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[Lyn Farel]

I have always put a strong emphasis on the absence of Hell in the Amarr Canon, since it was PF and all, but it also has to be taken in consideration that there is a clear distinction made between physical/spiritual places like the Heavens, that are actually where the Chosen end up after death, the absence of Hell as its counterpart like it is in Christianity for example, and just, well, the damnation either through History (book of records, scriptures, etc) or just one's own karma.

I mean it is clear that the Scriptures point at the Heaven being the place after death (if that could even be described as a physical location anyway, it's purely spiritual and we can make up whatever we want about what the Heavens are since either the PF doesn't describe the concept much more, or either the Amarr themselves do not, who knows), but they also point that you can be barred access due to various circumstances, like that scripture passage about people turning their back to righteousness.

And the interesting bit is that this particular piece of the PF is also pointing at the belief of Hell as a counterpart of Heavens being an actual thing in the old Amarr society that has since more or less disappeared. And even if not, it still hints that by the simple fact that it is stated "ICly", they know and are aware of the very concept of Hell being like that. So it is really possible that they actually believe in damnation of a soul from the simple fact that you can be barred from the Heavens, be it eternal or whatever, and so that means that you have to be damned in some way for that to happen, but that the concept of Hell has never been part of the religion itself. Maybe more of a tradition, or a cultural thing ? Difficult to tell since PF doesn't say.

Which also hints at another question I have always wondered about : if one can be barred from the Heavens, and if Hell/Purgatory are not really accounted in the Amarr religion, then where do those souls go ? Or what happens to them ?

[Mizhara]

Reborn into a higher/lower (depending on who's talking) form of existence, i.e. Minmatar.

That'd be a heresy I'd pay a lot of ISK to see being a thing.

[Samira Kernher]

I have always put a strong emphasis on the absence of Hell in the Amarr Canon, since it was PF and all, but it also has to be taken in consideration that there is a clear distinction made between physical/spiritual places like the Heavens, that are actually where the Chosen end up after death, the absence of Hell as its counterpart like it is in Christianity for example, and just, well, the damnation either through History (book of records, scriptures, etc) or just one's own karma.

Except the absence of it isn't PF, going by dev actors and the Death article.

Even the in-game mission that everyone likes to use says that hell as a concept still exists, if in a different manner of speaking.

The only PF that's ever indicated that hell might not exist at all is Eterne saying that Amarr believe you cease to exist when dying. And even that is not a statement that hell doesn't exist, only saying that the Amarrian concept of hell (in the sense of 'negative afterlife') is oblivion.

Which also hints at another question I have always wondered about : if one can be barred from the Heavens, and if Hell/Purgatory are not really accounted in the Amarr religion, then where do those souls go ? Or what happens to them ?

Again, it is said. The traditional belief, according to Eterne, is that they cease to exist. One can call that oblivion, hell, or whatever, but that's the standard idea of where they go.

The Death article on EVElopedia also accounts for eternal torment until the end of creation. Which might be the same thing as oblivion--since it's pretty easy to see the cessation of existence as a torment.

Death article also accounts for a purgatory in a sense, in that less pious souls have to spend some time away from God.

[Mizhara]

How does oblivion equal torment? You sort of have to exist in order to experience anything, torment included.

[Gaven Lok ri]

I don't really get where Eterne got that one, myself. It really doesn't mesh well with the older PF, like the death article and all of the Tetrimon chatlogs.

I know CCP doesn't consider event actor statements PF. But *I* do, personally.

But we are derailing Nauplius' thread a bit, no?

[Lyn Farel]

I have always put a strong emphasis on the absence of Hell in the Amarr Canon, since it was PF and all, but it also has to be taken in consideration that there is a clear distinction made between physical/spiritual places like the Heavens, that are actually where the Chosen end up after death, the absence of Hell as its counterpart like it is in Christianity for example, and just, well, the damnation either through History (book of records, scriptures, etc) or just one's own karma.

Except the absence of it isn't PF, going by dev actors and the Death article.

Even the in-game mission that everyone likes to use says that hell as a concept still exists, if in a different manner of speaking.

The only PF that's ever indicated that hell might not exist at all is Eterne saying that Amarr believe you cease to exist when dying. And even that is not a statement that hell doesn't exist, only saying that the Amarrian concept of hell (in the sense of 'negative afterlife') is oblivion.

