Philosophical discussion for the day. Wizards and the Divine.
the_spyder
Member Posts: 5,018
So, I’ve been thinking about this and wanted to put it out there for discussion. When I play a Wizard, he invariably ends up, not quite an Atheist per say, just someone who figures that he can set himself above The Gods eventually as a result of his Magic. After all, he now understands, at least in concept, how The Gods get their power, ala by way of magic. Therefore, if they can do it, so can he.
This got me to thinking about the real life paradigm between science and religion. While it is not to necessarily saying that, nor am I personally labeling all engineers/scientists are atheists. It is a common theme in popular culture for people who research how things work in The Universe, will often reject religion in favor of more explainable reasoning. I’m not saying they are right, merely that it appears to be a theme.
So, in Faerun, given learning and access to magical understanding, and given that the power of the gods is a kind of Magic, is it reasonable to think that any wizard would question the authority of The Gods as Supreme beings in favor of thinking of them as merely much more powerful entity? Is it also reasonable to assume that most Religious devotees would find arcane magics to be blaspheme against ‘The True religion(s)’ and thus heresy?
Now, I will grant that there are ‘Gods of Magic’ in The Forgotten Realms, and that this might muddy the waters a bit. I further grant that, since The Gods walk among morals from time to time, it would be very difficult to dismiss their existence entirely (ala atheism). I’m merely suggesting that Arcane users might question the Divine nature (that of being supreme beings) of The Gods and that Divine devotees may object to “Magics” that don’t come (directly, for argument’s sake) from The Divine.
In other words, yes Mystera, yada, yada, yada. She Created the Weave, which doesn’t prove divinity, merely extreme (if not ultimate) power and could be analogous to a common spider spinning a web. Or does it?
Feel free to discuss any way that you like. Obviously relate this to BG as that’s what this forum is all about. So, is it ‘Reasonable’ for Xzar to dual class to Cleric? Is Aerie an anachronism? Are either or both merely dealing with two disparate and distinct sides to their personality, etc… Or is it power gaming at it’s best?
This got me to thinking about the real life paradigm between science and religion. While it is not to necessarily saying that, nor am I personally labeling all engineers/scientists are atheists. It is a common theme in popular culture for people who research how things work in The Universe, will often reject religion in favor of more explainable reasoning. I’m not saying they are right, merely that it appears to be a theme.
So, in Faerun, given learning and access to magical understanding, and given that the power of the gods is a kind of Magic, is it reasonable to think that any wizard would question the authority of The Gods as Supreme beings in favor of thinking of them as merely much more powerful entity? Is it also reasonable to assume that most Religious devotees would find arcane magics to be blaspheme against ‘The True religion(s)’ and thus heresy?
Now, I will grant that there are ‘Gods of Magic’ in The Forgotten Realms, and that this might muddy the waters a bit. I further grant that, since The Gods walk among morals from time to time, it would be very difficult to dismiss their existence entirely (ala atheism). I’m merely suggesting that Arcane users might question the Divine nature (that of being supreme beings) of The Gods and that Divine devotees may object to “Magics” that don’t come (directly, for argument’s sake) from The Divine.
In other words, yes Mystera, yada, yada, yada. She Created the Weave, which doesn’t prove divinity, merely extreme (if not ultimate) power and could be analogous to a common spider spinning a web. Or does it?
Feel free to discuss any way that you like. Obviously relate this to BG as that’s what this forum is all about. So, is it ‘Reasonable’ for Xzar to dual class to Cleric? Is Aerie an anachronism? Are either or both merely dealing with two disparate and distinct sides to their personality, etc… Or is it power gaming at it’s best?
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Comments
The concept of a schism between priests and mages would be an interesting thing to pursue... in another setting. You could make a campaign where some fanatical cult of magic wielders seek to purge the world of the divine, but would that ever be a universal attitude? I doubt it. Magic and Divinity are inextricably linked. While mages learn to cast spells through arcane lore and knowledge, generally a lot of mages are devout worshippers of Mystra, or some other god. Remember, the consequence to not having a god or goddess is to end up in the fugue plane, and to be embedded in the wall, to languish for eternity.
Irenicus is a good example of a Mage who reached too far, tried for divinity. Even he was not so foolish to think that he was automatically better than a God just because he could cast spells. He strove to attain divinity, not to deny it.
Also, why another setting? Again, just because some Ultra powerful being exists, which isn't in dispute, why does it follow that they are 'Gods'? Or does it?
