97 replies to this topic

[voodooqueen126]

Also in AFFC Brienne sees some sparrows carrying around the bones of Septas and Septons who have been murdered during the war.
So does that mean that Westeros has Relics and Reliquaries as seen in medieval christianity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliquary

[SeanF]

It'd be interesting to know how much religious tolerance there is in Westeros (and other lands).

A lot of the red priests (such as Melisandre) regard R'hllor as the one true God, and other gods as either non-existent, or demons in service of the Great Other.  Melisandre persuades Stannis for a time to stamp out the worship of the Seven, but he's eventually forced to accept that he can't impose the worship of R'hllor on all of his men.  Yet, I don't get the impression that Thoros is intolerant, and in much of the world, Red Priests seem to co-exist with followers of other religions.

Followers of the Drowned God are intolerant.  The worship of the Seven has been suppressed on the Iron Islands.

Most worshippers of the Seven seem prepared to tolerate other religions, as do worshippers of the Old Gods.  But, it's clear that many Septons detest the religion of R'hllor, even if they've not sought to suppress it by law, so far.

[Bad Dog]

I guess it's a lot like with religions in the real world with those religions - there are tolerant people, and there are fanatics.

It seems to me that the worshippers of the Seven and of the old gods work together best, and as long as the believers in R'hllor are few and weak, they can't afford to show such intolerance. When they get into a position of power, however...
The belief of the Seven seems to have some newly arisen fanaticism in the sparrows, though, and we'll see soon enough (or possibly in a decade's time...) how that plays out.

I agree, the Ironborn are pretty intolerant, though Victarion and Moqorro manage a rather nice oecumenical sacrifice.

[SeanF]

Bad Dog, on 19 October 2011 - 05:58 PM, said:

how that plays out. I agree, the Ironborn are pretty intolerant, though Victarion and Moqorro manage a rather nice oecumenical sacrifice.

LOL!

Another possiblity that occurred to me is that perhaps it's down to the local lord to determine what god(s) are worshipped in the area under his control, or possibly to rule that any god (s) can be worhsipped - rather like the Holy Roman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries.

[Bran The Beastling]

We know the Old Gods are there and have power. We know the Fire God is there and has some power.


But the 7 and the rest just seem like made up Religons and have no real power that we have seen at least.

[voodooqueen126]

Bran The Beastling, on 21 October 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

We know the Old Gods are there and have power. We know the Fire God is there and has some power.


But the 7 and the rest just seem like made up Religons and have no real power that we have seen at least.

well the 7 are the most human and they are also the most moral. So presumably the equivalents of Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus and Bonaventure write about them...
which is a far more interesting question then what they actually do.
Also didn't they send Davos that vision after the Blackwater.

[Bran The Beastling]

voodooqueen126, on 21 October 2011 - 06:40 PM, said:

Also didn't they send Davos that vision after the Blackwater.

Did they?

[voodooqueen126]

Bran The Beastling, on 22 October 2011 - 08:43 AM, said:

Did they?

he could've been delusional with thirst though.
They were angry at him for letting them burn.

[The Bastard of Bolton]

The only worthwhile religion seems to be that of the Lord of Light.
The Old Gods have power but are passive observers, The Seven are just faith based dieties that don't have effect on anything, The Drowned God is a nutty cult based around the discovery of a primitive form of CPR.
R'hllor seems to be the only God with some functional power behind him.

[Rakka]

Or functional trickery.

[voodooqueen126]

The Bastard of Bolton, on 14 January 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

The only worthwhile religion seems to be that of the Lord of Light.
The Old Gods have power but are passive observers, The Seven are just faith based dieties that don't have effect on anything, The Drowned God is a nutty cult based around the discovery of a primitive form of CPR.
R'hllor seems to be the only God with some functional power behind him.

Hmn I would like to know more about the Seven Aspects of Grace, the white septas (dedicated to the maiden-governesses like Mordane), blue septas (dedicated to the mother-possibly running hospitals), grey septas (the crone, devoted to scholarship) and whether someone enters the separate orders directly, or if someone initially works as a governess and then is promoted to hospitals and then as an old lady is devoted to scholarship.
Same with Brown Septons (dedicated to the smith perhaps involved in craft and scholarship like many benedictine monasteries) and Green Septons (perhaps dedicated to the father perhaps trained in law)...
Wonder what coour the Septons dedicated to the father wore?

[Morte]

The Bastard of Bolton, on 14 January 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

The only worthwhile religion seems to be that of the Lord of Light.
The Old Gods have power but are passive observers, The Seven are just faith based dieties that don't have effect on anything, The Drowned God is a nutty cult based around the discovery of a primitive form of CPR.
R'hllor seems to be the only God with some functional power behind him.

The Elder Brother on the QI was healing abilities; the Old Gods save Sam and Gilly via Coldhand/Bloodraven etc. - BUT I think, none of the Gods is actually truely involved (no, not even the R'hllor), but in fact the priests doing the magic think it was sent to them by their god.
I don't actually think this is true (magic send by the gods), as MMD was as much able to do blood/shadow magic as is Melisandre, Thoros did his biggest magic while he wasn't truely believing in R'hllor, and I also believe Maewyn the Mage is actually able to weave magic (he does glass candle reading, and is seemingly good at it, as he tells Sam, he knows a lot of what Sam wants to tell him) - the only reason, why magic is assoiated with believe and gods in the world of ASOIAF is because it's mostly left to priests and not studied by researchers as the maesters; maybe this is different in Asshai (Maewyn was there to learn), but the only person we can hope to sheat some light on this is Maewyn, as Melisandre is to fanatic and selfblinded to reflect on the sources of magic.

