Is there evidence for the Maker being real?
Is there? So many people go on about the Maker like he is actually true, but in my minds he is no more proven in the universe than the elven gods. So why do people take him as true?
Because Bioware it self has said its a matter of faith.
The Ashes questline, Leliana's visions(which are just as legitimate as Corypheus's panic at being unable to hear Dumat), Andraste's teachings and the Black City are all evidence that there is an entity referred to as the Maker.
Only Andraste's teachings claim that the Maker created everything. The other pieces of evidence indicate different things.
The Ashes questline indicates that its likely something very powerful was indeed involved with Andraste's revolution(which isn't at all implausible given the evidence that the Tevinter magisters were incredibly strong as well).
Leliana's visions are evidence(assuming we take her words to be the truth) that something is still interfering in the material realm.
The Ashes questline imply a whole mess of things. The Guardian's existence is quite interesting. His ability to read a person's past appears to be distinct from mind-reading(as he needs to actually be informed of Tevinter's current state) and he doesn't appear to be possessed, a darkspawn, or non-living(the only other forms of immortality we've seen or heard of). The ashes themselves are an oddity, as well as the trial.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
I'm not even sure Andraste's "Maker" and beliefs have anything to do with the Chantry either. She worked and died with Shartan, and wanted to help him restore his people. For all we know, the Maker and Creators could've been the same or allied. We don't know.
The Chantry is so different at this point though that they've cut Shartan out of the chant, and removed his elven ears out of any paintings. lol. If they go this far to suppress things, then who the hell knows what the original Andraste believed.
There are obviously non-mainline Chantry factions that believe Andraste was really a mage. Of course, that would still beg the question. If so, she obviously had access to magic that was superior to the Tevinter magisters, or she would not have been able to overcome them.
But that is, of course, the fascinating question: in a society/world where magic exists, how would one distinguish "miracles" from magic? Presumably divine miracles would still be even more wondrous than what a mage can do.
Anyway, I always ask one other question. If the Maker did not imprison the Old Gods, then what did? Whatever else that something was, it had to be more powerful than the old gods to imprison them.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
There are obviously non-mainline Chantry factions that believe Andraste was really a mage. Of course, that would still beg the question. If so, she obviously had access to magic that was superior to the Tevinter magisters, or she would not have been able to overcome them.
But that is, of course, the fascinating question: in a society/world where magic exists, how would one distinguish "miracles" from magic? Presumably divine miracles would still be even more wondrous than what a mage can do.
I can't remember the exact line, but I think in the Gauntlet, her most potent weapon wasn't anything so direct. Her so called "Maker" caused hunger and famine.
edit:
"The Maker kindled the sun's flame, scorching the land. Their crops failed, and their armies could not march. Then He opened the heavens and bade the waters flow, and washed away their filth."
It could've just been bad weather that won the war. Nothing magical. Or divine. lol
The Chantry is clearly designed to be evocative of the leadership of Catholicism in the European medieval period, but I wouldn't describe what happened to the Church in the terms you did. "Controlled all of Europe"? "Became more political than religious"? "Ultimately their downfall"? Ehhhhhh...
but then again we don't really need historians messing things up in these threads do we
Ooh, ooh, please do! Please do!
The modern concept of faith makes no more sense in Thedas than atheism does. Pre-modern people did not have 'belief without evidence;' an educated medieval man could provide both philosophical and scientific arguments for the existence of God.
For example, he could point to instances of holy people praying over people with horrible sickness and those afflicted being miraculously healed. He could provide the testimony of other men of good standing and sound mind who witnessed the event. He himself might have visited the body of a saint who died over a century ago and found the corpse whole and giving off a pleasant scent.
When asked to provide non-divine reasons for this being possible, the best you could say is 'maybe the dude who was coughing blood and covered with pox wasn't really that sick.' You can't point to medical journals that show prayer doesn't help. You can't talk about placebo effects because that concept doesn't exist. You have no knowledge of pathogens and immune systems. You probably don't know if the illness the sick man had is one that tends to have a quick recovery time or not -- you probably don't even know exactly what illness he has as there are dozens lumped together as pox.
Any argument you could mount against this miraculous healing would be without evidence.
Your example is valid, but I contest its applicability to the problem.
You say it would be appropriate to adopt a "medieval" mindset in this. There are several problems with this statement:
(1) Why should I do what the writers clearly don't? Thedas is, especially with regard to the philosophy of ideas, most unlike the European middle ages. In general, I see the prevalent mindset being more of a late Renaissance type with a smattering of Enlightenment-period humanism added. Most notably, both Aldenon and Anders justify their pro-mage stance with a decidedly modern concept of human rights which had its beginnings in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment but didn't exist in the European medieval period. Also, Avelline says she doesn't find the evidence for the Maker convincing, and Morrigan says she doesn't believe in any higher being, so that's clearly a mindset we're supposed to accept as plausible for an at least medium-educated Thedosian.
(2) Divine intervention is an implausible explanation. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but it does mean we should exhaust the plausible explanations first before going there (BTW, critical examination of miracle claims was actually done by the Church from the late middle ages on). That consideration applies to all "adopted mindsets" since knowledge of some things was unknown in some time periods, but people were not stupid. In general, healing properties of certain substances were well known throughout history, and while I haven't studied history, I think that the concept of poisons and antidotes was rather well known at least among the more educated people of most time periods since antiquity.
Then add magic, and there are several more plausible avenues for the examination of a "miraculous" healing than divine intervention. Divine intervention only rises to the top of the "plausibility hierarchy" in some people's minds because of the identity of the person involved, which usually doesn't survive the burning of the dead body (as the qunari would say so that, too, is a documented way of thinking), combined with a pre-existing disposition towards belief that, as explained above, is not a necessary part of the Thedosian mindset.
