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[CLRGY] Is slavery necessary for salvation?

Author
Honorius Vitellius
ANZAC ALLIANCE
Goonswarm Federation
#21 - 2015-06-19 14:58:18 UTC
ValentinaDLM wrote:

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.


The disease that infects the corrupted will of humanity leads to the resistance that you describe as inevitable. This resistance is the cause of the Amarr institution of slavery. Those who feel as you describe will likely not achieve salvation, but their children might, if they are guided correctly through the process of the Reclaiming. This situation does not defeat the very purpose but rather constitutes the very purpose. The faithful pray that the lost will see the light, while obediently taking up the task of defeating the enemies of the outside and controlling the enemies found inside. This is our sacred burden.

Anabella Rella wrote:

Nothing new to see here folks. Move along.

I agree completely. God has always been present for the entirety of the estrangement of His creation from him. There is nothing new in the orbit of any sun. My words are part of the same harmony that has fallen upon the ears of the faithless for millennia. With each repetition, a few are saved. God has an eternity to effect His work, while the time of error is finite.
Isiana
School of The Recluses
#22 - 2015-06-19 15:00:27 UTC
A proper 'discussion' would require all involved parties to have a say in the matter.
Anslo
Scope Works
#23 - 2015-06-19 15:06:46 UTC
Same **** different day. One side escalates, the other does the same, extremist set in on both sides. News flash, both sides are immature pups until you shut the hell up and actually try having a civil discussion without one side making a reference to primitives or the other side making a reference to a God loving ass hat.

Seriously, why do you people do this?

[center]-_For the Proveldtariat_/-[/center]

Samira Kernher
Cail Avetatu
#24 - 2015-06-19 15:14:05 UTC
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.
Rhiannon Dellacorte
Liberty Vanguard
#25 - 2015-06-19 15:16:19 UTC
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.


How often are you satisfied, Kernher?

Rules of Acquisition #261

A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.

Anslo
Scope Works
#26 - 2015-06-19 15:20:54 UTC
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.

And what makes you think I'm speaking about the OP in any way? Did I say it was the OP? No. Did I say it was the escalation that followed? Yes.

It always happens. Both parties are guilty. Some well meaning guy or gal tries to start up a conversation about this to make progress, and extremists and bait posters on both sides **** it all up. Instead of people on both sides trying to de-escalate, they add fuel to the fire.

Then next week the same damn question of why can't there be peace between our people pop up and we start the cycle all over again with people flooding in to try and be the most 'patriotic' or whatever.

I have no problem with the OP. It's the idiots that come after I have problem with.

Try to not put words in my mouth, thanks in advance.

[center]-_For the Proveldtariat_/-[/center]

Utari Onzo
Escalated.
OnlyFleets.
#27 - 2015-06-19 15:33:46 UTC
Rhiannon Dellacorte wrote:
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.


How often are you satisfied, Kernher?


That was a rather crude jab at someone simply trying to defend our faith, Dellacorte. Dissapointing considering my positive view of you. Considering also my superior's reply to Mr Tetua was civily worded, and he has kindly offered clarification, my opinion of you just dropped a notch.

Now, I agree with Mr Tetua's view, rather sadly. The IGS just seems too immature a place to have these discussions. I still affirm my belief and support of the original poster's view point, and will happily have civil discorse on it with a dissenter. In private.

"Face the enemy as a solid wall For faith is your armor And through it, the enemy will find no breach Wrap your arms around the enemy For faith is your fire And with it, burn away his evil"

Maria Daphiti
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#28 - 2015-06-19 15:42:00 UTC
Rhiannon Dellacorte wrote:
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.


How often are you satisfied, Kernher?


More than you, I am sure.
Rhiannon Dellacorte
Liberty Vanguard
#29 - 2015-06-19 15:51:56 UTC
Maria Daphiti wrote:
Rhiannon Dellacorte wrote:
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.


How often are you satisfied, Kernher?


More than you, I am sure.


Oh, sweetie. You're too young to know anything for sure.

Rules of Acquisition #261

A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.

Samira Kernher
Cail Avetatu
#30 - 2015-06-19 15:53:45 UTC
Stop, please.
Rhiannon Dellacorte
Liberty Vanguard
#31 - 2015-06-19 15:57:13 UTC
Utari Onzo wrote:
Rhiannon Dellacorte wrote:
Samira Kernher wrote:
The original post was quite civil. If you feel that speaking our beliefs is not, then you are never going to be satisfied, Tetua.


How often are you satisfied, Kernher?


That was a rather crude jab at someone simply trying to defend our faith, Dellacorte. Dissapointing considering my positive view of you. Considering also my superior's reply to Mr Tetua was civily worded, and he has kindly offered clarification, my opinion of you just dropped a notch.


See, no. She's not defending the Faith. She's defending her perceived right to judge others for their sins while pretending she has none of her own. And as much as I respect a response that is civilly worded, it doesn't excuse the substance of her argument, which is just like yours. Tone policing. Complain if you must about the tone but don't use it as an excuse to dismiss the substance.

Rules of Acquisition #261

A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.

Rhiannon Dellacorte
Liberty Vanguard
#32 - 2015-06-19 15:58:18 UTC
Samira Kernher wrote:
Stop, please.


I saw this after I posted the above, but I'll stop from here. You can all find me on comms if you want to continue this, but I've derailed things enough here already.

Rules of Acquisition #261

A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.

Deitra Vess
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#33 - 2015-06-19 16:34:54 UTC
Honorius Vitellius wrote:


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.

Your absolutely right, all people serve something by their own dictation. They chose their master so to speak. So why is it right to allow these faithful people to stay within their own vicious cycle of “conquest in his name?” It really seems like the only major vicious cycle here is the shackles of this faith. The ones you have pointed out for the most part seem more isolated (obviously slavery not included in this) within all of us more so than actively seeking out to spread like a plague. When it comes down to it, isn’t seeking out others to indoctrinate them into a belief system they want no part of worse than leaving them to their own devices? You may want to bring people into his light or whatever, but does that mean that they want to leave the darkness?

Honorius Vitellius wrote:

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.

Isn’t pleasing your god by doing his bidding a reward? Being selfless in your actions would make those actions a reward in it’s own way I would think. Also, If they can in fact pursue this obligation in nonviolent ways, why have they not done so with any major entity? If there is another perceived way to reach your goal, why resort to invasion, orbital bombardment, and annihilation as opposed to the alternatives?
ValentinaDLM
SoE Roughriders
Electus Matari
#34 - 2015-06-19 17:04:23 UTC
Honorius Vitellius wrote:
ValentinaDLM wrote:

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.


The disease that infects the corrupted will of humanity leads to the resistance that you describe as inevitable. This resistance is the cause of the Amarr institution of slavery. Those who feel as you describe will likely not achieve salvation, but their children might, if they are guided correctly through the process of the Reclaiming. This situation does not defeat the very purpose but rather constitutes the very purpose. The faithful pray that the lost will see the light, while obediently taking up the task of defeating the enemies of the outside and controlling the enemies found inside. This is our sacred burden.


I was born into the Mandate and not as a slave, but a free woman. My parents are good faithful people dedicated to God, but I am not. It doesn't matter that several generations of my family have been converts, resistance can come from anyone. I am sure there are even True Amarr who are born who question their faith or even rebel against it. I sure as anything know I don't want my children when I have them, raised thinking that depriving someone of freedom and enslaving them is in any way justifiable.

The best solution is to let people who resist leave, them staying only contribute to social disharmony. There are tools I suppose you can use to control this disharmony, vitoc, TCMCs, and outright violence; but that. Just makes you a less effective version of Kuvakei.

Also if the Amarr were serious about obediently taking up the task of defeating their enemies from the outside why would they rely so heavily on a Caldari mercenary corporation against the TLF?
Jennifer Starfall
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#35 - 2015-06-19 17:21:47 UTC
Mr. Vitellius,

I think you're presenting a rather one-sided and frankly idealized view of slavery. You compare it to a submission to God, but submitting to God's Will is a conscious choice that we make as individuals. Even though you, and other Faithful Amarrians, feel that there is no other way than God's Will, you still have the freedom to choose whether or not to do so, and it's that choice that gives it significance. It is possible for you to sin, yet you choose not to.

A slave has that choice denied to them, whether by threat of corporal punishment, the threat of Vitoc being witheld, or the complete removal of will by TCMCs. They didn't "submit", they were forced.

You speak of slavery as if it were some kind of blessing, as if its recipients should be grateful. I have seen the effects of slavery on those saved. Ms. Kernher is one that I admire for her dedication to righteousness, but the scars that I see in her make me question the cost that was excised from her, a cost she did not choose to pay.

I believe God wants us to choose to be righteous, as in the act of choosing Good we are rejecting Evil. I know that I am hardly an example of being Faithful. But, I am closer to God than I was not just because of those who have served as beacons of His Light to me, but because I chose to move that direction. And every step that I take in His direction is more of a victory than every slave chained in His Light.

Jennifer Starfall

Fifth Seyllin Conference

Matar Ronin
#36 - 2015-06-19 17:27:05 UTC
The OP puts forth an argument in a smooth almost polite manner. That on one level makes it feel as if a two way dialogue would be encouraged.

If your God wanted slaves, and also created humanity with free will, one could easily conclude he wanted the slaves to voluntarily submit themselves to his will.

Somehow the amarrians feel compelled to over reach their status and God's decision to give all of humanity freewill, and impose their interpretation based on ever changing self serving scriptures being defined by people who profit from the labor of the enslaved populations and not from their conversion to the "faith".

I have seen no examples of humanly implemented slavery.

Forced slavery is by definition inhumane. Granted some slavers are far more brutal than others, but that is like saying a murderer is kinder than a mass murderer.

I can easily argue based upon centuries of indisputable empirical data publicly available to even the school children of the three other Empires that amarrians enslave people because they want two things primarily, one to get a workforce that serves their every whim and desire from hazardous to intimate, and two so they can feel superior to all the other humans in the cluster.

These are observations that can be proven by impartial facts easily accessible to all of us and not dependent upon any particular religious perspective.

I submit that the question of forced slavery being God's divine will is easily answered by God's creation of freewill, he could have made it instinctual for us all to be slaves if that was his true divine desire.

Thus I, and I suspect most reasonable people would also, conclude any argument that states it is his true divine desire defies the impartial facts we all can see and is both clearly completely false an illogical.

‘Vain flame burns fast/and its lick is light/Modest flame lasts long/and burns to the bone.’

" We lost a war we chose not to fight." Without a doubt this is the best way to lose any war and the worst excuse to explain the beating afterwards.

Jennifer Starfall
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#37 - 2015-06-19 17:54:13 UTC
Rhiannon Dellacorte wrote:
See, no. She's not defending the Faith. She's defending her perceived right to judge others for their sins while pretending she has none of her own. And as much as I respect a response that is civilly worded, it doesn't excuse the substance of her argument, which is just like yours. Tone policing. Complain if you must about the tone but don't use it as an excuse to dismiss the substance.


No, Rhiannon, she doesn't pretend she has no sin. She, in fact, believes the opposite. And it's her view of herself that her slavery has instilled in her that makes slavery so questionable to me.

Jennifer Starfall

Fifth Seyllin Conference

Jade Blackwind
#38 - 2015-06-19 18:17:08 UTC
Samira Kernher wrote:
Jade Blackwind wrote:
I think that those who sincerely follow the logic thoroughly explained by OP should have a taste of their own medicine. Eye for an eye and whatnot. A few decades in working camps assigned to menial tasks of city infrastructure maintenance, with pervasive cultural indoctrination in the spare time should be enough.

Basically, cleaning sewage pipes, sorting landfills and learning some obscure dead language and rituals (Starkmanir?) for the rest of their lives.

To cultivate the spirit of man.


Some of us already have.
Oh no, Samira. I'm not talking about you, or other loyal, truely believing slaves. Regarding you and your likes, I can only step away and say that I'm sorry, or I understand, or, If we meet on the battlefield, to put your clone out of its misery like any other capsuleer would.

That sewage repair, landfill recycle and forced studies of old Starkmanir, I'd like to see applied to your benevolent masters.
Liam Antolliere
Doomheim
#39 - 2015-06-19 22:49:08 UTC
Kontrahage wrote:
True, the Federation does the very same and if a group under it's contol dissents and chooses to secede they respond with fire and death all for the cause of the dissenters' "freedom".
Only here the purpose is not to bring those subjugated to their salvation but merely to increase the subjugator's power.


Make no mistake, the Federation does indeed practice indoctrination and I'll not pretend otherwise. It is also quite subtle about it and far less overt in its practice of it. In fact, it was to the Federation I was referring in my original point.

However, the rest of your post is horribly misinformed and blatantly misrepresented. This is not the place for me to debate it, however, so I'll simply state that if you wish to discuss the finer points of your assertions, feel free to contact me and we can do so.

"Though the people may hate me, that does not relieve me of my charge."

Sinjin Mokk
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#40 - 2015-06-20 00:58:43 UTC
Isiana wrote:
A proper 'discussion' would require all involved parties to have a say in the matter.



No it wouldn't.

A proper discussion would involve the clergy, go up to the Theology Council and then be spread through the Empire from the top down. Not all parties have a say in this matter because that's how the Empire operates. If a person wants to "freely express themselves," they should go live in the Federation.

So unless you're of the Amarr faith, anyone's opinion in this thread is worth less than the calories burned to express it.

"Angels live, they never die, Apart from us, behind the sky. They're fading souls who've turned to ice, So ashen white in paradise."

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