Intergalactic Summit

Superior sense of compassion, mercy and justice?

Superior souls?

Superior? Maybe, but every mortal pales before God.

We used to by like you, y'know. Invincible and perfect. Then God gave us the Jovians to kick our arrogant butts back into reality. Don't make the same mistake that we did. You're Caldari good at many things, but there are many reasons we became your allies. You'd be smart to learn from our past mistakes instead of simply repeating them.

A little piety and humility would do you, and all of New Eden, some good. Just sayin'.

As it happens, I do practice a religion, which I've summarized elsewhere: it's an offshoot of the Way of the Winds known as the New Way, or Uuskyounto. It is an atheistic, secular religion which focuses on the role of ritual and spirituality in human life and the betterment of the self to effect the betterment of the group. The objective being to remind me that I am beholden to others ahead of myself, and to encourage me to think at length and carefully before I act.

I don't consider the remainder of what you wrote to be worthy of comment, beyond this: You are either paranoid-delusional, in which case you should seek the aid of a mental health professional, or else you are narrow-minded and uninformed and should seek an education and some perspective, much as I did.

I shall not further dignify the ignorance you just vomited up with my attention.

Possibly I call it a religion because that's what the New Way paints itself as being, so as to appeal to the mainstream Wayists who might be inclined to take a closer look at it.

That being said, one of the defining traits of a religion as opposed to a life-view is the presence of ritual. Things like tea ceremonies, meditations, mantras, they're all useful and may be practiced by somebody with a life-view but no particular religion, whereas a religion will prescribe them.

What sets the New Way apart is that it actually explains the reasoning behind the prescription and stresses that nothing actually bad will happen should somebody not observe these rituals - they are solely for the practitioner's benefit. You don't have to light the incense, or float the candle in the bowl of water, or recite your mantra, or chant, but these things exist for good reasons and provide real benefits, so it's advised to do them. The important part is remaining aware of where that value really comes from, cutting past the mysticism and trying to see the world as it really is.

Vakarin Uuskyoun's original vision was to wean the Caldari people off theism altogether - he wanted to ease us into a mindset of rationality, absent the supernatural and superstition. What he realised was that the best way to go about this was to adapt the existing framework of the Way of the Winds to that purpose and present an attractive option for those Caldari who were skeptical about the idea of the Winds being actually sentient, but didn't want to give up on the existing religious structure of their life.

That's what got me into it. I was a Wayist, but I could never quite bring myself to believe that the movement of air in response to barometric pressure gradients was capable of thinking, or teaching. But I always enjoyed the ritual, the sense of community, the philosophy and peace of Wayism so I kept practicing it despite not actually believing it.

the New Way is basically the exact same religion in terms of what you do, with the important exception that there is no worship involved. Uuskyounto treats the Winds as being not literal supernatural entities, but rather as the pen names by which many human authors have anonymously contributed to the collective wisdom of our people over the centuries. You respect these generations of past thinkers, of course, but there's little sense in worshipping them - they're not supernatural. In fact, worship is discouraged: appropriate respect, deference and admiration are fine, as of course is heiian, but in order to honourably sacrifice your self-interest for the greater good, you must first have self-interest.

Uuskyoun put it as follows: "You must know yourself and what you are capable of, and know others and what they are capable of, and only once you know both of those things is it possible to know what you can do for them. If you worship something then you shift your focus onto that thing and away from your self, which will leave you unable to expand yourself outwards to embrace your kirjuunet when the call comes."

I'd paraphrase that as "Investing yourself too heavily in what you worship blinkers you to the needs of what you don't."

You look a bit pale regardless. Perhaps a good vacation in the sun?

I was born on a starship, grew up on a station, worked on a transport, vacationed at a deadspace resort and nowadays I'm a professional operator of enclosed sensory deprivation tanks. Besides, I can trace my ancestry back to sub-polar Caldari Prime: I burn if I even think about spending time outdoors.

So, guilty as charged I guess.

That's the problem with text: my previous post looked defensive. Please rest assured that it wasn't, it was intended in good humour.

First we have to show gallenteans, that THEY are inferior.
If they can't understand it with their tiny brains, we will hammer them into dirt with our boots.
They will understand it with their skin.

You realise after two months on a beach, what little of me wasn't burnt and bleeding from the sun would be melanomas, right?

Not to mention the sand. I've said it before but it bears repeating: Sand is evil.

Well, obviously, we'd be trialing a graduated approach. You're obviously suffering from beach party deficiency. This may be a more imperative problem than myself and my colleagues had initially estimated. We may have to put together a more broad course of treatment.

Perhaps, until we have you ready for introduction to sand, pina coladas, and sun, we should try to slowly introduce you to gravel, pale ale, and a tanning bed.

To be fair to Him, the body he made you with was perfect for the beach. Cybernetics weren't his design. You can only blame us for not having solved the sand problem completely yet.

Just pop the arm off. I'm sure you can play volleyball with one arm.