Faith

From: Gian Gero <giangero_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 09:41:28 GMT


Philip and Simon wrote:
>Belief isn't the same thing as imagination, or
>supposing something to be so. A believer _knows_
>that their beliefs >are true. They have faith.
No: a Believer knows not. He wants to believe. Acoording to Christian Catholic church, you know that you are loved. That's not faith, but experience. You want to believe that there is a Father who loves you and the following. Faith is an act of will and grace. A rather unique combination, from inside and from outside.

>Is the modern concept of faith applicable in a Gloranthan sense? >Nowadays,
>it
>means "There's no evidence, but I believe it anyway", and the >atheist (eg.
>me,
>I swing between atheist and agnostic these days) would say that >faith is
>an
>invention to keep people loyal to a non-existent fantasy.
By whom? People need to believe, because faith is a component of humanity and human mind (and human education, if you want to be freudian). It's not a plot from someone. It's a human characteristic that someone can try and use at his advantage, but so is also superficiality, superstition, greed, generosity, social behavior and a lot of other nice things.

>In >Glorantha,
>however, this kind of faith is unnecessary
Yes: in G you have the evidencies. This makes RW faith unnecessary. In G, IMO, people has no faith, people has a cult and trades power with the deity to obtain blessings in return. That's different from modern RW faith and more similar to RW superstition. Have you ever read the Golden Bough of Frazer? Try it (a bit lenghty, but you can skip most pages of exempla, trust me).

Ciao

Gianfranco



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