From: Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG (bernuetz.oliver@cbsc.ic.gc.ca)
Date: Fri 15 Nov 1996 - 01:35:35 EET
This will probably be my last salvo as I'm getting as sick of this pointless
arguing as most other people seem to be.
Back to Peter Metcalfe and me.
Me>>>>Why do any of these deities have to tell their worshippers anything?
It
>>>>ain't a lie 'til it's denied.
PM>>>I faintly recall a Divination spell in da roolz. I've never heard
>>>of any plausible suggestion as to why a god would lie to his worshippers
>>>(unless he was the Trickster).
ME>>As I said it's not a lie unless it's denied. As far as I can tell
you're
>>working from the following assumptions:
>>1) People are generally inquisitive and questioning
>>Wrong-people are generally unquestionning and submissive-they believe what
>>authority figures tell them.
>PMWrong. *Some* people will be inquisitive and questioning. There have
We're not talking about the Middle Ages here we're talking about the Dark
ME>>Societies have been based on lies before and this isn't even
>been philosophy minded people in just about every closed minded
>religion you care to name. St Thomas Aquinas, William of Occam and
>Ibn Rushd for starters. These people weren't outcasts but were actually
>*listened* to by the authorities. They weren't all doupleplusgoodthinkful
>bigbrotherluving proles in the middle ages.
Ages. Remember Socrates? Remember Galileo (if you want to drag the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance in on this)? Of course there's always inquisitive
and questioning people around. A lot of them are 1) dismissed as nutcases,
2) ignored, 3) rubbed out by the authorities.
>>that big a lie.
>Codswallop. It's quite a big one. I strongly dislike it because
>in the 1500+ years of Dara Happan Society, *someone* is bound to
>spill the beans that their imperial theology is based on the
>gloranthan equivalent of the Donation of Constantine. If Yelm
>was really bound by something called the compromise, then why
>wasn't it revealed during the Plentonic Debates, the Empire of
>Nysalor, the Karsdevanic Clarification, the birth of the Lunar
>Empire and the Restoration? All these events were accompanied by
>serious soulsearching. The Plentonic debates started because people
>noted contradictions between what Plentonius said and the real world.
>For something as big as 'Our God is not all powerful' *not* to be
>revealed all through these years strains credibility methinks.
Hah. Don't forget Goebbels(?) "No lie succeeds like a Big Lie." (Badly
misquoted)
1) Egypt-thousands of years of history-Pharoah is the living God.
2) The Roman Empire 500 years or so of the Emperor as God.
3) Over 1900 years of the Catholic Church-the Pope is God's right hand man.
4) Any religion-there are gods.
This list could go on and on.
(Sorry if this offends any theists but I'm an agnostic).
There probably were periods of dissent and cries of Yelm isn't almighty.
As far as some people's tendencies to try and explain all Gloranthan
Quickly followed by purges and shushing up of the whole business. Why on
Glorantha would they write down that these sorts of events occurred?
Peasants, business people and generals do not normally give a cowsflop for
introspection-if some idea is going to interfere with their day to day
business they will ignore it, ridicule it, or squash it.
activities, i.e. the origins of the gods, etc. in RW terms assuming that
Glorantha works just like the RW this just makes me sad.
Oliver D. Bernuetz
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End of Glorantha Digest V3 #284
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