Respectfully, this sounds alot like blaming the victim for not doing the crime. “It’s your fault you lost the foot race after I broke your legs. You should have taken the hammer I used and broke your competitors legs.” Are you really blaming freed slaves for being held back by their masters or am I confusing something?
All of those things you pointed out (financially, ect) those of us who were born free have at least a grasp of by and large. Who’s to blame on that, the student or the teacher, that they don’t know? Is it an efficient lesson if the student drops out due to the methods employed?
I think you might be confusing my meaning.
I am pointing out that far too many freed slaves are simply told “you’re free, off you go”. And the freedman thinks “go where? what will I do?” and would benefit from guidance, but because they are now a freedman, their former master feels no sense of duty towards them.
That’s the point, isn’t it ?
The teacher.
My point is, the slave people in the Empire need education and guidance, such that when they become free citizens, they can use that freedom to their advantage. I feel that sending freedmen out without the skills they need to make use of that freedom, would make them vulnerable to exploitation and coercion by criminal elements such as the Cartel. And any Holder who isn’t making provisions to educate and guide their slaves onto the road to freedom, is doing the slaves a great disservice.
The only question I still have is when are such lessons supposed to be taught? I would imagine by early adulthood for litteral lessons, but the more nuanced lessons learned from experience? Obviously there is little reason to teach or have a Miner around when planning budgets, from what I know honestly it doesn’t seem like simple life skills like that are high on the curriculum for them. Maybe it’s a matter of who the holder is. I think I just answered my own question there…
You paint a very one sided picture of our Lord and what it means to follow the Faith, Ms Vellastraan.
“Lead all children to the light of God, for Heaven is theirs to inherit”
Amarr did lead the Matari, Paradise was within reach. For some of them it still is - glory to Him - others, well…
…To do so the enemies of the outside had to be defeated and the enemies of the inside controlled… …The Lord gave our Emperor the power to harness the Good and punish the Evil… …The Wrath of God is Immense. His Justice is Swift and Decisive. His Tolerance is Limited… …The Lord punished the sinners and drowned them in their own blood… …The Lord loosed upon them his fierce anger, All of his fury and rage… …Go forth, conquer in my Name… …There will be neither compassion nor mercy; nor peace, nor solace, for those who bear witness to these Signs and still do not believe… …But those who turn away from his light, and reject his true word, shall be struck down by his wrath. For we are his retribution incarnate, His Angels of Vengeance… …And these worlds I give to you, My Chosen, so Amarr shall rule the worlds of the Heavens… …But when provoked, their wroth was immutable…
Seems pretty clear to me. It’s right there in the Scriptures.
I’m going to point out that in the past couple hundred years, the Amarr Empire lost the Minamtar Rebellion. The Amarr Empire was run by a Blooder. The Amarr Empire was invaded by Drifters. The Amarr Empire is now facing massive unrest.
I’m sure you can turn around and use Starkman Prime as a counterexample. However, I believe that one calamity caused by one man doesn’t equal hundreds of years of set backs and turmoil.
Except that one time where God himself showed compassion and mercy to the Emperor who not only saw ‘these Signs’ but also actual angels, and decided to go his own way. As we know the Amarr Empire alters scripture to see fit, given the contradiction, I’m going to doubt the veracity of this one.
See my first point. With all the rebellions and wars and invasions, it’s almost like the Amarr Empire turned from His Light and rejected His Word.
And lastly, my favorite:
The ‘True’ Amarr were Chosen because they were Righteous. They were not Righteous because God chose them. God wasn’t picking though peoples and settled on the True Amarr because they liked gold. God picked those that still had faith in Him to lead because they had faith. Of course, when the ‘True’ Amarr turned from Him to their own selfish desires, God’s no longer considered them His Chosen or worthy of leading.
Lastly, it all being there is the Scriptures makes me wonder, sometimes. It’s well known that the Amarr change the Scriptures, rewriting old passages as needed. Given how we’ve just established how flawed the Empire is and the Emperor can be, is it possible that the Scriptures could be altered by those with selfish rather than Holy desires? Silly question. Of course they can.
Parsing through the Scriptures, looking behind the changes has been one of my most frustrating, but rewarding tasks. Research on documents and books found in the Republic and other worlds to compare to current texts has been quite illuminating. The greatest prize would be Scriptures from before the Moral Reforms, but I doubt I will be able to find much of them.
