Sure. I created them. It’s really not accurate to say I created every aspect of their being and personality. After all, I didn’t create the starting conditions. I didn’t control literally every possible variable that would go into their existence, ever.
How is there any risk involved at all for the being who knows absolutely every possible outcome and which one must happen?
Says who? You ever meet God directly? Know anyone who has?
Has the average Goon ever met The Mittani directly? Do they still believe he runs your alliance? Why?
This is where you think you’ve scored until I point out he literally does a weekly address and Q&A to the entire coalition every Saturday at 1900 NEST, right?
Literally everyone in Goons, TNT, LAWN, Bastion, Init, Init Mercs, etc, can talk to him. And he’s available to anyone who wants to poke him via our commsystems any time… unless he’s in the middle of something.
And God has written Scriptures and has representatives who can pass on His Word and can be contacted by any of His faithful through prayer.
Your arguement was that there was no tangible evidence for God but, by your own metric, there is no tangible evidence for Mittens for the average Goon as he does not appear physically before them to prove his existence.
There is an element of faith. They see the evidence before them and say “You know what, it is very likely that this Mittens chap actually exists and this isn’t a conspiracy theory and I don’t need him to be physically in front of me to know that.”
Much is the same for those with Faith.
To be fair, I’m not in goons and have talked to him. Your comparison makes no sense. People have talked to him directly. Your god? Not so much.
Do you know anyone who’s had God speak to them directly? In front of a thousand other people? With real-time recordings of his voice?
I mean, you realize Mittens is just some guy, right? That that’s all he claims to be? Mittens takes off his pants one whore at a time, just like everyone else.
My point was that you hold the existence of God to a higher standard of proof to anything else. Let me put it another way: I have never spoken to you directly and no-one has witnessed me talking to you. Does this mean I do not exist to you?
Why is your burden of proof so high? And what does it matter to you as a non-believer if your burden of proof has not been met but another’s has?
No, I hold the existence of God to the exact same standard of proof as anything else.
You’re communicating with me right now. Directly, via this forum. Show me one single, verifiable piece of actual evidence for God that has no other possible explanation.
Edit: I’ll make it easier. Just show me a verifiable piece of evidence for the existence of God. One thing that says ‘this shows God exists, because without God, no this’. And remember, existence itself isn’t that.
There’s no point answering this question when you’re outright declaring that you won’t consider all of the evidence.
Scripture is evidence. Existence is evidence. But that won’t convince you, because you’re not in this conversation to be convinced.
I won’t consider existence itself. If you can show me something within the scope of ‘everything’ that constitutes evidence, I’ll consider that. But just ‘look! Stuff exists!’ isn’t evidence for God. It’s evidence for stuff.
… that someone wrote some stuff. It’s not evidence for God.
In my limited experience with you I have seen you do nothing of note but deride others on these forums. While I’m certain you have quite the list prepared for your time on the soapbox to exhaust us all with your own importance, in your perpetual antagonism here, you’ve shown to lack the basic courtesy of allowing people to find their own way. Even if God is a human construct - of which we cannot know for certain - it stands to reason that he would have been fabricated to give agency to man where before he could find none. To that end, what purpose is served in the destruction of that agency? Are you on some mission to see that people cannot find meaning in their lives of their own accord without your toxic input?
Ever the contrarian, Miss Arrendis, I believe whatever goal you set here today has only shown your contempt for people who do not meet your impossible standards.
Yup. Totally correct. I’ve done absolutely nothing of note. Ever. I am no-one and nothing, of no importance whatsoever.
And yet… if I am so insignificant, why can that question not be answered?
It’s really funny that you claim I don’t allow this. In fact, that’s exactly what I advocate: Find your own way. And even as Samira clicks ‘like’, she knows that’s exactly what I’ve done with her. Ask her about days spent talking in her apartment about whether she should trust the declarations of corrupt officials in higher office over her own feeling of right and wrong, as informed by her own understanding of God.
Samira believes. Samira believes sincerely, and she is more than up to the task of holding firm in her faith through any pitiful challenge I can offer it. Which is as it should be. She has her way, and whatever doubts or difficulties she encounters, I believe she will come through it intact, and knowing that she has made the choices she felt were right, because she knows herself, and she knows what she believes.
Ange, by comparison, was a devotee of James315, and as she so publicly stated, found herself adrift and looking for something to latch onto. That sort of conversion does not result in someone knowing themselves, being secure in themselves. It results in someone who is crippled and stunted, whose self-worth is tied up in the cause they have converted to, and in their zealotry. And if left in that state, when eventually faced with questions they can neither dodge nor resolve, it leaves people broken. It leaves them questioning their self-worth and everything they have ever believed to be the right or wrong course. It does irreparable damage. Which is why, in her thread, I warned her about that possibility.
If she decides to believe in the Amarr god because she truly believes, that’s great. That’s absolutely fine, and good for her. She’s got a built-in community of support and she has sincere beliefs to live her life by. 
