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[Safai]

+1 Louella

[Nicoletta Mithra]

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.

[Vic Van Meter]

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...

[Lyn Farel]

Oh, that argument again... 

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.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

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.