Muffin King Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 We have seen proof of Rhollor and the old gods existence, but none of the seven, which is the most popular religion in westeros. So do the seven exist or not? (If there has been proof of their existence that I've missed, please shut down the thread) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lateral Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I think we have seen proof for neither R'hllor nor the Old Gods. Just because Melisandre/Thoros can do supernatural things that doesn't mean that there is necessarily a god behind it. I'm very sure that the Seven don't exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mladen Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 There is no such thing as real or false deities. Seven are as much as real and/or false as R'hllor or Old Gods... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShelbySmythe Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I can see the angle you're coming from with R'hllor, but I don't think we've seen even a shred of proof of the existence of the Old Gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickyhunt Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I think it is somewhat safe to say that Rhilor and the great other exist it seems pretty central to the story and of course the followers of both can do things that defy logic the old gods probably exist too but they haven't been as impressive as the servants of Rhilor and the great other I might be wrong on this but I think I remember reading someone saying in the books that there are only two gods and all of the other gods are servants to those two I think its moquorro who said that when talking about the drowned god to Victorian I think it might be Euron though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juniper Snow Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I think we have seen proof for neither R'hllor nor the Old Gods. Just because Melisandre/Thoros can do supernatural things that doesn't mean that there is necessarily a god behind it. I'm very sure that the Seven don't exist. Basically what Lateral said. I tend to agree with the popular notion that there is a sort of "reservoir" of magic in the world that individual religious movements and cultures have found distinct ways of tapping into without any divine interference (though it may be perceived as such, i. e. as the works of the god(s)). That being said, I don’t think that we will ever know for sure whether the gods (any gods) exist or not, i. e. I don’t think it will be either confirmed or denied in the text (didn’t GRRM say as much…?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I think we have seen proof for neither R'hllor nor the Old Gods.Agreed.See this thread for evidence that we have no proof that R'hllor or the Old Gods exist, and that we are unlikely to get any such evidence. Briefly: GRRM has explicitly said, more than once, that it will never be clear whether there are any actual gods or not. If you want more, including links to some of the SSMs, click the link.Personally, I don't think GRRM is succeeding at leaving it ambiguous enough for the reader to decide for himself whether gods are real, and it comes through pretty strongly that GRRM doesn't consider them real. But I won't argue that point. The one thing we know is that he intends for it to be ambiguous, and therefore he will never have gods in open view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithras Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Gods might be ambiguous but how about demons? There are many references to the pacts made with supernatural beings. Humans sacrifice blood or seed or something else in return of some boon. What if the humans are not capable of doing any magic by themselves? What if the human magicians are simply fools who have made pacts with demons such that these demons do the magic for them as long as they provide the necessary sacrifices? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordsteve666 Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I don't think we've seen evidence of any god existing. Magic exists, yes, but that doesn't mean that any particular being controls its power. Supernatural things can exist in the series without a need to have a god to control and dictate how they operate. I get the impression magic in the series is not nessessarily one side or the other, it's not good vs evil. It's all the same magic potential just floating around waiting to be used and some entities use it for raising the dead whilst others use it to sculpt molten stone into roads or creating elaborate party entertainments. Interestingly both what could be considered good and evil sides in the series have raised the dead so that to me indicates that if anything such power is not controlled by something we can nessessarily relate to good and evil. Raising the dead for an army of frozen ice zombies = bad, but raising Beric or Jon Snow from the dead = good? If you really want to see where the gods sit in this series look no further than the Many Faced God. Essentially all power comes from one source and how people choose to follow or use or worship that power is up to them. The real power in the series has been adapted to suit many needs from simple faith in a higher being to massive controlling religions vying for power and domination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 If you really want to see where the gods sit in this series look no further than the Many Faced God. Essentially all power comes from one source and how people choose to follow or use or worship that power is up to them. The real power in the series has been adapted to suit many needs from simple faith in a higher being to massive controlling religions vying for power and domination.Agreed.Although GRRM talks about Lovecraft, I think his view on religion is more like another member of the Lovecraft circle, Clark Ashton Smith. In one of his Averoigne stories (the ones that mix Lovecraft with medieval France), two men argue, both agreeing that sacrifice has inherent magical power, and that using it consistently is what creates the belief in gods, but disagreeing about whether it can create actual gods. Ultimately, they discover that a Hyperborean religious icon has real power, but whether that means the ancient gods were real and still exist, or never existed and were just an ancient explanation for the power, is left open to the reader.11 According to Smith in a letter to Derleth, the point of the story isn't their actual argument, but he thought it was funny that these two Christian characters would be blatantly violating the First Commandment by considering the reality of other gods, but never even think to question whether the Christian god was also created by sacrifice magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Arthur Hightower Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Martin defines himself as an atheist/agnostic. So no gods. Religion with regards to R'hllor/the Old Gods is simply the parts of nature they don't understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConfusedCounselor Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Because an author couldn't possibly write a fictional world in which gods exist if he is an atheist/agnostic? I feel a lot of people project their own believes onto this. Most people are either atheist/agnostic or have a believe in a single monotheistic god that is very dissimilar to the religions of ASOIAF. So assuming all religion is some natural nature force and religions is just some explaining device or a set of rituals that tap into that force, frozen in a religious shell, comes naturally. However, we do have a strong correlation between priest/followers of the old gods and supernatural powers. Especially Thoros is remarkable. Without ever having been able to do anything out of the ordinary before, he is able to resurrect people. No complex rituals, no long training, nothing. The only thing that separates him from other people are his priest robes and religion. We will never have conclusive evidence either way. In fact, I do not believe GRRM has actually decided himself, nor will he ever. But to say we have been given nothing that could reasonably be constructed as evidence towards their existence is simply false. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mediterraneo Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Gods might be ambiguous but how about demons? snip My bet on this questions would be that most demons, voices in the darkness and such could be much like Bran and Bloodraven. People having done choices and doing things. Not the "could be" though. White Walkers could be humans too, could be Craster's sons. But you are right in that they are implied in some form of magic, as Stannis was in his shadow form, some form of curse, some form of magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muffin King Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Gods might be ambiguous but how about demons? There are many references to the pacts made with supernatural beings. Humans sacrifice blood or seed or something else in return of some boon. What if the humans are not capable of doing any magic by themselves? What if the human magicians are simply fools who have made pacts with demons such that these demons do the magic for them as long as they provide the necessary sacrifices? So you think Rhollor is some kind of demon demanding blood sacrifice for his favour? Interesting...so do you think the seven could preform these pacts with humans? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I believe there is more evidence that R'hllor is real http://www.debate.org/debates/God-s-exist-in-GRRMs-World-of-Ice-and-Fire/1/, than there is evidence for any other group, including the 7, but I would still not call it "proof". I agree with most other posters that GRRM leaves it an ambigious choice, an act of faith, in order to "believe" that any of the gods exist. So to answer the question, "Do The Seven Exist?", I would say that there is no way of "knowing", and there will be no way of "knowing". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithras Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 So you think Rhollor is some kind of demon demanding blood sacrifice for his favour? Interesting...so do you think the seven could preform these pacts with humans? I think there are demons luring foolish people to a trap. They force them to make sacrifices, be it in the context of a religion or promise of power. Those beings harness the power of those sacrifices to do their evil agenda, which might be the true reason why the balance of the nature is screwed. Meanwhile, they choose to grant some boons to the foolish people to keep the fraud going. To solve this, people should stop sacrificing to these demons. Magic should be banned. Blood sacrifice should be stopped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Gods might be ambiguous but how about demons? There are many references to the pacts made with supernatural beings. Humans sacrifice blood or seed or something else in return of some boon. What if the humans are not capable of doing any magic by themselves? What if the human magicians are simply fools who have made pacts with demons such that these demons do the magic for them as long as they provide the necessary sacrifices? Demons are about half a step below polytheistic gawds in the scale of supernatural beings. I agree there are plenty of references to pacts with supernatural beings, but there are just as many, if not more, references to deities. If one is ambiguous, I have a hard time believing that the other is not. Of course, this leaves open the question as to whether the Faith of the Seven is actually polytheistic or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConfusedCounselor Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Demons are about half a step below polytheistic gawds in the scale of supernatural beings. I agree there are plenty of references to pacts with supernatural beings, but there are just as many, if not more, references to deities. If one is ambiguous, I have a hard time believing that the other is not. Of course, this leaves open the question as to whether the Faith of the Seven is actually polytheistic or not. I would say not. Christianity with its holy trinity is generally regarded as monotheistic and seems to have a similar multiplicity/singularity mechanic going on. I would postulate that some sort of independence or true interaction between deities is necessary for polytheism and the seven lack that. The Father cannot punish the Warrior and the Mother cannot cheat on the Father with the Smith like the Olympians did. Nor are they embroiled in some sort of good/evil battle like the Red God and What's-His-Face, the Drowned God and the Storm God and plenty of real world religions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raving Stark the Mad Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 I would say not. Christianity with its holy trinity is generally regarded as monotheistic and seems to have a similar multiplicity/singularity mechanic going on. I would postulate that some sort of independence or true interaction between deities is necessary for polytheism and the seven lack that. The Father cannot punish the Warrior and the Mother cannot cheat on the Father with the Smith like the Olympians did. Nor are they embroiled in some sort of good/evil battle like the Red God and What's-His-Face, the Drowned God and the Storm God and plenty of real world religions. I agree that the Holy Trinity is the model for the Faith of the Seven. GRRM has confirmed that. But being the model does not necessarily mean they are the same. Christianity always confirms that there is only one God, but three persons. "God the Father, God the Son, etc". But the Faith refers to the Seven as "Gods". Gods as in plural. Then they turn around and say that they are simply seven aspects of one God. So it's slightly confusing. Some say that the use of the term "Gods", the plural, is simply a mistake by the smallfolk, but I am unsure. I agree that the theology seems to be monotheistic, but the terminology seems to be polytheistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConfusedCounselor Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Sure, terminology wise, it seems to be polytheistic. I would argue that actual practice and nature of the religion is more important than a stray s, essentially. Since the terminology "Seven Faced God" or the "Seven aspects of God" would work just as well, I would argue that the nature is one of a monotheistic religion. I've heard it said that in some of the older documents of Judaism, (one of) the original monotheistic religions, the word used for god is actually a plural form. Which could possibly translate to gods. I agree that the theology seems to be monotheistic, but the terminology seems to be polytheistic. So I agree, but add that theology trumps terminology. :cool4: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.