Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
|
Post by Raezenoth on May 15, 2015 16:09:33 GMT
Our 'powerset' is related to what sort of god we are; it is our choice. I would not be the god of desert caves and the god of freedom at the same time - these concepts do not mesh. I chose to be a god of wind.
|
|
|
Post by Andrew on May 15, 2015 16:16:30 GMT
Oh, I see. I still wouldn’t be too surprised if some gods from your world had more complexity and depth than a puddle but described themselves as having really simple responsibility, or vice versa, but I can see why they’re related.
|
|
|
Post by gabriael on May 17, 2015 22:51:25 GMT
A Slidar-god is a being with Magic of it's own. It doesn't borrow it, doesn't use a property of it's home universe, doesn't wave magic wands and speak magic words, but simply can move and modify everything. When two effects contradict each other the one with more Arcane Might wins out. Stuff not moving and Intelligence gathering wins if it's equal. That's something that will hold true throughout all universes, because it's a definition of Arcane Might.
EDIT: Is there any way for religion, as in giving primitive mortals divine commandments on behaviour, not to go horrifically wrong?
It tends to be abused by the people in power and distorted by mortals trying to make god "cooler" to their primitive world views. They can't understand superior intelligences or don't want to admit that anyone could be smarter than them and thus have him making things by hand through nebulous and ill-defined processes. Also, not understanding physics in the slightest, portray him as big and powerful and using threats. Because they need some tangible example to wrap their heads around they have people transgressing and trying to fool him and then being subjected to some kind of horrible over the top eternal punishment(I mean, the heck? Eternal?), because in their primitive social structures punishing means you're cool and the crueller you are the cooler you are.
|
|
Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
|
Post by Raezenoth on May 18, 2015 1:41:37 GMT
Interesting. Thank you, Gabriael.
I do not give my followers divine commandments. I have no stake in that whatever that baseless cynical statement was.
But there was a part that I did notice, that I did have a stake in.
I do not find mortals primitive. You do not give them enough credit. There are many with weak wills and weaker ethics, many who would seek to burn the world for their own benefit, many who would kill and maim and torture billions upon billions to get exactly what they want. Many who would create such horrors as slavery and look back upon their lives and say, 'I have no regrets.' Monsters, murderers, thieves, liars, rapists, tyrants, warmongers, - I assure you, I have seen my share of monsters. I know their like.
But there are others who will sacrifice all they have, all they all, their single fragile little life, all they have, for the sake of everything else. Mortals who will stand before the largest hurricane, impossible for them and their tiny arms to stop, and say, 'No.' And the mountains themselves will crumble before such a word, the ground will shake, the spires of their cities will climb to the skies, and the hurricane will be nothing in comparison to their will. Mortals who will say, 'How could I possible do this?' and then they do. And you might say, 'If there are such mortals, why do awful things happen?' To that, I ask you to look around. Watch how even the ones suffering under a shadow of a beast they don't know they can fight flourish. Watch how they help each other, watch how they care for one another, watch how they pick each other up and say, 'We will get through this.' And they do. When it should be impossible, when they should have died years ago, they live.
When they fail, they try again. When their leaders abuse them, they overthrow them. When the system is broken, they claw and bite and scratch and inch by treacherous inch they make it better. When they're lost and afraid they band together, and they say, 'What can I figure out about the world.' When their strength fails them, another will help them, or remember them. When the hurricane comes, when the earth splits, when the fields run dry and they have naught but ashes of what they loved, they build again. They look upon the world and say, 'This is not how I like it,' and then it is changed.
You look upon their faults and scoff and say, 'I am better than they will ever be, they are lesser, they are stupid, they are scrabbling in the dark and it's a miracle they haven't all died out yet.'
You are wrong.
You can feel contempt for them, if you like. But I? I love them.
|
|
Cassiel
Poster
Posts: 10
World: Erebus
Pronoun: he
|
Post by Cassiel on May 18, 2015 2:18:12 GMT
Gabriael, while I might be inclined to agree with your general statement on religion, the logic behind it is, in my experience, completely backwards.
Most of the abuse of religion I have seen comes from the gods. They indoctrinate people in their supposed rightness, and use them as pawns in their disagreements, without giving them a fair chance to choose freely whether they want to or not.
