The problem in Tamrielle for the would-be atheist, is the mountain of evidence for the existence of the gods. From the personal appearance of Akatosh in the culminating battle in Oblivion, to the Heart of Lorkhan in Morrowind. Lore has it that Lorkhan brought about the very creation of Mundus, so it's kind of hard to refute the idea that the Gods came first...

The fact is then, that religion CAN claim credit (as well as blame) for EVERYTHING, at least as far as Mundus is concerned, eh?

The thing about Religion and faith is that once the deity manifests Himself directly, there is NO need for faith; people KNOW what people (must be plural) have seen with their own eyes. So there is no belief required. What CAN be argued is, just what is it that was really seen? Was it an actual god? Or some Daedra masquerading as a "god"? When it comes right down to it, given the Daedra ARE immortal, with substantial power able to be projected across dimensional barriers, don't they become indistinguishable from gods?

Credit, when applied to gods, applies to ONLY those things the gods did, in fact, do. But as an example, if a god "taught Men Magic", does that mean that the god thereafter can claim ALL credit (and blame) for what Men did with their Magic thereafter? ONLY if the god made them perform those acts. Otherwise, as Men and Mer have Free Will, credit (and blame) would apply to them, rather than the god. In a RL anology, it would be like a high school teacher claiming credit for EVERYTHING that Stephen Hawking accomplished in his advlt life, simply because at one time Hawking had been a student of his.

As far as I'm concerned, I guess if it walks like a God, and talks like a God, eh? Of course Daedra are indistinguishable from gods because for all intents and purposes they are Gods... As Arthur C. Clarke once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology must be indistinguishable from magic." and thus it follows that anyone with sufficiently advanced magic must be indistinguishable from a God...

Yet, the originals are the essence of magic, which is why the Altemer hate Lorkhan. He cut their connection with the spirit world (which is also accepted as fact in lore).

The thing is that we generally accept that the originator gets the credit at least in a second hand sense. Some people say "The sins of the father are visited on the son" while others say "the apple does not fall far from the tree", but whichever you prefer the fact is that a proud father is proud because that is "HIS" child. No father, no child, no great works by the child. Did the father do whatever made the child notable? No, but the father is not taking credit for the work of the child, but for the child himself.

If that high school teacher in some fashion inspired Hawking to go to accomplish the things that he did, then the high school teacher can indeed claim some credit, just as Hawkings' parents can take pride in the accomplishments of their child.

Fascinating and heartfelt debate.....so deep!

I know this......the gods are thinking magic.... But their thoughts are not like those of men or mer........their existence spans time and manipulates the physical mundus. Akatosh in particular is the father of time. To such a being, what will be has happened already, to such a being there is truly no before or after it just simply 'is'.

In the timeline of Lore as mortals may understand it......when Lorkhan created mundus and before the gods that wanted to retain their divinity got cold feet and burst through to Aetherius, there was a period when creation was unstable. The mere presence of the divines magical egos caused upheaval in the process of cause and effect.....physical laws were fluid. Once the exodus had subsided Mundus became stable and only the divines that wanted to be a part of it remained, losing some of their power in the process ( Lorkhans dirty trick).

What this means is.....events in the mythic era and just how much Talos is a 'Johnny come lately' become questions without meaning. It is as it appears to be and nothing is what it seems.

Some of them yes, but perhaps not all of them? I doubt the Nords came up with all of their traditions in one go; more than likely over their long history. A hero completes and amazing feet and lore winds up making some sort of tradition out of it. By the sounds of it, Kyne's Trials may be as old as when the dragons first appeared.

yeah, traditions usually start because one person does something, the next person says "Well, so and so did it!" and then the next person declares it a tradition.

Which means that traditions evolve. There are no "Old Nord ways"; there is only the older Nord version of what is now considered to be "the 'proper' way to do things." After all, if the older way worked just fine, why would it have ever changed? Change occurs because people consider the change to be an improvement over the way it had previously be done. Lamentations about, "No one shows respect to the methods that _I_ grew up with!" are just old men complaining because they can't keep up with Change. Or else self-deluded individuals that the past actually was "the Good Old Days" because they self-censor all the crap that was integral to the Good Old Days. (Like outhouses instead of "indoor plumbing".)

