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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: 2645633" data-attributes="member: 13637">I would LIKE for that to be the case. But I FEAR that it is not. From what I have seen of human interactions, I think it is a rare person who operates on a symbolic level. Instead people generally choose to operate on a surface, literal level, or else they are incapable of operating at a deeper level.For the vast majority of the population, then and now, I think that was and is not the case. I doubt that the beliefs of the average, NASCAR-loving suburban dad are any more or less deeply ingrained than the beliefs of the Roman centurion or the Norse fisherman. I think they are told what to believe, they believe it and that settles it (paraphrasing the bumper sticker.) I don't think teaching them the symbolism of their beliefs would give them anything but confusion. It is enough for most people that the priest or shaman tells them to do this, in this order and on this day. That is all they need and all they want. Concrete, simple answers to complex questions.Now, I will agree that the priests then and now probably recognized that the particular religious tradition was a symbolic gesture while the masses did not. You light the incense in this order to symbolize blah-bla, or you eat the wafer of bread to symbolize such-and-such. But I do not believe that the priests generally though the entire belief system was a symbol, which I understood you to say earlier. In other words, I don't think you rise to the level of pope and suddenly find out that this is all an elaborate social construction and there is no god.</blockquote>

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