Re: HELP: Translating the Babel Text

Quoting "Isaac A. Penzev" <isaacp@...>:

> B. Garcia wrote:
>
>
> > Sounds a bit like the Filipino version of the creator -- it exists but
> > is distant and withdrawn and for help people go to the other gods or
> > their ancestors for help. This supreme god was considered far too
> > removed to go to for help unless circumstances were dire.
>
> This is a wide-spread concept of "deus otiosus" (idle god), found in many
> African and Asian cultures. Therefore, to learn from the Abrahamic religions
> that the supreme deity is active and caring (or at least interested), makes
> a real cultural shock for such cultures.
The Meghean-speakers have a similar idea of the state of affairs; they (well,
almost all of them) believe in the existence of a creator (called simply
_Sheomear_ "the Creator"), who is generally thought to take a rather laid-back
attitude to the universe. They think of him less as a deity to be worshipped
than as a 'Cosmic Engineer' who fashioned the universe*, but can't be assumed
to care for any individual being in it. Some puristic philosophers maintain he
built the universe, set it in motion, and is now entirely passively observing
it, or has perhaps even forgot it, but most folk common-sensically believe he
occasionally intervenes in it's working - much like how a clockmaker needs to
continually keep his clocks in repair to ensure they go on ticking.

Of course, religion in this world isn't what it is in a world like ours, due to
the pretty undeniable existence of beings that compared to humans, elves, orcs
or dwarfs hold divine power, yet very much are part of the "natural world" and
bound by its laws. Some of these are, or at least claim to be, agents of the
Creator, but most of them would appear to be rather egotistic beings bent on
having things their way. 'Theocracy' by such beings is a fairly common state of
affairs among the societies of human-like beings, but for various reasons
doesn't occur in the 'Kulturkreis' the Meghean-speakers belong to.

* The universe in question, BTW, is a basically Ptolomaean affair. Perhaps it
was, Discworld-style, created as a side project when the main universe was
built!

                                             Andreas