Intergalactic Summit

Your statements are certainly valid, but one can only ask them after the entity is proven to exist first. If it does not exist, speculating on what it actually is or what its motivations are is fun, but not really relevant.



While i kind of see what you are getting at, they really have answered the question. The Amarrian God is omnipotent, but has laid down a set of rules that contradict other cultures versions of morality. You see benevolence is a very subjective matter. For the Amarr (that truly believe) their moral duty to help others find a path to God outweighs all other things, even those that we perceive to be detrimental. One could state that if he truly is the creator of the universe, that it is the other races sense of morality that is flawed. Again this relies on the proven existence of such a God

To give an easier understanding in a less black and white matter - You are fleeing an enemy fleet and only have the chance to save one of the following.
A. A cruiser with a crew of 100 onboard
B. A scout that carries vital information which may save hundreds of lives.

Do you save the scout, because of the potential to save many more people 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?', or do you save the cruiser, immediately guaranteeing 100 lives will be saved. What if the scouts information ends up being useless? What gives you the right to decide either way?

I imagine the responses of people would differ greatly, as would their reasons behind their choice. I will suffice to say that in both these cases, your choice could be considered wrong very easily.

In the end, a society where everyone believed the exact same things would be detrimental to the overall development of our species. Differences of opinion spur advancement, and without that advancement, that progress, our species will die out altogether.

Why do you people keep writing endless walls of text on this? Every time, in every thread. You don't believe. We get it. That's all you have to say. Ms. Mithra might be able to counter your arguments with wordy diatribes of her own, but it's just more of the same. It's all people trying to explain something that shouldn't be explained.

I don't need a reason to believe. I believe because I believe. It is my responsibility to put my faith in God. To trust in Him. What you people demand is for God to prove Himself to you. You, a mortal human being, a fragile, sinful, blind, stupid creature. That is unbelievable arrogance.

Amarr is a religion of submission. God is the one that needs to be convinced of our faith, not the reverse. We don't need Him to give us a reason. We believe because we believe. If we are wrong, then we are wrong. If we are right, then we are right. That is all that is important. If you don't like it, then continue doing what you're doing. Continue ranting and raving and rebelling and fighting against Amarr. If you're actually right, if He actually doesn't exist, then your societies are bound to win the war eventually; your cultures are invasive. If we are right, then we will succeed at Reclaiming the universe for God and joining Him in Heaven. The evidence for or against Him lies in our success or failure.

Amarr thrives. Amarr has thrived for several thousand years. That is proof enough of God, because our empire works in His name. The proof of God's existence is our success, and the proof of his non-existence would be our failure. If we're wrong, then we're wrong. But God gives us strength to persevere and He gives us purpose; that is a verifiable fact.

If you want to know why we enslave, why we subject families to generations of service, it's because trying to convert secular foreigners is an exercise in futility. You all demand a give and take relationship with God, as if you are His equal. We are anything but.

((OOC: This is not correct. The divine command theory supports the omnipotence and omnibevevolence of the abrahamitic god. The noted contradictions were used as objections to this theory. I feel this thread has as many before moved to close to a discussion of RL christianity which the fictional amarrian religion is simply not))

How can you not believe in the universe? What would be the alternative to believing in the universe? Believing you are a brain in jar being controlled by sleeper overlords?

Moreso, why can't the universe itself be the prime mover? Why does there have to be another layer above the universe that imparts effects from the outside? And if that outside layer exists, then how can we sure it is the prime mover and there isn't yet another layer of abstraction above that? Claiming the existence of a God does absolutely nothing to avoid the paradox of the first cause, because then what caused God? And if God is the unmoved mover, then why can't the universe simply be its own unmoved mover? Why complexify things further by adding God into the mix? How does that actually help to resolve anything?



