Intergalactic Summit

I do believe that the Shakorite regime needs to be brought to account.

However, I can't think of someone less qualified to do that than someone who is an accomplice to their crimes.

Just because a law is passed doesn't always mean the enforcement of that law is lawful in and of itself.

This "whole business with Shakor" did not start because of the Federals.

Nevertheless, it is good a more outspoken Republican is seeking a change in the status quo. I hope more follow the example yet I feel the baseline citizens of the Republic are the key to change, much as they were when this whole thing started.

-Eran

I'm sorry, but despite being in law enforcement from the age of fifteen that statement made NO sense to me. If a law is properly promulgated and duly signed into the statute books then enforcing it is legal.

No, thats just Blake for you.

One of Missions' more quotable quotes, often a bit misunderstood. Remember that in the Amarrian faith, we are, at some point, tasked with a test of faith. Inevitably, we will all be confronted with hopelessness or our faith will be questioned in life, but these are not truly the test of faith. The true test is upon death, which, obviously, we will only have one chance to answer with. In essence, you should believe in the salvation of the Lord to your dying breath.

The 'knock twice' quote is one that really strikes at cloning and capsuleers in particular. We may die several times. Some of the more conservative of our order say that this really cheats the final test of faith, that we capsuleers are truly those that knock twice (at least). I have always taken the passage to mean that there comes a day when we do finally die and that we should not fear that day's coming.

Most people do fear their final exit from this existence, which in and of itself is torturous enough. They will not know the eternity of God's blessings. On this, the Scriptures are clear. Those who meet their final exits from the flesh having rejected grace will receive precisely what they expect. Those who preached, believed, and defended the Word to their dying days go on to His salvation.

It seems a fairly reasonable proposition. We all get what we were looking for.

It can be, certainly, but I do have a hard time interpreting the passage another way. When exactly else would the gates of paradise to open to you? If we had found a way to get there without dying, I assure you, we wouldn't be on this place of existence any longer.

And if the gates of paradise are a reference to death, they really only would open once. If the idea that you are not allowed to atone after death, knowing the way to Heaven is forever closed to you, is what you are getting at, then I suppose you could call our religion judgmental. Then again, I suspect most of that opinion of us is predicated on the Amarrian history of forgetting that we have a mandate from Heaven to serve God, not to serve ourselves. Too often, we forget our position in life and think ourselves as being gods rather than servants in the faith. God has punished us for our hubris severely, indeed.

Returning to the topic at hand, I would assume that seeking to correct a mistake would be a goodly way in the eyes of God, or even for the non-religious. As you would read in Epitoth, it is not making mistakes that damns a man to the void. It is failing to realize and correct them. If his hunt is truly for righteous atonement, I can think of no one better to bring a criminal to justice than those who carried out his wrongs and know their consequences.

put it this way. If you're seriously suggesting that the passage is meant to be read as meaning that it's only possible to die once, then by doing so you're robbing it of any useful message: Spending seventy-nine words to say "you only die once" is a redundant and useless waste of paper and ink spent stating something that's obvious to the point almost of being a tautology.

I'll do the author of the Book of Missions the service of assuming that rather than spending all of that effort to say something that should go without saying, they were instead using a poetic turn of phrase in an attempt to make the point that a lifetime of moral rightness can be ruined by a single moment of turpitude, and likewise that a lifetime of weakness isn't compensated for by a minute of strength.

This is in itself not exactly the greatest height of wisdom to which a human has ever flown, but it is at least a coherent thought that may actually need communicating.

I dislike the sentiment on the grounds that it ignores the blended middle-ground spectrum of human activity in which positive action can counterbalance negative action, in which moral debts can be paid, and in which a lifetime of altruism is worth more than a moment of selfishness. I do believe in redemption and atonement. But it at least is a sentiment with a thought behind it, as opposed to a vacuous recitation of reality.

I suppose that a new reader would believe precisely that. However, the entire passage is important not as a meditation on atonement (which it is normally misquoted as), but as a meditation on belief. In fact, the most important line of the passage is not the last line, but the first. This is where the passage goes beyond the idea of comparative atonement versus sin and postulates that to do right is not the task of the repentant, but of the faithful. In essence, the first question is answered by the latter option. You learn more about how good a man is not when he is trying to atone for his past but from when he has nothing to atone for. Does he still do good? Is that not the measure of the goodness of men, that they are still good even when they have nothing to prove nor answer for? Most importantly, does a man who believes his faith in God has secured him a place in Heaven grow complacent or does he still actively uphold the Word?

Once you understand the opening sentence, the rest is clear. It is a warning against hubris, not sin. It is worse for a man to have faith and then fail to serve God than it is for a man to fail in proving his faith. As it is, many of these passages are less entertaining once you read them for what they are. Most of it seems to be common sense. To die in a blaze of belief, proving your faith, would seem quite a bit harder than maintaining it once you have it, but it is not so. It is far easier to let your faith slip through your fingers while you aren't paying attention and a far worse penalty than to fail in proving your faith.

To be honest, I did not think I would have the opportunity to minister through this messaging service. I do admire your interest in the subject. Most would have rolled their eyes at the passage's meaning by now, especially those who were raised without a vested interest in the subject.

In my opinion, her complicity in Shakor's shenanigans make her very qualified to help bring him to account.