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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thormagni" data-source="post: 2644332" data-attributes="member: 13637">A few random thoughts on the discussion at hand...I don't think religion is in the business of mystery. I think religion is in the business of certainty. To be truly religious, is to believe with absolute, unquestioning certainty. The reason some people say their religious beliefs are such a rock of stability for them, is because those beliefs are absolutely rock solid. A religious person asks a question about the great themes of life and is given a stock, set-in-stone answer. An authoritative religious answer removes the possiblity of discussion, dissent or vagueness. Why is something the way it is? Because the SUPREME BEING made it so. You can't argue with that. It is a concrete, discussion-ending answer.And I don't think that people higher up in religious orders actually are initiated into any deeper mysteries. Instead, I think religions generally reward those who believe in them most dogmatically. A person who rises high in a religious order, generally is a person who is committed to more deeply accepting the teachings of the church as, well, gospel truth.This is of course not taking into account the people who rise high in a religious order by cynically and callously faking their belief and piety. A con artist can find fertile territory for exploitation among the ranks of the religious.The problem Grimhelm alluded to, the conflict between observable fact and the teachings of religion, is known as cognitive dissonance. It is the mental tension that is created when two diametrically opposing ideas are held in equal esteem in a person's mind. If these ideas have sufficient tension between them, then research shows that yes, it can cause deep harm. You see some interesting effects as people do incredible mental gymastics to reconcile those sorts of ideas in their own mind. They are willing to discount the input of their own senses in order to keep the construct intact.I truly believe that most people are immune to the concept of allegory or symbolism. Most people are extremely literal and dogmatic. If you tell them authoritatively that the Supreme Being made the Earth in 10 days, the believe the Earth was made in 10 days. I find it hard to believe that people 3,000, 2,000, 500 or 50 years ago where any more sophisticated in their thinking than the vast majority of people today. So I generally assume that they believed in their religious traditions as firmly as people today believe in theirs.</blockquote>

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