Haven't read The Light Fantastic, but I know Fate and the Lady were playing each other in The Colour of Magic, and the Lady was playing Rincewind, so she got him out of scrapes. Have to say the Disc came on quite a lot since then...

Small Gods is a wonderful book. i think that terry shows that the religion is becoming only a institutional understanding while the real meaning is more and more lost

The nature of religion, I'm afraid.

Rather the nature of a collective intellect over a span of several centuries. Take any group with a set purpose or ideal, grind it through the meat-grinder of history, and presto!

True that.

But usually nothing but religion and monarchy holds together that long, except some philosophies, but those are generally confined to small groups of intellectuals.

That's why we have revolutions, regicides, reformations, and reform movements!

Not to mention Reconstructionism.

Small gods is awsome it just takes the idea of organised religion and breaks it down to fear and unwavering following but never actual belief. A great example of the worlds religions boiled down to a simple truth. We believe because we are told to not because we actually do.!!!!!

Well, some do, and that was one aspect of the story. I thought it is more about people believing in the church, not the actual God, which is a more complex matter - it happens to intelligent people, whereas just believeing because you are told so requires a form of collective dumbness. It would all be very simple if it were so.

Have to give it a re-read; it is amongst the favourites of many here.

An I must get it in English, it's the only one I have in French, and it's... not the same.

I agree with most of the readers of this topic, i like the book very much. I cant really discuss about my favorite sentences becose i read it in finnish, but i will try to translate finnish to english. I liked the idea of how the religions get more and more to its diagrams, most "beliviers" dont worship the religion of great Om. They have to "worship" him becose of the inquisition. Even the clerics of great Om worshipped only statues and the wrong prophets. it has had to be really uncomfortable to a big god, to notice you have only one true belivier.



(sorry for my bad english...)