dorchadas | (Reply)

From:

I'm not sure I agree with the second paragraph. One of the primary characteristics of the One True Religion (as Bob Howard would put it) to my mind is that its practices and objects of veneration are innately injurious to human mental stability. I can understand taking that out to make a point about the way many humans tend to believe that already about religions different from the one they practice themselves--"underplaying other humans' humanity," as you say--but it takes out the most interesting part of cosmic horror to me. If the answer to "[Being X] cannot interact with humans without causing them injury, what do we do" is "We don't have to do anything, it's just human prejudice that led to that impression and it doesn't have any innate truth," it seems like a cop-out. Dealing with the problem by saying it doesn't exist at all and the problem is actually something completely different.