[voodooqueen126]

Morte, on 15 January 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

The Elder Brother on the QI was healing abilities; the Old Gods save Sam and Gilly via Coldhand/Bloodraven etc. - BUT I think, none of the Gods is actually truely involved (no, not even the R'hllor), but in fact the priests doing the magic think it was sent to them by their god.
I don't actually think this is true (magic send by the gods), as MMD was as much able to do blood/shadow magic as is Melisandre, Thoros did his biggest magic while he wasn't truely believing in R'hllor, and I also believe Maewyn the Mage is actually able to weave magic (he does glass candle reading, and is seemingly good at it, as he tells Sam, he knows a lot of what Sam wants to tell him) - the only reason, why magic is assoiated with believe and gods in the world of ASOIAF is because it's mostly left to priests and not studied by researchers as the maesters; maybe this is different in Asshai (Maewyn was there to learn), but the only person we can hope to sheat some light on this is Maewyn, as Melisandre is to fanatic and selfblinded to reflect on the sources of magic.

More importantly the Faith of the Seven provides an employment for women outside of marriage and people like Septon Meribald (who was a devotee of the Smith and an old man)

[The Bastard of Bolton]

Is being a Septa an actual job?
I wouldn't consider nuns to be employed but I suppose as a lady in a middle age type setting the choices were limited.  I think the dvd/blu-ray of season 1 will cover the religions of Westeros, limiting it to the Old Gods and the Seven... I wonder how indept they are going, I saw a clip that I am hoping is just an excerpt and not the entire thing.

As for the replies I got I suppose it could be interpreted that R'hllor has some of the most avid spokespeople.  They can bring back people from the dead, yet Qyburn can as welll... It hasn't been revealed how just yet...

[LuisDantas]

Yet it must be asked, how much religious significance should we read into working magic that seems to have no moral directive whatsoever?

Particularly when the results of "bringing people back to life" in the way that Tyros and Qyburn seem to have done are essentially pointless?

I don't think they have any, personally. Magic and "miracles" are religiously worthless, almost by definition.  But there are many understandings of what "religion" should mean floating around, some very much at odds with others.

[voodooqueen126]

The Bastard of Bolton, on 15 January 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

Is being a Septa an actual job?
I wouldn't consider nuns to be employed but I suppose as a lady in a middle age type setting the choices were limited.  I think the dvd/blu-ray of season 1 will cover the religions of Westeros, limiting it to the Old Gods and the Seven... I wonder how indept they are going, I saw a clip that I am hoping is just an excerpt and not the entire thing.

As for the replies I got I suppose it could be interpreted that R'hllor has some of the most avid spokespeople.  They can bring back people from the dead, yet Qyburn can as welll... It hasn't been revealed how just yet...

well yeah. Nuns were teachers, nurses* (the first hospitals were run by nuns, one of the factors in the reformation was the clergy who nursed the victims of the black death, therefore had a higher death rate, leading to poor training and in the next few generations of nuns and monks thus leading to poor quality of nuns and monks by the time the reformation came around) nuns were also academics (hildegard von bingen and Heloise).
So if you wanted a profession and you were a woman, the nunnery was the only way to get one.
Surely the test of a religion is not its miracles** but rather the morality of its adherents... you know a tree by it's fruit and all.

*It's why my great grandmother's (and actually grandmother's and aunts now that i think about it) look a lot like a nun's habit and why nuns are addressed as sister.
**remember that the bible says that pharoah's servants and the priest of Baal performed miracles too, worth noting that Baal and Molech worship involved burning children alive)

[The Bastard of Bolton]

I know this will seem like an oxy moron to some but religion does not necessitate morality.
Religion is culturally relative and although the vast majority of religions boast a set moral  values.

Might so happen that the cruel unforgiving world Westeros is found in is the creation of a cruel unforgiving god more concerned with worship then the morality of its creations.

[LuisDantas]

That is not much of a religion then, now is it?  Nor is it much Westerosi either, IMO.

Edited by LuisDantas, 16 January 2012 - 05:58 PM.

[Kate Poem]

Faith in Seven is similar to katholicism. Rh'llor too, in some way (white-black vision of the world, deity  with heart on fire and demonish devil), even Drowned God (died deity and reborn followers).
Old gods are most mysterious, I think.
Martin had vision. Wonderful!

[The Bastard of Bolton]

LuisDantas, on 16 January 2012 - 05:58 PM, said:

That is not much of a religion then, now is it?  Nor is it much Westerosi either, IMO.

That is entirely subjective.  I wouldn't say that the Old Gods are clearly moral, nor have many of the early tribal religions of our own world been.  Many relied on an interconnectedness to nature.  People weren't raping, killing and being cruel as a rule but they did not need a specific commandment telling them exactly how they should conduct themselves.

The more clearly moral religions usually end up being the most immoral.
If I remember correctly those who pushed for the Seven didn't give much consideration for the Children of the Forest and their Old Gods, nor did early Christians have much morality when dealing with "savages and their pagan ways.

Kate Poem, on 16 January 2012 - 06:56 PM, said:

Faith in Seven is similar to katholicism. Rh'llor too, in some way (white-black vision of the world, deity  with heart on fire and demonish devil), even Drowned God (died deity and reborn followers).
Old gods are most mysterious, I think.
Martin had vision. Wonderful!

The Seven resembles the catholic trinity and Rh'llor feels like the unflinching God of the Old Testament.  The Drowned God seems like worship being born out of the discovery of CPR and a reverance for the sea.  The Old Gods seems a bit like animism and earlier forms of belief that had a closer connection to life and beings.