Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => CCP Public Library => Topic started by: Ashar Kor-Azor on 18 Apr 2010, 01:59
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So, on returning to EVE I've found bits of memory regarding certain PF interpolations are just gone, and some are more important than others.
Mainly, I remember Gaven creating a convincing argument that the Amarrian scriptures are a collection of secular as well as religious knowledge; that if you piled every written piece of theology onto the sum total of the contents of every library, and added a byzantine and draconian review system that forced newer works to couch their terminologies and disseminations of everything from theories of hard science to ethics or theological constructions in a way that would not conflict with the seminal works or earliest core works, you would have Amarrian scripture and its method of review and contributory apparatus as embodied by the Theology Council.
But I don't remember any of the goddamn PF supports.
Anyone who does, list them here plox. I will give you golds.
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http://www.eve-search.com/thread/881452/page/1
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=534154
the (unofficial?) interview with Grand Master Elata Ardo is where it says:
"This whole process is complicated by the fact that our scriptures cover many things. Only an Amarr truly understands what I mean, but the Scriptures are all - they are law, tradition, science, philosophy, history and prayer. There is no separation, but everything that a man need know is contained in the scriptures.
It was the great preachers who made the word of God into medicines and machines, it was the word of God that revealed to the Amarr the way to the stars. Whereas your people took millennia to work out the secrets of physics and chemistry, God revealed them to us."
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Yes. YES. And a flood of memory comes surging back.
Thank yew, Louella.
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bump this thread for relevancy to current topics on IGS, relating to size of "the scriptures"
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I always thought the whole point to the Amarr Empire and the scriptures was that it was the fusion of faith and science into one whole? There always seems to be a lot of religious discussion but very little of the actual science/rationalism/humanist aspects to the Amarr even by those roleplaying them.
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Why even bother.
Clearly, it is the view of many, that any Amarr rper who does not claim to have complete understanding of the entirety of the Amarr Scripture is Doing It Wrong.
The Scriptures are "small enough to be read in an hour or two".
So anyone who is not an expert on every single aspect of the Scriptures is doing it wrong.
Because CYBERIMPLANTS
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I've found that the sheer scale of the scriptures gives tremendous leeway for RP. We have a few snippets to work with, but the idea of a culture where every (accepted) academic concept is fascinating, partly because of the scale of the concept. I've personally enjoyed the work of players who try to incorporate that by applying the bits of scripture we do have into discussions of other, seemingly unrelated, subjects.
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I always thought the whole point to the Amarr Empire and the scriptures was that it was the fusion of faith and science into one whole? There always seems to be a lot of religious discussion but very little of the actual science/rationalism/humanist aspects to the Amarr even by those roleplaying them.
Isn't it ? :(
Edit : I have always tried to do something about that but all I got was "hurrdurr heretic hurrdurr". Not that I stopped trying, but there are mainly 2 enemies to that :
- Amarrian RPers that do not have the same interpretation and rely more on spanish inquisition tropes, which means, at least half of them if not more.
- Outside RPers that just are here to bash Amarrians in their RL crusade against christian/muslim religions, even if Amarr religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Why even bother.
Clearly, it is the view of many, that any Amarr rper who does not claim to have complete understanding of the entirety of the Amarr Scripture is Doing It Wrong.
The Scriptures are "small enough to be read in an hour or two".
So anyone who is not an expert on every single aspect of the Scriptures is doing it wrong.
Because CYBERIMPLANTS
Tbh I already debunked that implant argument today again (and Kat also did it before me). I welcome all characters that will try to thread on that slippery slope.
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A link to the IGS thread referred to here, please?
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Isn't it ? :(
Edit : I have always tried to do something about that but all I got was "hurrdurr heretic hurrdurr". Not that I stopped trying, but there are mainly 2 enemies to that :
- Amarrian RPers that do not have the same interpretation and rely more on spanish inquisition tropes, which means, at least half of them if not more.
- Outside RPers that just are here to bash Amarrians in their RL crusade against christian/muslim religions, even if Amarr religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I don't know... if I played an Amarr character I'd be all like, "Do you want to know where I found my faith? It was in my youth. In the ineluctable spaces between man's knowledge. In my ignorance of the world around me. I sought the truth of God's will as a rational man. In the understanding of His creation around me. As I looked upon the stars I wished to know Him and His work. God is the perfection of the universe all around us, and we are imperfect men who can only hope to achieve degrees of imperfection through our own work...
It is you, the barbarian and the heathen who live in your own ignorance and it is our mandate to free you from it. To liberate you from your own darkness and into the light of God's truth."
You know, it's odd though, if you look at history and say some of the Islamic Caliphates of the past they were both based on religious doctrine just as much as the realization that in order to run a well ordered Empire you need good administrators, intelligent bureaucrats, and creative scientists. The Scriptures are just as much religious/philosophical as they are scientific/administrative/legal because they're the embodiment of millenia of collected works in how to run a well-ordered Empire, no?
If the Amarr were as dogmatic and intolerant or as "anti-science" as some portray them as then it doesn't explain how they rose up into the stars on the backs of advanced spaceships.
