I believe that if they were devout in their faith, there -would- be less...
This is one of the reasons I used the word 'devoutly'. In the RW there are few immediate feedback mechanisms to punish those who do evil... God's judgement and sentencing will come at the end of the world. In Glorantha, judgement is a daily process with many immediate punishments; the priest loses position, spells, and is apostate.
Every atrocity through history is tied to the pursuit or use of power, even when religion is cited as the goal. Morality and rights are buried under hypocrisy, rationalizations, and greed. This is not 'worshipping a God of peace', it is manipulation of masses using the name of God.
> I'm reminded of that old cynic's saw, that
> hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse.
It is the most common tool of the political manipulator, which includes most world leaders and legislators. This ties back to the same argument... if your magic and status are tied to following godly ideals, then your behavior should be better, in general, than most RW counterparts who can profess piety and be total hypocrites.
> The doctrine is 'whatever sounds good', or, 'whatever we can sell...
As I read the stories, Issaries was honorable, so an Issaries merchant who uses crooked tactics risks the cult 'spirit of retribution', Raw Greed. He will not remain a merchant for long after that.
It is important to remember that Joe Shmoe can be a merchant without worshipping a merchant god. This would allow him to cheat as long as he can get away with it, while giving Issaries an unjustified bad name.
> > > another of the GL crimes is having made that rule up in the
> > > first place.
> > Please... implying that the godslearners made the game rules is at
least
> > a violation of causality.
> they created the three-fold (or four-fold) distinction between
> categories of magic, method of worship, cosmology, etc, that
> lob up in the game-rules as the different magic systems. It's
> clear that the GLers both helped create/reinforce this distinctions
> and categories _in Glorantha_, by their actions,
Please cite your passage for this... I need to be reminded. As has been pointed out, my memory for detail is weak. Stancliff
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