Well yes, that's what I said, in a different manner of speaking. That mission that "everyone likes to use" was actually quite well developed for a mission bit and hinted at a serious PF hint. It made sense to me because there is also absolutely ZERO mention of Hell in every bit of scripture that we have, while there are legion for Heavens.

Well of course, of they have changed that over the past years, who am I to tell them they are doing it wrong, right... 

Which also hints at another question I have always wondered about : if one can be barred from the Heavens, and if Hell/Purgatory are not really accounted in the Amarr religion, then where do those souls go ? Or what happens to them ?

Again, it is said. The traditional belief, according to Eterne, is that they cease to exist. One can call that oblivion, hell, or whatever, but that's the standard idea of where they go.

The Death article on EVElopedia also accounts for eternal torment until the end of creation. Which might be the same thing as oblivion--since it's pretty easy to see the cessation of existence as a torment.

Death article also accounts for a purgatory in a sense, in that less pious souls have to spend some time away from God.

Sorry but Eterne "said" things doesn't mean much to me. I will need written traces to actually take that into account. Not that I don't like Eterne or anything (quite the contrary), but i'm not going to take for truth the ramblings of a single dev actor with his own views on PF.

Also, when was this article on death written ? I don't remember it... Is it new ?

Oblivion is not Hell to me anyway. It's just void. Hell =/= void. Of course it's also written that they will suffer torment until the end of times. Okay. I find it really trite but whatever. The one thing I like with Amarr scriptures is that they tried to get away from IRL tropes, and this one is definitely not going into that direction. I quite liked the idea that it was kindof different, that's also why I found that mission PF piece intriguing, but apparently, it's not...

 

But well, at least I guess it answers the part on impure souls and where they go.


On a sidenote, I find their lack of material in that article on the gallente beliefs extremely telling of their usual "don't fucking care to bother finding something about the gallente, they are a melting pot so that could be anything". Well, for a change, I would have liked some examples that stand out... Ah, the Intaki. Right, and nothing else ? No Mannar thing ? No Garoun beliefs ?

[Samira Kernher]

How does oblivion equal torment? You sort of have to exist in order to experience anything, torment included.

When you get technical yes. But the concept itself can be fear inspiring, which could lead to describing it as a form of 'eternal torment'. IE someone who considers the word torment to indicate 'something very bad', then oblivion would fall into that category.

I'm basically saying that there's nothing stopping someone that believes in hell/eternal damnation/eternal torment from believing that it's anything other than oblivion. It's "something to hate/fear", which is the main purpose of the idea.

TVtropes uses the term 'pain of nonexistence' even, as one common perception of hell, in its article on hell in fiction.

Well yes, that's what I said, in a different manner of speaking. That mission that "everyone likes to use" was actually quite well developed for a mission bit and hinted at a serious PF hint. It made sense to me because there is also absolutely ZERO mention of Hell in every bit of scripture that we have, while there are legion for Heavens.

And yet it got used all the time by dev actors, in particular ones who were theoretically supposed to be the absolute religious extremists.

As usual, CCP are very contradictory.

Even then, its lack of mention in the woefully small selection of Scripture we have doesn't really say much. Even the Bible almost never mentions the concept, and never by the word 'hell'. I'd consider the Death article a more appropriate source in this case due to being written from an omniscient world-building perspective.

Also, that article was written in late 2011 btw, according to its history page.

Sorry but Eterne "said" things doesn't mean much to me. I will need written traces to actually take that into account. Not that I don't like Eterne or anything (quite the contrary), but i'm not going to take for truth the ramblings of a single dev actor with his own views on PF.

*shrugs*

I'm just telling what he said. Of which the actual post is here, by the way.

I don't think I agree with it entirely, but he was a dev and so that does have weight. But like I said above, I prefer going by the Death article since that was actually published on EVElopedia rather than being just an off-hand post on a forum. Buuuut...

Oblivion is not Hell to me anyway. It's just void. Hell =/= void. Of course it's also written that they will suffer torment until the end of times. Okay. I find it really trite but whatever. The one thing I like with Amarr scriptures is that they tried to get away from IRL tropes, and this one is definitely not going into that direction. I quite liked the idea that it was kindof different, that's also why I found that mission PF piece intriguing, but apparently, it's not...

