Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
Yes, information passed down via natural language changes. Sometimes it gets lost or the meaning gets flipped on its head in a particularly stupid way. Are we supposed to be in disagreement?



They aren't completely arbitrary. Each concept, each word comes from somewhere, their genealogy can be traced and their evolution described, at least in theory if not in practice. In D&D's case, the history of this particular thing is recent enough and well-documented enough that we can sometimes name the exact guy who did a thing, their reasons for doing the thing, and then we can, from our perspective, discuss if their reasons were good or not. We can also sometimes show the exact break point when other people stopped paying attention and discuss if their reasons were good, or if they had a reason at all. What about this is supposed to be a problem?
It is arbitrary when you pick an anchor point based on what you think it should be, and it is a problem when you judge later things based upon that arbitrary anchor point. If you dislike how paladins have moved away from being inextricably tied to religion, that's perfectly fine, and you're not wrong, but once you declare all later paladins to basically be playing a game of telephone based on your personal preference start point, then you should not be surprised to get some pushback, especially when you make statements involving said later paladins.