Intergalactic Summit

I was under the impression that it was a dominant gene, Miss Jenneth.

Mmm.

I have to admit, one of my last posts was an attempt to draw your...predecessor out. It failed. Yet, I'm not entirely sure I'm unhappy with that. Watching you re-discover New Eden, without as much of the...pre-conceptions, I suppose - is not only entertaining, but informative. Even a bit view-altering.

It seems that you make a bit of a splash wherever you go, Miss Jenneth.

Should you ever make it out to Masanuh, let me know.

The choice of which genes and phenotypes matter is always different no matter who you ask to.

Well, no, one can escape ones genetics - Through therapy, or for Capsuleers, just being cloned into a foreign body. But it hasn't stopped society still more or less holding on to the notion that bloodlines are ironclad.

I've always wondered about that. How would the Amarrian Faith react to an individual who had not but been born a True Amarr, but had their mind uploaded into into a body that was genetically so? Would they be considered spiritually superior, or still their original bloodline? Or perhaps an abomination that is neither? I'm aware it's essentially a question for which I'd likely hear multiple answers - Including many that bypassed the entire affair by asserting the status of all clones as inherently soulless beings - But I'd still be curious to hear some opinions. It's a very interesting notion, if perhaps a bit revolting.

This.

I subcribe to the thinking that the soul remains with the infomorph, entering the new body with each cloning. It's not a 'new soul' nor a copy. When our last clones die for the final time, which regardless of this stupid pretentious ideal of 'immortality' will happen, we then face our final judgement before God. Cloning, in a sense, is creating our own self made prison for our souls, a sad but sometimes neccissary endevour.

You may find my view peculiar on the matter but I consider the soul far more than the individual taken in his current space and time perception. The soul encompasses all that has been, is, and will be of that individual. If the individual dies, is revived, or if the individual cloneforks in multiple instances of himself, then while the mind constantly changes at every timeframe, the soul does not, because the soul encompasses time itself.

You might then ask, but doesn't every new instance of someone becomes systematically someone else even a few seconds after being cloned ? And becomes more and more different as much that individual will evolve on his/her own ? Well, yes. That is the properties of the mind. But it also implies that at t+1, even without cloning, you are different than your t+0, or t-1, or t+n. You just happen to share the same past and memories.

The soul is all that and more. Going to Heaven as written in Scripture does not precise when, or even if time is relevant. Because in that perspective and referent, time is irrelevant.

Then again, it is merely a matter of definition and axioms on what the soul is...

First, which 'True Amarr' are the Tash-Murkon indistinguishable from, genetically, culturally? The Ardishapurites? The Sarumites? The Kor-Azorites? The nobility which leans more to cross-domain intermarriage? All this talk is nonsense, really. There's but one human species and there are no good reasons to talk about sub-species or races on a biological foundation in regard to humans. And I have something to say about this ominous 'Amarr culture' people obsess about: More on that later.

That aside, it is theologically speaking entirely besides the point. God doesn't look for people to be of a certain race or or follow cultural conventions slavishly. Whoever thinks that God must accept someone as His chosen because he was born to ethnically 'pure' Amarr (and I doubt that those exist after intermingling with the Udorians, the Assimians or the Kathisians) or that He can't accept someone of another ethnicity as His chosen, must think that God's decisions are dictated by biology. The latter, really, is ridiculous.

It is quite clear what people are chosen for, if we look into the Scriptures. God wants people to live righteously and in fear of God. He didn't chose the Amarr people for being Amarr, nor for the cultural quirks which we never really shared entirely - being comprised of city states at first, then different domains. It was the ethical and spititual qualities which prompted his decision. And while He certainly would be able to decide any moment otherwise, God tends to stick to his reasons. So, I don't think we have any reason to doubt, that He will hold us to the same standards as our ancestors.

That, by the way, is also the factual basis for how it is handled in the Empire: As one can easily check by looking at those people that turn to heresy. They aren't at all protected if they can call themselves ethnically 'True Amarr', once found out. The Amarr Empire wasn't founded to perpetuate some 'rule of the superior race', but to cultivate the spirit of man. For it is the spirit that decides on whether he will go about and commit heineous acts and turn against God - or if he will lead a life pleasing to God. It is the ancient Amarr responding to being chosen by comitting to perpetuate the qualities they were chosen for. If there's anything special about the Amarr, then there is that age-old and lasting commitment that distinguishes us from and defines us against others: This isn't making an entire culture though (there always have been and still are, differing Amarrian cultures) and it is most certainly not a biological trait.

It is, frankly speaking, superstiton to think that there is any necessary link between being 'biologically Amarr' and being 'God's chosen'. Rather, as Scripture clearly states, it is a historically contingent fact - one that is not, by any stretch of imagination, bringing any necessity into being either. (Just remember the people stricken from the book of records despite their biological makeup.) The same goes for the idea that one gets in any serious sense 'tainted' by being of 'mixed descent'. It might weaken the position of a family and is therefore frowned upon, but there is no theologically founded stigma to it. Whosoever is worried about the 'purity of blood' is really victim to a superstition at best or rightout an heretic at worst.

(As I pointed out above, there is a series of decisions that are contingent which upholds an unbroken linage of righteous and godfearing indviduals - that, though, depends on the continued commitment and proper action to be perpetuated at erey link in the chain.)

As to the distinction between Sani Sabik: There are in fact many Sani Sabik sects, who claim superiority for their biological makeup. So the position that Holders are born Holders is in fact dangerously close to heresy. Just as the view that anyone can become a 'Holder' if he is just willing to do what is needed to grab power. Both those views put the emphasis on worldly means of getting into power and distract from the fact that power comes always with responsibility and that therefore, true power comes from living righteously and in fear of God.

To put it another way: Superiority comes from being ethically (without 'n'!) and spiritually superior, not from transient things such as being born to the right parents or having ceased opportunity. Birth or ruthlessness might earn one power for a time, but superiority can never be achieved like this.

Being 'chosen' is not something someone 'is', but it is something God does. And he is damn well able to cease doing so, if you aren't making the gift deserving. If anything, Amarr have a special duty to make themselves deserving: It is not an entitlement that comes no strings attached.

One last thing: There is no official ruling of the TC on cloning and what it does to the soul. As such, there is no orthodox position on this. There are differing opinions, that's all we have on that.

Tl;Dr: Amarr are a people: Not a race. The defining characteristic is being chosen by God. This is, obviously, in the hands of God. God, if we trust the Scriptures, choses people for ethical and spiritual superiority: Living righteously and in fear of Him.
The idea that mere birth and biological makeup secures that sort of superiority is superstition.

While I appreciate the needs of the State in requiring and condoning such practices, such as with the Tube Child programme, this is a little too close to playing God for me. With no disrespect to your esteemed self, nor to my sister in law, I would like my own potential children to be born and bred the way God intended.

I don't even have the same face any more. I was an ugly son of a brick before.

Granted, the new on is basically just the old one with a few tweaks. It's still my face rather than somebody else's. But for a while there it was jarring to look in the mirror and go looking for a mouth that was no longer as wide, ears that no longer protruded so much and a chin that no longer looked like the thick end of an Erebus.

Psychologically, I feel like macroscopic changes that you can and will see on a daily basis must surely feel more personal than mere chemistry.