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Cleric shenanigans (metaphysical, no right answers)
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7595511" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>This is one of my pet peeves in that the above statement is an intensely Judeo-Christian perspective on religion, yet nothing about D&D's settings indicate a Judeo-Christian cosmology. "Faith" is not a particularly universal religious concept. The word you probably want here is "Piety". You can be pious without exhibiting or having faith, devoted to something, without having any particular trust in that thing.</p><p></p><p>In the vast majority of religions that have ever been practiced, whether you have faith in a deity never matters. Reading the 'Euthyphro' would be a good starting place here. Generally speaking, in most religious rituals the attitude of the worshipper doesn't really matter, only that they perform the correct ritual that establishes a relationship with or bargain with some external source of power. </p><p></p><p>Moreover, Faith is relationship. So whether the concept you are looking for is Faith or Piety, but involve a relationship with an external force. Faith used in a religious concept involves belief in the faithfulness of a diety, in the same way you might say you have faith in a friend because they've always been there for you. It doesn't involve anything particular to religion except that this faith is devoted to a divinity or other supernatural person, force, or idea rather than a mortal. It's instructive to read evolving dictionary definitions of the word 'faith' over the last 150 years or so as the writers of the dictionary gradually evolve a less and less religious perspective on the word (ironically at the same time defining the word as being more and more particular to religion, something that the more pious early writers did not think). Modern dictionary definitions very much have an outside looking in perspective on the concept.</p><p></p><p>Faith in yourself, which you might call 'self-confidence', is even less of a religious concept and faith in the abstract lacking a target is even less of a religious concept. Faith and Hope require faith and hope in something. They don't really exist as a separate targetless thing despite the common modern concept of speaking about them abstractly without a real target. Someone might say, "I have Faith.", and the next question might be, "In what?" Your complete trust and confidence has to be in something by definition, and if that something doesn't have a religious character, then neither is the faith and hope a particularly religious concept. You can say you hope your local sports team wins the championship, and the basis of that hope can be in many things, but that faith in the team or hope for their success is not necessarily religious nor would anyone particularly think that the fans faith or hope necessarily causes the success to happen.</p><p></p><p>And if you do, that forces the next question:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If the power lies with the cleric, how does divine magic differ in any substantial way from arcane magic. Or, if the power lies with the cleric, why aren't wizards and clerics able to share spell lists? And if the power lies with the cleric, what is the source of that power?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7595511, member: 4937"] This is one of my pet peeves in that the above statement is an intensely Judeo-Christian perspective on religion, yet nothing about D&D's settings indicate a Judeo-Christian cosmology. "Faith" is not a particularly universal religious concept. The word you probably want here is "Piety". You can be pious without exhibiting or having faith, devoted to something, without having any particular trust in that thing. In the vast majority of religions that have ever been practiced, whether you have faith in a deity never matters. Reading the 'Euthyphro' would be a good starting place here. Generally speaking, in most religious rituals the attitude of the worshipper doesn't really matter, only that they perform the correct ritual that establishes a relationship with or bargain with some external source of power. Moreover, Faith is relationship. So whether the concept you are looking for is Faith or Piety, but involve a relationship with an external force. Faith used in a religious concept involves belief in the faithfulness of a diety, in the same way you might say you have faith in a friend because they've always been there for you. It doesn't involve anything particular to religion except that this faith is devoted to a divinity or other supernatural person, force, or idea rather than a mortal. It's instructive to read evolving dictionary definitions of the word 'faith' over the last 150 years or so as the writers of the dictionary gradually evolve a less and less religious perspective on the word (ironically at the same time defining the word as being more and more particular to religion, something that the more pious early writers did not think). Modern dictionary definitions very much have an outside looking in perspective on the concept. Faith in yourself, which you might call 'self-confidence', is even less of a religious concept and faith in the abstract lacking a target is even less of a religious concept. Faith and Hope require faith and hope in something. They don't really exist as a separate targetless thing despite the common modern concept of speaking about them abstractly without a real target. Someone might say, "I have Faith.", and the next question might be, "In what?" Your complete trust and confidence has to be in something by definition, and if that something doesn't have a religious character, then neither is the faith and hope a particularly religious concept. You can say you hope your local sports team wins the championship, and the basis of that hope can be in many things, but that faith in the team or hope for their success is not necessarily religious nor would anyone particularly think that the fans faith or hope necessarily causes the success to happen. And if you do, that forces the next question: If the power lies with the cleric, how does divine magic differ in any substantial way from arcane magic. Or, if the power lies with the cleric, why aren't wizards and clerics able to share spell lists? And if the power lies with the cleric, what is the source of that power? [/QUOTE]
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