Recent content by Sepulchrave II

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    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    My attempt at levity failed miserably. My point was wouldn't it be funny if our heroes' swords routinely broke in combat. I probably shouldn't have included two swords which actually did break.
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    D&D General Weapons should break left and right

    Stormbringer: Excalibur: Andúril:
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    Spoilers For All Mankind

    The glamour of the 60s/70s era is very well done, with scenes like the astronauts racing their corvettes to the bar. Almost had a kind of Mad Men in Space vibe in places.
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    Spoilers For All Mankind

    I loved S1, and, like you, enjoyed each successive season less than the previous. Still worth watching, though. S5 promises a , so might be pretty cool.
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    Mary Wollstonecraft was definitely a deist, or a rational theist - she often framed her feminist arguments in religious language. Although she despised the clergy and superstition. Mill called himself a “non-believer” but was not militantly atheist. In Three Essays on Religion, he allows that...
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    I'd actually go further - at least in Europe. Even in the Renaissance, the idea of a supernatural reality prevailed overwhelmingly. We didn't get whispers of Deism until the 1560s (Pierre Viret). Bruno and Spinoza (although accused of atheism) were pantheists. Deism began to gain traction as a...
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    It really depends on your divine ontology. Maybe if the war god is killed, people can no longer commit acts of violence. Maybe if the Sun god is killed, the world is plunged into darkness. Maybe if the storm god is killed, it stops raining etc. Maybe another deity will step into the deceased...
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    Mostly, yes. But a fair number of Greek and Roman philosophers were either atheistic or theomachistic, and it's not hard to envisage a world where their ideas either prevailed or became more widespread - i.e. backed by a sympathetic imperial power. (While it's fair to say that imperial polities...
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    A few thoughts, FWIW. I don't think that looking to modern expressions of polytheism (e.g. Hellenism, Asatru, Romuva) is particularly useful in trying to illuminate the - rather odd - D&D religious worldview. Nor do I think that looking at certain aspects of contemporary Hinduism has much to...
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    Hindus may identify with a wide array of worldviews, including polytheism, pantheism, panentheism, pandeism, henotheism, monotheism, monism, as well as agnostic, atheistic, or humanistic perspectives. Only 7% of Hindus identify as polytheistic- i.e. believing in multiple discrete gods.
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    In a fantasy world filled with magic and miraculous beings, will the religious concepts of the locals be completely different from the human of Earth?

    The worship of otiose supreme deities is often replaced by more glamorous war gods and storm gods. Aztec – Ometeotl to Huitzilopochtli Norse/Germanic – Tyr to Odin/Thor Rome – Jupiter to Mars Mesopotamia – Anu to Marduk/Ninurta/Nergal Canaan/Israel – El to Yahweh
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    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    I think the conflicts evidenced by Worf and Nog contra- their cultures are precisely because of their exposure to human values and early immersion in human society, not because of any strains of ideology native to their own species. And in the case of Spock, a half-human genetic heritage: Spock...
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