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Here's something that is being dicussed in the philosophy and religion thread. How can we credibly handle other belief systems, ones that we don't agree with?

I wonder whether it is really possible. After all, what we believe defines what we think is and is not possible, so if we try to write from another belief system, don't we end up placing our characters in a milieu that is inconsitant with what they believe is possible? Or the alternative, writing into our story things that we don't believe are possible so that the character's beliefs are vindicated. Can we really do that well? Won't it sound like a fantasy?

In either case we will be either mocking or debunking the belief system that we are writing about unless we share it. I know that this sounds harsh, but I honestly don't see how it could be done.

And this is fairly relevant to my own case since I have an unusual and rather hideously complex belief system. Or at least that's what everyone else seems to feel.

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At any rate, I believe that if a story needs it for narrative content, I could write lovingly about a belief system I do not share. It takes respect for the beliefs, however. So, if you think the practioners are idiots, then maybe you can't get there.

I, for one, don't much care for the missionary movement of America. However, I needed a character who is exactly that, and, more importantly, I needed him to be as believable and admirable as I could make him. I'm not saying I've succeeded where others couldn't. More like, if I can do it, anyone can.

The key is understanding an drespoect. Get over your abhorrence of human sacrifice and you can write about it without casting value judgements. That doesn't turn you into a savage, just gives you the perspective and distance you need to write about it without your own religious convictions coloring your prose.

How can you really respect someone for being wrong? I can respect courage, and compassion and a lot of other good qualities, but anyone who's beliefs I can't share I have to regard as being incorrect. Not that they are stupid or foolish, necessarily, but they are wrong, otherwise, I would believe as they do.

If you don't know that someone else is wrong, then you probably hold both belief and doubt in abbeyance, but this would mean that you would not disagree with them. I didn't have any firm opinion on the fate of the Anasazi until recently, and I nodded and accepted what was claimed about them by other, more educated people. But now that I have formed a different opinion, I regard those that hold the general position as being mistaken and naive.

If you had no opinion about another person's belief, then the natural thing would be to defer to him as more expert than yourself in the matter. But if you cannot defer in real life, where you know that the other person has experiences you don't know about, how much better will you be able to do when it is a person that you are making up?

I can write about people with different beliefs than my own, but I always frankly portray that as a limitation. The truth as I see it is that if they were wiser, they would agree with me.

And I don't think that it is enough to avoid coloring your prose. After all, many a work that espoused radically new beliefs or attacked old quite openly was written in very dull prose indeed. I don't mean that you would be unable to resist heaping obvious vituperation on the things you disagree with, but more that, you will most certainly portray them as being incorrect when you talk about them.

I just think that in any case that you would be able to give a particular belief a fair shake in a novel, you probably could give it a fair shake in real life. After all, if you don't really think that it is mistaken, and others that you putatively respect believe it, why would you disagree?

And if you genuinely think that it is mistaken, then how could you give it a fair treatment?

Why would any other idea, even less tied to our subsistence than the gustatory sensations, present greater difficulties.

I get chills up and down my spine when I think about certain mysteries of my faith. These stories humble me and leave me awestruck. Having that experience helps me to understand the feeling others might experience as a result of their own beliefs, whether I share them or not. If I understand religious fervor in myself, can I not understand it in others regardless of their beliefs.

What I suppose you are saying, though, is that I can't possibly hope to convince a reader of the validity of those viewpoints I don't share. I wonder. If I'm a good enough author to bring tears to your eyes with the story of my dog's death, why can't I build on that same empathy and shared experience to convey to you how my characters feel. I'm not saying I'm good enough to do that, yet, but I should be able to do a good enough job that I can paint a character sympathetically even if I disagree with the viewpoints he/she espouses.

And why not? I don't have to write to the level where I try to convert people to a viewpoint I don't hold. I merely have to write to the level where you believe the character.

I submit that if I can't do that, then all my characters are going to be limited in their capabilities. Only when they speak my viewpoints will they be fully developed and worthy of the readers' time and attention.

