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Amarr religion origins?

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Khaled Mehrzad
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#21 - 2013-09-08 20:29:51 UTC
Quote:
The ancestors of the modern Empire appeared on the planet Athra roughly 15,000 years ago, around 8000 AD. They settled on the continent of Assimia, along with several other groups of colonists. They were led by a prophet known as Dano Gheinok, who collected and contributed greatly to the body of religious texts known as the Scriptures. Though it appears Gheinok built off established rituals and religions, today the Amarr consider him their first prophet and founder of their religion, and many of the settlers' religious beliefs are believed to be extant with the modern Amarr.

Pre-Space Flight Era of the Amarr Empire


You may also find the rest of the History of the Amarr Empire series useful, along with the articles Dano Gheinok and Amarr Island.

I would put forth that the Scriptures, articles, and the name "Unified Catholic Church" suggest a gathering of religions setting aside their differences to preserve the worship of God, possibly in reaction to the secularism of the times.

Note that, when used as an adjective, the definition of Catholic includes broad-minded, liberal, universal, and all-embracing.
Roga Dracor
Gladiators of Rage
Fraternity.
#22 - 2013-09-15 15:11:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Roga Dracor
The Unified Catholic Church is the hiccup most people lose sight of.. There is, however, no relation to what most people equate to Catholicism. Amarr salvation is not tied to faith, as a Christian sees it. Christ obviously didn't survive the centuries to come.. Salvation for the Amarr is achieved through works alone. This is more in line with Islam and Judaism.

The Amarr rose out of a sect of "Unified Catholics" called the Conformists. What they were "conforming" to has never been expanded upon in much detail. There is compelling evidence that they were considered heretical, or, at the very least, dangerous to the establishment, and driven from the Sol system..

Dropbear "dropped" hints suggesting the Amarr, Jove and Enheduanni were somehow related through Mesopotamian religions. The Devs "inspiration" being the early Babylonian sagas.. In particular Amar.Utu, Marduk.. The Enheduanni solidifies this link, in my mind.. As a loose association, at least.. Storied Babylon and the sundering of the common human language.. PIE, Proto Indo European, for those who haven't followed all this. The roots of the Aryans(Matari), who likely sprang from the Indus Valley in India. Even Adolph H placed much stock in this evolutionary theory..

Zoroaster was a very Dano Gheinok kinda guy... Thus spake Zarathustra.. Zoroastrianism and Zurvanism.. The schism between the Amarr religion proper and the Sani Sabik.. Ancient Persia, a very likely model for early Athra..

There is no mention of Messiah, the only Messiah figure we have in Eve, is the self styled messiah of Nation. Even the hints of the EoM's beliefs echo fatalistic Zurvanism..

It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then, and it's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Roga Dracor
Gladiators of Rage
Fraternity.
#23 - 2013-09-15 17:17:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Roga Dracor
The Jove themselves offer us a tanatalizing hint as to the fate of the Unified Catholic Church. The Jovian's first empire certainly seems almost puritanical in it's view of good and evil. A Zoroastrian concept evolved, or a secular humanistic society gone horribly wrong. Echoes of the Unified Catholic Church?

The First Empire used it's genetic mastery to do some very puritanical sounding manipulating. Removing the reproductive process from humanity, desire, and all those taboo, dirty little animalistic traits, like aggression, sex and viloence.. Sounds like something that could schism from many orthodox religions of today..

Good is a seperate, alien concept from evil, in Zoroastrianism, all good things flow from God, all evil flows from Ormuzd, it is up to us, as agents in free will, to choose between these alien paths. Humans are the final arbitors of the Universal flow, in the simplest terms I can convey..

Zurvanism took a very logical approach and said, "hey, wait a minute, universal law shows us that nothing comes from nothing, there must be another variable here.. Time.. The ultimate incarnation of God..

Materialistic Zurvanism took it a step further and said heaven and hell were a lie, free will is all that remains.. Heretical, indeed..

