Intergalactic Summit

Is it wrong to expect that the apparent political chief of a system called Origin, would be... original in their writings ?

Hahahaaaa, original.

PUNSTOPPABLE!

So, you believe that the way I addressed it was unsatisfactory... ? I am sorry that I failed to convey my message, then I guess...

The Amarr God is not a truth, it is an axiom before anything. An axiom as sure as the logical premises set up as foundation to any proper scientific method.

Epistemologically it cannot be refuted.

What can be discussed however, is not the Divine, the realm of belief, but its interpretation.

What most people fail to do, including a lot of Amarr, is to make the clear cut distinction between what the Divine, or God, is, and what the Divine stands for. The former is its definition and very existence, and denying it would be denying the Universe itself. The latter, is the layer of morality, or sometimes even the face, that believers and non believers alike will put on it.

Reclaiming, fatherly figures, good and evil, and every other moral deed, are distinct to the very being of God.



Far from me the intention to uh... put myself in any shining light - for that I may well be wrong - but I could do exactly that if you want, since I have actually studied many religions. Of course though, I am not theologian in any of those... But I believe it makes me less.. er... biased.

And ah... I humbly think that Ms Riordan explanation is populist and demagogic, at best... For that it completely ignores any notion of epistemology in the process, and shows a certain... lack of understanding of what is Faith and belief.

I do not think it is about believing in a giant sky wizard or an alien in the hangar...

To clarify though, I do... believe that most full fledged religions share the same basic God premise. What they disagree on, is what that God stands for, how to depict it, and how to follow it.

What's in a God?
That complex manifold of space and thought
that visits saints and harvests sinners,
though never seen on sensors and whose hands are rarely caught
dipping in the cookie jar. Or are they? I think
that God is made of fools and winners,
and rocks and trees and fish, and the summer wine which I have brought
to this dinner table shared between us. What's in a God, you ask? What's not?

"Imperfect" ...

Ha.

For me, it's not a matter of a childhood memory gone fuzzy or a fact I need to relearn. My memory, my whole existence, is gone.

... what's more, that's probably for the best.

I'm a different person, yes-- because, for me, the discontinuity is absolute. I have no past beyond about four months ago; only knowledge.

That is what divides me from my "original". By comparison, even the experiential break if I had to revert to a backup seems like a minor bit of forgetfulness.

A simple emergency clone transfer, respectfully, doesn't begin to compare.

I... recently reverted to a save dating back to 3 years ago... And no, I do not feel to be the same person than the... other, even if I kept all my memories beyond that 3 years point...

Even if it was only a matter of minutes, it would be the same.. divergence... discontinuity.

Not exactly, though the situation is similar to what might have happened if the original had suffered amnesia.

... although, few amnesiacs live under the suspicion that there's literally another person out there who lived, and remembers, everything they've forgotten, and who could one day literally come back to claim their lives.

That's one main difference, to me. The Aria Jenneth infomorph has been missing for years, and I don't think I represent her return. It's more likely that I'm a usurper, created by her enemies.

I think that the current "me" is more clearly the same sapient entity who woke up desperately confused on a clone bay floor, able to recognize and put names to her surroundings but unable to remember ... anything.

Even though I've jump cloned since then, I still think I'm that same entity. I'll probably be emergency-cloned at some point, too ... and I'll still consider myself more or less the same being, after.


My case was sabotage, not error. Someone created me purposefully; that's another reason I think of myself as a separate person.

I don't expect I'm unique. I don't even expect I'll be the last to be attacked in this way, whether or not I'm the first.

In the end, we're ultimately arguing semantics, or maybe just ways for thinking about ourselves. The reality is what it is, and won't change based on how we think about it. The main thing we change, that way, is ourselves.

That said, if I'm blind to my past, it's because I was purposefully blinded. I tell myself it's for the best. I'm happier, now. Most of the time, I really believe it's better this way.

It's still ... hard for me to hear that you feel like you've gone blind because your eyesight's not quite as good as it was.

Thank you very much! You're very kind :)
it's best to leave the hate behind.

Not necessarily. Let's assume that something, a sentient entity which exists beyond the capabilities of our current scientific apparatus, makes contact and tells humans that it had created the entire universe.

If it is self-aware, there is a possibility that it can lie.

You should separate the primitive myths and tomes upon tomes of crude history and ancient common law written by the ancestors of the Amarr people from the truth. That something may exist - and use the primitive humans as its agents -- and whether it had really created New Eden are two entirely different assumptions.

Something may call itself a God and lie to people, pursuing goals of its own. It does not mean that this malevolent intelligence does not exist.

In fact, the "test of faith" and other supposed contradictions have perfect sense if we assume that:

- The entity in question had neither created our universe nor the human race(s)
- The entity in question is not omnipotent and omniscient
- The entity in question is not inherently benevolent, can lie and has a set of its own goals unknown to the human followers
- The entity in question depends on the mortal agents to expand its sphere of influence.

Especially if we assume if this entity is but one of many. Even if it may be (currently) the strongest.

Silvox, the Amarrian god makes no claims of Omnibenevolence, so that's not really an issue actually.

Lyn, I think the issue I have with what you say is this, you refer to God as an abstract background divinity laced into the universe in a pantheistic fashion. God serves as a first cause and a skeleton on which the universe is built. Ignoring the Unmoved Mover debate and why the universe itself can't be the unmoved mover, (or claiming that God is the universe), its not too crazy an idea. Maybe the universe is sentient and 'God' is the sum of all intelligences acting within the system? That's fine, because under that premise, God has no attributes beyond the attributes the universe itself possesses. God imparts no morals and judgements on the universe, God simply is the universe. That argument you can make easily enough, I don't personally believe there's sufficient evidence for this, but I'm willing to admit its plausibility.

The issue though, comes about when God starts to be assigned specific attributes, morals, judgements, sentience, rules, etc. And those attributes are then used to justify forcing things on other people in the name of this God. As soon as that happens, the argument that God is simply the canvas on which the universe is drawn falls apart. At that point, God becomes much more falsifiable, because how can the universe itself have morals? Where is the Gods Justice Molecule? Where is the Righteousness Atom?

I also disagree vehemently in making the Amarr God or any other god axiomatic. I disagree with the idea of an unquestionable axiom in general, and I don't think its epistemologically bankrupt to say that. You seem to be under the impression that you can't avoid having an unquestionable axiom at some point because you need a foundation to build on. But that doesn't mean that the axiom must simply be accepted, cannot be questioned, and is impervious to justification or examination. I don't even want to say something that sounds like it might allow a single exception to the rule that everything needs justification.

Which is, itself, a dangerous sort of motivation; you can't always avoid everything that might be risky, and when someone annoys you by saying something silly, you can't reverse that stupidity to arrive at intelligence.

But I would nonetheless once more emphasize the difference between saying:

"Here is this assumption I cannot justify, which must be simply taken, and not further examined."

Versus saying:

"Here the inquiry continues to examine this assumption, with the full force of my present intelligence—as opposed to the full force of something else, like a random number generator or a magic 8-ball—even though my present intelligence happens to be founded on this assumption."

Everything, without exception, needs justification. Sometimes—unavoidably, as far as I can tell—those justifications will go around in reflective loops. I do think that reflective loops have a meta-character which should enable one to distinguish them, by common sense, from circular logics. Its not perfect, but its a damn sight better then simply declaring a halt to questioning.