Or, so I think. My bet is we all have the ability to talk respectfully, and with depth, about beliefs we don't share. Just so long as we take the time to understand them.

One big f'rinstance. I can't abide fatalism. I believe there's no such thing as fate and that we make our own path in life (with lots of help/interference/limits and opportunities). The idea of a supreme being directing it all, however, I find absolutely abhorrent and I will never swallow it. I have very dear friends who believe with all their hearts that God directs everything in their lives. At one time, I thought these people were stupid, dull, and just plain not worth my time. I later decided that I was less certain of what the truth of the ultimate questions was and that it wasn't me who decided the answers to those questions. In other words, I became less critical of people who hold beliefs I still find to be silly and wrongheaded. BUT, I can understand them. I see why they think the way they do and how it would lead to a set of logical ideas about how to live a life. And, I learned to respect them because they lead good lives.

I guess that I can buy that. If you are talking about something where you are an outsider rather than a skeptic, that means that you will be better able to look at their beliefs without prejudice.

I have to agree with you. There are a lot of things that fall into that middle ground, where we may not have reason to share a belief, but we don't actually disbelieve. That's a viewpoint that can be most effective in showing the positive aspects of a particular belief, without relying on experiences and knowledge only shared by those who already believe.

So I guess that you can show people with beliefs that differ from your own in a light that doesn't denigrate their belief. Unfortunately, that rarely works for me. As I've gotten older I've discovered that I've always known a heck of a lot more than most other people. It tends to make me a bit insufferable. But hey, such is life. For me, at any rate.

If its fiction than change it - it's your world, don't write about it if it's going to be that painful for you! However, if you keep with the beliefs of Buddhist monks - who so disagree with hurting any living thing that they even wear bells on their shoes to warn away the ants as they walk - then how are you ever going to have any villian or conflict in the stories that you write. And therefore, how will you design a plot? If you can work around those questions, then you've got it made.

If it's non fiction, and you are writing about someone who has performed certain actions or holds to certain beliefs that you find abhorrent, then that is none of your decision. You are here to present the truth about that person, regardless of their tenets or your belief systen. It has no bearing on anything whether or not you are right or they are wrong. It is your resposibility as an author, just as if you were a journalist reporting the news, to report the same honestly, fairly, and accurately. I'm sure that Dan Rather does not espouse premeditated murder, and yet how often does he bring the tidings of such to us without judgement and without trying to convince us how wrong it is. He simply, as you should learn to do, states what is actual and relies on us to make our own moral judgements, and decide how we feel about it.

We do tend to run into the same problem with journalism. After all, you are positive that Dan Rather is opposed to murder, and yet you claim that he is giving the murderer a fair shake.

I can say that I think that Dan Rather is only opposed to homicide, and he doesn't even know what murder is, and there are times that I've heard him give a less than unslanted account.

That illustrates what I am saying. When we portray someone we disagree with, it tends to show.

I'm not yet trying to eliminate that tendency from my writing. If I don't agree with a particular point of view, those of my characters that subscribe to such a point of view will be shown up.

Example: I might write a story in which one of the characters is an archeologist working on the Anasazi ruins. If I have him espose the theory that the Anasazi just left all of the sudden, because of water shortage or overpopulation, then I will not be able to portray him as having gotten that idea from an unbiased study of the ruins. I may show how he thinks that because of his professors or in emulation of some other authority, or because he finds the idea that there was a genocide carried out by their enemies harsh; but I will not portray him as finding it out from the ruins, because I would have to make up evidence that I happen to know doesn't exist. The evidence all points in one direction to me, and if I write a story in which the evidence remains the same as it is in reality, then the evidence in the story will tend to disprove what he believes.

In portraying this character, I will have to:

• portray a character with beliefs contrary to fact
  
• change the facts to comply with his beliefs
  
• change his beliefs to comply with the facts
  
• or
  
• leave out facts and beliefs that may contradict each other.
  

Jack Onus has taken on the burden of trying to do something else. I'm not sure what because I haven't seen it. But until I see the proof, the question stands.