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This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?
It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.
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This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?
It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.
I think, having grown up in societies where science and religion are somehow diametrically opposed, it's harder for us to understand the concept of theocracy or even religious and scientific harmony. It's been a very long time since even the Deist philosophies, much less a time when the western world didn't make that distinction. Unfortunately, Amarrian culture is very heavily based on Roman and Holy Roman Empire thinking, where great scientists were often priests and monks struggling to understand God's work, usually because they were their cultures' most educated people.
Amarrians probably would sanctify scientists especially since the idea of advancing warp drive technology and discovering a new complete text of Scriptural work are held in equal esteem as works of God in Amarrian society. Being a complete theocracy, helping the empire is helping God's work and discerning God's work helps the empire. It's all seamless, and Amarrian society seems like a very practical theocracy as opposed to less rational real-world examples.
That's sort of the challenge of playing an Amarrian, because you have to be able to weave the religion subtly into your RP. Most people RP religion a bit like a sledgehammer, they're either calling for the execution of everyone else on charges of heresy or they never talk about it. I guess that, especially nowadays, it's hard to have an undercurrent of religion even in matters that don't seem very religious because it's seen as a mutually exclusive dichotomy. For Amarrians, though, they've grown up in a society where everything they do is based around a universal religion they've been learning since birth and have been practicing along with everyone they grew up with. It's not just going to church on Sunday and forgetting about it the rest of the week, people research wormhole science or transport freighters full of frozen food religiously. They don't even think about it; it's there for them the way we think of such universal things as the economy or government administration.
So yeah, it's probably a lot softer than most of our conservative nutters are playing it, but also a lot more pervasive than we sometimes play it. But it's elements like that which make roleplaying fun! Nobody wants to just roleplay a character where all the questions are already answered and all your reactions are already decided.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism. Because they don't have a single book that is the source of all dogma that can never be changed or amended, they have a living body of work that has both been collected over thousands of years and is continuously updated, added to, and changed as required or demanded.
The whole Catholics in space or WH40k Imperium of Man dynamic to it seems a bit odd to me, because the closest I see the Empire being to is something more like the society of Frank Herbert's Dune, where you have this element of science and underlying religion/feudalism combined with the crushing weight of history.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism.
There is only one?
Oh dear - I think I accidentally turned into a closet pagan.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism.
There is only one?
Oh dear - I think I accidentally turned into a closet pagan.
I'd clarify and say modern monotheistic religions and more specifically, the aspect of having a single prophet/messiah figure who hands down the word of God that is transcribed into a single book is absent in the Amarr faith as far as I can see.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism.
There is only one?
Oh dear - I think I accidentally turned into a closet pagan.
I'd clarify and say modern monotheistic religions and more specifically, the aspect of having a single prophet/messiah figure who hands down the word of God that is transcribed into a single book is absent in the Amarr faith as far as I can see.
And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.
While in my writings I have deliberately steered clear of religion (various reasons, including "initially it didn't matter" and "PF made my eyes glaze over"), at the same time without really thinking about it I have Druur swearing to multiple gods.
I could probably handwave it away, claiming that Druur's background in the Special Forces made her a cynic, and she makes sure never to swear in public, but it's now an interesting detail to think about.
(The homogenous depiction of sci-fi societies is a pet-peeve of mine. I just can't imagine that every single Amarr/Khanid is deeply religious, or that every single Klingon likes Opera.)
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And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.
Where? The PF I've read points to a lot of religious figures of importance or significance in the Empire -- there's the Emperors, the saints, the prophets and more but there hasn't been an implication that there's a single figure above all others like Abraham or Moses for the Amarr or that the Scriptures are a single book like the Torah, Bible or Qur'an.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism. Because they don't have a single book that is the source of all dogma that can never be changed or amended, they have a living body of work that has both been collected over thousands of years and is continuously updated, added to, and changed as required or demanded.
The whole Catholics in space or WH40k Imperium of Man dynamic to it seems a bit odd to me, because the closest I see the Empire being to is something more like the society of Frank Herbert's Dune, where you have this element of science and underlying religion/feudalism combined with the crushing weight of history.
Really? I mean, they use a lot of Catholic title and language work, so I definitely use it as a reference for those, but I thought most of us played it as if it was the Roman Empire. It's exceptionally close to the Roman Empire.
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Isn't it ? :(
Edit : I have always tried to do something about that but all I got was "hurrdurr heretic hurrdurr". Not that I stopped trying, but there are mainly 2 enemies to that :
- Amarrian RPers that do not have the same interpretation and rely more on spanish inquisition tropes, which means, at least half of them if not more.
- Outside RPers that just are here to bash Amarrians in their RL crusade against christian/muslim religions, even if Amarr religion has absolutely nothing to do with it.
I don't know... if I played an Amarr character I'd be all like, "Do you want to know where I found my faith? It was in my youth. In the ineluctable spaces between man's knowledge. In my ignorance of the world around me. I sought the truth of God's will as a rational man. In the understanding of His creation around me. As I looked upon the stars I wished to know Him and His work. God is the perfection of the universe all around us, and we are imperfect men who can only hope to achieve degrees of imperfection through our own work...
It is you, the barbarian and the heathen who live in your own ignorance and it is our mandate to free you from it. To liberate you from your own darkness and into the light of God's truth."
You know, it's odd though, if you look at history and say some of the Islamic Caliphates of the past they were both based on religious doctrine just as much as the realization that in order to run a well ordered Empire you need good administrators, intelligent bureaucrats, and creative scientists. The Scriptures are just as much religious/philosophical as they are scientific/administrative/legal because they're the embodiment of millenia of collected works in how to run a well-ordered Empire, no?
If the Amarr were as dogmatic and intolerant or as "anti-science" as some portray them as then it doesn't explain how they rose up into the stars on the backs of advanced spaceships.
This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?
It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.
This might also seem odd to some, but is out of the realms of possibility that the Amarr would give sainthoods to scientists?
It would be interesting if they did, like the Amarr equivalents of Saint Einstein the patron saint of relativity, or Saint Feynman the patron saint of nanotechnology.
I think, having grown up in societies where science and religion are somehow diametrically opposed, it's harder for us to understand the concept of theocracy or even religious and scientific harmony. It's been a very long time since even the Deist philosophies, much less a time when the western world didn't make that distinction. Unfortunately, Amarrian culture is very heavily based on Roman and Holy Roman Empire thinking, where great scientists were often priests and monks struggling to understand God's work, usually because they were their cultures' most educated people.
Amarrians probably would sanctify scientists especially since the idea of advancing warp drive technology and discovering a new complete text of Scriptural work are held in equal esteem as works of God in Amarrian society. Being a complete theocracy, helping the empire is helping God's work and discerning God's work helps the empire. It's all seamless, and Amarrian society seems like a very practical theocracy as opposed to less rational real-world examples.
That's sort of the challenge of playing an Amarrian, because you have to be able to weave the religion subtly into your RP. Most people RP religion a bit like a sledgehammer, they're either calling for the execution of everyone else on charges of heresy or they never talk about it. I guess that, especially nowadays, it's hard to have an undercurrent of religion even in matters that don't seem very religious because it's seen as a mutually exclusive dichotomy. For Amarrians, though, they've grown up in a society where everything they do is based around a universal religion they've been learning since birth and have been practicing along with everyone they grew up with. It's not just going to church on Sunday and forgetting about it the rest of the week, people research wormhole science or transport freighters full of frozen food religiously. They don't even think about it; it's there for them the way we think of such universal things as the economy or government administration.
So yeah, it's probably a lot softer than most of our conservative nutters are playing it, but also a lot more pervasive than we sometimes play it. But it's elements like that which make roleplaying fun! Nobody wants to just roleplay a character where all the questions are already answered and all your reactions are already decided.
Hell yeah.
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And you're silently implying that there is not only a single messiah and a single book, but also a single god.
Where?
Yeah, I misread you - I apologize for the non-sequitur.
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I responded to the other thread.
I do weave religious crap into everything I RP. Then again, I RP a zealot.
Most people don't notice because it is NOT a sledgehammer.
Instead I get (and the most recent person to have said this to me will think I mean only them, there has been more than one) "There's a poetry to how you speak."
Should be obvious to ppl who have RPed with me and then seen my tumble of typos in OOC channels that I am pretty careful about Ari's sentences and it's not just because I suspect my RP is being logged at every turn, it's because I am usually weaving 'grace' into everything she says; thinking, backspacing, etc. Some days I don't RP because I am not in the right mindset to do it.
Sure, I could spout scripture like a fountain. But again, the Amarrian religion, imo, is ALIVE, because the AMARRIANS ARE ALIVE. IMO again, every Amarrian could end up finding themselves in the Scriptures 1000 years down the line and damned well should be carrying themselves that way -- if they're believers. They're supposed to be the blessed people, not neener neener I'm better than you and this is why. Their position shouldn't even need be said. It should be shown. (which makes me giggle OOC when people say that Ari is being stuck up or 'talking down' etc etc.. nothing in a single sentence points that out -- it's just a Khanid being a Khanid and eventually it becomes apparent that she's so .. soo what she IS.. that it either makes other people IC question their own positions or make their brain snap to "Fuckin' Amarrians!". As it should be, which means, damnit, I'm doinitright.)
Slaves and the ignorant should recite scripture. Amarrians should live it. 8)
.. damn that sentence sounds evil. I like it! :D (I only get to be evil OOC :( )
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Just noticed this thread, good discussion and great posts, and read some of the IGS thread too. Sadly I think I'm seeing a bit of an echo (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=3976.45) here, and was disappointed to see the same people using untenable PF as a strawman to paint broad strokes over the values of real people in a clear effort to get their opinion heard. It's jarring and a buzzkill, and arguably hypocritical.
Sigh ... r/atheism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slKULc8W7lM) anyone?
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Who are the same people and who are the real ones? :eek:
Im just talking about a fictional universe.