The one constant, throughout everything, is that God loves everyone, for He created us. God desires us to all live in Righteousness, so that we all go to Paradise.
This is the inconsistency here. God is the Ultimate, the creator of everything. No compassion? Not even a little bit would mean that we are destroyed. All His fury and rage? God is able to undo everything He has created just as easily. Yet, we are still here.
There is compassion; there is mercy; there is love. And yes, I realize I am undoing some of what I said before, but I had to get here first. Even to the Empire, who turned from Him, HE still shows mercy and compassion. After all, the Empire still exists. God loves all of us, because He created all of us. When we were lost, when faith died in all the peoples, God told the only one still with Him to go get us. Because God loves us.
“Your brothers and sisters are lost, go bring them home please,” said the Lord.
And then the Amarr Empire used God to justify slavery and it corrupted them from within.
“This really isn’t what I meant by reclaiming. I know you can do better,” said the Lord.
And then the Amarr Empire worshiped power and avarice more than God. Their gluttony consumed whole peoples, and they foolishly believed that the Light of God was only for the ‘Amarr.’ Their hubris led to the death of worlds.
“I have been patient, but this is too far,” said the Lord.
And the Amarr Empire was stopped. And still in His Mercy, He still allows the Amarr to repent and return to Him. If only they would.
We have records and journals from that time. We have lists of names of those taken and missing. We spent the interceding time rebuilding what we had lost, efforts that stretched into my lifetime and, as I say, continue to affect the way we live.
So yes, do tell me more about how much better you are than us because you have some old overaugmented corpses still around to gripe about those Matari heathens and The Old Days.
I didn’t claim that it was better. I said that it was slower to change. And “The Old Days” are part of the problem. Unlike Emperor Heideran VII, may his soul be at peace, some of those who were around and in power at that time have not yet come to the realisation that Things Have Changed. It is… a sticking point.
If he loves us, why does he permit the galaxy to exist in such a miserable state as it does? Just about everyone who chooses to live off of their homeworld and many on it live terrible lives of fear and insecurity. We have to scrape and scrap for every comfort.
I’ve never been able to parse the very existence of God, because of that. If there is a God that loves us out there, has he ever shown it?
He created us, and for us this universe. He guides His faithful, and gives them strength. That this galaxy is in “such a miserable state” is our doing, not His, for we have been given free will. It is our duty to set it right where it is wrong. That is our responsibility to Him and His creations.
He does, however allow us to destroy his own creation. Don’t take this the wrong way but if he cared about his creations he wouldn’t let them fall into disrepair nor would he allow another creation to destroy his work. Free will maybe, but that doesn’t logically mean “you have free will, now go destroy my hard work” does it?
It is our duty to protect it and cultivate it. It is our duty to nurture what is good, and destroy what is evil. Our test is to make His gift deserving.
A utopia of perfect harmony but without free will is Sansha’s way.
Then who are these faithful who supposedly benefit from his guidance and strength? Those who profess faith are cowardly tyrants, and those who do good largely do not profess a love for god.
So it is the people who receive his guidance and strength? The ones who do not fight, perhaps? If that is so, why is the heart of both the Amarr Empire and the Kingdom in such a pathetic state? God’s protection must not count for much.
But so does everybody else. I daresay the average Federation citizen fights harder and with more devotion for their own personal battles then three quarters of the Empire ever will.
So how are these people benefiting from gods protection and guidance? Those without God’s faith seem to be doing even better.
I very much disagree with that. The average Federation citizen cares for no one but themselves. It is a culture that encourages selfish pursuit of personal comforts. Yes, they shout long and loudly about freedom and equal treatment, but it is rare that individual citizens of the Federation actually take action beyond words, or without some kind of personal incentive to drive them.
Amarr has the greatest number of charities in New Eden, with some of the highest percentage of hospitals - in Ardishapur space especially. We’ve pioneered some of the greatest advances in medical technology. The average Amarr is expected to help their community, and to better themselves and their environment. That belief is the basis behind the Reclaiming, as flawed as our methods for carrying it out may have become.
The only place I’d rate on the same level as the Empire in giving to your neighbor is the Republic. And notably, both Amarr and the Republic share in understanding the importance of faith, compared to the materialistic atheism of the Federation and State.