Until the devs actually decide to stick with something, we don't know what direction they want it to go in.

Personally, however, I'm not sure there even should be a direction. It's religion. There should be a million and one different interpretations and denominations. Some might believe in hell, some might not. Of the ones that do, there might be hundreds of different beliefs of what it might be, even within a single orthodoxy. Just like in RL. If an Amarr player wants their character to believe in hell and pits of fire, then they have as much right to believe that IC as someone who believes that there is no hell and that people simply cease to exist when they die.

And personally I'd consider oblivion to be hell. But then, in my opinion, cessation of existence is by far the worst possible torment that could happen to you (see, Mizhara? I can't think of a better word choice to use here). And as hell is supposed to be the worst possible thing, even RL I can't imagine it being anything else.


Also, the Scriptures don't at all get away from RL tropes. When you have imagery in the Scriptures like the trumpets of Heaven, "God saw that it was (not) good," "In the beginning," angels, apocalypse, the ark, and the sefrim (based obviously on seraphim, complete with fire imagery), along with pseudo biblical language and book/verse notations, I can't say I find it being all that distant. Even hell gets a mention, in-game if not in the Scriptures. Abaddon is, afterall, another word for hell.

[Nauplius]

Well, "Hell as Oblivion" wouldn't really be avoiding real-life tropes, though; so-called "Annihilationism" is an increasingly accepted Christian doctrine, and one that is part of a long chain of thought going back to the Bible.

Eternal conscious torment that is nonetheless something other than literal "fire and brimstone" is an even more mainstream Christian doctrine; the notion was rampant among the early Church Fathers and was the leading position during the early Protestant Reformation:

Moreover, as language cannot describe the severity of the divine vengeance on the reprobate, their pains and torments are figured to us by corporeal things, such as darkness, wailing and gnashing of teeth, inextinguishable fire, the ever-gnawing worm (Mt. 8:12; 22:13; Mark 9:43; Isa. 66:24). It is certain that by such modes of expression the Holy Spirit designed to impress all our senses with dread, as when it is said, “Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared: he has made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, does kindle it,” (Isa. 30:33). As we thus require to be assisted to conceive the miserable doom of the reprobate, so the consideration on which we ought chiefly to dwell is the fearful consequence of being estranged from all fellowship with God, and not only so, but of feeling that his majesty is adverse to us, while we cannot possibly escape from it. For, first, his indignation is like a raging fire, by whose touch all things are devoured and annihilated. Next, all the creatures are the instruments of his judgment, so that those to whom the Lord will thus publicly manifest his anger will feel that heaven, and earth, and sea, all beings, animate and inanimate, are, as it were, inflamed with dire indignation against them, and armed for their destruction. Wherefore, the Apostle made no trivial declaration, when he said that unbelievers shall be “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,” (2 Thess. 1:9). And whenever the prophets strike terror by means of corporeal figures, although in respect of our dull understanding there is no extravagance in their language, yet they give preludes of the future judgment in the sun and the moon, and the whole fabric of the world. Hence unhappy consciences find no rest, but are vexed and driven about by a dire whirlwind, feeling as if torn by an angry God, pierced through with deadly darts, terrified by his thunderbolts and crushed by the weight of his hand; so that it were easier to plunge into abysses and whirlpools than endure these terrors for a moment. How fearful, then, must it be to be thus beset throughout eternity! On this subject there is a memorable passage in the ninetieth Psalm: Although God by a mere look scatters all mortals, and brings them to nought, yet as his worshippers are more timid in this world, he urges them the more, that he may stimulate then, while burdened with the cross to press onward until he himself shall be all in all.

[Jace]

Even the Bible almost never mentions the concept, and never by the word 'hell'.

If people want to compare things to RL (which, ya know), this is an important point. Hell is not mentioned in the Bible until Jesus in the NT - and even then it is relatively very few references. The Christian obsession with it was a doctrinal and institutional development more than anything. And as Nauplius said, the literal interpretation of it is by no means a historical norm.

[Samira Kernher]

That is a very good quote, Naup. That first sentence especially.

