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[Louella Dougans]

https://twitter.com/CCP_Eterne/status/292462720740118528

J. Kastronis
‏@CCP_Eterne
More random comments to RPers that are totally not related to anything... I wrote a few more Scriptures lines that will be public SOONtm.

all the amarr bashers will have more things to complain about soon.

[Synthia]

https://twitter.com/CCP_Eterne/status/292462720740118528

J. Kastronis
‏@CCP_Eterne
More random comments to RPers that are totally not related to anything... I wrote a few more Scriptures lines that will be public SOONtm.

all the amarr bashers will have more things to complain about soon.

well, that's interesting.

[Myyona]

Nice.

Do like this Event team. If I had more time I would certainly make use of them.

[lallara zhuul]

Just a little bit more on the OP.

The difficulty playing and interacting with Amarrian culture can be quite hard mainly for the reason that unlike the other factions there is no real life comparison to the Amarrians.

There is no theocracy that has integrated science, art, politics, basically all walks of life into their religion.

In real life religion is a tool of cultural indoctrination that encourages creating taboos and making those indoctrinated choose belief over knowledge.

Which I think is the major problem with the Amarrians, in their religion there is taboos, there is the underlying structure of choosing belief over knowledge when it comes to creating your worldview. But unlike with real life religions, there is the underlying scientific knowledge to back up those taboos with facts.

Let's take a real life religions taboo about eating pork.
The religion never explains why you can't eat pork, you just can't.
The religion has created a taboo about eating pork and those indoctrinated in the religion will choose belief over knowledge and not eat pork, no matter what.
Scientists of this day have a hypothesis about why the taboo of eating pork has surfaced in the society a few thousand years ago, pork can have certain kinds of parasites that can be transferred to humans eating their meat.
Which is bad.
If this would be the Amarrian religion, the taboo would still be there, but if you would study the religion more then the scientific reason for the taboo would surface.
Which could lead to internal debate within the religion that should the taboo be in place anymore.
Most likely the taboo would be kept.
But it would not be there because of ignorance, it would be there because of the conscious choice by those believing it.
They know that the taboo is against reason, but they choose to believe it because then it is a bigger sacrifice than when it is done unconsciously.

Which actually makes the Amarrian religion a lot more worse and 'evil'.

They are not barbaric and ignorant.

They are fully conscious of the fact that slavery is wrong but they do it because it is the right thing to do. On all the levels.

Why did I want to do this long rambling post after the thread had went on to player made languages in other factions?

For me, all cultures have indoctrination within them.

Be they real or fictious.

Those that use player made languages know that they are silly, world breaking and break up the community even more but they consciously choose to adopt such a language because it will give them more immersion. By bringing their language into the community and by indoctrinating other players into thinking that it should be used to be a roleplayer is them going through a cycle of creating taboos and rules very similar to a religion.

It is all funny and confusing (also a bit sad.)

Feck, I lost my original idea here, better go grab some brekkies.

[BloodBird]

I honestly don't think the Amarrians view slavery as 'genuinely evil' but does so anyway because "It's really the right thing to do, honest, it is!"

This is one of the cornerstones of their entire existence - the Empire supposedly belong to God, every citizen is his servant in some way in the hierarchy, and slavery is the absolutely needed first step. Even most reformers I've seen don't argue that slavery needs to be removed, as in, the whole 'creating new believers' needs to end, only that slavery as a means to creating new believers is ineffective and should be altered into other means.

Ofc so far, there are few signs that this is even considered by the higer-end Imperial authorities, but nothing that I've seen would indicate that they somehow 'know' that slavery is evil. That would go counter to everything they believe - slavery is for the slave's own good, nothing more, nothing less. If you were right about this Lallara then the entire Empire would be willfully lying to themselves and trillions of people would be very good at denying themselves and keeping this immense secret from everyone else. That simply can't be done.

[Lyn Farel]

They are not lying to themselves, what Lallara points out (if I understand correctly ofc) is that they face a dilemna. Slavery is not inherently good, it is just necessary. Like the end justifying the means.

