>> 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.
Not really. The debate over gnosticism isn't really correlated to any of the major periods of persecution (apart from the brief persecution at the start of the 2nd Century). A lot of the Christological debates take place after Constantine legalized Christianity. I'm not aware of any evidence that suggests these debates are prompted by persecution. They do lead to persecution, however, as the losing side normally gets the short end of the stick.
>> 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.
Well, it's certainly not the only reason his system failed. But it was the priests who were his biggest enemies, not the military.
>>> I can't accept this, I'm afraid. I define hipocrisy as a mismatch between >>> what you think and what you do. I think it is quite possible to manifest >>> virtues you don't believe in (equally I think it possible to not manifest >>> virtues which you do). >> >> 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).
Yes, but the Brithini are much closer to an orthodoxy system, having been modelled essentially on the medieval Catholic church. Throughout this debate, I've tried to keep the focus on the Orlanthi, who operate very differently from the Brithini.
>> 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.
I like this way of looking at it. It's another useful way of thinking about it.
> From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
> Subject: Re: Orthopraxy, yet again
>
> Andrew Larsen:
>> 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.
Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not the only ways of classifying religion. But it is one valid set of oppositional concepts that all act to categorize religion. All RW religions that I know of fall into one of those two categories. They aren't hard and fast systems, and most religions have some elements of the other category. For example, in Christianity, there has periodically been a lot of debate over the correct form of certain rituals, particularly the Eucharist. But despite that, modern Christianity is firmly in the Orthodoxy category, just as surely as ancient paganism is firmly Orthopraxic.
The whole reason that I brought up this point in the first place was to demonstrate that there is a completely different way to think about Orlanthi religion than by focusing on the question of belief, which is certainly far less important than practice.
Andrew E. Larsen
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