive about the IG. No common person can claim to fully reach the knowledge of the IG. The fact that sects fight each other prooves that both are wrong.
> To give a more clearly theist example, take the Arrolians. They worship
> the Red Goddess, yet have clear doctrinal differences with the mainstream
> Lunars, which resulted in them being kicked out of the Empire. Why didn't
> the Red Goddess simply point out to them that they weren't worshipping
> her correctly - or that they were and the Empire ought to change its
ideas,
> whichever was the case?
But the RG is an inclusive and changing godess. And she is tainted with chaos. How can anybody expect her to behave in a sensible way?
> That heresy exists and can be succesful, and that cults can change over
> the course of their history (as outlined for Yelm in FS) would seem to
> imply that gods have rather less influence over their worshippers than
> most of the latter might suppose.
There is a great deal of discretion to worshipers on how to worship their gods. This is required since the gods cannot not anymore manifest directly in Glorantha. So, let the worshipers find the best way to insure that the god keeps being respected and worshiped. Since things change in Glorantha, worship changes.
> If they don't intervene for one side or the other in the case of
religious
> schisms and heresies, I don't really see why they would (or ven could) if
> that schism grew to the point of religious war.
They could, can, and do. Eventually the *wrong* schism or heresy fades away. Or is cleansed through war. A schism or an heresy means that a part of the faithful have been tainted. That taint may be so strong that they don't even see the signs of their error sent by the god. This may force the pure to cleanse the taint by eliminating the tainted.
What I was saying was that no factions of a religion (with the exception of chaotic or chaotic-tainted religions) that keep their pure faith in the god would fight each other on religious grounds. They may fight on mundane grounds though.
Sergio
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