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Who are the same people and who are the real ones? :eek:
Im just talking about a fictional universe.
I'm not a real person, I just play one on TV.
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Bleh, re reading that topic about the Futility of playing an Amarrian character was rather depressing... After all those years I think i'm just worn out. One can't win against that.
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Well looking at the Scriptures themselves, the only real parallel the Amarr seem to have with modern religions is monotheism. Because they don't have a single book that is the source of all dogma that can never be changed or amended, they have a living body of work that has both been collected over thousands of years and is continuously updated, added to, and changed as required or demanded.
The whole Catholics in space or WH40k Imperium of Man dynamic to it seems a bit odd to me, because the closest I see the Empire being to is something more like the society of Frank Herbert's Dune, where you have this element of science and underlying religion/feudalism combined with the crushing weight of history.
Really? I mean, they use a lot of Catholic title and language work, so I definitely use it as a reference for those, but I thought most of us played it as if it was the Roman Empire. It's exceptionally close to the Roman Empire.
The Roman empire model is a really really old one, and not a very good one. It was the one that people ran with first at release, so it has a lot of weight, but its not a very close match to how Amarr works. Unfortunately the oldest Amarrian player institutions are all Roman theme named because of this.
Every few years I try to convince PIE to switch to Persian styled titulature, but people like the naval ranks too much.
If you go with Eastern Roman Empire circa 1100 or so, you have the best single historical model. But still not perfect.
If I was going to use real world comparisons to make a more reasonable model I would say that the Religious model ends up being one part Zoroastrian light imagery, another part OT style Prophet narrative and militant monotheism, some catholic titles, and then a few egyptian elements thrown in. For the government and empire model, I find the Sasanian empire (combination of divine right of rule and a central bureaucracy with a decentralized almost feudal state outside of the capital) to be the closest one to Amarr.
Edit: The biggest problem with the catholic model is that the Catholic church has never really had imperial authority, so it actively works to assert its authority against the state authority that kings represent. This means that the church created some pretty strong concepts of separate spheres of authority. This doesn't translate well to Amarr, where the religion pervades every single aspect of the culture and the idea that any action would not be religious to some degree is unlikely to be understood.
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Man, I'm so glad a veteran of the Amarr has finally come forward to debunk the Roman thing. People are so quick to assert the French theme of the Gallente; sure, all you gotta do is look at the system and agent names. And yet, there is nothing Roman about the Amarr naming system ingame.
In fact, the only similarity I could see that people were using as their basis was that both the Amarr Empire and the Roman Empire was that they had "empire" in their names. Still, Gaven's explanation that it was a launch thing makes sense. Even then, 1st Praetorian Guard's use of eagle imagery seems out of place given none of if appears on Amarr NPC logos and is everywhere on the Gallente (unless those were different at launch?)
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I have always said the same concerning the Amarr Empire... Except maybe on the societal view of slaves on the amarrian everyday, which is really similar to the one of the roman empire... There is not much else.
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I always played Amarr more kind'a Persian-styled. Anyhow, Latin got used from the start, it has found it's way into PF, even - and it is evoking successfully the idea of ancient empire and religion, while being more easily accessible to people than Avestic Persian or so...
I think there are good reasons to use Latin as fluff language for Amarr. That people don't accept the - for them - esoteric farsi is shown by Gaven's experience with Persian styled titulature in PIE. Also PF indicates that the Amarr (and the Scriptures) used (and maybe still use) several languages aside 'Standard Iperial' Amarrish. So, there's plenty of leeway possible.
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I use indian/pakistani wedding dresses as clergywear. mainly cause it explains why ari has a nose piercing, but also because pretty.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
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Do I need to post the NASCAR prayer again? Just for giggles. :(
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
This.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
Again,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZnDt2wEFjk
Cause ppl dont think "Catholisism" when they think they're thinking Catholisism. They think Westboro Baptist Curch.
Because.
People are ignorant.
I said it.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
Again,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZnDt2wEFjk
Cause ppl dont think "Catholisism" when they think they're thinking Catholisism. They think Westboro Baptist Curch.
Because.
People are ignorant.
I said it.
I had kind of guessed that it was more along the lines of Gaven's point about Rome. Even if it is a good analogy, it's not 100% and people might get burned out on it, I suppose.
I just think it's a better match than most because it wasn't just a religion, it was a system of governance. The See had an incredible amount of power in Europe for long after Rome was sacked, it's a comparatively recent development that it's not administering Europe anymore. They were good because they're a decent example of a religion that was a state and power rather than being attached to one. So they have a decent set of administrative tools.
Certainly the Theology Council is led by a Grand Deacon, so it's already a source for terminology.
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You are expecting people rapped with rulers or told by religious extremist they will burn in hell or people who read Facebook chainmail bullshit as for realsies to bother to open their minds to the fact that that is not the whole of the religion.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
Here is the problem.
Christianity, as a religion, is a little less than 2000 years old. I won't go into its roots or where it came from before that, since I want to look at the history of christianity here, and specifically the time line.
