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Faith and the common man
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6924498" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Because he is a common man? </p><p></p><p>On thing to be really careful of is that you aren't simply assuming a Judeo-Christian cosmology. Like, for example, to begin with you talk about the 'faith' of the common man. But in the vast majority of world religions, faith is not a particularly important concept. The ancient Greeks didn't speak of having faith in Zeus. Zeus didn't care if you had faith in him. Having faith in Zeus didn't make Zeus love you any more. Zeus for that matter wasn't a particularly loving deity. Ditto just about any religion we could talk about. Don't begin with the assumption that faith is particularly important, or if faith is important then you need a cosmological reason explaining why faith is important.</p><p></p><p>Secondly, the concept of universal priesthood is particular to Christianity - and even then, it was so bizarre, that the Catholics at least preferred to provide ritual that subverted that on the apparent grounds that most people would believe more if they thought that there was a priesthood to intercede for them. The idea that every one that believes is a priest isn't something common to religion generally. For one thing, again, belief itself is not generally considered important in most religions. Most religions assume for example that rites and rituals and formula are much more important for motivating the gods to love you or at least do your will than faith. And in particular, note that D&D religion makes the assumption that it is the priest performing the miracle, not the deity. The priest learns spells from the deity, who empowers and affirms them during a daily rite, but thereafter responsibility for those spells is the priests. Your deity didn't cast 'cure light wounds', you did. The deity probably wasn't even paying attention at the time, not being omniscient and having better things to do.</p><p></p><p>The question is, why would a deity be honoring the worship of a common man anyway? Does he love common men? Does he want to undermine his own priesthood? Why wouldn't the deity restrict spellcasting to just those priests chosen from the right families, descendants of some ancient hero who was the deities own offspring, who have undergone the rituals of purification and dedication, and who offer up the sweat smell of burning fat and wine in exchange for the members of their order being especially blessed by the deity, and who have the special right conferred upon them to speak on behalf of and to the deity? </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>My thought is that something like that might be a nice feat 'Pious', but seems a bit weird for a normal D&D game to have every 0th level commoner out there also be a spell caster. Wisdom becomes a pretty amazing ability, especially at low level.</p><p></p><p>What you seem to be thinking on isn't so much spells as the concept of 'miracles'. And do you really want miracles to happen all the time for everyone? And are your deities so omnipotent that they have that power to spare?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6924498, member: 4937"] Because he is a common man? On thing to be really careful of is that you aren't simply assuming a Judeo-Christian cosmology. Like, for example, to begin with you talk about the 'faith' of the common man. But in the vast majority of world religions, faith is not a particularly important concept. The ancient Greeks didn't speak of having faith in Zeus. Zeus didn't care if you had faith in him. Having faith in Zeus didn't make Zeus love you any more. Zeus for that matter wasn't a particularly loving deity. Ditto just about any religion we could talk about. Don't begin with the assumption that faith is particularly important, or if faith is important then you need a cosmological reason explaining why faith is important. Secondly, the concept of universal priesthood is particular to Christianity - and even then, it was so bizarre, that the Catholics at least preferred to provide ritual that subverted that on the apparent grounds that most people would believe more if they thought that there was a priesthood to intercede for them. The idea that every one that believes is a priest isn't something common to religion generally. For one thing, again, belief itself is not generally considered important in most religions. Most religions assume for example that rites and rituals and formula are much more important for motivating the gods to love you or at least do your will than faith. And in particular, note that D&D religion makes the assumption that it is the priest performing the miracle, not the deity. The priest learns spells from the deity, who empowers and affirms them during a daily rite, but thereafter responsibility for those spells is the priests. Your deity didn't cast 'cure light wounds', you did. The deity probably wasn't even paying attention at the time, not being omniscient and having better things to do. The question is, why would a deity be honoring the worship of a common man anyway? Does he love common men? Does he want to undermine his own priesthood? Why wouldn't the deity restrict spellcasting to just those priests chosen from the right families, descendants of some ancient hero who was the deities own offspring, who have undergone the rituals of purification and dedication, and who offer up the sweat smell of burning fat and wine in exchange for the members of their order being especially blessed by the deity, and who have the special right conferred upon them to speak on behalf of and to the deity? My thought is that something like that might be a nice feat 'Pious', but seems a bit weird for a normal D&D game to have every 0th level commoner out there also be a spell caster. Wisdom becomes a pretty amazing ability, especially at low level. What you seem to be thinking on isn't so much spells as the concept of 'miracles'. And do you really want miracles to happen all the time for everyone? And are your deities so omnipotent that they have that power to spare? [/QUOTE]
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