Bolding mine. Morals are subjectively constructed within the human mind, as I've stated before. That doesn't however make them dependent on faith but on human decisions and knowledge. For example, we know that people (in general) don't like dying. I don't want to die, and if I extrapolate that most people are like me in that regard, which I have plenty of evidence for, then its clear that killing someone is doing something the person being killed doesn't like. Then the decision making part comes in, where you have to decide if you actually care what they like. There's no faith in any part of this process, just choices and extrapolations. One set of morals can't be objectively better then another set, they can only be subjectively better from within your own self constructed framework. At the end of the day, you as a person have to decide what you think is right or wrong. There's no way to pull objective morals out of the universe.



How is the belief in God axiomatic? That's something I really don't understand your position on, the belief in God isn't required to make mathematics work. There's no process that occurs in the universe that requires god in order to make sense of. I'm sure you'll at this point say everything requires God to make sense of, but I really cannot understand why that's the case. From the outside looking in, God appears completely superfluous and unneeded. Far from the axiomatic foundations without which everything else falls apart, the belief in God isn't required in order to achieve anything. I don't believe in God, and its never impaired me in the slightest. Everything that could be ascribed to a God could just as easily be ascribed to the universe. To me, the universe looks exactly the way I would expect it to if there was no God. There's no mathematics that stop working without God, physics doesn't need God to explain how things are the way they are (not the why, but that's back up in the First Cause paradox, which as I said above, God doesn't solve either.). Why is God-as-an-axiom necessary?



Unless the assumption is the existence of God, which is axiomatic and can't be further examined, because to do so would call into question everything else that Amarr society holds dear. If that assumption is examined and found to be lacking, then the entire house of cards comes crashing down, so its easier to just put it out of the reach of criticism, for the good of the society. Anything that calls into question the scriptures' trustworthiness also calls into question the scriptures' assurance of its trustworthiness, and that's Not Okay. Is that about right? If so, then God isn't actually axiomatic, its just shielded from criticism to protect those who benefit from the unquestioning obedience of others.

I'm sorry if the discussion offends you. You are free to stop reading it at any point.



Not at all, I was making a point that my mind is open to change should I be presented with relevant evidence.



I thought we were having a reasonable discussion, unless you are speaking in general. I have no animosity to you, or the Amarr in general, I just share a different viewpoint. It is a shame that we find it so easy to mistake reasonable doubt for blind hatred.



Now that is a subject which i find fascinating but perhaps another time. As i said in my first post, the IGS is a poor place to discuss such things. I supposed i erred by engaging in it.

Ms Riordan,

I have been inaccurate in my statement by a sheer will to remain brief, so by believing in the universe, I really meant "believing in", and not "believing that". That way, believing that the universe exist looks obvious. Believing in the universe as a pure object of physics and reason as you mentioned it, does not make any sense.

However, believing in the universe, through faith, means that this universe is more than the physical sums of its parts.

If the universe - still in its form purely devoid of spirituality and faith - is the prime mover, then reason would dictate that it is very unlikely that the universe created itself without a cause, and out of nowhere. It is also unlikely that it ordered itself that way, alone. Reason hints at the axiomatic nature of the Prime Mover, or the Divine, not at its absence.

Also, what caused the Divine ? That is the interesting part of it. And it is also part of the realm of Faith, not Reason, even more so.

Bolding the word 'supposedly'... Er well, I expected that. It was a way to put the emphasis on the necessary putative value standing behind axioms.

As I said, morals are directly derived from faith, in fine. Be it faith in Orthodox Amarr or Gallente ideals.

I think this answers to the rest of your post as well...

For what it is worth, I am happy you are so forthright in your faith, surely you understand though, for some it doesn't come so easily, for some they need understanding, they need those walls of text to work out what they should and shouldn't believe. You don't get many converts by telling them they shouldn't work out their thoughts, and that they should just automatically have faith in God.

I for one can't seem to help being, fragile, sinful, stupid or arrogant by that statement, and that makes it a bit hard not to be defensive.