In less than 2000 years, the christian church has changed well beyond its starting point. I dare say that modern catholics, or protestants, or offshoot "heresies" would see what Christianity was and be able to say "It is the same".
Remember the time like. This is 2000 years. Remember that recorded history is only about 5000 or so years.
According to the EVE Timeline (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Timeline#Age_of_Expansion_.28AD_16262_-_YC_100.29), the first Amarr emperor was crowned in the year AD 16470. This is 8000 years after the group that could possibly be recognized as the "Space Catholics", the Conformists, landed on Athra. It took them till 20544 to completely control Athra. That is 3.5 thousand years later. One thousand years later (This is starting to seem like a very small amount of time) they built their first stargate.
It is currently AD 23351. That is a full 21 millenia from the foundation of Christianity. The Amarr do not have a bible. None of their scriptures mention Jesus or any equivalent figure. Their god is described as an entirely different one (For instance, the Amarr have solved the whole "God cannot be All Knowing, All Powerful, and All Merciful at the same time or else evil would not exist" problem. God is not all merciful. Mercy is for the emperor, after all)
Quite simply, too much time has passed for the Amarr to be considered Space Catholics. Or even space Christians. Or even Space Abrahamics. They have been around, and mutating as a culture, for 4 times longer than we have had recorded civilization.
Edit: As Evi Polehvia just said to me on team speak, "Christianity is closer to Zoroastrianism than the amarr are to anything we have today."
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
Here is the problem.
Christianity, as a religion, is a little less than 2000 years old. I won't go into its roots or where it came from before that, since I want to look at the history of christianity here, and specifically the time line.
In less than 2000 years, the christian church has changed well beyond its starting point. I dare say that modern catholics, or protestants, or offshoot "heresies" would see what Christianity was and be able to say "It is the same".
Remember the time like. This is 2000 years. Remember that recorded history is only about 5000 or so years.
According to the EVE Timeline (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Timeline#Age_of_Expansion_.28AD_16262_-_YC_100.29), the first Amarr emperor was crowned in the year AD 16470. This is 8000 years after the group that could possibly be recognized as the "Space Catholics", the Conformists, landed on Athra. It took them till 20544 to completely control Athra. That is 3.5 thousand years later. One thousand years later (This is starting to seem like a very small amount of time) they built their first stargate.
It is currently AD 23351. That is a full 21 millenia from the foundation of Christianity. The Amarr do not have a bible. None of their scriptures mention Jesus or any equivalent figure. Their god is described as an entirely different one (For instance, the Amarr have solved the whole "God cannot be All Knowing, All Powerful, and All Merciful at the same time or else evil would not exist" problem. God is not all merciful. Mercy is for the emperor, after all)
Quite simply, too much time has passed for the Amarr to be considered Space Catholics. Or even space Christians. Or even Space Abrahamics. They have been around, and mutating as a culture, for 4 times longer than we have had recorded civilization.
Edit: As Evi Polehvia just said to me on team speak, "Christianity is closer to Zoroastrianism than the amarr are to anything we have today."
We're not really talking about the content of the religion, though, we're talking about titles and organization. I mean, Hell, if it's closer to Zoroastrianism, you're talking about a religion that predates Judaism. The "wise men" that brought Jesus his anointing oil were probably Zoroastrians.
The Amarr Empire isn't a nation that has a church, it actually is a giant church where all things within it, science, philosophy, accounting, test cricket, penne, et cetera are all part of the church program.
That's why I can't see why Catholicism in the Middle Ages is such a horrible example. The Church essentially educated and funded everything from artists to scientists and architects. Those men weren't usually even instructed in their native languages, they learned Latin.
I'm not sure where there's been a church with more authority. Essentially, all the kings of England right up through the Reformation got their right to rule from God, and thus through the Pope. The church started wars by essentially excommunicating countries for various offenses. Even after the Reformation, all Catholic countries still owed fealty to the Catholic church until democracy came along.
The religious ideas may be different, but the organization is broadly similar. I'm not sure there's anything else that comes closer to that spiritual-political dichotomy.
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Its a fantasy game.
I can't comprehend why so many people with amazing imaginations are blanketing RL on it.
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Its a fantasy game.
I can't comprehend why so many people with amazing imaginations are blanketing RL on it.
Well, it's not completely fantasy, it's all based on RL institutions. It isn't like the Amarr have constructed spires made of sharp cheddar cheese and believe that the soul is the wellspring of eternity contained entirely within the left leg. Weird would be if the Gallente Federation was the one with the slaveholding. The idea of a relatively conservative empire with slavery, mandated religion, and ritual suicide didn't come from a vacuum; those are generally assumed to be traits common to conservative and authoritarian governments in the real world.
Even if we were trying to be uber inventive and creative, we'd be making it into something that CCP made sure it just wasn't. It's not modeled completely after any one time period or government in history, but I'd be hard pressed to say that it's a totally original take on a theocracy. There isn't anything in the game that doesn't have a direct corollary in RL.
Which, given the whole thing did originate on Earth, it kind of makes sense. At least there's a good reason that those institutions are the same; they came from the same place and just didn't die off entirely.
