From: cpearce%nemesis@nemesis.acs.unt.edu (Chris Pearce)
Subject: Re: Gods (he says, as he steps into the fray)
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
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Organization: University of North Texas
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Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 22:43:32 GMT

> A couple of quandries with it, though...

> What about 'chatting with God'?  How does God respond in a 'personal' 
> conversation if he's a purely passive entity?

Oooh. Good question...

First, when a spiritual authority chats with his god, the god may still be
a passive entity -- instead of requesting the god perform an action (as in
an invocation), rather the questioner is requesting information or counsel.

Gods are the embodiments of more abstract ideas, and the spiritual community
often attributes human characteristics to those abstractions -- in fact,
were the attributes not there, the god would, in fact, remain quite an
abstract entity. By attributing the characteristics, the spiritual
community almost "creates" their god, for a god with such characteristics
is more tangible to those that believe in him.

Therefore, as the spiritual community donates their possibility energy, they
also donate their conceptions about their god. The possibility receptacle
obtains a personality and even a will, but again it is dependent upon the
perceptions of his worshipers. If the Greeks were suddenly to believe that
Zeus were a faithful husband, he would be constrained by the spiritual
community to be chaste.

Nevertheless, the personality (the COMMUNAL personality) is there. So when
a priest communes with his god, he is talking to the embodiment of the
spiritual communities idea of what that god is. If the spiritual community
were to believe the god knowledgeable about the oceans, then the personality
(the spiritual energy) with which the priest were conversing would have
knowledge about the oceans.

> How about prophecy?

> [I think I have an answer for the prophecy one, as I think about it.  The
> Possibility of the faithful community gets more steered toward the
> 'prophecy', as it becomes self-fulfilling.]

I *LIKE* that answer, as it ties in with my example of Dunad's slaying the
Evil High Lord in the cathedral under certain celestial parameters. Perhaps
a devout believer -- even an authority -- were to ponder how the High Lord
would be destroyed. If the believer's god were one that the community
believed sent prophetic dreams, then the believer might tap into the font of
spiritual energy and 'commune' with the god. Now the communion would occur
only under terms compatible with the community's perceptions of the god...
if the god is wont to prophesy, then the believer will likely receive a
vision that indicated actions that the god or his servants might take.

So, enlightened by his vision, the believer would spread the story to the
faithful. The evil overlord, upon hearing this story might commune with his
god, who might command that all worshippers of the other god be destroyed,
if the prophecy were to be prevented from becoming fulfilled. So naturally,
the overlord would crack down and force the true believers into hiding. Their
resolve hardened against the overlord, the original prophecies might enflame
the community's hearts so much that, as the community's will became directed
to the fulfillment of the prophecy, the actions of their god would come
into being and the overlord would fall!

> J

-- 
Chris Pearce -- cpearce@nemesis.acs.unt.edu
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg