Intergalactic Summit

Data transmission as part of an on-going theological conversation regarding Amarr society and slavery:

Is slavery necessary for salvation? This is a question that many will rush to answer and in so doing they will lead those with weak minds into error. First one must distinguish what is meant here by slavery along with the scope of the question. Does it mean a specific institution practiced by a specific culture, or does it mean an intense state of submission? Does the question interrogate whether slavery is always necessary for salvation or whether it is only necessary for some? I will answer that the essence of what is meant by slavery is submission and that salvation cannot come about without submission. This submission, however, for those who freely choose it, can come about without the legal experience of humanly instituted slavery.

Indeed, I think that slavery as an intense state of submission can express both the estrangement between humanity and its Maker as well as the way to repair that estrangement. All humans serve something. For some it is their desire for pleasure, glory, or wealth. This kind of service is really to the self, and an individual led on by it is only loyal to political states and institutions out of self-interest or self-love. Such a person wishes to serve their state so that they can be glorified by it. Such a person wishes to work so they can become rich. Such a person wishes to struggle so they can dominate and take pleasure in others’ submission to them. Such a person wishes to do good so that they can believe themselves and be seen by others to be good. This is an inverted servitude, a twisted form of submission in which the individual becomes a slave to him or herself. Such a slave devotes himself to fulfilling the desires that he himself generates in a vicious, self-consuming circle.

The faithful seek to escape the vicious circle, and rather than servitude to themselves they submit to and then serve God. In this intense state of submission to something outside of the self the human is truly free, and (perhaps paradoxically in the eyes of the faithless) only when service is done for God is service done in the interest of other people really sincere.

Now here the faithless are accustomed to object that the faithful do what they do out of hope for reward themselves. This is the continuation of inverted thinking. It is to surpass this simple kind of hope that the faithful make themselves slaves to the divine will to do with them what it wills when it wills. The Lord owes us nothing, and we owe Him our service. Only when service without hope of reward is returned to human nature is true freedom achieved. This freedom from the petty servitude to the self is salvation, and this freedom can only be found in submission.

There are then two types of servitude led on by two submissions: submission to the self and submission to God. Submission to the self is a form of entrapping slavery. Submission to God is the slavery the makes one free.

Humankind, in need of reclaiming to God, resists the route to freedom, and it is for this reason that the Amarr resort to war and institute the social and legal practice of slavery to break down the barriers that prevent the cultivation of the spirit. The goal of Amarr servitude is the goal of salvation: to free the slaves of the self from themselves by teaching obedience to another outside the self. The idea is that the human master will fall away and be replaced by the Lord, who is the master of masters, and is Himself served by all masters. In response to this declaration, the unfaithful often say that they do not wish to be freed, and in this self-assured declaration they illustrate the necessity of the Amarr institution of slavery for many of the lost. One cannot choose to be free for such a state does not exist. One is either a slave to the self or a servant to God. The faithful have a moral obligation to return all human beings to God, to break them out of their self-made prisons. To falter from this obligation is immoral; it is to refuse help to a drowning man.

The faithful can pursue this obligation by routes outside violence, and people can be reclaimed to God by the initiation of their own wills. Those who wish to be free of themselves should then swear eternal service to the Lord. Those who do this will be well on their way to salvation, without the legal experience of humanly instituted slavery, but with a deeper abiding servitude to the Lord already realised.

Wow, the testes is strong in this one...

I think servants is a more applicable term.

We are at our strongest when we live for ourselves, our kin and those we love. The question is pointless anyway, the proper question is does one even need Amarrian salvation and the answer is invariably no.

If the Amarr want it, good for them, but if you try and force submission on someone they will always have a part of themselves that resists. To me that seems like it would defeat the very purpose.

It's not a forced belief, it something substantially more devious in nature. The word is indoctrination and it involves the exposure to and saturation of a particular belief or lifestyle until it appears normal in the eyes of the subject.

The Amarr are also not the only ones who practice it, they're simply more honest about doing it than most.

Though I know this sidetracks the conversation (my apologies to the author), I made no remark about their faith or their deity. Simply that they hold no pretense over the purpose of the practice of slavery in the Empire. That is what this entire thread is about, after all.

Yawn, more of the same old crap arguments as to why the Amarr are "right", how everyone else is doing the same thing but for their own selfish reasons, etc, etc.

Nothing new to see here folks. Move along.

No.

Your entire argument is based on a person believing in your make-believe god.

So like, you and yours can go play master and servant to your hearts' content for all I care.

But you don't. You take other people, against their will and force them to believe this twisted concept of necessary slavery.

How does it go? Non Servium. I will not serve. Not you, not your Empire, not your God. And I will do my level best to make sure no one else gets dragged into your bullsh*t against their will.

No abolition, no peace.

Watch Amarr burn.

Some of us already have.

Ladies and gentlemen, from this post onward the thread will fall to ****....

You have been warned, proceed at your own risk....