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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.
Because this is how all the other gods work, obviously. You need QUITE a strong justification to argue that the Christian god follows other rules than any other god, especially considering that you also have to justify why Christianity grew more than any other religion despite being the only one without a god.
OK, but at the very least there were plenty of Christian pagans who did believe in the big God but also believed in other gods. Even under the following baseless assumptions:
Believing in a more universal god for some reason doesn't create that god
Gods don't actually help their religions grow at all
No god, incarnation, or other entity can impersonate God
you still run into issues because at the very least these Christian pagans are still around and would be providing a non-universal version of God quite a lot of power, possibly enough for him to be able to tap into the broader Christian power source.
That's all I need! I don't even care whether God exists in-story, my gripe is that faith in him doesn't work where all the logic of the book says it should. There should be plenty of Christian sects worshipping impersonator gods and gaining power thereby.
Like a certain deity evoking imagery of nails, blood and three-fingered gestures?
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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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