Religion and theology thread

King Krávoka said:
Will you be allowed to study and use magic if you go before the time of Moses?
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I think the first point here would be what do you mean by "magic"?

In the world of LoTR, the Elves say they don't understand what Men or Hobbits mean by Elvish "magic"... and I think that is because the people using the word do not themselves know what they mean.
 
King Krávoka said:
I mean magic. It's probably an admission of guilt if You start playing postmodernist word games around a defined religious prohibition.
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Define magic.

It's something that needs to be done because if it's just "using spirits to do supernatural things" then that's banned even before Moses. If it's "channeling God's divine light" that isn't even banned now.
 
Vyor said:
Define magic.

It's something that needs to be done because if it's just "using spirits to do supernatural things" then that's banned even before Moses. If it's "channeling God's divine light" that isn't even banned now.
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I said nothing about prayer. It's not even natural to think of prayer when reading that word. King're projecting an extremely thick level of question trolling out of nowhere. If I say something with the suggestion of wrongness then it's obviously the meaning of the word that is off-limits (leaving alone the FACT that magic is such a well defined concept with an instantly communicated meaning that I will not even dare to insult anyone by giving an explanation of what is already known to all participants).
 
King Krávoka said:
I said nothing about prayer. It's not even natural to think of prayer when reading that word. King're projecting an extremely thick level of question trolling out of nowhere. If I say something with the suggestion of wrongness then it's obviously the meaning of the word that is off-limits (leaving alone the FACT that magic is such a well defined concept with an instantly communicated meaning that I will not even dare to insult anyone by giving an explanation of what is already known to all participants).
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DnD has channeling divine power as magic, channeling your own power, channeling the power of nature, and channeling the power of spirits all as magic.
 
Vyor said:
DnD has channeling divine power as magic, channeling your own power, channeling the power of nature, and channeling the power of spirits all as magic.
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Leaving aside the (hopefully) impossible beginning of this conversation, does it look like the fantasy fiction thread?
 
King Krávoka said:
I said nothing about prayer. It's not even natural to think of prayer when reading that word.
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Have you read a fantasy book? played a fantasy CRPG? played a fantasy TTRPG?
prayer = magic is literally the standard in 99% of fantasy settings.
Priests pray to the good gods / dark gods and magic happens.
Shaman/druids pray to the spirits and magic happens.

Arcane magic (self fuelled magic involving no prayer nor higher powers) often exists side by side with that priestly magic, but is less universally common.
By less common I mean, most settings have both. in 2nd place you have settings with only priestly/druidic magic. and in 3rd place you have settings with only arcane magic.

To clarify though, I am talking about western works.
China has their own traditional fantasy which is about cultivation.
Focusing on taoism & buddhism and really based on journey to the west.
Where magic is the long arderous process of mortal men becoming gods.
 
mrttao said:
Have you read a fantasy book? played a fantasy CRPG? played a fantasy TTRPG?
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Fantasy stories do not speak English, or a shared language of their own. They'll misuse, recycle, and reject words as they wish, even the ones that don't have a mythological context. You're dying of escapism if You can't separate fantasy fiction from theology (unless You see religion as categorically fantasy, King might because I remember that King're an atheistic ex-Jew, I don't know about everyone else in this conversation), and if You're sincerely religious yet allowing a fiction to influence your metaphysical beliefs then You need to apologize to your nonfictitous deity in prayer and stop reading so much blasphemy. It doesn't matter how pious their authors were, The Lord of The Rings is not a religious text, The Chronicles of Narnia is not a religious text, and Dungeons & Dragons is not a religious text.

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus was listing escapists next to magicians in the unambiguous list of people that are not going to Heaven. Sounds kind of trollish to say this in a science fiction and fantasy forum, but this isn't a science fiction and fantasy forum, it is a severe addiction to anger forum. That's why this thread is only used for acting out interfaith grudges instead of satisfying anybody's curiosity. "Loving and making a lie" is such a specific and abstract crime to describe. It's not just making false information, it's not just using false information to exploit Others, it's lying to Yourself to make You feel better, not even necessarily in a blasphemous way, yet blasphemy is its proven logical conclusion. Dante should have burned His Divine Comedy the day after He finished it because it was completely forseeable that it would be taken as a revelation, and that He would have been acting out the role of a heretic and false prophet no matter what He intended.

