> Orthopraxis is a big word for a simple idea, and is perhaps best viewed as a
> way of putting into perspective the western/christian fetishism about
> 'belief' that tends to pervasively colour our thinking about religion
> generally.
>
> It's simply a way of saying that what you *do* is more important than what
> you *believe*: so that not killing people or exercising compassion or going
> along to worship services is considered more important than whether you
> believe, say, that the Son has the same essence as the Father, or what
> version of neoPlatonism you use to decribe the nature of the Trinity. Many
> of the world's great religious systems and almost all of the tribal ones are
> orthopractic and heterodox.
And this reminds me of another important issue. In orthodoxy systems, it is important to define the only true form of a belief. Thus in early Christianity, there is a lot of debate about exactly who Christ was and what his relationship to God was. Each stage of this debate is accompanied by much anger villification of the other side, and is really what lead to the development of the concept of heresy, namely an incorrect belief about a religious issue.
Orthopractic systems, as John points out, are quite comfortable with more than one version of a particular story. For instance, there are multiple stories about the creation of the world in Egyptian mythology. These stories are pretty much mutually exclusive, but the Egyptians don't seem to have minded that. They seem to have been very comfortable telling contradictory stories to explain the same thing, because in an orthopractic system, it really doesn't make too much difference, unless it leads to a violation of orthopraxis. This is why the Egyptians ultimately couldn't accept Akhenaton's religious system, because it meant putting an end to long established religious rituals.
Regardless of whether this was originally present, Glorantha as a game world has steadily moved away from the idea of 'one true myth'. Thus the stories that the Orlanthi tell about Yelm and Orlanth are very different from the ones the Dara Happans tell about those two. And it's not just a difference of perspective. Those stories are mutually exclusive (at least, as far as I know them). So Glorantha as a whole exhibits at least one characteristic of orthopractic systems.
Now this doesn't mean that the Orlanthi or the Dara Happans or whoever are specifically orthopractic. But I thought it was worth putting out there.
> From: Richard Develyn <Richard.Develyn_at_viewgate.com>
> Subject: RE: More on Orthopraxy and Hipocrisy
>
> From: Andrew Larsen <aelarsen_at_facstaff.wisc.edu>
>
>> This is reflected by how closely the subject embodies the virtues that >> the god favors. Again, this is a question of practice (seen broadly as
>> the person does) rather than what the person believes or thinks. If the >> person doesn't consider those virtues important, he won't be able to >> manifest those virtues in his life.
Hypocrisy implies an intent to deceive. A worshipper would only be hypocritical if he claimed that he loved the god when he didn't (since the issue of existence isn't really relevant in Glorantha). Perhaps in Gloranthan terms one could be a hypocrite if one claimed to adhere to a virtue such as honor or generousity but then failed to demonstrate that virtue, but that's a question of practice, not belief. The person would have to commit an act which would violate the god's laws. So it really ceases to be an issue of hypocrisy as most people would define it and becomes a question of crime.
>> I still think you're looking at this the wrong way. It's not a
>> of the god not caring about this issue. It's that the issue simply isn't >> relevant at all. When an engineer builds a plane, it simply isn't issue of >> what he thinks about the air or what the air thinks about him. What
>> is whether he builds the plane according to the laws that allow it fly in >> the air. If he fails to keep to those laws, the air won't properly lift
>> plane. (Grossly oversimplified, I know.)
I don't think that most Gloranthan gods are simply impersonal forces, although some of the earliest ones look that way. But most deities in orthopractic systems in the RW aren't impersonal either. The Greek and Norse gods certainly aren't.
This may simply come down to different ways of looking at the same issue. We may have to agree to disagree on this one, although we might not be at that stage yet.
Andrew E. Larsen
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