Anyway on another note, what people conveniently forget with the Amarr, and I can understand why considering that it was at best hinted until the new articles on the Amarrian Governement, is that firstly, the Amarr may seem monolithic, they actually are the unity of 5 royal vassals that all have quite varying traditions and rules, and a huge leeway on how they administrate their domain, which also means countless variations of scriptural interpretations compensated by the central influence of the TC, and countless different worlds with very different societies but all strongly held together by central tenets.

Secondly, and that is probably the most important part, the apostles, and then the TC, were the first to be able to change, rewrite, or retcon scriptures, and as far as I can read, the current scriptures barely look like the first ones. Those have been rewritten, reviewed, retconned so many times in history that it somewhat breaks the myth of the millenia unchanging Empire people like to picture. And then, considering that the Emperor has an absolute power (as long as the heirs agree or support him) to either change laws, scriptures, or even ignore scriptures when it suits him (<- yes, it's now PF), it means that the Empire can radically change constantly.

Examples are legion : Zaragram II (resulting in a partial retcon of all scriptures at least twice, the second time to fix the damage done), Heideran (Moral Reforms + Pax Amarria), Damius III (Ammatar Mandate without even reclaiming the Nefantar), etc.

So in any case, you can write more scriptures, especially core tenets that hardly change over time like the Book of Genesis, but people that state that scriptures are unchanging and based on tradition make me grin.

[BloodBird]

They are not lying to themselves, what Lallara points out (if I understand correctly ofc) is that they face a dilemna. Slavery is not inherently good, it is just necessary. Like the end justifying the means.

I've taken note of everything else you wrote, but this is the part I'm trying to get across above; The Empire, from what I've been able to see, atl, don't consider slavery to be something bad. At all. As a matter of fact they view it as an inherently good thing. The Reformers either break the mold by thinking there might be something bad about slavery (therefore is should be modified to get the 'bad' out) or that it's perfectly good, but ineffective, and therefore should be optimized or replaced with another, more effective but equally 'good' option.

As far as I can see most people who claim otherwise are inserting their own IRL views on slavery onto the Amarr mindset, and I can't blame them - slavery goes completely counter to what most of use consider to be a 'good thing' - freedom. Slavery is the anti-thesis to freedom in many ways, so how can it possibly be good? It isn't, in our world.

But here's the kicker - EVE Online is a fictional universe where there exists and entire Empire of trillions who believe otherwise. They think slavery is a good thing. As I see it, part of good pro-amarr RP involves creating a good, organic impression that your toon truly believes this, unless he/she specifically DON'T as part of their character, and then your toon's alignment of 'pro-amarr' can be argued to begin with.

[Sepherim]

As far as slavery being evil, let's take a step back and look into history. Romans had slaves, and didn't consider it evil. Greeks did so too. All european societies of the XVth to XIXth century had them too. And many more other examples exist. Why did this happen? Because slaves suffer a process that turns them from people to objects: romans and greeks considered the others barbarians who weren't as important as them; europeans considered slaves as lacking soul, so they didn't have rights nor will.

So, if we take a look into the Amarr, we see such a process exists as well. Slaves have souls, but they've spent them in the wrong way. They being so wrong makes them under-persons, not full people, because they aren't in the light of God. To an extent, they are barbarics like the romans thought of their slaves, and soul less like the europeans did. They are like intelligent monkeys to the Amarr: they can be taught with carrot and stick and eventually they will end up understanding the true nature of God. Then they will be full persons and accepted into the fold of society.

And why would they leave it? Sure, eating pork is an irrational taboo so its a matter of faith, but that is not the case with slavery: of all the attempts by the Amarr, only the Minmatarr were a failure, and them only to some extent, as the Ammatarr show. So, as far as the amarrian go, slavery actually works in uplifting "animals into people". So, obviously, it can't be bad! They are better now than they were! So, as Lallara pointed out, the Amarr haven't chosen this path out of ignorance (they are the first space-faring nation afterall, they are quite technologically and ideologically advanced in their own road), they chose it because it works, it gets the job done.

