OK, but the fact that it can be done must say something to the people worshipping, no?
>You say:
>
> > I'm talking about Romans
> > who worshipped the Roman pantheon by day,
> > and who were in the hip new
> > Christian cult by night.
>
>Do you think it might have made a difference if Jupiter actually
>started chucking lightning at you if you did this? There are basic
>precepts about Glorantha which are different from the RW, and the
>singificance of a soul/spirit/etc/'s link with an otherworld is a
>part of that.
Uh, but he did throw lightning bolts at them for doing this. That is, a real believer in Jupiter believed that those bolts he was seeing were from Jupiter. Right? Some people got hit by em too, so they weren't just warnings, either.
You have to remember that for the Romans magic did happen. All the time. Was it harder to interperet? Maybe. But sometimes I get that about the Gloranthan gods, too.
Belief is the same for us as it is for the Gloranthan I think. At the most basic level, it's all faith. There may be more or less evidence, sure. But that doesn't, IMO, change how people react to what they percieve. "Cogito Ergo Sum" was an attempt to find something that couldn't be doubted. Even that's potentially dubious. In the end, people believe all sorts of things. For example, even with the "hard" existence of gods in Glorantha, some "missapply" worship. Why do you think that is? Why don't the gods "correct" this behavior?
I think it's because belief (in the form of heroquests, yes) shapes the reality of Glorantha. And our world, too.
Mike
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