[Lyn Farel]

Well yes, that's what I said, in a different manner of speaking. That mission that "everyone likes to use" was actually quite well developed for a mission bit and hinted at a serious PF hint. It made sense to me because there is also absolutely ZERO mention of Hell in every bit of scripture that we have, while there are legion for Heavens.

And yet it got used all the time by dev actors, in particular ones who were theoretically supposed to be the absolute religious extremists.

As usual, CCP are very contradictory.

Even then, its lack of mention in the woefully small selection of Scripture we have doesn't really say much. Even the Bible almost never mentions the concept, and never by the word 'hell'. I'd consider the Death article a more appropriate source in this case due to being written from an omniscient world-building perspective.

Also, that article was written in late 2011 btw, according to its history page.

Well yes, according to the mission text too, it was mostly used by old school believers or extremists, but not by the mainstream anymore, so I wouldn't have found that so weird to see extremist dev actors to use it. And anyway, they probably were not aware of the subtlety or existence of that specific thing anyway.

For the Bible, I'll have to take your word for it since I haven't read a single line of that book...

I of course will take precedence of the article on Death over any mission lore piece, I must have missed this one when it got written back then.

However if it is not mentioned a single time in the scriptures that we know, out of pure logic it means that we don't know. It of course doesn't indicate that there is no Hell in Amarr History by itself, but combined with that mission pieces it made a lot of sense and could hint at things. It was evidently not pointing to a fact, and only to interpretations, but I find the speculation of it really valid. To the contrary, if we start to take the absence of anything as a proof that it could well be there, then I guess that the giant spaghetti monster could well be in the scriptures too. 

Which kindof start to go into a slippery slope of atheist arguments vs theist arguments, in which I won't go...

Anyway, that article on Death saves the day and solves the issue.

Personally, however, I'm not sure there even should be a direction. It's religion. There should be a million and one different interpretations and denominations. Some might believe in hell, some might not. Of the ones that do, there might be hundreds of different beliefs of what it might be, even within a single orthodoxy. Just like in RL. If an Amarr player wants their character to believe in hell and pits of fire, then they have as much right to believe that IC as someone who believes that there is no hell and that people simply cease to exist when they die.

On that, definitely.

And personally I'd consider oblivion to be hell. But then, in my opinion, cessation of existence is by far the worst possible torment that could happen to you (see, Mizhara? I can't think of a better word choice to use here). And as hell is supposed to be the worst possible thing, even RL I can't imagine it being anything else.

Ugh, even if self preservation means that I am unable to cease to exist and will fight vehemently not to do, sometimes I wouldn't mind. After all, if you cease to exist, you are not here to suffer from it anymore...

Bleh, metaphysics. 

Also, the Scriptures don't at all get away from RL tropes. When you have imagery in the Scriptures like the trumpets of Heaven, "God saw that it was (not) good," "In the beginning," angels, apocalypse, the ark, and the sefrim (based obviously on seraphim, complete with fire imagery), along with pseudo biblical language and book/verse notations, I can't say I find it being all that distant. Even hell gets a mention, in-game if not in the Scriptures. Abaddon is, afterall, another word for hell.

There is a difference between how it's worded, and the content itself. Of course everything is based on archetypes of what already exist, and that gives it flavour if handled properly.

However if we are just to accept everything to be a pale copy of the RL world, then we might well just make OOC RP trolls right and consider the Amarr religion to be the rightful successor of space catholic church.

Because why bother.

[Mizhara]

I can certainly see the fear of oblivion to be torment, but the actual execution of the concept is quite demonstrably not as by definition there is nothing left that can experience said torment. The entire experience up to that point is of course another thing entirely. Any fate that includes eternal (insert absolutely any experience here) would not be oblivion. Of course, the self-contradictory nature of almost every afterlife envisioned in human history is not exactly a new thing so it certainly fits the PF whichever way one decides to take it.

It's odd, though. With all the Amarrian RP activity over the last decade you'd think some of these details would have been nailed down by now as they're sort of pivotal for several points of the theology, which by itself is rather pivotal for Amarrian culture. Especially given the enormous religious oversight from the Theology Council etc, the fairly hard trouncing of anything resembling heresy and such.

