Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 26, 2022, 04:37:04 AM
What's the ultimate meaning of the Norse cosmology?

The correct answer is "we don't know" because the only real source we have on Norse mythology (the Prose Edda) which was "assembled" by a Christian in the 13th century as part of propaganda campaign and there's evidence that Ragnarok may have been tacked on by the author as a "end of paganism/rise of Christianity" element.

A lot of what we think of ancient religions are little more than pop-culture assemblages of bits and pieces with sensibilities of the era of assemblage layered on it. A prime example is the "Egyptian mythology" which people keep trying to make a singular entity instead of it actually being essentially multiple religions spanning thousands of years that just happened to have originated in the same geographic area.

That's about as sensible as trying to mash Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Roman and Christian religions into a single entity and calling it "British religion" because all of them happened to be present in the British Isles at various points in the last 2000 years.

It's actually a pretty good analogy to the Mythos in the sense that the reality is so much more complex, spread across vast extra dimensions (time with the "Egyptians") and poorly documented (Norse mythology) and the only people trying to gain a real understanding of it come off as rather odd compared to just riffing off pop-culture interpretations.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 26, 2022, 10:23:25 AM

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 26, 2022, 04:37:04 AM
What's the ultimate meaning of the Norse cosmology?

The correct answer is "we don't know" because the only real source we have on Norse mythology (the Prose Edda) which was "assembled" by a Christian in the 13th century as part of propaganda campaign and there's evidence that Ragnarok may have been tacked on by the author as a "end of paganism/rise of Christianity" element.

When you call the Prose Edda the only real source we have, are you dismissing the Poetic Eddas and the sagas? Because Ragnarok is part of the Voluspa, which is in the Poetic Eddas.

Of course we can never know exactly what ancient religions believed, for the reasons you mentioned. But consider that most polytheistic mythologies do not start with One God who creates or emanates everything else, or have a final end state that they're striving toward, and in those which have it like (Neo)Platonism and Hinduism, it's a development coming after philosophy takes off. More commonly, the eschatology points toward the eventual corruption and destruction of the world, with possibly nothing afterwards -- not just Ragnarok, but the Greek myths by Hesiod.

Even if you disregard Ragnarok, Norse mythology still provides a good example because there is no First Being; Audhumbla is the closest thing, but she is just one being in a cosmology that already existed. She finds, but does not create, Buri, and Ymir suckles on her but also wasn't born from or created by her. Furthermore in the Voluspa version of the Norse creation myth, Odin doesn't even create Midgard, it's raised out of the Ginnungagap where it had already existed.

So no, I doubt there was any ultimate meaning in Norse religion. "Ultimate meaning" is something only an intellectual culture would even think of.

Quote from: S'mon on February 26, 2022, 07:48:45 AM

Quote from: Pat on February 26, 2022, 05:17:54 AM
The Norse and Greek religions are long dead. I think it's a safe generalization for all major modern religions.

I think it's clear that humans don't always and necessarily need Ultimate Meaning to exist, any more than a cat or orang-utan does.

It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

Depending on what we mean by "ultimate meaning," it may not even be a coherent notion.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on February 26, 2022, 06:15:31 PM

Quote from: S'mon on February 26, 2022, 07:48:45 AM

Quote from: Pat on February 26, 2022, 05:17:54 AM
The Norse and Greek religions are long dead. I think it's a safe generalization for all major modern religions.

I think it's clear that humans don't always and necessarily need Ultimate Meaning to exist, any more than a cat or orang-utan does.

It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

  I think the Ultimate Meaning tends to create a common cultural bond to stick together.  Without that, I am not sure it is the lack of moral fitness that did them in, it seems having weak, or non existent cultural bonds did them in.  Usually from being conquered, killed, scattered by a culture that had extreme connections in cultural bonds. 

Quote from: oggsmash on February 26, 2022, 07:23:21 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on February 26, 2022, 06:15:31 PM
It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

  I think the Ultimate Meaning tends to create a common cultural bond to stick together.  Without that, I am not sure it is the lack of moral fitness that did them in, it seems having weak, or non existent cultural bonds did them in.  Usually from being conquered, killed, scattered by a culture that had extreme connections in cultural bonds.

In that case Ultimate Meaning--or, properly, truthfulness about human nature and humanity's relationship to the universe--is the basis for moral fitness. How is the West losing, or did lose, this basis?

Christianity destroys the horror of the Cthulhu Mythos--God is omnipotent and cares about us, and is more powerful than Azathoth, so theoretically at least the Mythos takes place in a non-Christian universe. (There are some Robert Price stories that go in a really scary direction with that.) Lovecraft was an atheist, and at least part of the horror for him was the uncaring nature of the universe. A lot of the atmosphere of the original stories has to do with the decline of Christianity in the 20s.

Now Sandy Petersen, who created the game, is, as far as I know, a believing Mormon, and had no problem designing the game, part of the idea being to flip D&D on its head by making characters get less rather than more capable with time. He also worked on the original Doom (so those Cthulhu faces at the Tower of Babel may not be a coincidence), and his statement about the satanic elements was, "I have no problems with the demons in the game. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, they're the bad guys."