It makes more sense than when spacefaring peoples who aren't from Earth in games and movies somehow end up 50% Weimar Republic and 50% Japanese Feudalism. In a vacuum, there's no reason that alien cultures wouldn't be forming governments based entirely around tidal pull on their home planet.
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
It's not bad per se, it's just like seeing people overdoing it everywhere which gets harmful, like space french gallente, space japanese/fin caldari, etc. It's taking catholism and translating it its complete form into the Amarr ICly. Taking a few relevant bits and translating them as inspiration, sure. Taking the whole and translating it literally, no thanks.
We're not really talking about the content of the religion, though, we're talking about titles and organization. I mean, Hell, if it's closer to Zoroastrianism, you're talking about a religion that predates Judaism. The "wise men" that brought Jesus his anointing oil were probably Zoroastrians.
The Amarr Empire isn't a nation that has a church, it actually is a giant church where all things within it, science, philosophy, accounting, test cricket, penne, et cetera are all part of the church program.
That's why I can't see why Catholicism in the Middle Ages is such a horrible example. The Church essentially educated and funded everything from artists to scientists and architects. Those men weren't usually even instructed in their native languages, they learned Latin.
I'm not sure where there's been a church with more authority. Essentially, all the kings of England right up through the Reformation got their right to rule from God, and thus through the Pope. The church started wars by essentially excommunicating countries for various offenses. Even after the Reformation, all Catholic countries still owed fealty to the Catholic church until democracy came along.
The religious ideas may be different, but the organization is broadly similar. I'm not sure there's anything else that comes closer to that spiritual-political dichotomy.
We are pointing that the Church even in those times was all powerful yes, but they had more or less defined roles and fields of authority, where the old secular meaning was applied to everything that was not clergy, and thus secular roles were the responsibility of lords, kings, nobles, etc. That's not to say that clergy did not have a HUGE influence on those (because they had), but at least officially there was a difference in the ladder.
I can't accept that Church and State were separated in the middle ages since everything was intermingled, but there was a distinction (secular duty vs men of the cloth). In the case of the Amarr, I don't think so. Read the article on Amash Akura, which clearly states that Holders and so are more or less clergy, and that everything is actually clergy, just with very different branches. Even nobles are men of the cloth (Holders especially).
And anyway, considering the definition of the scriptures vs what is the holy bible or whatever makes it clear to me that crass obscurantism is more likely to happen in one of both than the other...
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Anyway it's always better when it borrows from many cultures. It makes it harder for people that want to paint it with broad strokes based on IRL strawmen...
(looking at you space catholism...)
What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis? They get a lot of titles and such from it, so it's a fairly obvious and undeniable source for the Amarrian religion. It's far from the only one, but it seems as good as any if you need to draw from the outside for something.
It's not bad per se, it's just like seeing people overdoing it everywhere which gets harmful, like space french gallente, space japanese/fin caldari, etc. It's taking catholism and translating it its complete form into the Amarr ICly. Taking a few relevant bits and translating them as inspiration, sure. Taking the whole and translating it literally, no thanks.
We're not really talking about the content of the religion, though, we're talking about titles and organization. I mean, Hell, if it's closer to Zoroastrianism, you're talking about a religion that predates Judaism. The "wise men" that brought Jesus his anointing oil were probably Zoroastrians.
The Amarr Empire isn't a nation that has a church, it actually is a giant church where all things within it, science, philosophy, accounting, test cricket, penne, et cetera are all part of the church program.
That's why I can't see why Catholicism in the Middle Ages is such a horrible example. The Church essentially educated and funded everything from artists to scientists and architects. Those men weren't usually even instructed in their native languages, they learned Latin.
I'm not sure where there's been a church with more authority. Essentially, all the kings of England right up through the Reformation got their right to rule from God, and thus through the Pope. The church started wars by essentially excommunicating countries for various offenses. Even after the Reformation, all Catholic countries still owed fealty to the Catholic church until democracy came along.
The religious ideas may be different, but the organization is broadly similar. I'm not sure there's anything else that comes closer to that spiritual-political dichotomy.
We are pointing that the Church even in those times was all powerful yes, but they had more or less defined roles and fields of authority, where the old secular meaning was applied to everything that was not clergy, and thus secular roles were the responsibility of lords, kings, nobles, etc. That's not to say that clergy did not have a HUGE influence on those (because they had), but at least officially there was a difference in the ladder.
I can't accept that Church and State were separated in the middle ages since everything was intermingled, but there was a distinction (secular duty vs men of the cloth). In the case of the Amarr, I don't think so. Read the article on Amash Akura, which clearly states that Holders and so are more or less clergy, and that everything is actually clergy, just with very different branches. Even nobles are men of the cloth (Holders especially).
And anyway, considering the definition of the scriptures vs what is the holy bible or whatever makes it clear to me that crass obscurantism is more likely to happen in one of both than the other...
Oddly, the power of the church was heavily centered on how the pope handled political matters. A few popes were just figureheads and essentially got pushed around by the kings. On the other hand, a strong pope essentially could run Europe, call unified European armies to crusades, and doom whole groups of people.
