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[Nauplius]

It actually has merit. If not for the one mission that says that Amarr don't believe in the concept of hell, there are actually more sources implying it exists than not.

Right, there's one mission — part 2 of The Anomaly — saying Amarr don't believe in hell, although there's a small loophole open for me in that the words are actually said by an NPC in-character, not omniscient narration.  Although I had done the sequence on an alt, I somehow missed that text but did remember what the NPC said in part 3, when she personally said that she has started to believe in hell.

At any rate, hell does appear elsewhere in PF.  "Theodicy" has quite a bit of hell-language:  the caverns of the fiery planet are called the "Hell's Gate"; the slave in the beginning is told to dig his way out of hell; the planet is called hellish by a character; the characters use the word "hell" all the time.  There's also a chronicle in which an Ammatar terrorist expected "hellfires of damnation" speeches from Ardishapur; another in which an Ammatar who now lived in the Republic mused about a relative who believed the Amarr religion who believed in hell.  A lot of the PF has characters using the word "hell," sometimes as a meaningless intensifier, but often as at least something bad, and occasionally as something associated with lava and fire.  Finally there's ship names — I know we aren't speaking English IC, but I tend to think that Damnation and Abaddon have to mean something kind-of-sort-of like what they mean to us.  Very roughly.

My take from this is that Hell is at least an optional belief for Amarrians, perhaps more so among the Ammatar, but not a required belief for anyone and perhaps something a little old-fashioned.

[Edit: spelling]

[Samira Kernher]

There's also this little bit bit from EVElopedia, which straight up confirms that Amarr believe in some kind of damnation beyond oblivion.

"Those not part of the Amarr religion and those who profess to be, but have sinned greatly, are doomed to forever suffer torment until the end of creation."

Really, The Anomaly is actually the exception.

[Morwen Lagann]

What's generally missing is an explanation of what constitutes "Hell" to the Amarr faith.

In the mission "The Anomaly," Hell as a place is addressed specifically as being typically considered an 'outdated' concept - presumably for the mainstream Amarr community - and it is suggested to instead be simply a state of mind.

I'm not really sure I like the "fire and brimstone" version of Hell we derive from Christian stuff as being what's used by the Amarr. Something that's more akin to an eternal purgatory, or a plane of existence defined by a complete void - the absence of anything. Just nothingness.

Also, take the thought about NPC corp vs. player corp with some salt, Nauplius - I recognize that that sort of change would expose you to several wardecs right off the bat (that I can think of, anyway) - if it would be particularly disruptive and prevent you from enjoying the game outside of the gameplay you use for the IGS stuff, don't worry about it too much. It's just something that I've noticed has come up in a few places, and I just find the wardec-free aspect of the FW NPC corps to be a little bit dumb, mostly on CCP's part. (I'd be happier if CCP just removed the NPC militia corps and forced players to join player corps if they wanted to be in FW, honestly.)

[Samira Kernher]

For me personally, I RP that Samira does believe in hell, but I explicitly don't try to define it. Because as a divine construct, it is undefinable--damnation (and bliss) is going to be the worst (and best for bliss) possible thing that can happen to you. There's no gray area with divine constructs, it's binary. Damnation and bliss. Absolute torment and absolute paradise.

Sami's hell is oblivion, which is also the typical Amarr belief to my understanding. But eternal fire and brimstone is also a valid belief, because some people might fear that more. If it really exists, it would supercede any description that mortals could come up for it--it would simply be damnation.

In other words: Of all the things Nauplius has said IC, hell is IMO the least contentious of them.

[Louella Dougans]

Hell as a place where sinners are gathered together and tormented, vs hell as being the state of mind of the tormented sinner after death.


Personally, I am unsure of the fire&brimstone "hell" imagery, because I don't remember reading anything about the geography of Athra that mentions volcanos and such. In RL, in places like ancient Greece, where there were volcanoes, that lended itself to "hell" as being an inferno and all that.

There's more imagery in the Scriptures about a desert environment (although Amarr island is iirc, a subtropical island continent...)

Although "fires of damnation", as relating to meteors and such, rather than volcanoes, might work, because Amarr has been a spacefaring religion for two thousand years, astrological phenomena would surely have entered the scriptural metaphors in that time.

[Jace]

Just a random side-note: there are plenty of IRL Christians who believe hell is a metaphor for the state of existence eternally cut off from the divine. Many religions use metaphor for negative concepts.

[Lyn Farel]

There are plenty of mentions of hell as a wording and a saying, not as an actual concept like Heaven is in Amarr scripture.

Damnation is one thing, Hell is another.

