Because, as I said at the time, at least one of the major authors of Glorantha does not share this assumption. Whether or not it's correct is almost irrelevant - mismatched assumptions like that will cause problems.
> I'm not personally religious, but I don't think those
> of my friends who are would agree with your statement. There
> is more to 'relevance to everyday life' than zappy magic powers.
So they expect their attendence at a formal, organised religion to make the trains rub on time? To make the weather better? To improve crops? To mend your car? I'm having problems imagining things in the RW that would have such an impact on our real lives as Gloranthan religion has on theirs, but the Catholic church doesn't alter even these trivial ones, or even claim to do so (now - they seem to have done so in the past). Spiritual benefits, sure (at least, the practitioners seem to believe so, which is what matters). But mundane results? As soon as anyone suggests they might, they call it "magic" and declare it to be evil!
So, the number of Catholic-style priests a community can support, given that they have no *practical* purpose, is considerably less than the number of specialists, magical or otherwise, who make a direct contribution to the immediate needs of the community (like not starving). If I look at my home town and count the number of priests, then the number of hairdressers (hardly an essential occupation), guess which I find more of?
> But IMO the problems with the geekdom parallel are two-fold:
>
> 1. Geeks don't have to be good at what they do. For every
> super- dooper programmer, there is no doubt at least one
> mediocre nerd, who make spend the same passion and time in
> geekery but to little actual avail.
You know, that almost improves it. Good point. A starting PC will have "devotee of" and affinities, at 17. He's a geek, all right, but he's not tending *my* cattle. I'll go to the guy with Initiate 10W2 and affinity masteries, even if he does take a -5. Which raises some interesting questions about who *does* support that starting Devotee? The economic basis must be rather like firms sponsoring apprentices through college - no use now, but once you've got them trained, they'll pay you back.
> If so, every
> academic, every hard-core football fan, every karaoke-
> overdosing wannabe popstar, etc counts as a 'devotee'!
Yes. I think they might. And we live in a society that can support them. Lucky us :(
Of course, if you follow the theory that Devoteeism is something imposed on you by the god, not a choice you make yourself, then perhaps supporting them is on the same level as supporting the disabled? You look after the poor things, because they're your clan. They can't *help* being useless and unable to look after themselves, after all.
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