NEXUS7 - 9/12/2006 7:03 AMWell, you've all made some very interesting points.The one I'm most worried about is my mistake in not submitting for a group: that, I should have done. I will not have Rosa talking on behalf of any of her belief/group until I do that.As for a lot of the other comments, the fact is that the beliefs of the God Free'ers are at odds with what most believe in the world of Layo.However - and this is my main point, if, out of game, you as overseers and definers of the world just dismiss Rosa/my attempt at a PC view which is counter to the world view in this small way, you give carte blanche to players ridiculing her (in-game) with their characters.Now, I'm not saying that ridiculing her is wrong per se - far from it! - but if that ridicule originates out of game then I feel it is wrong.It has always been the case that heresy was labeled as insanity, sedition and subversion, that's the very nature of organized religion. What you're saying is a paladin of Toran would see an evil Blackguard - someone who kills for fun and commits hideous crimes - who supports an evil god and believes in Toran's existence as bad but sane?From what you're saying the Layo gods are real - there is proof of that and of what they do, whether good or bad. I'm fine with all of that, but what I'm asking is this: while a being could metamorphose into a god through a function of its believers, what in fact dos a follower of any god on layo believe in?I know this may sound odd but I think its a valid question - why does belief in, say, the politics of the King differ from belief in what a god does? There are some very high level PCs on Layo; why not believe in them - a case Hero worship that transforms into belief (or transcend, as others have said).See I see faith as a position where you can ask your real god to show you what to believe in on a per action basis, and this is the reason why Rosa sees, through that, that worshippers are as slaves. Their God will punish them for the "transgression" of free thought. Even the good gods hold those that do not follow the Group Think of the church accountable (read: Inquisition).Also, there are High INT players on Layo who openly say that the gods are beings just like the common races who merely accrued so much personal power that they proclaimed themselves gods.They do this in game openly.Rosa, then, has just taken that one step further.That leads us back to the existence and history of the gods being hard fact - fact like the rocks on the road. I ask, then, how is a belief that a rock I hold in my hand is real any different from belief in a god and the afterlife? They become facts of life, why have (moral/memorial) ambiguity - when you don't know what's right you can simply ask your god, and offset the blame.But the clerics speak for their gods and that can carry a hell of a lot of weight in RP.That's the power that Layo's gods hand down - not just Divine magics, but complete moral authority and assurance.So, then, why would others see Rosa as mad? Let's examine her beliefs:- She believes in a soul (not mad)- She believes that gods are real (not mad)- She believes in life after death (not mad)- She believes what you do in life matters in the hereafter (not mad)- She believes that good and evil are real and can be seen in the world (not mad)- She believes that the soul is on a path to enlightenment (mad)- She believes that gods - although they exist - are in fact formed from our own belifs, and that a truly enlightened soul will pass beyond the need for such constructs of the spirit to a higher plain of being. (mad)- She believes that the god-beings/constructs in fact hold back the soul from this path to true enlightenment with lies of the mind's own making as the gods are based out of those same minds (mad)- She believes that the world, like the gods, is a training ground for souls on their walk to enlightenment, that all things exist to teach the soul on its path.(mad)While her belief has no basis in proof, what does it matter? Rosa, in fact, thinks the gods are mad for refusing to move to the higher plain of true enlightenment, and that their intent to hold the world as it is and to hold souls in thrall to them makes them lesser than even the common races. Like us, through ignorance, they have lost sight of the path to enlightenment.Now I ask: is this truly what you are saying of Rosa, that blind faith without proof condemns her as a lunatic, delusional and mad?
I will not have her taking on behafeb of any her belife/ group untill I do that.
So, PCs belive in heven and have no prof that is such a place.