Intergalactic Summit

I never saw him do anything for the humane treatment of slaves. I just think you are bitter because I switched sides and it's easy to be bitter against people you consider to be your enemy.



Everything that I do is for God and through His Will.

Also, it is highly heretical to use my God's name to justify your actions. Please refrain from doing so again.

The use rights for the name of the nameless God have always been highly contested.

So, for whom else does one think? Contrary to what you seem to believe, thinking is a highly valued good in Amarr culture and it is quite a given that you think for yourself.

Thing is, we value sound and valid thinking, thinking that takes cultural context into account and thinking that has the aim that is proper to the process of thinking: the prime cause, the ultimate end, the eternal truth.

That's not what Ms. Underking is doing here. She sees Vitoc and overreacts. What she does isn't the reasonable thing. She blows it out of proportion. Well, it's her decision. But to go and advertise it as her being the one and only Amarrian using her brain is just ridiculous.

Don't you think that's a bit simplified? He does not like all of my opinions, and he so far hasn't expressed an intent to kill me.

The Amarr have shown repeatedly that they intend to subjugate the rest of the cluster, and the only reason they aren't working more strongly on that is because they currently simply are too weak. The fear that the Amarr will, should they become stronger, simply return to their oppressive imperialism, is quite justified based on historical evidence. Sadly, I do not see the Amarr putting a lot of effort into working against those fears.

I do hope that genocide is not the only answer to the Amarrian question, but I can certainly see why some people would think that it might be necessary.

He has expressed the opinion, on more than one occasion, that the Caldari people have to be exterminated.

Ask Vikarion and Stitcher about that.

Yes, that is exactly his point.

Blind obedience to the Scriptures has been used to justify a lot of atrocities the Amarr have committed. It is important to the other cultures to believe that the Amarr are not a ticking timebomb anymore, but can be trusted even if they might at some point not be as weak anymore as they currently are. One way to achieve that is to show that the Amarr show that they are capable of laying aside their blind obedience to the Scriptures when the blind obedience would ask them to commit what other cultures consider atrocities.

Hence why Ms. Underking has done - in the eyes of the other cultures, at least - a lot more for the Amarrian culture than all the combatants in the Crusade together.

This is just hilarious. Careful reading and study of the Scripture shows that it's not thinking nor thinking for oneself that's the problem. What the Scriputre refers to as "Free Thought" in this passage is thought that is free of the one thing everything is dependent on: it's thought free of God.

Thinking for yourself is commendable, as long as your thoughts include the source of all that is good, that is the Lord Himself. Actually, there is little that is better for yourself that you can do than approaching God by thought, as should be quite evident for every believer at least. Just as thinking that is free of God, the source of all order, will by necessity lead to disorder.

Never and nowhere was blind obedience to the Scripture and especially the Scripture as literally written considered a virtue in Amarrian orthodoxy. Scripture needs exegesis by trained and educated sages to be fruitful and that is exactly why the clergy has such a high standing in our culture. As Hedion shows, though, there are also experts independent from the institution of the church that have their place in the Amarrian system of intellectual checks and balances. There is even a place for the laity that studies the scriptures and the rules of exegesis that govern them.

Unfortunately though the majority of capsuleers can't be bothered - it seems - with learning the rules of exegesis and instead goes for advocating the literal sense of the scripture as it's true meaning. This laziness in training ones mind and sharpening it to the extent that is necessary to meaningfully engage in the study of Scripture is maybe the most unfortunate development in Amarrian society of the recent years. It's a profanization of our most holy texts and a reason to weep.

Equally unfortunate is the claim of capsuleers outside the Empire that this very recent development isn't recent at all and that it would be in fact the essence of Amarrian thinking. It would be a reason to laugh if it wouldn't be that sad, especially considering that many Amarrian capsuleers are seemingly supporting this claim by their behavior and laziness to engage in serious Scripture study.

Truth is, if there has been any blind obedience in regards to religious truths in Amarrian culture, than it wasn't blind obedience to the Scriptures - neither their literal meaning nor any other way of obedience to them that was blind - but blind obedience to those religious experts responsible for exegesis of the scripture.

What would be more to the truth is that Amarr comitted those atrocities that it did commit not because it's in possession of the Scripture, but simply out of those reasons that are quite normally responsible for any kind of atrocities committed by mankind: Greed, envy, hate, narcissism, hubris... in short, these very human failings that are universal among us, whether we believe in God or not.
To admit this, though, would mean that those that feel to be the victims would have to admit that they themselves have the potential for these properties in themselves. This would mean that the divide between victims and offender wouldn't be as absolute as they like it to be, that it is not an absolute divide at all.

I think Eran Mintor got a glimpse of this truth: That there is very little that actually does divide victim and offender, Amarr and Minmatar. What little he saw of this truth he might have been empowered to see through falling in love with 'the enemy'. The difference between him and Ms. Underking is therefore this: Cpt. Mintor defected to help those of his brethren that are still enslaved - Ms. Underking defected to oppose her own kind.

Both of them thought. Both thought for themselves. What is the difference? The former train of thought is in conformity with the divine that is One. The second train of thought is free of this conformity, it is in fact the kind of thought that the Scripture warns about - but not because it's someone thinking for herself. It's this dangerous form of "Fee Thought" because it lacks in reconnecting to the first cause and therefore fails to aim at the ultimate end.

Amarr is not and has never been against thinking. We're, though, strong advocates of thinking properly, even though anyone is free to think what he wants in the Empire - there is no such thing as thought crime over here - as long as you keep it to yourself.

Do me a favor and go and die quietly, Ixiris.

Guys? Someone died..? Maybe keep it to mail or something.

Seriously not the place.