While we could spin a beautiful web of metaphysical arguments trying to rationalize... the fact is that this we messed up. Somehow, all of us involved in the product thought that pantheism meant belief in a pantheon (damn you, Greek roots!). After all, if you look up "pantheism" on the internet, you find things like Hinduism, which clearly have many gods...
So yeah--turns out, we're game designers interested in religion, but not experts. Polytheism (or something else entirely) would have been the correct term. Apologies to all the theologists out there!
Fair enough. Thanks for the response.
Also, nice word play in your final sentence. :) (For those who missed his joke, the proper word for a student of theology is theologian, not theologist.)
I would guess that real-world historical religious concepts just don't apply in a world where "Gods" are just really powerful beings that hand out powers to loyal followers. "Belief" plays a minor role in Golarion Religion, existence of Gods is not controversial or in dispute by anybody, religion is more about allegiance and fealty. Your real-word definition of Pantheism is just provably un-true in Golarion, as Clerics can only receive powers from Deities, not concepts or the universe as a whole, so there just isn't an all-encompassing "God", not in the sense of "God" as that term is used in Golarion. People may have their theories of the world and universe as a whole, but they aren't going to conflate that up with "Gods" because "Gods" are specific, real beings. In other words, when the status of "Gods" differs from real world to Golarion, words based on constructions of "Gods"/theo- will function according to the context of "Gods" relevant for that world, not based on world where "Gods" has a wholly different relevance and context.
I've been thinking a lot about your post. First, let me get this out of the way: I agree that all of the facts support your view. There's no question that pantheonic polytheistic theology is the truth in Golarion.
The thing is, even though gods work differently in Golarion than on Earth, human beings are still human beings. As a species, we have a strong ability to believe things even if the facts don't support us (and, in fact, even if they contradict us). I don't want to start giving real world examples of this for fear of taking this thread off-topic, but if you can't think of any yourself you can either take my word for it or we can have an off-topic discussion someplace else. The "Fallen and False Deities" section of this book may be my favourite part of it, for this very reason. People persevere at believing weird stuff, even if there's plenty of evidence that their beliefs are incorrect. I think pantheism is a lot less weird on Golarion than a lot of things that have been proven true (in that context), and I think that as a belief system it could certainly have followers.
For example, a Golarion pantheist might say, "Of course I believe that Desna is God. And Abadar is God. And you are God, and I am God, and that tree is God, and that rock is God, and that ship is God." I'm not saying that this system of beliefs would be rewarded by access to the cleric class necessarily; I'm just saying that I can see people believing it regardless.
Dumb question time, does this book say anything about non-evil worshippers or worship of evil gods? For instance, do some people make offerings to Lamashtu to convince her to turn her monsters aside from their path when they travel, or maybe offer a chicken or the like to Urgathoa to ask her to not sicken them with plague, and so forth?
I've been thinking a lot about your post. First, let me get this out of the way: I agree that all of the facts support your view. There's no question that pantheonic polytheistic theology is the truth in Golarion.
I think pantheism is a lot less weird on Golarion than a lot of things that have been proven true (in that context), and I think that as a belief system it could certainly have followers... I'm not saying that this system of beliefs would be rewarded by access to the cleric class necessarily; I'm just saying that I can see people believing it regardless.
Great post, I had been wishing that I was clearer in my post that some sort of philosophy akin to 'realworld pantheism' is certainly wholly plausible within Golarion. I guess my stance on it was more that it is just a philosophy, not something which describes an actually unique relationship to Gods... And in a world where Gods are real, words constructed from God/Theo* might reasonably be used in a more objective manner to describe one's stance re: Gods in specific, rather than using God/Theo as a stand in for existential philosophical issues. Golarion Pantheist philosophy really has no need to be constrained to Deities or even the "Divine" per se, and probably isn't - see Kami, for example.
What it comes down to is why do these words exist? To distinguish one concept from another, i.e. pantheism vs. monotheism. Real-world Monotheist worshippers are of course aware that other people worship other gods, they just choose not to worship them as well, i.e. they "believe" a different existential world-view, and/or DON'T believe other world-views, although this need not always be symmetrical (one culture/religion can include the God of another but with a different context). In Golarion, worship of different deities, either exclusively or as pantheons (which is rather common as a lay practice, even if Cleric powers must derive from just one Deity) just isn't so indicative of existential understandings of the universe, even if different schools of thought there may certainly exist. Of course, having real actual Gods handing out Divine Spells, and Pharasma sending souls on to another plane, means your common man's NEEDS are easily met by actual Gods, and abstract existential theories are just less relevant... And these philosophical questions in fact may even be ones that the Gods themselves are not sure of...
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Apologies to all the theologists out there!Also, nice word play in your final sentence. :) (For those who missed his joke, the proper word for a student of theology is theologian, not theologist.)
Oh... I thought Apologies was the pun....
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Dumb question time, does this book say anything about non-evil worshippers or worship of evil gods? For instance, do some people make offerings to Lamashtu to convince her to turn her monsters aside from their path when they travel, or maybe offer a chicken or the like to Urgathoa to ask her to not sicken them with plague, and so forth?