I have seen this over and over again down the centuries, and while there are exceptions, they are just that; exceptions.
And before that, they nearly destroyed the world and all who lived solely on it in their war.
I was going to say more about the general quality of humanity, but Raezenoth has essentially said it already. (Thank you.)
|
|
Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
|
Post by Raezenoth on May 18, 2015 2:49:10 GMT
You are welcome, though I did not say it for you in particular.
I hope your world finds better gods.
|
|
Mira
Poster
Posts: 26
World: Sanctum
Pronoun: She
|
Post by Mira on May 18, 2015 3:22:44 GMT
Well said, Rae! I wish more gods were as insightful and wise as you. 'fraid most of the ones in my corner of the multiverse are pretty akin to what Cassiel described, even those who are supposedly "Good" - manipulative, selfish, and ruthless. There are always a few good eggs among the bad, though, and those make all the difference. Thank you for your inspiring words.
|
|
Cassiel
Poster
Posts: 10
World: Erebus
Pronoun: he
|
Post by Cassiel on May 18, 2015 3:37:13 GMT
I am aware, Raezenoth. It still seemed worth thanking you for having said it; it needed to be said, and it was said well.
I do not think it is possible for my world to find better gods. The only time the roster has ever changed was when Mulcarn was slain, and he
I would prefer not to discuss Mulcarn.
There are a few gods I am still on speaking terms with, and some of the rest aren't entirely awful. But sometimes I think the world might have been better if material beings came into existence without any gods at all.
I will take your sentiment as well-meant, though.
|
|
|
Post by gabriael on May 18, 2015 11:00:21 GMT
Wall of text that has nothing to do with what I said. What the heck did I even read there? Raezenoth, you should consider that I write in English, a language shared by some of the Forum-goers which is for you translated into whatever you speak. Whatever happened to my message must have mangled it beyond comprehension because I didn't say a single thing that you took offence to. I agree with what you said, but what does it have to do with my question? Is it Possible to obtain dictionaries and grammar primers for the languages here, so I can write my own translator? Gabriael, while I might be inclined to agree with your general statement on religion, the logic behind it is, in my experience, completely backwards. Most of the abuse of religion I have seen comes from the gods. They indoctrinate people in their supposed rightness, and use them as pawns in their disagreements, without giving them a fair chance to choose freely whether they want to or not. I have seen this over and over again down the centuries, and while there are exceptions, they are just that; exceptions. And before that, they nearly destroyed the world and all who lived solely on it in their war. I was going to say more about the general quality of humanity, but Raezenoth has essentially said it already. (Thank you.) Well, you seem to be from a World that's the complete opposite of mine. You have many gods and because you probably don't have viable space travel and communication you are familiar with only one kind of people, while we have ONE god and lots and lots of different peoples. Also your kind of god sounds more like primitive mortals who got their hands on a lot of force, something we would call a "robber baron" in our world. If they are anything like a Slidar(What I call the gods like mine) they wouldn't have any motive to use mortals as pawns except for their personal sick amusement. "But sometimes I think the world might have been better if material beings came into existence without any gods at all." That's basically what happens here. I mean God set up the material world, but after that it's all automatic. If that happens though that's a gradual process and the transition from one-celled bacteria and a full civilisation has intermediate steps called animal, herd, primitive social structure, pack, social structure, primitive people, rising people, primitive civilisation, scientific civilisation and realized civilisation. Everything before Scientific civilisation is classified as primitive mortals. Raezenoth probably comes from a world with at least rising people, probably not more than primitive civilisation if they still think hurricanes are a terrible thing. (Cause it destroys crops?) Your gods sound like they come from the "social structure" stage of development and halted there because they highjacked your people to overcome the unfeasibility of carrying on with that step in the face of rising intelligence. About what I was actually talking about: Trying to jump start moral thinking or at least bridging the period where they are stupid and mostly immoral with divine commandments keeps going wrong. Where I am right now humans are civilised people, same as Leaf's world. Where Andrew comes from sounds like a Scientific Civilisation. Lurking I can't really classify. She sounds like rising people, but that could be just because she's personally smarter and nicer than most.
|
|
Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
|
Post by Raezenoth on May 18, 2015 12:57:27 GMT
What the heck did I even read there? Raezenoth, you should consider that I write in English, a language shared by some of the Forum-goers which is for you translated into whatever you speak. Whatever happened to my message must have mangled it beyond comprehension because I didn't say a single thing that you took offence to. I agree with what you said, but what does it have to do with my question? Is it Possible to obtain dictionaries and grammar primers for the languages here, so I can write my own translator? I speak every language. There was no misunderstanding of the kind you speak. If you have a problem with how I read your words, perhaps you should look to how you wrote them. Allow me to start quoting you, to show you exactly where you went wrong: "It tends to be abused by the people in power and distorted by mortals trying to make god "cooler" to their primitive world views." -Insult to mortals, that their world views are primitive and distorting. "They can't understand superior intelligences or don't want to admit that anyone could be smarter than them and thus have him making things by hand through nebulous and ill-defined processes." -Insult to mortals, implying that they are stupid and that others have superior intelligence. "Also, not understanding physics in the slightest, portray him as big and powerful and using threats." -Insult to mortals, insult their understanding of the world around them and viewing how they distort gods. "Because they need some tangible example to wrap their heads around they have people transgressing and trying to fool him and then being subjected to some kind of horrible over the top eternal punishment(I mean, the heck? Eternal?), because in their primitive social structures punishing means you're cool and the crueller you are the cooler you are." -Insult to mortals, calling their social structures primitive, insult to how they view morality. I see a pattern here. 'Nothing to do with what you just said'? You spent every line of that paragraph insulting mortals. Do not be surprised when I come to defend them. But perhaps that is not what you meant, in which case, I say take care of how you write. I do not think I was the only one to have interpreted what you wrote in that way. Proclaiming to the world that they have misinterpreted what you say is meaningless when you misrepresent yourself. Worse than pointless, in fact, it marks you a fool.
|
|
Cassiel
Poster
Posts: 10
World: Erebus
Pronoun: he
|
Post by Cassiel on May 18, 2015 15:25:54 GMT
Well, you seem to be from a World that's the complete opposite of mine. You have many gods and because you probably don't have viable space travel and communication you are familiar with only one kind of people, while we have ONE god and lots and lots of different peoples. I had to investigate other mentions of space travel on this forum to see what you meant. I do not think it is possible in my world. You are mistaken if you think because of that I am only familiar with one kind of people, however. I have seen many many many cultures come and go, over the centuries. And many different kinds of people. Regarding gods, I... think there may be a translation problem on my end. (If I say Angels, will it translate the same way?) ('Angels' 'gods'? Not 'Gods' ...can someone let me know how this is translating?) You may have one absolute ruler, but you seem to have many individuals with a great deal of independent power over civilizations. In many ways, it amounts to the same thing. Also your kind of god sounds more like primitive mortals who got their hands on a lot of force, something we would call a "robber baron" in our world. If they are anything like a Slidar(What I call the gods like mine) they wouldn't have any motive to use mortals as pawns except for their personal sick amusement. So instead you use them as pawns in your games. I do not see how that is any better; it may even be worse. (Before you profess ignorance of my meaning; I'm talking about this and this. And likely more I do not immediately remember) "But sometimes I think the world might have been better if material beings came into existence without any gods at all." That's basically what happens here. I mean God set up the material world, but after that it's all automatic. If that happens though that's a gradual process and the transition from one-celled bacteria and a full civilisation has intermediate steps called animal, herd, primitive social structure, pack, social structure, primitive people, rising people, primitive civilisation, scientific civilisation and realized civilisation. That does not sound like your previous descriptions of your world. Additionally, the part where you keep being insulting towards mortals does not incline me to trust your version of affairs. (Loath as I am to agree with a god, Razenoth continues to be very right on that point) Raezenoth probably comes from a world with at least rising people, probably not more than primitive civilisation if they still think hurricanes are a terrible thing. (Cause it destroys crops?) Because they kill people, probably. And then the loss of crops and livestock and habitations causes more deaths from starvation and exposure. Are you saying you consider hurricanes a good thing? Why? Your gods sound like they come from the "social structure" stage of development and halted there because they highjacked your people to overcome the unfeasibility of carrying on with that step in the face of rising intelligence. I cannot begin to explain all the things that are wrong with this statement. And your previous assumptions about our gods (if that's even translating correctly). About what I was actually talking about: Trying to jump start moral thinking or at least bridging the period where they are stupid and mostly immoral with divine commandments keeps going wrong. Where I am right now humans are civilised people, same as Leaf's world. Where Andrew comes from sounds like a Scientific Civilisation. I find it works better if you do not claim to be greater and higher and wiser than them. You might want to consider it. It does preclude divine commandments as such, yes. It works more like 'advice' and 'sharing knowledge'. And I don't think that's a bad thing.
