Timeline for Baal's advocate - plausible deniability for failed theophany
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 27, 2023 at 2:11 | history | edited | Arash Howaida | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 44 characters in body
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| Feb 27, 2023 at 1:11 | vote | accept | Arash Howaida | ||
| Feb 23, 2023 at 22:37 | comment | added | TRiG | The original Hebrew is a bit more overtly insulting. Elijah suggests that Baal isn't answering because he's busy taking a shit. | |
| Feb 23, 2023 at 12:54 | answer | added | Journeyman Geek | timeline score: 2 | |
| Feb 23, 2023 at 0:54 | comment | added | Pelinore | @AlexP "God moves in mysterious ways" .. for some reason I always get a picture pop up in my mind of Monty Python's ministry of silly walks sketch when I hear that one .. why escapes me of course 😁 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 23:51 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | TLDR. Why look beyond 'Why might a divine being not reveal himself when it would be in his/his followers' best interests?' How is that not the standard dilemma plaguing every religion anyone here has ever heard of? How might limiting answers to near-Eastern mystery cults of antiquity help? How could there be material evidence in archaeology or literature to explain a failed theophany, whether or not the followers might be slain? | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 23:34 | comment | added | AlexP | @Pelinore: (1) God moves in mysterious ways. (2) Great and unknown are the ways of God. (3) Who are we to question the acts of God? (4) Only God knows what is best for mankind. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 23:18 | comment | added | Pelinore | So how did Christianity deal with a failure to perform from their deity then? .. because it's not like that God is particularly fond of public displays and performances either is it, often refuses them in the Bible so just check out the reasons given there 🤗 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 19:02 | comment | added | JBH | @AlexP A TSB question is one that cannot be answered without knowing information that is only the choice of the author in their story. Ideally, if an author resolves all story-based issues (provides sufficient context, conditions, restrictions, etc.), the question is no longer story based. In this question, the author is researching specific examples of how the issue he's pursuing has been dealt with in history. That's not storybuilding - that's actually our sweet spot. There's nothing wrong with "here's the way X did it historically." There's everything wrong with "well, here's my idea...." | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 16:14 | answer | added | dsollen | timeline score: 6 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 16:06 | answer | added | AlexP | timeline score: 8 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 16:01 | comment | added | Questor | Another alternative expansion... Would it be okay to use Christianity? I can think of one story in the new testament that provides a good explanation. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 16:00 | comment | added | Questor | Would it okay to use modern day apocalyptic cults which managed to survive their prophesized end of days? I think that they would provide a similar insight... | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 15:27 | answer | added | GiantSpaceHamster | timeline score: 3 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 13:15 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Feb 22, 2023 at 10:26 | comment | added | AlexP | @JBH: In history there is no such thing, and it cannot be; history is about what people did, not about what the gods did. In fiction and in religious literature, yes, there are many. But I see that even mightly L. Dutch came in with an answer. so that I understand what as from now story-based questions are allowed, provided that the question includes the magical words how did other authors of fantasy works address this problem. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 8:11 | comment | added | JBH | @AlexP Arash is specifically asking for examples from human history how how circumstances like this have been recorded. If we, as worldbuilders, can't answer a question asking for citations, then we are poor worldbuilders indeed. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 6:37 | answer | added | L.Dutch♦ | timeline score: 7 | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 6:26 | comment | added | AlexP | @JBH: I am not sure in what way the question can be answered withour writing the story for the querent. Maybe the god was angry with his followers and needed to placated by the sacrifice of a beautiful virgin. Maybe right after the failed theophany a great raggedy prophet will appear outside the city gates and wail that the days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand because your sins are so many and your hostility so great. Maybe the great god is testing the faith of his people. Maybe in the great scheme of things the failure was preordained. Maybe something else. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 6:16 | comment | added | JBH | @AlexP :-) Poetic, but not particularly useful to a worldbuilder. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 6:04 | comment | added | AlexP | What else needs to be said that what Elijah himself said? "Either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth." Or perhaps his best interest was elsewhere and something else entirely; for it is said, the gods move in mysterious ways, and we are not privy to their plans. The impudent assumption that mortal creatures can comprehend what is and what isn't in the best interest of the immortal creator(s) is mindless heresy. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 5:51 | review | Close votes | |||
| Feb 23, 2023 at 21:29 | |||||
| Feb 22, 2023 at 5:46 | comment | added | Arash Howaida | @JBH Thanks for that, I've spent several months chopping wood with this one. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 5:45 | comment | added | JBH | This is interesting and I might take a crack at it... but I think we should note that what any individual respondent religiously believes, the context of the answer is from the perspective that all the eastern mystery cults, religions, and beliefs were real. In other words, from the perspective of their followers, who we assume believed their god was real, how was such a failure explained for future generations? AND +1 to Arash for coming up with a way to ask this question that isn't opinion-based. No answer is valid without citation. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 5:45 | comment | added | Arash Howaida | Reminder to close voters, the question is asking about objective evidence in the archaeological/literature record relating to the nature of near eastern divine beings. Scope is reasonable, and not opinion based, as the trope goes: entitled to your own opinion but not entitled to your own facts. | |
| Feb 22, 2023 at 5:08 | history | asked | Arash Howaida | CC BY-SA 4.0 |