I'd be interested in this, as well. But not so much the casual worshipers you describe, who kiss up to a god for short time in hopes of favors, but in terms of actual clerics, inquisitors, etc of evil gods, where the worshiper is neutral aligned. This type of thing is legal, and actually crops up in PFS, so I'd be curious about how it's supposed to work.
I don't know about anyone else, but I just have a hard time accepting a neutral worshiper of Rovagug or Lamashtu. Asmodeus, on the other hand, works well for LN patriotic Chelaxians.
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Oh... I thought Apologies was the pun....Apologies to all the theologists out there!Also, nice word play in your final sentence. :) (For those who missed his joke, the proper word for a student of theology is theologian, not theologist.)
Half the work of being a writer is getting the reader to do the other half of your job for you. :D
That was one of the most fun things I've written recently! Wes, Patrick, and I all got excited about doing what's essentially a Golarion version of a Chick Tract, and I'm really glad they let me write it. :DWhoever wrote the Iomedaen religious propaganda pamphlet is my hero.I believe you have the ever-talented and hilarious James Sutter to thank for that gem. :]
I should have known that my hero was going to be a Frog.
@Dungeonginger
The data on the gods is scattered across many books, but Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-Inner-Sea-Gods-Hardcover collects the data into one book for the most part, though it's not released yet.
if you want the info now go here.
With regard to the earlier pantheism / polytheism issue, it wasn't much of an error. Frequently a religion with many gods, such as Hinduism, may regard them as aspects of a greater entity, sometimes ultimately all are one. This is a matter of level of analysis, meaning personal and daily versus theoretical and ultimate.
Some religions with no gods, such as Buddhism, may incorporate saints, which upon examination turn out to be earlier gods who converted to Buddhism. Gods can go downhill too. But they're still in the game.
Some religions with only one god, such as Catholicism, may have a multitude of saints which are prayed to, and which to a polytheist, look pretty much like gods. Monotheism may not be much from different from polytheism in practice.
Of course, the biggest dump is when the old daily gods get turned into devils and demons in a conquering or dominant religion's view of things.
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Will Paizo one day fix the pantheism/polytheism mistake? I already get headache from people using terms and/or philosophical concepts wrong, like how people commonly use nihilism incorrectly(they usually use it to refer to destructive psychopaths for some reason :P It just a belief in that things don't have inherent objective value.), but when there is whole section that keeps using one obvious mistake over and over... Yeah, I suppose it isn't THAT big deal since everyone knows it wrong now, but yeah, I have this nagging feeling back in my head screaming "WROOONG". Comes with being a huge geek I guess
Announced! Product image is a mockup, and will change prior to publication.
This is a good strategy.
Will Paizo one day fix the pantheism/polytheism mistake? I already get headache from people using terms and/or philosophical concepts wrong, like how people commonly use nihilism incorrectly(they usually use it to refer to destructive psychopaths for some reason :P It just a belief in that things don't have inherent objective value.), but when there is whole section that keeps using one obvious mistake over and over... Yeah, I suppose it isn't THAT big deal since everyone knows it wrong now, but yeah, I have this nagging feeling back in my head screaming "WROOONG". Comes with being a huge geek I guess
Pantheism is the worship of all the gods in a pantheon, right?
Polytheism is the worship of many gods, but not necessarily all of them. The Hindus in India is a good example of both. Hinduism is polytheism, while the Grecco-Roman Religion is a great example of Pantheism.
Incidentally, the "Greeks" worshipped their Ancestors. Their pantheism is nothing more than Ancestor worship. It says so, in their records. :)
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Will Paizo one day fix the pantheism/polytheism mistake? I already get headache from people using terms and/or philosophical concepts wrong, like how people commonly use nihilism incorrectly(they usually use it to refer to destructive psychopaths for some reason :P It just a belief in that things don't have inherent objective value.), but when there is whole section that keeps using one obvious mistake over and over... Yeah, I suppose it isn't THAT big deal since everyone knows it wrong now, but yeah, I have this nagging feeling back in my head screaming "WROOONG". Comes with being a huge geek I guessPantheism is the worship of all the gods in a pantheon, right?
Polytheism is the worship of many gods, but not necessarily all of them. The Hindus in India is a good example of both. Hinduism is polytheism, while the Grecco-Roman Religion is a great example of Pantheism.
Incidentally, the "Greeks" worshipped their Ancestors. Their pantheism is nothing more than Ancestor worship. It says so, in their records. :)
Umm, no. "pan" doesn't come from pantheon, it comes from "all". pantheism means that EVERYTHING is in the universe is part of the god. Scratch that, more like everything in existance IS the god.
BTW, pantheon literally translated means "temple of all gods" :P Its name of particular temple in Rome
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As an FYI, in the next update to Additional Resources, the Vulture domain in Faiths & Philosophies will be changed from Agent of Rebirth to the following:
At 8th level, the druid can cast an extended air walk spell as a spell-like ability once per day.
Michael, I know it's been 4 years, but I noticed this post and couldn't help but notice there was no update to the resources page about this. Has this been changed?
