Dwarves' beliefs

[ghost]

I'm trying to understand the beliefs of the dwarves.

I will try to make a comparison. They might look a bit like reformed catholics that however would have kept their ancient religious habits. Let me explain this.

They almost accord no importance to prays, benedictions and blessings but unlike the reformed catholics, they continue to perform them as an ancient habit.

The reformed catholics gave more importance to the bible, the original root of their religion, the Lord's word. But here they accord instead more importance to, and that is the point I start to being lost, the Wise Council. This council acts like a group of chosen one, trusted by the gods, that have their benedictions. This sounds really like a Papacy.

Now my question is: why are they trusting some blessed people, the Wise Council (like a college of cardinals), and not instead holy books or runes or whatever (do they got any?).

Also, assuming that the current state of affair of the world, and its direction, is the right one, are they just praying their gods to thank them and to hope they continue to oversee them the same way ? And isn't there any skeptical dwarfs or non-believers ?

[kestal]

I wouldn't say the Council of the wise is trusted by the gods, or chosen, as much as aware of the gods' will. That is, (as per this belief) the gods haven't explicitly chosen the members of the council. Instead, any dwarf that makes good choices in his life is considered to have an insight in the gods' will, because if his choices are good, then necessarily, they have to be what the gods want. Hence, any dwarf intelligent enough, or that makes the right choices, is considered wise (in the religious sense of the term). In this sense, the council is nothing but some assembly of really wise dwarves. They aren't holier than others in a qualitative sense.

Honestly, I'm not sure the belief that I've written for the dwarves really makes sense, but then again, it's a religion so contradictions are almost something to aim for!

Concerning holy scripts, we haven't decided for them to have any, but that's not fixed. So, if you want to try and define any, that could be accepted. But I think it could be difficult to have holy scripts that would match the current belief system.

Concerning the current state of affair of the world, and its direction, I think both both types of prayers are possible. I think we could have skepticals an unbelievers, but the dwarf culture is quite uniform (at least at the time of what we write here, i.e. -400 until 0).

[kestal]

So, the pantheon here is not clearly defined (I think it doesn't matter much): it could consist of something like a dozen of gods; this could depend on the specific dwarf subculture, on time, etc. The gods are seen to live in some sort of Eden/Nirvana, and to do so in a relative peace. There is no notion of evil in this godly place. In short, the gods are nice and good.

Where could evil or bad things come from? Some proposals:

• Evil doesn't exist in the world, but bad things can happen anyway, and they lead to good things. In this case, the gods would sort of be considered omnipotent. But I think this concept isn't very interesting.
• Evil exists, and is due to people.
• Bad things happen, but there is no real notion of evil. Chance/randomness can make bad things happen. Dwarves can become mean, or bitter, due to their life circumstances, but aren't evil per se. This is my favorite option so far. The gods would try their best to oversee the world in such a way that evil is minimized, but sometimes they forget, or whatever, and bad things happen still. I like this option because it matches the inherently positive thought process of the dwarves.

Also, keep in mind that nothing is fixed in time here. Religions change, cultures too.

[ghost]

I quote David R. Loy:

What does this mean for the duality of good versus evil? One way the interdependence of good and evil shows itself: we don't feel we are good unless we are fighting against evil. We can feel comfortable and secure in our own goodness only by attacking and destroying the evil outside us. The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

I like the third option: no real notion of evil. As I understand it, there is no personification of evil ; they won't have an external element that cause or justify their bad behavior (like Satan for the Christians).

But in some terms, the people must be as evil as good. That is up to them to choose their direction. This way there aren't evil per se, nor good per se, there are free to choose. Life circumstances can make your life harder, but the choice is always there. In this way the gods could be only good, and try to guide the people to the right direction. The fact that the divine force will only push them to good will also match their inherently positive thought process.