|
|
|
Post by gabriael on May 18, 2015 20:03:29 GMT
-Insult to mortals, that their world views are primitive and distorting. -Insult to mortals, implying that they are stupid and that others have superior intelligence. -Insult to mortals, insult their understanding of the world around them and viewing how they distort gods. -Insult to mortals, calling their social structures primitive, insult to how they view morality. I don't think you understand evolution. People are created in this universe by making animals smarter bit by bit. Half-Animal-Half-people are called "primitive Mortals". -They still think a lot like animals, for example in terms of alpha-males and dominance contests. Those are primitive social structures. The concept of "Insult" is one of those primitive things. It's an assertion of dominance. -Humans like Andrew have superior intelligence in comparison to them. Humans like Leaf are still smarter. -Even people with developed intelligence can have inferior culture, for example they invent nonexistent gods of thunder because they don't understand how lightning forms. They then imagine that some lightning strikes and storms are punishment by god. -Even mortals that are almost all the way to proper people like you know them can still have wildly wrong beliefs and values, because they haven't properly incorporated the experimental method in their teaching methods. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... As if a species meaningfully changes over Centuries! Hahahahahahaha... If you're thinking in terms of centuries than all of the mortals you've seen are of similar intelligence. The only stage of development that can be measured in centuries is the Scientific one, because it gives people an invaluable tool, but the intelligence still stays roughly constant. God isn't a ruler by any kind of definition of the word. He does nice and funny stuff you sometimes encounter, makes stuff more differentiated, but no one's met him in millennia. I wouldn't call Angels many. There's maybe one of them to every hundred trillion mortals. And they mostly don't interfere with humans unless there's horrible stuff going on. One in a million mortals will have their lives directly influenced in any way by an Angel. So instead you use them as pawns in your games. I do not see how that is any better; it may even be worse.I'm not a God. Never claimed to be one! I'm talking about slander, not about legitimate complains, like you had just now. My world is pretty big. There's tons of different stuff! There's a total of ten people that weren't created procedurally and quintillions of people that were. Hurricanes aren't a good thing, but they are a solvable problem! Good engineering means hurricanes can't kill people any more, only damage crops.(Which I asked about.) Even that stops being a problem in advanced civilisations which can transport large amounts of food from places where there wasn't a hurricane. Prince Leaf or one of his subordinates is almost guaranteed to be able to help you with that!. Buuut our god IS higher and wiser than every other being I've ever encountered. He's not just a Billion times smarter than me, but neigh infinitely so.
|
|
|
Post by Leaf on May 18, 2015 20:13:03 GMT
I'm a Prince now? I have subordinates?? I'm a superior form of human to Andrew???
|
|
|
Post by Andrew on May 18, 2015 20:30:23 GMT
Gabriael, you mentioned that species don’t change in mere centuries. I agree; this is clearly true. Yet in the same post, you say that my kind of human is smarter than the kind you assume Raezenoth knows, and that Leaf’s are smarter than mine. I expect that species-wise we are all the same; my civilization only started understanding the scientiic method a few centuries ago, and Leaf is only ten centuries ahead of me.
|
|
|
Post by gabriael on May 18, 2015 22:01:32 GMT
I didn't compare you to Raezenoth's humans, I compared you to cavemen. And the Earth I am currently on could have used the scientific method a LOT earlier if it weren't for Religion. That's the thing I actually wanted to talk about.
Only ten centuries? I didn't really realize. Leaf and Nifl ARE significantly smarter than you though. That could have other reasons though, better nutrition, drugs? Leaf, explain! And don't deny you aren't some kind of Prince, I know stuff like that! Roll out your servants!
|
|