Quite a few people may not feel it's worth engaging with the larger philosophical issues raised by the game universe--it's a diversion and nothing more.

If I wanted to be fancy I could argue Call of Cthulhu characters sacrifice themselves to save humanity in a very Christlike fashion, but I have no evidence that's what Petersen had in mind. I'd guess he just liked horror and monsters and, like many a creative person throughout history, had a great idea and got lucky.

Alice Cooper is another example of a Christian with an interest in horror.

Quote from: Null42 on February 27, 2022, 11:34:25 AM
so theoretically at least the Mythos takes place in a non-Christian universe. (There are some Robert Price stories that go in a really scary direction with that.)

Which stories would you suggest?

The Grey Rite of Azathoth and Acute Spiritual Fear have the most anti-Christian content--Price is an ex-Baptist minister and has all the zeal of the deconvert, spending quite a bit of time arguing Jesus didn't exist. (He later became a Trump supporter and had people pull stories from his attempt at resurrecting the Flashing Swords anthology over a politically incorrect intro, so I think there is plenty to both like and hate about him for people here.)

The Horror in the Genizah has an an anti-Muslim slant.

The world of the Mythos essentially has a Devil (lots of them in fact), but no God.

The premise of Lovecraft's fiction is neither good nor evil, because concepts like good and evil do not exist.  To Lovecraft, those are subjective and man-made concepts, as is the very concept of God.  The fact that we live in a cold, uncaring universe is not the scary part.  Lovecraft, like any atheist, would have accepted that and been fine with it, taking the attitude "it is what it is."  (I don't even think that most religious people find it "scary," just harsh and depressing maybe).  The scary part is that there is no God on our side, but there are indeed powerful alien and extra-dimensional entities (which are so powerful and unknowable that they might as well be called "gods") out there opposed to us.  For a capsule picture of this worldview you need look no further than John Carpenter's movie Prince of Darkness.  It's not a Lovecraft movie, but it is a very Lovecraftian movie.

I don't find the Call of Cthulhu game to be an exercise in futility on the part of players, though.  The characters can fight to delay the advent of the Great Old Ones, can fight the human cults which serve them, etc.  Everybody -- atheists and religious people alike -- know the world will end some day.    If the Great Old Ones' return can keep being delayed until humanity naturally dies out or somehow evolves to the point that it can fight these alien things on better terms, is that not a victory of sorts?

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on February 26, 2022, 06:15:31 PM
It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

It's not clear that civilisations can exist indefinitely. Seems pretty unlikely to me.
Of course civilisations tend to wrongly conflate their own extinction with universal/species extinction. Rome falls, but life goes on. We don't reach the stars; we don't all die off either.

Quote from: I on February 27, 2022, 01:59:03 PM
The scary part is that there is no God on our side, but there are indeed powerful alien and extra-dimensional entities (which are so powerful and unknowable that they might as well be called "gods") out there opposed to us. 

Almost all of them though are a lot more akin to a giant meteor or a supervolcano or a supernova, than to Satan. A lot of people aren't that worried about natural threats. I get the impression people would struggle to find 'climate change' threatening if told they were going to be hit by a natural temperature increase, even a very big one.

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2022, 02:47:35 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on February 26, 2022, 06:15:31 PM
It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

It's not clear that civilisations can exist indefinitely. Seems pretty unlikely to me.
Of course civilisations tend to wrongly conflate their own extinction with universal/species extinction. Rome falls, but life goes on. We don't reach the stars; we don't all die off either.

  Well they seem to go through many of the same life cycles actual people do.  Age, weaken, get sick, and die.  Get replaced by younger, stronger, more motivated successor.

Quote from: S'mon on February 27, 2022, 02:47:35 PM

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on February 26, 2022, 06:15:31 PM
It's not clear that civilizations don't need Ultimate Meaning to exist indefinitely. One could view history as littered with civilizations that lacked the moral fitness to survive and, so, were extinguished.

It's not clear that civilisations can exist indefinitely. Seems pretty unlikely to me.
Of course civilisations tend to wrongly conflate their own extinction with universal/species extinction. Rome falls, but life goes on. We don't reach the stars; we don't all die off either.

Rome falls but those pesky people calling themselves "Romans" go on.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 25, 2022, 10:40:24 PM
In my opinion, you can't really understand Lovecraft without understanding the philosophical problems mathematics was struggling with back in the early 1900s. Early in the 1900s,Whitehead and Russel tried to formally prove "1+1=2" only for an Austrian mathematician named Godel to use a liar's paradox to prove that couldn't be proven. It was a mathematical proof that math is broken.
.....
The fact this was also the time period quantum mechanics was formally described is the cherry on the top.

This is possibly true, but it would require Lovecraft being inspired by a mistaken idea of Godel's theorem.
Godel's theorem doesn't affect Russell and Whitehead's proof of 1+1=2, which remains intact. As does basically all math used even by mathematicians. It more exposes problems with their general program called "Logicism".
Added to this is that Quantum Theory is less inhuman/cold you could say than the preceeding Classical Physics, I'd say Lovecraft was more coming off ideas common to late 19th century science, such as the focus on "Non-Euclidean spaces" than the science of his own day which I doubt he knew well at all.