Small Anoyia Specialization, Medium Anoyia Specialization, Large Anoiya Specialization, Historicaly Anoiya Specialization…
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Arrendis, combating overuse of famous quotes with more cherry picked quotes doesn’t really accomplish anything when you are dealing with something as complex as Amarr.
You either can accept that the scriptures are added to over time and old ones are replaced and trust the professional theologians to help make sense of them, or you end up over prioritizing certain messages over others and sound like the tetrimon.
Let me know when you find a scripture skill book…
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If you ask Cardinal Graelyn, he’ll be able to tell you about the time the Order of Tetrimon moved some of their Scripture copies. Even on modern data storage devices, rather than paper volumes, the Tetrimon Scriptures still required more than one Bestower industrial to move.
So, I’m still not convinced that the entirety of the Scriptures is easily transformed.
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It was on the order of 1,000,000 cubic meters. I was there and helped. For a more than a thousand year out of date version of scripture.
Edit: I should also point out that you would need to learn the specific dialects of Old Amarr that were used for each book, unless you want to try to do literal scriptural interpretation of a translation.
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Millenia ago our blessed ancestors were revealed unto them their Destiny of Faith under God. Upon looking at the nations of Udor arrayed against them in all their power and wealth, did they balk at their duty to God and say to themselves, “Surely, this will be too difficult, surely God did not mean what He did in the revelation of Reclaiming?”
No, they accepted the difficulties of the task as they were so given and consecrated their faith and conviction with the blood of the infidels in the long centuries of reconquest; and in so doing became blessed and earned the favour of God.
For that act of Faith in the Reclaiming, Amarr was blessed. Amarr was given unto them millienia of peaceful expansion with few threats and new nations and people to give unto His Word.
Yet, due to this we became arrogant and thought ourselves never to be tested again by God. For our hubris we were defeated by the infidel Jove and the Minmatar rebelled.
Now today, we find ourselves just as our blessed ancestors did as they looked across the sea from Amarr Island having been given their mission from God and seeing only the strength and power of infidel nations arrayed against them. Are we seriously now to even consider that we, their descendents, are to balk in the face of the infidels we face now, where our ancestors did not?
I think the only answer to that is how one sees the Imperial Seal. If one sees the imperfect union of Man under God in the Empire as an acceptable state of affairs, certainly, they will try to do anything and say anything to make it so.
Myself, I see the Imperial Seal for what it is: the admonishment and chastisement from God and Emperor to the Faithful of our own imperfection; of the follies and sins of humanity since The Fall; and our divine mission and manifest destiny as Amarr under God to reclaim what has been given and in so doing return all of mankind to the first blessed state where once more just like the First Men, all of humanity is reunited as one under God.
Furthermore:
Under the Laws of Man, I condemn the slave raids into the Republic insofar as they exist as illegality; but under the Laws of God which exist above Man’s Law, I can extend no censure.
You know, responding to actually quoted scripture with “Yeah well there’s like… a lot of scripture” as if it somehow negates the points made is not particularly useful. You haven’t refuted what that piece of scripture said, you haven’t countered the argument, nor done anything but make all Scripture more and more meaningless which is probably not the intended result.
If you can’t refute what people are saying properly, perhaps just be honest and accept things for what they are?
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I do hope that you are not implying that I am suggesting we Amarr should balk at divine commands. I am saying exactly the opposite of that, while correcting a clear failure to understand the role of divine revelation to Amarr and the place of the Reclaiming in the overall structure of faith.
When you reduce Amarr to it’s absolute core, you find service to God. The reclaiming, like all policy scripture, is subordinate to that absolute requirement of heeding the divine will. This does not make it illegitimate in any way, so long as the book of reclaiming remains an active commandment we must continue to follow it’s edicts, just like we must follow all divine policy.
But God can and has declared new paths for Amarr as time has passed. The danger I see in recent Capsuleer armchair theologies, especially those coming from Matari branches of the Rite, is that they have fixated on one book out of thousands of books of recorded and verified divine revelation. This reduction represents a failure of faith, an act of hubris, and a reduction of both Amarr and God.
The faithful capsuleers should spend much less time trying to scrutinize the mind and plan of God using scraps of scripture, and more time listening to the marching orders given by the Theology Council and the Emperor. To serve, unshakeably, is to reach greatness, for only in God can we thrive and grow.
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But when claiming other scriptures contradict those verses, actually providing evidence of this does help your case, and an inability to do so does hurt it. I mean, you’re the one making a claim to know something based on what’s in scripture. I’m just asking you to show me the scripture that supports your position. Any of it.
This is pretty funny when you consider the person you’re saying it to (Hevarkin there) is the one who’s strongly implying (and refusing to address that implication) that God can’t choose to have someone not-Amarr do his will without informing the Amarr, because Scripture.
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Arrendis: Among the particularly well known bits, only a few are focused primarily on Reclaiming. Book II, for example, focuses on the effects of the absence of God and on the coming of the eschaton, with nary a mention of Reclaiming. The book of Missions gives many declarations that, again, are not about the Reclaiming. There are the many declarations of the Prophets on the duties of service to the Emperor. The book of Gheinok and the Epitoth both focus on Amarr before the declaration of reclaiming. Even the cultivation of mankind rhetoric that Samira points to is not explicitly about the Policy of Reclaiming. There is also the declaration of the Amash Akura, on service, that I in fact just quoted a portion of in my previous post. The most applicable to this discussion, off the top of my head, though, is the code of demeanor in book one, which warns against undisciplined free thought.
“The Wrath of God is Immense. His Justice is Swift and Decisive. His Tolerance is Limited.