As for the Scriptures being unmovable, you already provided more than enough proofs that such a thing is not true. The Empire changes like every society to adapt itself to the needs of the times. Taking another real-world reference, the Catholic Church has reformed it's own dogma in every Concilium it has had until the last one, and not in minor details: they added books to the Bible, they decided that the Pope was infallible in matters of religion, that the Virgin was virgin, etc. This is because the Bible is a book written by human prophets trying to transfer the message God gave them. This doesn't happen in muslim religion, for example, because the Koran is a sacred text handed down directly by God, so it can't be changed and is subject to many rituals the Bible is not.

IIRC, the amarrian religion is closer to the Bible in this matter than the Koran, and so it is only natural that it adapts to new situations. Not only does it include new scientific discoveries (all science is part of the amarrian Scriptures), but it would probably revisit events and ideas from the past. The pork taboo would probably be thrown out once there is no reason for it, when the TC got into looking at it and seeing they need no longer to protect themselves from those bacteria. The whole Tetrimon story arc was very clear on this, as very different Scriptures (supposedly older and, thus, closer to the original truth) were brought to the Empire and could have had Empire-wide vast consequences. So all can change in the amarrian faith as long as enough time passes by, even in RL there have been dogmas added to the Catholic faith that didn't exist as first as such (the Virgin being virgin, for example), and dogmas are the most central element of any religion: those tenents that, if you don't share and believe deeply, you can't be considered a member of said religion.

[Lyn Farel]

And why would they leave it? Sure, eating pork is an irrational taboo so its a matter of faith, but that is not the case with slavery: of all the attempts by the Amarr, only the Minmatarr were a failure, and them only to some extent, as the Ammatarr show.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but it may depend on what you call failure. The Ealur reclaiming is a failure for now and have yet to be enlighted properly, and the Ni-Kunni are neither a failure nor a success since they are out of slavery for the most part but still occupying the lower castes with no Holders on their own.

[Sepherim]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but it may depend on what you call failure. The Ealur reclaiming is a failure for now and have yet to be enlighted properly, and the Ni-Kunni are neither a failure nor a success since they are out of slavery for the most part but still occupying the lower castes with no Holders on their own.

The Ealur have not rebelled, and the Ni-Kunni are now free. From the Imperial perspective, the second is a succesfull process of Enlightenment (the Amarr religion never said "you will all be True Amarr and equally rich and powerful"), and the first is one that isn't complete but is "progressing appropriately".

[Streya]

Overall I see the points made by many of the Amarr roleplayers and basically agree. It's very very shaky ground to simply make up Scripture that later could be at odds with any PF CCP comes out with. Amarrian society is much more rigid than Minmatar society, so the method of creating our own content and seeing if it sticks that we have enjoyed probably won't work for the Amarr bloc. The best thing to do is probably hold ground to what few verses there are and contact the CCP fiction team with suggestions (if one is so inclined).

That being said, I see very frequent complaints about "importing IRL". In regards to the Amarrian religion, I agree with Synthia and gang. This is a fictional universe wherein the Amarr religion, even if it was at one point in the distant past related to real-life Abrahamic religions, is a completely different animal than religions we're familiar with in real life. Thousands upon thousands of years of isolation and fighting for survival after the collapse of the EVE Gate will do that. Note that there is no mention of the Amarrian god being merciful; from what I've been told by Amarr RPers the "merciful" role belongs to the Emperor.

When it comes to matters of science and the like, calling that "importing IRL" is just as shaky. I'm sorry, but fictional universe or not, New Eden is simply our own universe set in the future and in a far-away place. Gravitation still behaves exactly the same way. Mathematics still behaves in the same way. These are called "universal laws" for a reason. No amount of space-magic can do away with the fundamentals that we are aware of in real-life, and it seems ludicrous to think that the citizens of New Eden wouldn't have re-discovered and even surpassed our own IRL levels of scientific and mathematical knowledge. So using arguments based on logic and science against the Amarrian religion is not importing anything from real life. Using an argument that pokes holes in a Amarr-ified version of Christianity (essentially a straw-man argument) would, however, be importing from real life. A character saying "I disbelieve in the Amarrian god because Jesus never came back" would be invalid in the context of EVE, because that would be importing real life. A character saying "I do not believe in the Amarrian god because there is a lack of evidence for the existence of such a being" is not importing things from real life. If the people of New Eden somehow tossed out an understanding logic equal to or greater than our own, and yet developed computing systems, I would be greatly surprised.