[Samira Kernher]

Also, the Scriptures don't at all get away from RL tropes. When you have imagery in the Scriptures like the trumpets of Heaven, "God saw that it was (not) good," "In the beginning," angels, apocalypse, the ark, and the sefrim (based obviously on seraphim, complete with fire imagery), along with pseudo biblical language and book/verse notations, I can't say I find it being all that distant. Even hell gets a mention, in-game if not in the Scriptures. Abaddon is, afterall, another word for hell.

There is a difference between how it's worded, and the content itself. Of course everything is based on archetypes of what already exist, and that gives it flavour if handled properly.

However if we are just to accept everything to be a pale copy of the RL world, then we might well just make OOC RP trolls right and consider the Amarr religion to be the rightful successor of space catholic church.

Because why bother.

Never said to make things a pale copy of the RL world. Only that I disagree with the idea that the Amarr faith as presented is something apart from RL tropes. As I see it, it is a lot closer to modern faith than most other fantasy universes. But I don't find that a bad thing. On the contrary it is one of the things that makes it very interesting to me, because it's something I can identify with as a religious person RL. I can't identify with the polytheistic, Greek-myth-inspired ones you see in most fantasy settings; I have no idea how to RP someone in that kind of faith (something shared by most of the writers, who inevitably roll with a henotheistic religion instead of a true polytheistic one). As you said, you just need to be sure to treat inspiration as inspiration and use it to expand and add depth to the universe rather than simply replicating.

I'll also end with this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools

It's odd, though. With all the Amarrian RP activity over the last decade you'd think some of these details would have been nailed down by now as they're sort of pivotal for several points of the theology, which by itself is rather pivotal for Amarrian culture. Especially given the enormous religious oversight from the Theology Council etc, the fairly hard trouncing of anything resembling heresy and such.

I think what Gaven has previously said is needed is the big thing we really need: the original sin. It's the foundational part of the religion and we have no idea what it was. As it is, all we have is, "[something happened], causing mankind to split and the dark ages to happen."

[Mizhara]

It was boinking, wasn't it? Pre-marital boinking.

Down with this sort of thing.

[Lyn Farel]

Also, the Scriptures don't at all get away from RL tropes. When you have imagery in the Scriptures like the trumpets of Heaven, "God saw that it was (not) good," "In the beginning," angels, apocalypse, the ark, and the sefrim (based obviously on seraphim, complete with fire imagery), along with pseudo biblical language and book/verse notations, I can't say I find it being all that distant. Even hell gets a mention, in-game if not in the Scriptures. Abaddon is, afterall, another word for hell.

There is a difference between how it's worded, and the content itself. Of course everything is based on archetypes of what already exist, and that gives it flavour if handled properly.

However if we are just to accept everything to be a pale copy of the RL world, then we might well just make OOC RP trolls right and consider the Amarr religion to be the rightful successor of space catholic church.

Because why bother.

Never said to make things a pale copy of the RL world. Only that I disagree with the idea that the Amarr faith as presented is something apart from RL tropes.

Well I never said that too. I think we agree on the thing, I just don't like that article on death because it doesn't even really try to do something new like they most of the time do with the Amarr religion. I just find it trite and uninspired compared to the rest, and frankly underwhelming. But heh, that's just me.

As I see it, it is a lot closer to modern faith than most other fantasy universes. But I don't find that a bad thing. On the contrary it is one of the things that makes it very interesting to me, because it's something I can identify with as a religious person RL. I can't identify with the pantheistic, Greek-myth-inspired ones you see in most fantasy settings; I have no idea how to RP someone in that kind of faith (something shared by most of the writers, who inevitably roll with a henotheistic religion instead of a true pantheistic one).

That probably explains why. I am not a believer.

I didn't play Amarr as a mirror to RL where I can identify with my belief. I played it because... I don't know. Because it just happened that way I guess. But I kept playing it because I found it endearing as a lore. There is that old testament feel about apocalyptic things, a merciless neutral god/entity, about books and old knowledge and overall that mystical feel of the divine, sanctity, about a golden old and timeless empire and a book of emptiness, just standing there and creating a certain atmosphere of holy, mysterious, and dangerous that I could truly feel in the Amarr lore. Something I also find in the old roman and gothic architectures of RL churches and cathedrals.

But I don't deal with it with the eyes of a believer, which is completely different.

So yes, that explains why the differences in how we deal with it.

It's also funny how many RL believers play Amarr characters.