Zurvanism was a dualistic religion, with distinctly dualistic properties and obvious influence recieved from both the Greeks and the Hindus... Good and evil were twin brothers.. Or perhaps a mated god\goddess pair.. Shiva\Kali? ish? Sani Sabik? Time is the ultimate harbinger and harvester of man's blood...

Quote:
Since Shiva is called Kāla—the eternal time—Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" (as in time has come). Hence, Kāli is the Goddess of Time and Change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilator of evil forces still has some influence.

Quote:
At the dissolution of things, it is Kāla [Time] Who will devour all, and by reason of this He is called Mahākāla [an epithet of Lord Shiva], and since Thou devourest Mahākāla Himself, it is Thou who art the Supreme Primordial Kālika. Because Thou devourest Kāla, Thou art Kāli, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called the Adya [the Primordial One]. Re-assuming after Dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable. Though having a form, yet art Thou formless; though Thyself without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya, Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress that Thou art.


Interestingly, there is a Matari story that seems to hint that the Minmatar might have Vedic(Indian) like religions amidst the Tribes.. At least Maleatu Shakor and his Tribe....

And before anyone starts in, anyone who studies theology seriously must accept many concepts beyond the simple formation of associations.. You can give the ideas many names and manifestations, I just used the ones that struck me from interactions with the lore team.. The ones that seem most pertinent to the hints dropped.. As has been said, you have the Greek mythos that has bearing, too.. They really overlap pretty heavily in ALOT of cosmologies.. A hint at a common religious base in the shadows of prehistory, just like the Unified Catholic Church, in New Eden...

It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then, and it's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Roga Dracor
Gladiators of Rage
Fraternity.
#24 - 2013-09-15 17:52:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Roga Dracor
The real binding idea is Truth vs. the Lie.. Blink

Truth was Arta(Athra?) to the Zoroastrians... Further east to the Asians, it was expressed as Rta(Raata?)... Interstingly, we can also dig up Arthashastra.. A long lost Scripture?

In the end, the Theology Council decreed Scripture as the ultimate Book of Truth, much as Islam did the Quran in Persia, supplanting and replacing both Zoroastrian and Zurvanite, amidst a host of other schools of thought and cementing the Shia Muslim Theocracy in Iran and the Theocracy of the Amarr Empire on Athra..

While the Jovian Book of Truth and the Hona storyline in particular, echo ideas of Hinduism and the abandonment of self as the pathway to Truth...

Casting no disparity on any religion, here, just sayin'.. I'm sure that many other parallels can be seen in history and myth across the globe....

It's just a story...P

It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then, and it's a poor sort of memory that only works backward.
Utremi Fasolasi
La Dolce Vita
#25 - 2013-10-10 05:06:59 UTC
It's an old thread buried somewhere but I appreciated Roga's drawing attention to the symbols of the royal houses.

The UFC seems from that to have been a unified faith of many different believers, one house has a Wiccan symbol, another a Jewish symbol etc. The name of House Sarum comes from the RL Episcopal Church.

The Blood Raiders seem to have hints of Gnosticism and Alchemy in their quest for immortality, and the Takmahl Labyrinth is laid out like the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Check it out in the Arek Jalaan archives.


As an aside I really appreciate the subtle way the devs aligned the factions in terms of Order and Chaos as it were; Amarrians and Caldari for different forms of Order and the Gallente and Matari representing aspects of Chaos.

Gallente love to name things after underworld demons and monsters and gods and Matari after wild beast and untamed Nature.

I see a Galltente ethos reflective of Existentialist philosophies and Buddhism manifesting in their use of weapons of negation - antimatter/null/void.. Intaki and Jin Mei probably more Buddhist and the Gallente proper more existentialist and hence the compatibiltiies. These are not imperial religions though and rather individualistic. Then you have all the Greek philiosophies of Epicurianism and Sophism and Stoicism and Cynicism manifesting as well. As important as Philosophy has long been to the French as heirs of the Greek and Roman heritage I would not be surprised if some Aristotle or other old philosophers hadn't been preserved down the ages.

Just brainstorming/riffing, probably deserves its own thread.
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