[lallara zhuul]

It is nice to see the proverbial ball rolling.

There was a reason that I used a reasonable benign taboo of pork that is present in both Islam and Judaism (I'm not sure do the animistic religions in the area have the same taboo.)
Mainly because it was quite harmless and used by two religions that are at odds at each other.
The logic was easy to explain and the issue itself is not 'good' nor 'evil'.

So lets extrapolate a bit.

We know that slavery exists, or the taboo of heathens being part of the Empire that have free will and can effect things.
As iterated in various slavery debates, the purpose for slavery is not purely economical.
Slavery in the Amarrian Empire is about religion and about cultural indoctrination of the heathens.
Basically a slave is a slave until it can think like an Amarrian and make choices like an Amarrian, therefore becoming a productive member of the Amarrian society.
Sorry to reiterate, but this is all about cultural indoctrination.
It is about meeting a culture and assimilating it into your own.
Because this is the Amarrian religion, they have the science to prove that it is the most efficient way of doing it.
Not the only one by far, meeting the Gallente and shifting the foreign diplomacy from 'Reclaiming by Sword' to 'Send them Missionaries' shows that the society in its whole is very adaptable to new situations.
Even Jamyls 'Flood the Republic with slaves that have already been indoctrinated into our religion' to force the Republic to actually recognize the Amarrian religion within their borders was brilliant.

I'm straying here a bit.

As I see it, an Amarrian can be unaware of what slavery is about and just do it for religious reasons. Or that Amarrian can be completely aware of all the data that has lead to the conclusion that slavery is the best way of converting certain kinds of people into the Amarrian religion.

I never said that this awareness of all the details in doing things within a religion is good or evil, I said it makes it worse.

I love Sandman comics, and when the Angels had taken over running Hell there was this soul being tortured by demon and that Angel approached him.
The angel says: "There will be no more wanton violence; no further suffering, inflicted without reason or explanation. We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you'll be a better person … and because we love you. One day you'll thank us for it."
And the soul answers: "But you don't understand … that makes it worse. That makes it so much worse … "

Which made me whimper with glee when I realized it could be applied to slavery within the Empire.

Now, I need some brekkies.

[Lyn Farel]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but it may depend on what you call failure. The Ealur reclaiming is a failure for now and have yet to be enlighted properly, and the Ni-Kunni are neither a failure nor a success since they are out of slavery for the most part but still occupying the lower castes with no Holders on their own.

The Ealur have not rebelled, and the Ni-Kunni are now free. From the Imperial perspective, the second is a succesfull process of Enlightenment (the Amarr religion never said "you will all be True Amarr and equally rich and powerful"), and the first is one that isn't complete but is "progressing appropriately".

Yeah, I agree.

[Muck Raker]

I think there are very good reasons not to have a specific quote in the Scriptures about homosexuality. Particularly one that condemns it.

1. It would draw negative attention from the press. The Amarr/Caldari being homophobes vs Gallente/Minmatar being accepting, esp. with the old joke about Gallente ship design. EVE would be portrayed in some sections of the press as being "Space gays in phallic ships fighting space homophobes".

2. It becomes a weapon to use OOC against people. "Oh, you're Amarr, you must be secretly homophobic IRL?" is what some persons would say.

3. Being a homophobe is not something that people want to do IC. How many Caldari homophobes do you know of ? even when the State has a track record for homophobia ?

4. Because people don't want to do that IC, others will challenge them about it IC, asking why they don't follow that particular piece of Scripture. This is just to undermine their position on the other Scriptures. "Oh, you don't follow that scripture? then why do you follow the others? why should anyone believe in your scripture if you don't?".

So I'd question the motivations of people that want a scripture quote about it. It would be an easy weapon to use against other players, at the cost of damaging the game's image.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I strongly agree with Muck Raker.

If it's not already included in the Scriptures by CCP, I really do not want to see religious homophobia being shoehorned into EVE. These sorts of things are strongly offensive to me. I don't think it's appropriate for players to be inserting things of that specific sort into EVE lore if CCP has not.