Either way, space-Christians is probably not the best way to describe it, but oddly space-Catholics might be. The religion might not be entirely similar to Christianity, but the structure seems pretty close.
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What exactly is everyone's problem with Catholicism as a basis?
Amarr character says something about the scriptures.
non-amarr character says "is that what the priest said to you when abusing you?"
There is a substantial and vocal proportion of the Eve RP community, including members of this forum, that want to equate the fictional Amarr religion to the real RC religion, in order to use the RL failings of the RC church to "win" against Amarr roleplayers.
That is one of my problems with people equating the two things.
Also, equating Scripture with the Old Testament and similar:
People describe the fictional Amarr scriptures as including "the collected ramblings of people who mistook schizophrenia for demonic possession, felt that a powerful body odour was the best means to ward off the tormenting spectre of disease"
When questioned on this people say things like: "They're your scriptures, haven't you ever read them?"
Again, taking RL religions out of their historical context, and using bits of them to attack Amarr roleplayers.
Then accusing the Amarr roleplayers of DOING IT WRONG if they do not submit to this godmoding.
So.
Amarr religion is clearly the Worst thing ever. All of the Scriptures are written by people who know nothing of science. Any Amarr player who thinks the Scriptures might contain any bits of science are clearly wrong. Any Amarr player who is not an expert on every part of the Scriptures is wrong and stupid and uneducated.
And that is the view of a significant and vocal proportion of the EVE rp community and of this forum community.
Which means, that if you want to play an Amarr character and incorporate the religion into your RP, then you are only allowed to play a stupid uneducated simpleton.
Otherwise, you're doing it wrong.
Which means this forum, has no real purpose for any player who has an Amarr character.
And that's my problem with equating Amarr=Roman Catholicism.
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That's where I disagree. I certainly don't disagree that clergy and state weren't in practice kept separate and that a lot of religious figures, or just religion in itself, played a huge role in politics and everything in a very pervasive way. Although there was a distinction between both, which does not seem to be really the case with the Amarr.
But for the structure ? Definitely not. Holders are clergy and nobility, and the only similar example in History fitting to the Amarr structure might be prince archbishops that held the same title as feudal lords, but were also men of the cloth.
But I think we are redoing this thread again (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5419.0) so i'll just refrain here.
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+1 Louella
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Aside what Lou said, I think Gaven is quite right when he points out that Roman Catholic Christianity has a lot of things not in common with the Amarr and that the Byzantine Orthodoxy of the medieval time within the frame of the Byzantine Emopire is a better model in those cases. Yes, the Pope ruled over a state of his own (and still does so), but that has been a differnt state than the great monarchies of the time. How more obvious could it be that here one and the other are not the same, while still being tied to one another?
The fact is that the Pope didn't establish his power from within the European states, nor was he the sole ruler of an European empire: He established his power against the Kings and Emperor's of Europe. There are clearly distinguishable spheres of authority, spheres that were contested time and again, but which were defended by the 'worldly' as well as the 'religious' authorities against one another. This was the basis for the development of a secular state and the seperation of state and church:
A basis that Roman Catholicism had to live most of it's existence with and which shaped it quite a lot. Such a basis is entirely absent in the Amarr Empire. I'd not go as far and say that Holders are clergy, but they have a religious function. We're so much shaped to think in the terms of seperate entities when we think of church (religion) and state, that it's not easy to comprehend that in Amarr these are apparently not, by any stretch, seperate entities. Or how someone can have religious functions without being clergy, apparently.
So, while I agree that Amarr clerical titulature apparently borrows a lot from catholicism (or orthodoxy, as the titles aren't that diferent, basically) and that this implies a certain similarity in the function of those that hold these titles, this by no means implies that the organization of Amarrian churches is Roman Catholic entirely. It's rather Byzantine Orthodox in just as many respects as it is Roman Catholic, really. There are also a lot of other real historical religions/states it is resembling in one respect or the other and some of those share as many similarities as RC and BO.
While I personally think that ruling out Roman Catholicism as a model entirely would be bad, I think it'd be even worse to base everything on it flatly, just because it doesn't do justice to how the Amarr Empire (and thus Amarr religion) work. Also, it comes to what Lyn said: If you do justice to Amarr by taking inspiration where it's appropriate to take and thus take inspiration from many different sources, it's far less easy for the trolls to troll as Lou explicated so pointedly.
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Aside what Lou said, I think Gaven is quite right when he points out that Roman Catholic Christianity has a lot of things not in common with the Amarr and that the Byzantine Orthodoxy of the medieval time within the frame of the Byzantine Emopire is a better model in those cases. Yes, the Pope ruled over a state of his own (and still does so), but that has been a differnt state than the great monarchies of the time. How more obvious could it be that here one and the other are not the same, while still being tied to one another?