I don't think of my beliefs as hidiously complex, but then, lots of other people do. I'm not sure why. Probably more because I'm a "TRUE BELIEVER", in that I really believe things.

But then, that's more the venue I have chosen for that discussion.

I think that most of us tend to only remember one version of events, at least consciously, and make that 'our version' of what happened. As a writer, you need to created distinct viewpoints to narrate a scene, and so I guess that we get used to looking at different possible interpretations in fiction.

I think that each of us has beliefs at several levels, like how my brother undeniably knew that he was being treated in a manner that showed little respect or consideration(one thing that he doesn't mention is that being over an hour late cost him like ten or twenty dollers, besides missing out on the morning), but he also believed that it wasn't really such a grave thing that he needed to get bent out of shape over it. In one letter he communicates one idea, and in the next he shows us the other. I think that he liked the juxtaposition a lot. I know that I did.

But this is still in the nature of portraying something within his beliefs(actually, since he is the main character, I guess this fails to suprise). All the same, I think that to some extent, everything that I have a sympathetic character really believe will either be something I also believe or a 'tragic flaw' in my character.

Your main example is the archelologist and the Anasazi, and the predicament of your viewpoints regarding them. What if you were writing about an soldier of the 3rd Reich? What it pose the same questions for you? Or would it be a matter that everyone knows they were, as a group, horrible, and therefore a given that this character would be flawed? Could you give him a 'fair shake' or would the plot tend toward his redemption from the evil he was involved in?

What about a wonderful person who is also a misguided fool? Or a God fearing man, who just happens to preach to his congregation something that you or I might find ridiculous. (And by the way, even after looking into the other discussion, I have yet to hear any of your tenets that I disagree with.)

Then these people hang out for the next 400 years, slowly developing, starting a few new trends in architecture, such as building long houses and two story dwellings above ground, with the pit being reserved as a religious shrine. Eventually they settle on a round pit, with a distinctive and apparently ritual arrangment. Their houses are still made of wattle daub over wooden frames. At around 900 A.D., all the wooden structures start burning down, and the Anasazi suddenly realize that they've been living in firetraps for the last 400 years.

Alright, so they start building in stone, single wall construction. Even though many of these are still standing today, it seems that most of them where just totally flimsy, so that they would explode and send pieces flying dozens of yards. And they start building guard towers for no apparent reason, which are usually placed near dwellings and water sources. Of course, most of these were probably ritual.

But they figure out soon enough that double wall rubble fill construction will serve the ritual purposes of these structures better. Most other societies discover this type of construction for builing walls that withstand battering or vandalism, but the Anasazi are definitly not engaged in any sort of serious confrontation, even though in just over a hundred years they've gone from wattle daub houses to fortress villages. In 1050 A.D. the villiges are heavily built, with double walls, multiple stories, and limited numbers of entrances, which are usually fronted to the down hill side of the village. They keep on improving the villages, making them bigger and heavier, but for some mysterious reason, the population is dropping steadily.

The technology continues to improve, and the worship becomes heavliy male oriented, with only men being allowed to participate, for the next hundred years. At the same time, the Anasazi vanish from most of their territory. The remaining concentrations are more dense than ever, but the total number has diminished. They seem to be having trouble growing crops, most likely because of a drought, but they address this by building guard towers in the fields.

In 1250 A.D. several thousand remaining Anasazi build the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, making the daily climb up the sheer rock faces to get to their fields, and climbing down every night to sleep in the cliffs. They begin building a temple.

They never finish. By 1300 A.D. the Anasazi are all gone. Modern archeology cannot seem to explain where they all went.

After some weird adventures, he rides out most of the war as a student at a German military academy. This is perhaps the wierdest adventure of all. He is not totally unaware of what must have happened to his family. When the Russians are pushing into Berlin, he is fighting with the landwehr, under the supervision of veteran soldiers.

He runs for the Russian lines, narrowly avoiding getting shot by his superior as he does, and is captured. The Russian who captures him takes him to see the inside of a death camp, and he is about to be summarily shot, when his brother, in the camp, recognizes him.