But if she’s just latching on to a life preserver tossed to her by a man whose livelihood is convincing people to submit to his authority and the authority of those above him in the faith… then she will, eventually, break. She will break hard, and she will be harmed in ways she can never recover from—just as she was with James315 and CODE. So should I simply let her do that? I’ve watched that destroy a friend of mine, someone who eventually ended up seeking her own death because she couldn’t reconcile the inconsistencies anymore. Should I turn a blind eye to that process beginning in someone else?
Or should I offer her the hard questions now, so she can overcome them and examine her faith with full awareness of them going in? So she is not blindsided by these concerns, but instead can, in fact, find her own way?
A mission to see that people cannot find meaning in their lives? Not allowing people to find their own way?
Nothing could be farther from the truth. If I held Ange in contempt, I wouldn’t bother. If I held Samira in comtempt, I would not consider her the closest thing I have ever had to a sister. She is one of my closest friends—and one of the only people I trust completely. And if I say something that she thinks is beyond the pale, I trust her to grab me by the scruff of the neck, one on one, and tell me to knock it the hell off… because she has done so in the past, and because she knows the regard in which I hold her.
But you, who admit to knowing nothing of any depths about me? Your willingness to pass judgment without any discussion at all… now that reeks of contempt.
Yet you keep trying to throw obstacles in front of me, to insult my faith, to mock it. And you think I’ll just be okay with that?
You’re not fine with people believing in what they believe in. You don’t want people to believe in the Amarr faith – me included – and try your very hardest to break them off of it. You try to put questions to people that they can ‘neither dodge nor resolve’. And when they can answer it? You rephrase it, narrow it down, invalidate certain answers, until you’ve come up with one that they can’t. You’re the child who asks “Why?” and then, when given the answer, asks “Why?” again, and again, and again, until there is no answer left to give.
I appreciate your efforts. Any belief should be challenged to ensure that it is held for the right reasons. As I said, I don’t know if this is right logically but it feels right emotionally. The query I have is how much of that is talking to people about God and how much is how my life has improved so much since moving to the space of King Khanid. As you say, I need to do things for the right reasons.
It hasn’t helped that there is a small cadre of New Order agents that keep taunting me about rejoining but it has made me realise some home-truths that have left me a much more humble person.
May I suggest you speak to @Valerie_Vynneve? We had a very lovely talk recently at the end of my revisit to Intaki V where I discovered that I still can’t connect with the Ida. I feel she would be the most impartial judge of how I coping. Otherwise, I intend to be at the LUMEN ball if you would like to see for yourself. I have a new outfit that feels odd to wear but I no longer have an appropriate dress uniform so…
On my own self-reflection? I will admit, I do not have the confidence that being backed by the Code once gave me but I would never have seen such love as I have recently.
No, Miss Arrendis. What you had done was question our - Icarus’s - agency to protect our people in the guise of governance and conduct when it was wholly unnecessary for any reason other than to pander your own interests in disruption. When you became bored of that, because I did not play into your game, you then switched to Miss Larmes’s reference of her own path to discover her faith and attempted to impose your own views when she did not ask for them.
You assume to be well meaning but you did not even bother to question if she wanted to concern herself with hard questions so early in her path of self-discovery. What you have done is wholly unethical as you attempted to supplant your own philosophies on a vulnerable individual who has not yet even established a baseline for her belief to be questioned.
And then to take a personal account of your time with Miss Kernher and use that as evidence of your virtue? Then have the gall to pronounce your trust in her as evidence that you are not contemptuous of her chosen faith? My dear, these are not the actions of friends, they the actions of manipulators preying on the vulnerable. Spare me your accusations of who is judgemental until you’ve looked in the mirror.
And we look forward to seeing you there!
Ange, dear,
I appreciate your praise of me but I am really not the best judge of people’s spiritual state. Not that it would be in keeping with Ida to even pretend to level judgement of that kind.
On the other hand, if you were to ask for my judgement about engineering…
Namas tavas, and to @Arrendis too
No, I asked you a question about what a statement meant. Some conversation with other parties arose as a result of that. You asked us to move that conversation here, and I simply asked you if you’d answer the question, since it was directed at you. You declined, and I left it at that. Should I have badgered and harangued you?
Nor did I ‘impose’ my views. I simply illustrated a problem for which she will have to find an answer she can live with, because not so long ago, she was asking for something to believe in.
Finally, no, I haven’t claimed anything as evidence of virtue. Only intent. I’m curious, though: if trusting Samira is evidence of manipulations, what would you consider the action of a friend? Not trusting her?
Or will you find anything I say to be inherently flawed and evidence of my ‘manipulation’ and malfeasance? What, exactly, would not fit into the narrative you have determined to exist, all without, as you’ve stated, actually knowing anything of substance about me?
And I sincerely hope you find the right reasons for whatever path you eventually choose.
Oh, I more meant about whether I was quite as mal-adjusted as was being implied! Sorry for any panic caused!
All I have to say is that Ida philosophy attaches great importance to the idea that everything in life is cyclical. So maybe there is hope for you yet of being reunited with your beloved James 315 at some point. Your virtually unlimited lifespan as a capsuleer would seem to allow for enough time for this cyclical destiny to be realised.
Namas tayam, Ange 