The fact is that the Pope didn't establish his power from within the European states, nor was he the sole ruler of an European empire: He established his power against the Kings and Emperor's of Europe. There are clearly distinguishable spheres of authority, spheres that were contested time and again, but which were defended by the 'worldly' as well as the 'religious' authorities against one another. This was the basis for the development of a secular state and the seperation of state and church:
A basis that Roman Catholicism had to live most of it's existence with and which shaped it quite a lot. Such a basis is entirely absent in the Amarr Empire. I'd not go as far and say that Holders are clergy, but they have a religious function. We're so much shaped to think in the terms of seperate entities when we think of church (religion) and state, that it's not easy to comprehend that in Amarr these are apparently not, by any stretch, seperate entities. Or how someone can have religious functions without being clergy, apparently.
So, while I agree that Amarr clerical titulature apparently borrows a lot from catholicism (or orthodoxy, as the titles aren't that diferent, basically) and that this implies a certain similarity in the function of those that hold these titles, this by no means implies that the organization of Amarrian churches is Roman Catholic entirely. It's rather Byzantine Orthodox in just as many respects as it is Roman Catholic, really. There are also a lot of other real historical religions/states it is resembling in one respect or the other and some of those share as many similarities as RC and BO.
While I personally think that ruling out Roman Catholicism as a model entirely would be bad, I think it'd be even worse to base everything on it flatly, just because it doesn't do justice to how the Amarr Empire (and thus Amarr religion) work. Also, it comes to what Lyn said: If you do justice to Amarr by taking inspiration where it's appropriate to take and thus take inspiration from many different sources, it's far less easy for the trolls to troll as Lou explicated so pointedly.
I'm not even so worried about the background source material subject, since it doesn't exactly matter where we get that from (there's no hard lore in the game sphere to back up much of the actual way it all works, so there's not much point in fighting over that). I'm more interested in the historical argument, especially the separation of church and state back in the middle ages. I think its role is underplayed in common parlance. The church, before the Reformation especially, wasn't really a separate power that took a limited role. That's sort of a modern contrivance. Hell, Innocent III essentially ruled Europe and started some incredibly black chapters in history.
I think it's sort of because we look back from modern days when churches are very disconnected and generally separated from state business. The idea that popes could essentially say that since they were God's representative on Earth, kings ruled by the grace of God, thus the popes could suddenly give anyone a good reason to conquer your land by excommunicating you, seems a little far fetched and stretched to us. But that's really what happened. People took the religion so seriously that excommunication was worse than death.
Anyway, the point being that while the state had some autonomy to choose its church leaders, those church leaders couldn't then be deposed by the kings. Thomas Becket's my favorite example of how much influence the church had in Europe. The king appointed him, then did everything in his power to try and throw him out of power when he became unruly.
That's how I've been looking at the actual church structure in the Amarr Empire, that it's a network of clerics in a hierarchical system that's so deeply rooted in everything, from science to art, that you can't extricate it. It took a very long time to untangle the church from Europe and call it a separate system, setting up the system we know today. Essentially, that never happened in the Amarr Empire. People just went on using the church as the unifying foundation of an entire culture.
I may have been something of a history nut in high school...
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Oh, that argument again... :lol:
I'm not arguing against what you say here, I know the history of my country, and we had so many absolute monarchs of divine rights that I will certainly be the latest to contradict you... I also know how messy it was when it came to the investiture controversy in the HRE...
Last time it lasted hours ingame since Gaven and me didnt had the same definition for "separation" in mind. To me separation means that the state is not religious, and refers to modern secularism / laicism. I see it more as a distinction between state and church in the middle ages, like it was a mere distinction between secularism (in its old meaning) and church.
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Ahjup. Despite all you said, Vic, the Roman Catholic Church wasn't to Europe what the Amarr churches are to the Amarr Empire.
Again: In Europe Church and States were bound to one another in a interdependent relationship, but they were pretty much distinct entities. Church law was seperate from State law and that Innocent III essentially ruled Europe was against the interests of the rulers of the European states.
In the Amarr Empire State and Church aren't interdependent, but distinct entities. They are pretty much facets of the very same thing. Amarr doesn't have a state religion, because state and religion are pretty much the same thing. There is no 'pope' that works against the powers of an Emperor and tries to limit the influence of the Emperor on the church. If anything, the Emperor is the 'pope' of Amarr. This system of caesaropapism (or Byzantinism) is, really, something the Roman Catholic Church is quite opposed to in it's interaction with worldly powers and what the popes tried to defend themselves against theologically as well as politically. This defense - as it never ended into the establishment of a Roman Catholic theocracy over Europe - and the compromises with the states resulting from it is what really allowed for the modern idea of 'secular' states and a seperation of state and church to arise in the West. This precondition for such a thought to arise and get traction, though, is something that is entirely lacking in Amarr.
The Amarr church isn't a network of clerics in a hierarchical system that's so deeply rooted in everything, from science to art, that you can't extricate it - because there is no need for the church to do so, as holders, scientists and basically every citizen of the Empire is already fulfilling a religious function. The very idea that a church can root itself into science, art etc. makes a distinction between the sphere's of science, art, etc. versus the church/religious sphere that is absent in Amarrian thought.
In that, e.g. the Byzantine Empire's or even that of Peter the Great, Czar of Russia's system are much better models of the Amarr system.