The Plasma Mystery

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

It’s a little remarkable how eager so many are to denounce the spiritual side of our people. For one, it’s kind of nonsensical to use such broad strokes across what is quite likely the most complicated bog of religious, spiritual and philosophical thought in New Eden.

The Day of Darkness and the centuries since have for all intents and purposes ensured that what was once known by our people will never again be whole and true as it was then. All of us, every last one of our tribes and clans, have lost knowledge, beliefs and spiritual adepts throughout this long history. All of us have found different ways to deal with this.

Some stick to the scraps that remain from back then. Some augment them with extrapolation. Some invent something entirely new. Some reject it all. Some seek the spirituality and beliefs of other nations. To my eternal vexation, some even bring the cancerous and toxic Rite to our shores. Some mix and match all this stuff at various ratios. And you’ll find countless thousands of variants of all of this all over our space.

So, the spiritual and religious landscape of the Minmatar is the wildest kind of jungle, where all manner of growths and vines sprout, intertwine, intermingle, choke eachother to death, feed on each other, occasionally breed and create new growths all in a fairly glorious chaos of belief and spirituality. It’s a fantastic spiritual ecosystem that is frankly ridiculous to dismiss universally simply because I’m willing to bet no one, not a single human being in New Eden, can even begin to grasp the entirety of it.

As far as we Volur of the Gripdjur look at it, most of us at any rate… it’s rather simple: It doesn’t matter, at all, whether or not you believe in spirits or our interactions with them. It’s frankly kind of irrelevant in the end, because what we can deal with unerringly is the measurable results of what we do.

It doesn’t matter if a ritual truly lets me communicate with every potential aspect of my spirit, personified before me, then allow myself to focus myself and my spirit on a particular path. The dance of shadows doesn’t have to be real. Not when the results are measurable. Measurable changes in neurology and mental states are demonstrable results of the ritual, whether it’s actual spirits or if it’s an artifact of self-reprogramming.

Much like you get measurable scannable differences in your brain from something as simple as meditation, our spirituality, our rituals, our beliefs - whether you actually believe them or not - have very measurable effects. It is, without a glimmer of a doubt, very real.

So Mizhir’s people and mine have very different views on what the spirits are, and how they interact with us. One of them, possibly both, are likely to be outright wrong since some of the views are simply incompatible with each other. Doesn’t matter though. They both work. They are both very real in terms of what they do to people, what they do for people and what they can do to our enemies.

Kaugan, trust me on this though: Dismiss our people’s spirituality as something primitive if you wish, but that simply means you are cutting yourself off from something measurably real and true, and will forevermore not understand it. Especially given the insights it gives us into the human mind, ourselves and each other.

There’s a reason Volur preach balance in all things. In this case, sure, don’t open your mind to the point your brain falls out, but at the same time, don’t close it off from what is vitally important to our people, and have aided and guided us for millennia.

[Annisir_Kaugan]

Yes,its real but only for the individual. None of it goes beyond our own bodies or minds, and the actual effects are relatively limited and work for only a small percentage of the population. “The appeal to open-mindedness is frequently used by people who wish to sound virtuous, and simultaneously make their opponent sound intolerant, while defending or promoting their ideas and beliefs. However, this argumentative tactic relies on using the term “open-minded” to describe uncritical belief acquisition or defend cherished beliefs when “credulous” would be a more appropriate epithet.” The rational scientific approach is far more open minded. Science weighs the arguments, examines the evidence and refines the hypotheses. The issue with the spiritual approach is that its essentially fixed, weighed down by the burden of tradition and prejudices. All the more so when it divides into a chaotic jungle, where the inhabitants are unable to agree among themselves, let alone with anyone from outside their realm. We should tolerate other people, move beyond the tribal mindset as a united Minmatar nation and work towards unifying everyone, as simply people. Acknowledge our different approaches by all means, but towards the general benefit of all. That would help eliminate the kind of problems happening in Khanid space as well the tragedy of Lirsautton.

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

Oh you’re that kind. The evangelical atheist that doesn’t quite look deep enough. First you argue that it’s “essentially fixed” and then in the very next sentence you acknowledge how it’s demonstrably not so in our spiritual landscape.

Look, to put it very simply your stance is one that can work but only once you actually understand what you argue and far more importantly; what you argue against.

This isn’t some monolithic religion. It’s not a unified faith. It’s not organized. It’s so varied and differing in their philosophies and approaches that you are by default utterly and completely wrong when you try to argue against any one part of it as if its representative of the whole. There’s nothing open-minded about an attitude that dismisses something so vast and inscrutable that no one person could learn it all in one lifetime in just a sentence.

Your nonsense about “tolerance”, universal unification and all that utter twaddle is just downright offensive though. We have earned our identities. We have suffered for them. Relinquishing that for ‘moving past a tribal mindset’ is spitting on generations and generations of struggle, sacrifice and successfully fighting off those who would destroy us. “Tolerating other people”, where does the line go for that? What’s the cut-off point? When they try to enslave us? When they try to massacre by the millions? Perhaps just when they try to buy and sell us? Where’s the line go for ‘tolerance’?

You seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding of humanity in general, and Matari in particular.

[Annisir_Kaugan]

The usual, and very much expected response. Relinquishing your hold on the spirit world undermines your entire basis. I’m not evanganical about it at all. Everyone has a right to believe what they want, but those beliefs should never get in the way of common sense.

[Teinyhr]

…And whose beliefs in this thread has got in the way of whose common sense?

[Annisir_Kaugan]

I’m talking in general, not specific. I do understand humanity, but I mostly I despair given recent events.

[Rana_Ash]

@Mizhara_Del_thul

The Day of Darkness and the centuries since have for all intents and purposes ensured that what was once known by our people will never again be whole and true as it was then. All of us, every last one of our tribes and clans, have lost knowledge, beliefs and spiritual adepts throughout this long history. All of us have found different ways to deal with this.

Indeed, my clan has one book describing some rituals, the rest is pieced together from our elders. Which to be honest are vague at best.

My clans burial rites differs from our neighbours, for instance we burn our dead and scatter the ashes over the land. That way they are always with us and contribute to the land. But our neighbours bury their dead in the fetal position and erect a small cairn over them, that is their way of remembering the dead.

[Tahale]

We the gallente folk-people believe in the spiritual life like the same life …and the death like the end of all existence become like the unborn entities, the while you are alive inclusive in plasma form in plasma planet you are a “live soul” until you definitively die, and no more (in dislike the stupid amarrian and amatarian theological believes about the life and life after death etc etc but like gallente i must respect the diferent ideologism and enemys thinks inclusive)

[Arrendis]

@Annisir_Kaugan

move beyond the tribal mindset as a united Minmatar nation

Didn’t we just recently realize what a load of crap that was, and reject the Federal-style ‘non-tribal mindset’ nonsense? No thanks. Not goin’ back there. And it didn’t exactly prevent ‘the tragedy of Lirsautton’, did it?