So no, mages are not against religion, in fact, many religious leaders have levels of both Arcane and Divine origin (such as Sheva Whitefeather (4 Sorceress/8 Cleric of Mielikki/4 Hathran) (described in "Unapproachable East" as one of the leaders of the Wychlaran)), they are different because while a divine spellcaster is granted power directly from the gods as a result of merit (the more useful they are, the better they become), mages end up finding better and more efficient methods of drawing raw power from the weave as they grow in experience.
Of course, 4th edition blew this out of the window, which is one more reason to disregard it.
Priest of Ilmater: "The other thing you must accept to join the merciful church of the crying god is to abhor magic! All magic is evil and wicked, and those who use it must not be trusted!"
Charname: "Uh, some of us are magic-users."
Priest of Ilmater: "HERESY!"
Or something along those lines.
First, individuals can choose to believe whatever they like within the limits of their knowledge. If they believe there are no gods, or the 'gods' they know of are not worthy of their worship, they can choose to worship no one at all. And that would be a totally valid choice. It's just that we know from source material and novels by reputable authors(greenwood), that people who do not choose a patron deity will have their souls abandoned in the realm of the dead, which is ruled over by Kelemvor, the god of the dead. Any such souls are placed on the wall and frozen there, to languish for eternity. Enough adventurers have actually made their way to that plane(while still alive) and seen the wall and returned to give that a good deal of credence. But again, it's up to every individual to make that choice.
I merely mentioned purge as an interesting adventure to try. It doesn't HAVE to be that way, I merely described an extreme situation.
Another setting, as in not forgotten realms, since for the majority of the people, the divinity of the gods is really without question. That's just the way it is.
Let me ask YOU a question. Just because we have 2 hands, 2 feet, a head, stand upright, have 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 ears, 2 eyes, a nose and all our assorted body parts in more or less the right places, why does it follow that we are 'human'? Or does it?
As a frequent player of Ilmatari in tabletop games and reader of the majority of 3e rulebooks, there isn't a single source I can attribute to Ilmater finding arcane magic perfid. In fact, his own avatar is known to be a powerful mage in 2e.
The same cleric seems to have a keen interest in maiming himself, which would likely be not taken well by Ilmater, as according to his religion any and all suffering should be alleviated (which is also the reason why the Ilmatari are the best healers of the realm). Inflicting pointless suffering, even if to oneself, would likely brand HIM as a heretic.
Neither of these facts speak to the topic if if a Wizard would/should worship an individual God, or respect/covet them as merely more powerful beings. I'm not sure this is said anywhere. It may be an assumption on your part. I don't think the books have explicitly said "Every person (or even the vast majority of people) in Faerun worships the gods". Even if it did, this doesn't answer my question of "Should they" given the premise. I'm sorry but this is begging the question and intentionally attempting to treat an assumed opinion as fact.
Humans are mostly made of their feelings, and even if you don't feel much and are a poker-face-guy who have feelings for something, AND THAT'S what makes you human, psychically talking. Then it comes to a more complex DNA that others species and other stuff that you don't wan't as answer. And the there are many humans with less than a complete body.
But then again, the gods themselves admittedly use mortals as tools, they need their worship, otherwise they fade, which is no different than dying for them - they become dead power, still conscious, but unable to act directly or do anything, forever lost in the astral sea.
The gods fear this so much that they have devised a few methods to keep people from stopping worhsipping them, such as the wall of the faithless, in which people slowly suffer until they are nothing more than pulsing mass of flesh surrounding the city of the dead- it doesn't matter if you never learned of the gods' existence, or if you were the most virtuous person in existence, if you died and did not do so much as pay lip service to the gods, you would be thrown there along with things that are utterly incapable of worshipping the gods (non-sapient animals, plants); Without it, people would be given afterlifes without deserving it, and as such, many would commit suicide just to be rewarded with paradise - thing is, devising post-death experiences costs the gods power, and without people worshipping them they would have no way to reacquire it. Ao saw this and demanded something to be done, and so the wall was de-retired. But that creates its own issues, which are a tale for another time. As a side note, there are theories that the wall of the faithless fuels the power of Ao, or is even the afterlife of Ao, implied by the fact that his worshippers automatically go there - a disturbing thought, since most things and people do not have faith, Ao likely has the most number of souls of any divinity, and souls can be used as power, perhaps this is the reason the gods actually obey it - though Ao admittedly does not do much, other than ensuring that the gods continue existing.
If you need to question your own beliefs about faith and magic, that is a question you can only find the answer by yourself, and judging by your comments, you don't really seem interested in hearing others anyway.
A god is not merely a powerful being, it is more of a force of nature, if your wizard, or likely you, cannot understand that, then so be it. Ignorance is bliss. You cannot change or deny their true nature. And if you are on your path to divinity without acknowledging the laws that be in the universe, you are in for disappointment, or, more likely, pain.
