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What's funny is, in the loose pantheon of supplemental writing and even a brief mention in one of his interludes, there are actually "paladins" or Christian style priests who hunt down and bind and/or exorcize literal demons in the name of God. It's just never been brought up again or made relevant to his Pactverse stories.
Yeah, there has been some mention of that, but do they exorcize demons in the name of God? My recollection was basically that they have all the trappings of Christianity but mostly believe in Christian virtues and traditions rather than the actual Christian theology. Like, they will gain holy power by remaining celibate, but without any admission or belief that the Christian god actually exists.
I think generally part of the issue is that modern priests do not jive well at all with the setting. Every other type of priest can literally channel divine power, but we expect modern-day normal religious priests to lack similar power? Nah, if it were consistent, normal Christian (and other religions, but there's a Christian church in Kennet) priests would literally have divine power, and more of it than they could use.
The problem with representing monotheistic religions is that they're, well, by default not quite true in a universe where there are gods, plural. Also, you can argue that a God that encompasses everything is so bound by that definition that he might as well not be defined. When everything is
superGod, nothing is.That's why we have Architects/Angels latching on the Judeo-Christian aesthetic, but no big G.
Also, normal people don't get magic in Pactverse, that's established. Sometimes normal people go through weird and/or intense shit and walk the line between mundane and Other, but that's it. Not something every small town pastor is going to get. Melissa had to suffer a grievous injury that detached her from mundane life to an extent in order for her repeated attempts at replicating the spellcards to have any effect.
See that's kind of what I'm complaining about though. Anyone who falls too deeply into a rut of any kind will become Aware. I forget the name but a good example is that Aware who was so skeptical that she had an anti-magic field. People who get too depraved (probably) become vulnerable to imps, people who become too separated from reality become Other, people who get too lost get Lost. Totally separate from the existence of gods, you would expect the same kind of effect with faith--people should be made stronger by sincere religious conviction even if the target god doesn't exist at all.
Well obviously not in this story, but honestly I would expect every small town pastor to get some divine assistance. Just consider how many, many Others there are. There's like one for every person. There seems to be at least one Aware per 100 or so people as well. Separately from that, just given the nature of the universe, I'd honestly expect more pastors to have magic than practitioners.
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"Faith" in the Pactverse clashes somewhat with the Biblical definition, at least as laid out in Hebrews 11:1. When you can perform a given ritual, utter the right words, and invoke the might of a higher power it can be difficult to frame that as "belief". One doesn't need to believe when you can know, a problem inherent to the setting and as such one I'm willing to forgive.
The POV of that particular chapter is also one belonging to a literal apostate, so I can accept there being no deference paid to the Supreme Creator, whether he thought there was one or not.
Agreed, but this does make you wonder why gods work at all in-setting. What does belief in a god mean? Everyone in Pact knew that Dionysius existed but I don't think he gained any power from that. Seems like it's something closer to "love and obedience" than it is to "confidence level that this deity is real". If we redefine faith like that then we're back to the issue of "why does nobody love and obey the Christian god?"
I would prefer some kind of in-universe explanation like, obviously he's real, but he hasn't visited in ages and people need to have faith that his reasons are good. This would neatly allow the story to continue without interference from the actual God, but still allow for many different types of belief and genuine religious people, just like real life.
Was it mentioned in Pact/Pale at all that gods need belief? Sounds like they gain power from acts of worship, particularly ones that sacrifice something or give them claim over something (a mark on the body, for example).
Based on the knowledge on Pactverse gods and the divine practices shared in the story, I'm led to believe that the vastness of Abrahamic religions works against their God(s). "I am what I am", what kind of definition is that? Here on this forum, when that kind of definition is applied to the concept of a woman, people laugh it out of the room.
IMO it's implied that pretty much everyone (god or not) is made stronger by others' belief, but yeah, you can probably have a god without that.
That's not a definition, that's a name. And it's not "I am what I am", it's "I am that I Am", as in "I am the great I Am".
I could believe that vastness works against there being a coherent God, but 1) this applies to all gods--for instance are the Greek and Roman versions of a god two separate entities? and 2) in-universe if this were much of a threat then the one true God would have shut it down rather than risk being fractured or having his power diluted.
More important than either of these objections, though--why are people Christians at all if there's no god behind it? That's an enormous open market for plenty of other gods who can easily work small miracles to get people to worship them instead.
Seems so. There are apparently numerous apocryphal offshoots of someone like Prometheus, one of which is Ulysse's patron.
That's assuming he existed.
Whatever Others facilitate the existence of Christianity as a religion among the Innocent, it doesn't have to be one Other and it doesn't have to be a god.
Yes, assuming he existed seems much safer than any other assumption, given all the other gods.
It doesn't matter how Christianity got started. Now that it's around, either it has an actual basis, or there's a market opening for a god to come in and impersonate God. I suppose you could postulate some secret organization preventing that from happening, but there are still other issues with that, and overall it seems a lot safer and more accurate to just say "yeah the author just hasn't sufficiently addressed this point."
Why? The big God is clearly categorically different from pagan-tier gods, as his followers insist. Omnipotent, omnipresent etc. I can assume the Canaanite war god Yahweh existed, but assuming the monotheistic God existed (at least in the way Christianity describes him) is a bigger stretch.
Many Others, even those who are not actual demons, apparently abuse devilish aesthetics. Presumably there are impersonators. It would take some enormous feet to fill God's boots, though, so I'm not surprised that none of them are bigger than small sect patrons.
I don't blame Wildbow for neglecting delving into Christian representation, because I don't find it interesting. Western culture is already suffused with Christianity enough.
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The relationship Jeremy Meath has with Dionysus, where you don't know exactly how much Relationship Points you've got with your patron and how much would be demanded for the next miracle you ask for (and of course a shrewd god would not give specific promises easily) - that's something closer to belief than to knowledge in my books.
I had the impression that was due more to Dionysus' status as a deity of, in part, madness (introducing a degree of unpredictability) and because his power was vastly diminished due to his now-miniscule base of worshippers. Other god-believer relationships are portrayed somewhat differently, though this is primarily in Pale and are arguably non-central examples. Point taken though.
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