So if my character makes Cure Disease potions and passes them out at the market, that makes her a "Divine?"

What is more, Fish Soup; not sure if this is from a mod or not, but it cures disease! In fact I think there are a couple common dishes that any innkeeper might sell which cure diseae!

This is what I've always loved about the TES lore: there is actually very little "proof" that anything "divine" actually IS divine. It might just be magic, which in itself might just be psychosomatic??

There is a huge difference in a shrine which can be activated by anybody who just happens to be passing by that cures disease and grants blessings and a potion created by an alchemist using ingredients that are subjected to an alchemical process. If your alchemist can convince your potion to create itself at need indefinietly for any number of users, and do it without ingredients, and grant a blessing as well, then your alchemist may actually be divine.

Fish soup? Really? I'll bet as a kid when you got sick you didn't go to the doctor, eh... You just sipped a bowl of mom's chicken soup...

Yes, I know fish soup cures disease, but again it requires ingredients and doesn't grant a blessing.... and if you use Real Needs, it'll usually be spoiled by the time you need it.

They might have been made during or before the time of the events of Morrowind, when Cure Disease was a spell effect, and any skilled enchanter could create a cast-on-use enchantment on, say, a robe or amulet, so presumably the same process could, lore-wise if not in gameplay, be applied to a pretty shrine. The blessings are mostly fortify skill or fortify attribute, both spell effects in 3E 427. (In Morrowind, you can enchant pretty much any spell effect you know onto items, and I *think* you could put multiple effects on one item, although it got bloody expensive quickly if you were paying a pro to do it). Pretty straightforward enchantment, really, all you need is someone to pop round and charge it every so often if we assume it's now using Fourth Era rules ('laws of magic' so to speak) of enchantments not gradually recharging themselves... The shrines themselves, as in, the physical objects were, presumably, produced by people, why couldn't the effect you get from activating them have been?

What's the evidence that the Jarl of the Reach offered free worship of Talos? Igmund's dialogue only speaks of it being promised, which can either mean they offered it or that they accepted Ulfric's conditions. The Bear of Markarth, though hardly an impartial source, says that Ulfric is the one who brought Talos into it, demanding free worship in return for liberating the city.

I'm still not convinced that Talos is necessarily any more "holy" than anyone else

Consider: have you EVER heard of anyone except the player actually suffering from a disease? As far as I can tell, the only one in the game who ever GETS a disease is the player. Maybe that is because those Shrines are so readily available and the population makes regular use of them. Or maybe it is because diseases do not actually EXIST in Skyrim, and it is just a head game being played on the Dovaikain by jealous Akatosh!?

Think about it, how do we even KNOW that there is a true Pantheon of Gods in Skyrim? Oh sure, there are all these different shrines with different iconography, different holy scriptures and codes of conduct, etc. We supposedly have these different "categories" of divine beings (Daedra, the Nine Divines or Eight and One, and then the myriad other sort of in-between thingies . . .) but apart from having been to Oblivion myself and SEEN IT! I have virtually no proof of the existence of any of these so-called Divines. The ONLY "Diety" I have any recollection of ever having met face-to-face is Sheogorath!

Maybe there is in fact just ONE divine: Sheogorath, and every other one of them (Talos included) is just a head game dreamed up by the Lord of Insanity himself?

That would explain the fish soup.

Real Footage of Sheogorath: Don't click if you dont' want spoilers:

I once tried to assassinate Sheogoprath in his palace in the Isles... It's really not a very good idea, as it turns out.

Anyway, as to how I know about the existence of the pantheon? I got stepped on by Akatosh once... I don't reccomend that anymore than I do trying to assassinate Sheogorath...

Stepped on by Akatosh!? ROFLMAO! I haven't encountered that yet! Something to look forward to!

Was this you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVG957gzYK8.