They are gods. The reason why they are gods is because people call them gods. If people didn't call them gods, they'd be called something else. Pan-immortal worship vampires?
"Neither of these facts speak to the topic if if a Wizard would/should worship an individual God, or respect/covet them as merely more powerful beings."
Both, either. It's up to the individual wizard. Who am I to tell another person what to do?
Nerd.
I do not get most of the things on your comment.
And intelligence has nothing to do with wisdom, which is the attribute that helps in these matters.
Tempus would not likely enter combat with someone as unprepared as a "pencil-neck wizard" and Bane would probably take much greater pleasure in corrupting such a stubborn and naïve magic user @the_spyder describes himself as being.
And judging by @the_spyder 's attitude and eloquence (or lack of it), he is quite likely not a nerd, and likely not very experienced in DnD matters, at least when it comes to lore, but likely in metagame, as well.
"As such, he would not battle the servants of the goddess of magic, Mystra, whom he called "the Lady", saying that "No matter how powerful one becomes, there are always those who are stronger.""
Mystra is a goddess, full stop. She has Chosen (Elminster) and she has Paladins and Clerics. Her divinity is a fact.
And if Mystra wished it, she could simply shut down magic on Toril, at will. She's the goddess in charge of the Weave.
An atheist Wizard is an ignorant idiot since if they don't already know that magic comes from Mystra (the Weave), then he better have a much better hypothesis on where magic comes from.
There are Cleric/Mages in ADnD and Mystic Theurges and Cleric with the Magic Domain in 3.5.
A Cleric/Mage is both a priest and a "scientist", using arcane magic from the Weave and divine magic from Mystra herself.
And pretty any atheist character has to be pretty damn ignorant or the gods probably did something terrible to him. (Like Irenicus)
Gods are pretty real and active in the Realms. Clerics are proof of that. As well as Paladins, Druid etc.
I think that the more powerful an arcanist becomes, the more likely to know that the gods exist.
Elminster, Larloch, Karsus etc are proof of that.
Though wanting to become a god is another thing. That's knowing that there are gods and wanting to become one. Not say "meh, they aren't that powerful anyway".
And should a Wizard worship a god? Yes, like everyone. A very powerful wizard can probably use a spell like Astral Projection or Plane Shift or Gate or whatever to travel to the Fugue Plane and see the wall for himself.
If that doesn't make him religious, nothing will.
In the Forgotten Realms it would be completely UNscientific to reject the notion of gods off-hand.
I think that the terms "deity" and "divinity" are hard to describe. I think many would say that what you describe as *not* being a product of divinity is actually the essence of divinity.
Even then, I'm not sure that the best real world parallel for magic would be science. They don't call it the Art for nothing! I mean sure it requires careful study and intelligent practice to understand or perform it, but so does sculpture and painting. I think if anything, magic is mostly a creative pursuit.
As far as Aerie being an "anachronism" (I think you completely misused the term btw, and I will assume you just meant "out of place") I don't think so. I mean, she travels with the offspring of a god. Also, the god she worships has a boss who is the god of Gnomish illusion magic.
A bit off-topic: I just want to point out that the sciences (I don't like how all the different branches are so often clumped together) and specifically scientists are not incompatible with most religions. As a medical student who went to a university that specializes mostly in the hard sciences, I was shocked to find that my medical school and college classmates were the two most religious populations I have ever seen. I had six TAs in physics, and four of them were in church choir. Also the entire Newman community (a Catholic group) was pretty much entirely composed of BME majors.
and I was the agnostic humanities major!!!
and for some non-anecdotal information: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/
According to Pew, academic scientists are far more likely to be atheist than the general population, but still a majority (51%) believe in a god or a higher power (7% declined to answer the question)
Like a giant dwarf. (Order of the Stick reference).
"An anachronism, from the Greek ανά (ana: up, against, back, re-) and χρόνος (chronos: time), is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangemen"
Aerie was basically a replacement for Quayle (from BG1) that wasn't both useless and extremely annoying and you get her early.
And I can't see an oxymoron in this. She's both a devout person and a priest and also a student of the Art.
Because that's what arcane magic is. It's not science, it's an art. It cannot be explained or analysed, that's why it's magic and called The Art.
Still others would never consider any 'person' to be worthy of worship, no matter their purported attributes. The reasons for this might vary--for some the issue could be epistemological and/or metaphysical--related to knowledge and being as in, "what is it to be worthy of worship, and how would I know it when I see it?--while for others the problems might be moral--they might cite some variant of the problem of evil, for example--but the result is still something like atheism or at least agnosticism.