So yes, as already said above by many, I have yet to see a true concept of Hell as a special opposite to Heaven, Heaven that is directly related to the Sefrims in Amarr religion. There is nothing mentioned in the Amarr history that could point to hell like the Sefrims point to Heaven and uplifting.

Also, better to keep in mind that fire suddenly became synonymous of hell in christian imagery, which is an anomaly in itself because in every other religion and culture that came before, fire was associated to cleansing, redeeming, rebirth, purification, and more generally, light and white rather than dark and red.

[Jace]

There are plenty of mentions of hell as a wording and a saying, not as an actual concept like Heaven is in Amarr scripture.

Damnation is one thing, Hell is another.

So yes, as already said above by many, I have yet to see a true concept of Hell as a special opposite to Heaven, Heaven that is directly related to the Sefrims in Amarr religion. There is nothing mentioned in the Amarr history that could point to hell like the Sefrims point to Heaven and uplifting.

Also, better to keep in mind that fire suddenly became synonymous of hell in christian imagery, which is an anomaly in itself because in every other religion and culture that came before, fire was associated to cleansing, redeeming, rebirth, purification, and more generally, light and white rather than dark and red.

Yes, a significant amount of our notions of hell come from St. Paul's version of Jesus Christ.

[Morwen Lagann]

There are plenty of mentions of hell as a wording and a saying, not as an actual concept like Heaven is in Amarr scripture.

Damnation is one thing, Hell is another.

So yes, as already said above by many, I have yet to see a true concept of Hell as a special opposite to Heaven, Heaven that is directly related to the Sefrims in Amarr religion. There is nothing mentioned in the Amarr history that could point to hell like the Sefrims point to Heaven and uplifting.

Also, better to keep in mind that fire suddenly became synonymous of hell in christian imagery, which is an anomaly in itself because in every other religion and culture that came before, fire was associated to cleansing, redeeming, rebirth, purification, and more generally, light and white rather than dark and red.

And not to continue on what might become a tangent, but the place we get the name "Hell" from is actually an icy wasteland, not a place of fire and heat and all that.

[Nauplius]

Well, those who prefer the void or annihilation view of hell might pick up on my occasional IC use of the word "Abaddon" (a semi-obscure word in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament meaning "the Pit", "the Pit of Destruction", or "Destruction, personified").

I think there's some merit in the idea implicit in Part 3 of the Anomaly and what Louella wrote upthread that ideas about hell might reflect things the Amarr found in space rather than on the Amarr Prime, whether those be lava and asteroid ravaged "demon planets" like the one in "Theodicy" or "cosmic anomalies" of various sorts.

[Samira Kernher]

While idly looking through news sources in relation to other matters, I found some pieces of pretty solid evidence that supports Nauplius' view of hell.


"The Grand Master then condemned Revan "...to burn in the pits of damnation and heresy." " - Order of St. Tetrimon condemns pilot for heresy

"God’s fires will not show heretics any mercy." - Order of St. Tetrimon condemns Versium Family actions

"Enjoy your heretical union and your solidified place in the burning depths of hell." - Regarding charges of heresy.


Fitting, also, as it is a Tetrimon Grand Master, which implies that it is an older belief. So it doesn't really contradict the modern viewpoint, while also leaving it open for characters like Nauplius.

[Odelya]

"The Grand Master then condemned Revan "...to burn in the pits of damnation and heresy." " - Order of St. Tetrimon condemns pilot for heresy

"God’s fires will not show heretics any mercy." - Order of St. Tetrimon condemns Versium Family actions

"Enjoy your heretical union and your solidified place in the burning depths of hell." - Regarding charges of heresy.

Wonderful! Odelya will for sure use this! :-)

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Whether Amarr believe in Hell or not is quite a question: There's PF affirming one thing as well as the other. It's simply that the writer's don't go by established fact, but by what they need to tell their stories, the result being an ever growing mass of contradictions.

[Samira Kernher]

What it means is that while people can ICly oppose Nauplius for his viewpoint on hell and call it outdated and old-fashioned, they cannot claim that he is straight up wrong or that his interpretation has no canon basis, as it clearly does.

[Gaven Lok ri]

Naupilius throws the word 'hell' around a lot, which is why I'd assumed he has some mishmosh of EoM and Sani Sabik in his head.

I am extremely unconvinced by the "Orthodox Amarr don't have hell" line that has become popular in OOC discussions of Amarr Religion. Like, really really unconvinced. The bit of in game PF used to support it is not conclusive beyond saying that Amarr don't believe in hell being a physical place. I am pretty sure that plenty of orthodox Amarr would have a quite strong concept of hell/eternal damnation even if the theologians don't think it is an actual location.