Be Careful. Pure Thought is the Instigator of Sin.
Be Watchful. Free Thought is the Begetter of Disorder.
Be Respectful. Uniform Thought is the Way of Life.
The Mercy of our Emperor is Limitless. His Rule is Benign and Righteous. His Love is Perpetual.”
And then there is the vast majority of the scripture that consists of rather boring declarations of things like the proper procedures for the organization of Empire and the proper codes of behavior.
But this is all entirely beside the point that it’s the very idea of constructing a narrative out of any particular set of quotes that is problematic. When Mizhara accused me of diminishing the role of scripture, she is correct. The view of scripture as immutable timeless commands rather than a record of past declarations of divine will is a specifically Tetrimonic idea. They would have Amarr prioritize old scripture over new revelation from God, which is simply not how the rest of the Empire functions. The Theology Council would be a significantly different place if it did not have the job of constantly vetting new additions to the divine word.
If you are contesting my statement that divine policy commands change over time, I have already referenced the issues of the Moral Reforms repeatedly, which provide the most developed example of large scale divine policy repeal. On a more minor note, there is also the recent addition of scripture concerning the souls of Capsuleers.
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Neither the Holy Throne nor the Theology Council have overturned the established doctrines derived from the Book of Reclaiming that have existed for millennia. Unless you are aware of truths from God as given to the Holy Throne I am not?
Well, you’ve got a “Book of the Reclaiming”, right? I mean, I don’t turn to the instruction manual for my hot tub to learn about how my warp drive works. Why wouldn’t the information about the Reclaiming be in… you know… the Book of the Reclaiming? After all, as you yourself point out, the Scriptures are a living body, open to clarification and revision by later luminaries. Surely a specific tome can be appended, like “The Book of the Reclaiming; Appendix of St. Jeromiticus” and such?
Right, but isn’t that just the ‘how’ of ‘containing the enemies within’? Like, does the Book of the Reclaiming detail what specific weapons and starships were to be used to conquer Matar? I kinda doubt it does.
I’m not asking you to construct a narrative. I’m asking you to present evidence of your claim that the Reclaiming is Reclaiming to Amarr, not Reclaiming to God.
And the more evasive you get, the more pedantic I’ll get to keep the focus on the actual question.
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Ah, I see. There may be translation issues at work here. When you see me use the word Amarr in the context that set you off on this tangent, what do you think I mean by that?
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Hevarkin, the reclaiming has indeed not been overturned. It is absolutely important and relevant divine policy, I have not and will not deny that. But this trend among capsuleers that I am seeing, in which it is used as the lens through which to read all other divine commands seems to be magnifying it’s importance over other divine revelation in a worrying way.
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When rating things by their relative importance, you find it surprising that people start putting existential threats near the top?
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Respectfully, Lord Lok’ri, I am sworn to the Royal Family of House Sarum. The very semiosis of the Sarum Royal Seal is the circle of the First Sign crossed by swords.
I would submit anyone, and yourself especially would know exactly what that means and how official dogma is taught within the domains of House Sarum.
Of course, Mizhara, it’s entirely understandable that Matari in the Republic would fixate on the reclaiming as a threat. It is also entirely understandable that the Salvation Rite that is so common among Matari-Amarr would be a place in which the well-meaning priests prioritize the positive messages of reclaiming over other aspects of Amarr doctrine and faith.
It being understandable does not make it a correct understanding of Amarr.
I would say it is one of the few ways you can correctly understand Amarr. In the context of greater New Eden, that is the aspect of Amarr that is most immediate, most immutable, most dangerous and most despicable. Of course, when you’re too close like you - and a few others who’ve misstepped - your perspective gets skewed and you can neither see it for what it is, and the glimpses you get you desperately want to deny because you don’t want to be the evil you witness, but get a little distance to it… a clearer picture emerges.
You make the same mistake so many others do. You want so badly for the Empire to be what it claims to be. You want to be part of something that glorious and wondrous. You see so clearly that it is not so, and just can’t bear to be honest about it and do something, because that would acknowledge the cancers you have supported and wholeheartedly worked for, for so long.
Perhaps the time will one day come when you have the strength and courage to face this, and work towards something better… but I doubt it.
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When I see you say:
I think you mean either the Amarr people, or the Amarr Empire[1], and that as long as you are specifically excluding ‘control of the enemies within’, you do not mean ‘the Amarr as some metaphysical state of submission to God’. I did warn you I’d get more pedantic the more you evade providing a citation to support your claim, remember.
- Given that the Amarr Rite is headed by the Empress and the Theology Council, the Amarr Faith, in this context, is synonymous with the Amarr Empire, as belonging to the Amarr Faith expressly includes submission to the Throne and its current occupant in temporal, not merely spiritual, matters.
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Ah I see. That helps.
There is plenty in scripture about controlling the enemies within, including your own personal demons. It’s just consistently not in material that comes under the heading of Reclaiming. It tends to be in Missions, one of the Prophets, or the codes of condut and laws. The Book of Reclaiming is pretty exclusively about conquering the worlds of the heavens. And those books that do focus on internal affairs do not use the word to describe internal struggle.
It is, of course, understood that the job doesn’t stop when a world is reclaimed, once enemies without are brought within, they still need to be controlled.
The rhetoric of personal spiritual reclaiming is a common one that isn’t inherently bad on its own, but it represents an expansion of the idea of reclaiming significantly beyond it’s basic meaning. When you then use that expanded meaning as a tool to understand other scripture and to start questioning the Imperial Theologians, then things become problematic.