And that reminds me: what is faith that is informed by the threat of torment? How could there be good deities who benefit from a system perpetuates the conquest of the baser instincts of self preservation over the higher virtues, which count for nothing in the eyes of the gods absent ignorant worship. There can't be genuine, honest belief in legitimacy. The questions above would bubble to the surface--what is it, and how do I know it when I see it? what of justice? Best quiet your doubts. Don't want to end up in the wall.
I think @the_spyder has been playing the Unseeing Eye quest a bit too much...
Anyway....given how pervasive evidence of the divine is in the FR setting, NOT believing in the gods would be a fringe belief. It would likely be the hallmark of the isolated and uneducated, much as a lack of knowledge about science and a belief in superstitions is is often looked down upon in our world.
Of course, ignoring evidence that conflicts with one's belief is something that people are very good at. Sure, it is possible that there could be isolated groups in far-flung lands who hadn't been exposed to knowledge of where the gods and their power come from, and who hadn't had much exposure to divine miracles. They might think that nature or their ancestors are the source of all power. There may also be a handful of deluded mages who refuse to believe that the power of the gods is qualitatively any different from theirs, because of their fantasies of attaining godhood. Perhaps there could be a cult led by a charismatic lunatic who convinces his followers that there is some infinite power even greater than Ao which created the gods....etc. etc. But the point is that if any of these hypothetical nonbelievers/heretics existed in this setting they would be a vast minority and would either need to engage in willful ignorance, or actually be ignorant to things that most people are aware of. Being an atheist in this setting would be associated with delusion more than with intelligent, rational thinking.
And @Grammarsalad, I think that people definitely question the legitimacy of many of the gods...which is why they might choose to worship, say, Talos vs. Helm. But there are so many gods that most people would find at least one who they feel is consistent with their values. And since the gods are NOT omnipotent and omnipresent, they're not subject to the problem that a god who makes those claims would be. Why does Torm allow evil to exist? He doesn't, because he doesn't have the capability to allow or disallow it. He and his righteous followers fight against evil to the best of their abilities. Tyr did so as well, and died in the process. If you want your god to be able to effectively fight for the things that you believe in or grant his/her followers the power to do so, you need to worship him/her to increase his/her power. But even if you refused to worship any of the gods out of cynicism (i.e., "they just use humans as a source of power") that's not the same as atheism or agnosticism. If someone insists that "worthy of worship" is part of the definition of what a god is and therefore no god who they wouldn't want to worship is a real god, then they're willfully disregarding the Forgotten Realms definition of a god. Someone who acknowledges the gods but won't worship them would be better classified as anti-theistic.
The methods many beings used for keeping their powers are definitely not pretty, however.
But back to FR... it's just what you mean by 'god', really. I mean, the greek gods weren't supreme beings; there were other entities around before who created them and they made all kinds of stupid mistakes and really caused so many problems and I don't know why anyone would have worshiped them, other than for the fact that they were very powerful. I guess to ancient peoples, gods really were like kings and emperors but even more powerful and permanent. They could be benevolent if you pleased them, but weren't to be trifled with at all.
But indeed, knowing is half the battle, and like the sages of Candlekeep say: "Wisdom is only possessed by the learned." A very useful piece of advice that many people should heed. Without such knowledge of the gods one can easily get into real trouble when dealing with their faithful, seeing as such is a weakness that will be exploited in ways so horrifying that even my immoral self finds despicable.
Sooner than you think. There are some very, very horrifying theories that prove that our reality is in fact a much grander, complex and disturbing existence. The scholars of such theories often go mad by simply studying them, and those who don't tend to agree that their sheer complexity is too much for a degenerate's mind to grasp, let alone comprehend. Such information is the real world version of a tome of eldritch knowledge, sure the knowledge of a truer grasp of the universe might seem appealing, but is that worth losing your sanity?
Inevitably though, people of sufficiently advanced minds will move away from the outdated systematic nonsense of quantum physics and into the torments of the strings theory, which is not even the worst of the lot - and may this serve as a warning to all of you, never, EVER try to gaze into the vast repository of information it offers, soon you will find it to be an abyss from which there is no coming back, no mind bleach will ever cleanse the taint of its rational complexity and radical paradigm shifts out of your mind, no more shall you be able to have a moment's peace with the calling that imprints on you and forces one to gaze more and more into the neverending abyss it offers, forever shall you be tainted with the torments of truth, to which your only escape from will be your end, and perhaps not even such, if quantum immortality is to be believed.