And it's the same for every fantasy story. We live an age that is flooded with people who will choose to play along with, or even believe in, any religion that someone has made up for the pure purposes of fiction, but They don't play along with the fictional pursuit of justice and fulfillment. They know that the world is full of evil but They waste Their finite time on punishing a proxy in its place. I can see why God would decide that such people are basically evil. Would they even be able to appreciate Their mansions in Heaven, spending eternity ignoring Their beautiful surroundings for an imaginary world of evil and filth, prolonging the devil's works into eternity?
 
King Krávoka said:
Fantasy stories do not speak English, or a shared language of their own. They'll misuse, recycle, and reject words as they wish, even the ones that don't have a mythological context.
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Semantics argument.
It does not matter what language they use when the concept is that priests have magic powers that come from essentially praying to the deities they worship. Or from nature spirits.

the ancient egyptian priests had magic from the gods. the ancient jews had moses get magic from god. the ancient norse and roman had priests claim to do magic from the gods. and that notion carried over into modern days where in most fantasy stories, worldwide, gods and nature spirits grant their priests magic powers.
 
Vyor said:
Ah yes, the modern piles of shit translations that completely ignore original contexts. Amazing.

Fuck off with that shit.
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King Krávoka said:
Will you be allowed to study and use magic if you go before the time of Moses?
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Because none of you are actually answering the root question. I'll answer it as best as I can.

So, to explain what magic means in the Biblical context, I must first explain what the gods 'lower g' were defined as according to tradition.

The gods of the Old Testament that weren't Yahweh are demons. Plain and simple, with their sole goal of driving the separation between God and Man even further. Often in the Old Testament promising power and 'magic' if one were to worship them instead.

Hence, the sorcerers and wise men of Pharaoh being able to replicate some of the Plagues of Egypt.

All magic is derived from demons.

Miracles aren't magic in scripture. They're God literally stepping in and exerting his divine power over something.

So, to sum up. No, both Christian and Judaism would forbade the study of magic if you were to go to the time of Moses.
 
MarkWarrior said:
Because none of you are actually answering the root question. I'll answer it as best as I can.

So, to explain what magic means in the Biblical context, I must first explain what the gods 'lower g' were defined as according to tradition.

The gods of the Old Testament that weren't Yahweh are demons. Plain and simple, with their sole goal of driving the separation between God and Man even further. Often in the Old Testament promising power and 'magic' if one were to worship them instead.

Hence, the sorcerers and wise men of Pharaoh being able to replicate some of the Plagues of Egypt.

All magic is derived from demons.

Miracles aren't magic in scripture. They're God literally stepping in and exerting his divine power over something.

So, to sum up. No, both Christian and Judaism would forbade the study of magic if you were to go to the time of Moses.
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Except that magic, as a word, didn't start to exist until the 14th century AD, where it did cover divine acts.
 
Vyor said:
Except that magic, as a word, didn't start to exist until the 14th century AD, where it did cover divine acts.
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He's not asking about the word. He's asking about the practice itself though. There are plenty of words that exist now that didn't in the past. We understand the "Concept". So that should be enough to explain.
 
MarkWarrior said:
He's not asking about the word. He's asking about the practice itself though. There are plenty of words that exist now that didn't in the past. We understand the "Concept". So that should be enough to explain.
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Except that the concept includes divine, you know, magic. Magic is any supernatural effect ffs. Almost like words mean things.
 
Vyor said:
Except that the concept includes divine, you know, magic. Magic is any supernatural effect ffs. Almost like words mean things.
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I mean. take a look at this line
"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you."
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The word necromancy did not exist back then. But "inquires of the dead" is describing necromancy. (a word whose literal meaning is "talking to the dead" but was since expanded to raising undead). Medium and spiritist also very clearly indicate someone who claims to talk to ghosts.

The word divination probably didn't exist back then. But "interprets omens" describes what a diviner DOES.

There is also the context. If there was just the one thing by itself you could say "oh, mistranslation. this one specific word could have meant XY or Z".
But when you put them all of them together and it is quite clear they are talking about magic.
 
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