One thing that he does mention. Even though it was the single sticking point of his life at that time, he later had his son circumcised in accordence with jewish practice.

He was a fool, all that time, but he didn't claim not to be.

If you can tell me these things that support what you believe became of the Anasazi, and support it with what you have just listed, then why can your archeologist not do so? It's a work of fiction, so even if you choose to beef up the proof a bit, what's wrong with that? Obviously you've come to some pretty strong conclusions of your own (spaceships notwithstanding ), so where is the dilemma of having the character do so?

I'm not entirely sure that I would draw the same conclusion that you seem to have from some of the evidence. Per example:

Why would guard towers ever be built unless they were necessary? I would tend to think that there must be some sort of confrontation, whether it was serious or not, I couldn't say. Peaceful people do not tend to think of military-style presence without a reason. If there were no reason, being merely ritual, why would it have developed to the point of having them in the fields? Why would that same presence manifest itself in fortressing cities?

I would tend to draw the conclusion that the Anasazi were not alone at any time, but that, as is nature in any given group of people, there must have been dessenters from the group that created an opposing faction. More dissenters leaving the cities, coupled with guerilla warfare (so to speak) would decently account for a rapidly dwindling population.

Another thought, are you sure it would have been drought that caused the difficulty growing crops? If you were waging a low profile war against a group of farmers, would not it be strategic to destroy their crops in some way? Or to destroy or steal their herds, thus depriving them while effectively supporting your own forces? Hence the guardtowers in the fields.

Why the conclusion that they were wiped out, rather than choosing to leave. If they had, for example, been forced to become a nomadic people - by faction or by drought - is it so far fetched to believe that they evolved into one or more of the more 'modern' native American tribes?

And what if you were to come across a completely independent source of information regarding the early inhabitants of the western hemisphere? Would you even consider it as a plausible resource?

Switching gears - no, I've never seen Europa, Europa. Sounds intriguing, but I'm not sure I could watch it. I tend to be a little sensitive about WW2 subjects. My father fought in the war, and I later married into a Jewish family. If a Jewish family doesn't throw the whole thing into a new light, nothing will. My husband's favorite uncle on his mother's side still has the numbers up and down his arms from the concentration camps he was in. Needless to say, unless he brings it up, we don't generally mention it.

I didn't state any of my own positions outright, because I think the evidence makes them obvious. I was giving a running commentary of the opinions of modern archeology when I said that the towers were all ritual, and that part about the drought, and even the part about the houses burning down all the sudden because they were firetraps for all those years.

You seem to have reached my exact conclusions from the evidence I cited, all of which evidence is known to modern archeology, but, in my opinion, misinterpreted.

Europa, Europa is a very strange, but aparently true, story that casts the whole war into a new light. I could not have been this person. I would have spoken out, and been killed, in the very first scene or two.

But it was interesting all the same.

Speaking of movies, have you seen "Life is Beautiful"? Hard subject, fabulous show!! Talk about a lesson in living with what you don't believe in, and making it sound like a good thing! Its in Italian, but the acting is so suberb, you forget that you are reading the lines.

It's about a Jewish man who is taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his son on the litte boy's 8th birthday. Though the entirety of it is set in a horrible, awful situation, he turns the situation into a game so that his little boy does not have to suffer, and indeed never realizes what is truly happening around him. Must see!

Hey, we'd better watch out. We're getting into a whole different topic. I did point it out as an object lesson, though. That someone could live through something so terrible and turn it into something good for the sake of an someone he loved. Even though the army was portrayed as "bad", (don't even ask if I agree!!) a lot of people would have said that the father figure was completely unrealistic, and therefore thrown it out. Except for the fact that it is a true story, and that is exactly what happened. So - what are we left with? A character who defied all, authority and expectation, and became a hero because he did what no one thought could or would be done.

What are the chances that you would let me read the story you are working on? Is it actually on paper yet, or still mulling? I'd like the chance to meet this perplexed archeologist.

Yeah, I think that would make an interesting story. Did you ever read that one by what's her name, Olivia Butler?

No, I've never read whats-her-name.

On the other hand, I can also better define the alternative position, where the endless search for truth is derided as philosophic dithering. I totally disagree, but I can see that being willing to go off half cocked, or commit when there is still time to make a difference, can be valuable. As long as you have some reliable bellweathers around.

Almost as great a mystery as the Anasazi, and more personal. I think that I am at least a proximate cause of this disappearance, and this is a distressing thought to me.

Do you have any idea where all the other guys went? I haven't mailed them, it would be too... intrusive, since there is no evidence that they are interested anymore, but I miss them.

And there are a lot of weapons in the area, mostly stone aged stuff. It's not always possible to date them, but there are different styles found. Most of the modern community tends to assert that the more weapon like tools were left by the nomadic hunter gatherer society.

The MA&R are usually tougher, meaner, poorer, and have fewer compunctions, not having had to develop them to survive in the context of a stable (breeding) community. They are often bands of all males, and part of their theft, of course, is rape.

The SS&C are richer because that way of life leads to bigger surpluses. They have higher standards of behaviour and morality, because stable communities know each other and are more accountable. They kick out anyone who can't or won't conform. They make an easy target because they stay in one spot, and their comfortable way of life makes them soft. They tend to develop, due to contact with the MA&R, xenophobia, defensiveness, and conservatism.

Wow! All the sudden I'm realizing some interesting things about society and the world today.

And the Anasazi did pick a real poor place to live, particularly for an agricultural society. Isolation from other populations really was the main benefit available there. If we go by the assumption that whoever was attacking them was more poverty striken, then we have to conclude that they could not have been effectively attacked. That may be the thinking behind the modern assertions that their disappearance was a mystery.

But I have no illusions that the wealthy are always more moral, or that only hunger and need can move humans to warfare and even genocide. I've studied them only for a moment of time, but I've learned this at least.

And the truth is, some of them can be heartbreakingly wonderful, as well.

I know that's a complete oversimplification of war. But it seems to cover an awful lot of territory, to me. I think of it from several different levels and I get the feeling it fits.

Morality is not really the right distinction between the groups, though; more like a propensity to not rock the boat. Maybe that's a better analogy: those inside the lifeboat don't want it rocking. It's the ones in the water who don't care.

As for the Anasazi, do you think it's possible that they moved to such an isolated area to try to get away from the aggressive nomads to begin with, then they found that they were followed? And after they were eventually destroyed, possibly whatever was left of the nomads simply moved on to attack more successful agricultural societies?

Since I'm not familiar with any of the evidence, I'm just speculating on possibilities. You know much better than me. What do you think happened?

I was always puzzled by that, how Frakes had known to play an evil Riker, when it was only later revealed that there was a good Riker. But your comment sort of opens that up to me. I think that Frakes was working from the character sketch, just portraying the attributes that he was told to portray. But he must not have been sympathetic himself, and that's why Riker came across as such a jerk all the time. I just now realized that.

But Riker was very well liked, by a lot of people. On the other hand, I usually hate the characters that are supposed portrayals of my demographic, so I don't know. How is it that the kind of person that likes Commander Riker isn't wise to the fake, but I am? Or am I just kidding myself? Can I really detect fakes oriented towards my viewpoints?

As for Riker - I can't stand him! He has one of those faces that make me want to belt him every time I see him! As a matter of fact, the only time I liked him was in the latest movie and I honestly think that was because he was entirely out of character! The 'good' Riker took over while no one was looking.

Chinese people tend to trust blindly, Westerners tend to trust openly, and a part Chinese man tends to trust obliquely. When I play a 'trust game', I don't predict that the other person will catch me, nor do I predict that they will not. I hold it in abeyance, ready for either outcome.

I don't really know how a part Chinese woman trusts, but I think that it has something to do with emotional linkages and perceptual differential.

Back to me. The advantage is, that I tend to trust that an entity has a nature, and that I will discover what that entity will do. When I encounter an entity that seems... contrived or out of place, then I don't trust it. If I trust someone, then it means that I feel partly prepared to meet the consequences that may arise from that persons actions, whereas not trusting them means that I feel that there is something unaccountable about them.

Okay, this all means almost nothing in practical terms, other than that I am adept at picking up on behaviours that don't quite add up. Like in the other forum, how I just knew that the one guy had a 'religious' upbringing that had stifled him emotionally as well as intellectually. It was funny, because he denied that and then revealed it in the next post. It was also sad, for obvious reasons, but I think that he'll be able to work through his feelings in time.

And then, he'll be authentic to himself

Ha, but you have to remember that this is all from the same guy who went and asked a bunch of physics guys what would happen if you went faster than the speed of light. But I do believe that deception always creates contradiction, and even though you can't always tell what the deception is from the contradiction, you can still bet it is there.

Insurrection, right? I liked the whole movie more than I thought I would, although I thought the premise was pretty dumb. I mean, so this planet makes people stay young forever, so what? I thought that was sort of like the genetic engineering, where the Federation had the technology, but didn't want to use it. I mean, life extension is a lot easier than genetic engineering. But it poses similar dangers to a human society. But now I'm off topic.

I have to admit that I have a great ability to catch a lie. I have to agree that the note of insincerity would tend to come through. But I still think that could be used to your advantage as an author if you played your cards right (especially if you were into mystery. )

But of course, the puzzle that you present then is a game of finding out what the narrator or viewpoint character really believes, and that leads right back home again. Sort of like what OSC said about how people who didn't know him from Adam (except that Adam is long dead and OSC is not) would come up and ask him if he was a morman. It just isn't something that you can hide all that well.

And anyone who can quote the Articles of Faith is either a RM or has the D&C sitting in front of them - either of which is a pretty good clue.

Although I think that the reason OSC gets asked so much lies mostly in the fact that he's very open about it. (Sounds like I mean he's gay, doesn't it? No, no - no slander intended.) Everyone I've ever heard talk about him, including the friend that introduced me to his works, usually says within the first few sentences: "..and he's Morman, too!" So I'm sure word gets around. I've never seen him, but I'm almost willing to bet a short haircut and a dark suit.....

But you have to admit, even just the basic Morman doctrine is pretty complex, the stuff that is in the Gospel Essentials handbooks and all.

And there is a lot of latitude beyond that to explore in terms of personal belief. I know that I have more fixed beliefs than the average Morman, and given the bar for Mormans as far as having fixed beliefs goes, that means that to the average non Morman, I probably actually have about a order of magnitude more fixed beliefs. And as far as I know, none of them are directly contradictory. Hah, beat that, Sarte!

It's something that I get around as best I can, when I'm trying to deal with other people. I know things that they cannot know without unlearning a heck of a lot of what they think they know. I was talking to a guy just today about the question of ultimate truth, relativity, and Chinese inscrutability, and believe me, it was a fairly wild conversation.

I already have this enormous body of solid beliefs, at least, enormous compared with what is usually acceptable to put forward in company, and any thread of it can lead to any other thread. It can be scary.

That's what I meant by hideous. I didn't mean ugly, just scary. Dreadful, monstrous. And hideous is the standard type modifier for complex, although I'm not sure why. But the root is from an old word for frightening.

I can understand what you mean - I grew up with quite a diverse group of friends. Moved a lot, so it was a case of some here, some there, some who knows where - but they all had one thing in common. Not one of them was LDS! Yep, I was the only one in a group that also contained: a protestant gonna-be preacher, a bhuddist, an athiest-anarchist, a born again, an ex-mormon-who-now-hates-everything-about-them, a Jehovah's Witness, the daughter of a Baptist minister, shall I continue? If you don't think I have ended up in my share of hideous (and I mean ugly and scary) religious discussions, think again!

Maybe that's why I don't think I'd have a problem from writing from a standpoint I don't believe. These people were all my friends, not aquaintances. I know them very well, and they are good people. For me to say that the Protestant was working hard to save people's souls would not be a lie. I might not agree with the way he went about it, but his efforts were honest so my story would be honest in his behalf.