(3) The question asked was "is there evidence for the Maker". I took that to mean "Are there things in the lore which indicate that we, as the players, are supposed to see the Maker as real." To that, the answer is clearly "no", well in line with the developers' stated goal of leaving this a matter of interpretation. "Yes" is the answer to the question "Is itt possible that the Maker exists?", but that doesn't require evidence but only a consistent narrative free of contradictions with observable reality, which Andrasteanism does provide.
These two questions are distinct from "Is there evidence for the Maker that an average Thedosian would accept". The answer is possibly yes, but in a world where magic is consistently applied to everyday problems (see Anders in Kirkwall) people would be far more likely to suspect magic than divine intervention. Yet again, this is only changed by a pre-existing bias towards (a specific) belief, but even then "It's a kind of magic" suggests itself strongly as an alternative. Now ask the question: "Is there evidence for the Maker a highly educated Thedosian would accept?" I don't know the answer, but even if is it "yes", Andraste's ashes would not count as such, because that educated Thedosian would know that "It's a kind of magic" suggests itself much more strongly as an explanation.
(4) Even were I to adopt a renaissance mindset towards healing, I would try to explain things in terms of humors and essences as was common at the time, instead of considering divine intervention as the first hypothesis. The main reason why divine intervention was widely accepted because the existence of the creator god was presupposed, and as I said, if you do presuppose it, divine intervention becomes more plausible as an explanation. We are, however, neither required nor called to pre-suppose it, as Avelline's and Morrigan's examples show.
What this means is there is enough precedent and knowledge to dismiss everything presented so far as evidence for the Maker as irrelevant, both in-world and out-of-world. The existence of the Maker has to be considered possible but unsupported by more than circumstantial evidence.
As an aside, btw, I reject the statement that we should adopt the mindset of a historical period of which a fantasy story is reminiscent. I reject it because the story is set in a fantasy world, not in history. That it shares some elements with historical times and places does not mean it has to share other elements. Also, the story is written by 21st century people for a 21st century audience and it makes no claim to accuracy even in those elements reminiscent of historical times and places. It derives its meaning, if any, from how it comes across to us 21st century players and readers. I experience the story as a person of my time, and roleplay characters with mindsets I find appropriate based on the lore and my own preferences - any plausible Thedosian mindset is acceptable, and that includes critical thinking, standards of scholarship and not seeing the divine in everything.
In a world where magic exist a miracle would still "just" be a feat or act that defied the laws of the world. In the case of Thedas a human resurrecting another human could be viewed as a miracle for instance, though the healing of wounds would probably just be considered as magic.
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Personally, I don't think the existence of any of it really matters. What makes it interesting is how it gives flavor to different characters or your own character. There are certain motifs and attitudes that come with a Chantry believer or a Dalish or Qunari or a skeptic. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter. It's more about style. Other than that, i doubt there will be definitive answers. Not anytime soon at least.
In a world where magic exist a miracle would still "just" be a feat or act that defied the laws of the world. In the case of Thedas a human resurrecting another human could be viewed as a miracle for instance, though the healing of wounds would probably just be considered as magic.
True, but if you're confronted with an event that appears to defy the known laws of the world, will you immediately cry "divine intervention" or first consider the possibility that those laws may not be as strict as you thought they were, or that - to stick to your example - that this may have been a case of apparent death only? Will you consider that the event might have been accidental, like a "positive disaster-type event"? Do you regularly ascribe divine (or infernal) intention to such events? Would you find it reasonable to do that if you didn't presuppose the existence of an intervening free-willed agent?
As I said, I do not deny the possibility of miracles in the context of Thedas lore. I contest the claim that events that could be miracles serve as evidence for the existence of the Maker, because the existence of the Maker needs to be presupposed in order for the miraculous nature of the event to appear plausible in the first place. If you need to postulate an unknown circumstance or entity in order to solve your problem, it is far more plausible to postulate one of more limited scope and complexity.
Andraste's Ashes successfully healed a dying man.
It was also observed by Oghren that the ashes were located in a place with lots of lyrium, and that the lyrium likely was causing all sorts of crazy things to happen.
It was also observed by Oghren that the ashes were located in a place with lots of lyrium, and that the lyrium likely was causing all sorts of crazy things to happen.
And as DA 2 showed Lyrium can accomplish a lot that was thought impossible.
well, we already knew that too much exposure caused people to get a little funky in the head, i believe they called it "lyrium addled." It was just more of an extreme case... Its like mountain dew the red kind
There are obviously non-mainline Chantry factions that believe Andraste was really a mage. Of course, that would still beg the question. If so, she obviously had access to magic that was superior to the Tevinter magisters, or she would not have been able to overcome them.
But that is, of course, the fascinating question: in a society/world where magic exists, how would one distinguish "miracles" from magic? Presumably divine miracles would still be even more wondrous than what a mage can do.
Anyway, I always ask one other question. If the Maker did not imprison the Old Gods, then what did? Whatever else that something was, it had to be more powerful than the old gods to imprison them.
We know next to nothing about what the Old Gods actually were. When were they imprisoned? By whom? How long they were they imprisoned? How were they worshipped if they were deep underground? Did they imprison themselves to stop the blight?
The maker may be real, but I don't think he's what people think he is.
A God? What is a God? Sorry to bring philosophy into this, but isn't a god just something that is prayed to and worshiped? So sure, the Maker's a god. Is he real? Maybe. Does he have magical powers? In a world where ordinary people have magical powers? I'd say that's a safe assumption.
Is he any different than a spirit or a demon, or even a dragon?
Is he a dragon?
So many questions. So many possibilities...
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