Trotsky:
> Your original point was that intra-religious warfare could not occur -
Orlanth
> just 'wouldn't allow' it, to you use your own words. It would appear from
the
> above that you have changed this to 'intra-religious warfare does exist,
but
> the good guys (from the god's POV) always win'. This is, IMO, a rather
> different point from the one that was originally being addressed.
Not so. What I'm saying is that the *bad guys* are no longer part of the religious community. They abandoned its strictures, they became apostates. Now, a god may signal this soon when the *fallen* start to show that they departed from its religion; the god may act directly against the apostate (frex, through spirits of reprisal); or the god may wait to a final and decisive moment, when he will fail them and fully suport the faithful. This doesn't change the key point: if you depart from your god, you're no longer part of his community. Fighting you is not an intra-religious war.
> As I don't know much about the Lokamayadon conflict, I'll only make the
> following brief points about it:
I can the same myself, I don't know much about him either. So, what I will say in the following comments is based on my interpretation based on very incomplete info.
> Lokamayadon did have storm powers, and pretty impressive ones at that.
> Arguably, they weren't proper Orlanthi ones (or so the people who
> defeated him would claim), but they were definately storm powers.
As you say, to have storm powers is a thing; to have Orlanth's storm power is another. A war between the followers of two storm gods or two storm powers is not an intra-religious war.
Me:
<< In order to receive the benefits of worshiping a god, one must keep pure
in his faith. If one departs from the strictures of his faith, one will
loose
access to those benefits. >>
> Unless you're illuminated - as I think Lokamayadon may have been
To a certain extent, yes. I think that the question of illumination must be thought in a different way. Being illuminated means that you're tainted by chaos. It doesn't make your chaos taint acceptable to your (non-chaotic) god. It simply makes it hard to discover your chaos connection. I see illumination in this regard like a steath fighter on what concerns radars: it's not undetectable; it simply is very hard to detect. So, once your god acknowledge that your illuminated, it will get rid of you as fast as he can, since you're even more dangerous
Trotsky:
<< We know of similar heretical movements within the cult of Yelm,
some
of which resulted in outright warfare. Those which eventually lost were of
course, regarded by later Dara Happan historians as genuine heresies, while
those which won were regarded as 'new understandings'. You might argue that
the later historians were objectively correct, since Yelm wouldn't have
allowed the new movements if he hadn't approved of them (and, in all
fairness,
this would be what the Dara Happans themselves would argue) >>
This is what I would say, yes.
<< but some of these succesful movements were radically different than their predecessors, and on has to wonder why Yelm didn't make his wishes known a bit sooner. >>
The key point here is time. Gods are out of time. Time is an allien concept to them. The order of events is unimportant from a god's POV (of course it's fundamental from the worshipers POV), what matters is the holistic (in time and space terms) that the god keeps his worship and mythical significance.
<< For instance, in the First Age, the DH Emporer was a god, and
worshipped as such, but after the events of Nysalor's life it was decided
that
he was just a man, after all, albeit one with important religious
functions. This
seems to me a pretty fundamental change, and not just an alteration in
style
of worship. I think if Yelm didn't want people to worship the DH Emporer as
a
god, he could have said so in Khordavu's reign, if not earlier. >>
Only men perceive the change, since this a time-ordained change. At a divine level, the DH Emperor is both a man an a god and has the proper worship where it must happen.
<< I agree in so far as this would be what the victorious faction would
believe had occured. However, I don't think one can predict in advance
which
faction it is that will win; the new 'heretical' movement eventually
becoming
the orthodoxy, or the old forms of religion re-asserting themselves - there
have been instances of both in the Yelmic histories. >>
Contrary to gods, men are within time. They must respect the order of
events. So, they cannot predict in advance which faction will win, or they
would break the time frame. What men can do is keep their faith and respect
the commandments of their god. If they do so, they can be certain that they
will win. They don't know when, where or how, but they will win. Those that
depart from the god are doomed. You don't need to know the future to know
wheter you are or are not with your god. A relationship with a god does not
know past of future, it only knows *now*: I am (and not 'I was' or 'I will
be') filled with my god's will.
The heretical can be deceived and in good faith think that they are with
the god. That only proves that they are wrong. They are blind and don't
listen, or they would submit to the true faithful. Soon they will discover
it.
Sergio
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