mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (10/28/85)
[Follow-ups to net.religion, please] In the Christians-And-D&D discussion the question of the improper use of religious symbols came up. One person objected to the way much Christian symbology is "abused" by D&D designers. I see no reason not to extend the discussion to other religious symbology seeing the same sort of usage. The primary system I have played it used a number of occult techniques within the game setting. In particular, there were several uses of the tarot, because a number of us were knowledgable in it. My feeling, based on these experiences, is to treat every occultish thing as if it were real. In the first place, I know no way to exclude the possibility that these things function as claimed on occaision (although I doubt most of them). It is reasonably well-established (I can't cite references but they should be easily locatable) that these things have a lot of psychological power, even such poor tools as the newspaper horoscopes. At one time, a number of researchers substituted randomly selected horoscopes for the normal ones in a newspaper for a period of some weeks. Not suprisingly, the change went unnoticed; what was suprising was the number of 'hits' the random texts produced. I myself believe that most oracles work in the same way. So I treat these things with great respect; whether or not they do invoke the supernatural, they do have power. For the same reason, I am leery of munging religions together. I am somewhat of a student of Taoist thought, and a very little bit of Buddhism. But mix-and-match religion makes my blood run cold. The symbols of other religions, whether they are 'true' or not, nevertheless are powerful, and should be respected. Charley Wingate
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (11/04/85)
> My feeling, based on these experiences, is to treat every occultish thing as > if it were real. In the first place, I know no way to exclude the > possibility that these things function as claimed on occaision (although I > doubt most of them). It is reasonably well-established (I can't cite > references but they should be easily locatable) that these things have a lot > of psychological power, even such poor tools as the newspaper horoscopes. > At one time, a number of researchers substituted randomly selected > horoscopes for the normal ones in a newspaper for a period of some weeks. > Not suprisingly, the change went unnoticed; what was suprising was the > number of 'hits' the random texts produced. I myself believe that most > oracles work in the same way. So I treat these things with great respect; > whether or not they do invoke the supernatural, they do have power. [WINGATE] My God, Charles!!! Are you actually close to admitting that the same things you describe might apply to your own beliefs? (Naah, for me to believe that would be wishful thinking... :-) -- Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr