Eternity Eora Theology Discussion: Is Skaen an analogue to Early Christianity?

[Arulan]

Four pages of discussion on the deities of Eora and comparisons with Christianity.

This is why I love the Codex.

 

[Delterius]

Sure, although maybe a better way to put it is that Marx had Christian moral values (egalitarianism, universalism—they just have a very different definition of salvation).

Sure, that is slightly more palatable. But according to the logic espoused in this thread the inverse is just as acceptable. Jesus was a marxist because some vaguely defined notion of class struggle. That's ridiculous.

The more you reduce things to vaguely defined elements, the more pointless parallels you can find. Hope. Self sacrifice. Martyrdom. These words take on a million different forms and meanings. They aren't all "parallels" to one another.

You yourself used the term 'class war' with not real regard for the specifics of it.

And by God, you can find any parallel you want when you do that. I could say that Eothas is a parallel of Islam because they are both systems of faith that promise virtuous conducts in life.

Early Christianity was revolutionary and did not teach obedience—why else the lions?

Skaen also brings the sword.

Skaen doesn't 'also' bring the sword.

Skaen IS the sword, used in the goriest way imaginable.

That's where the parallel breaks down completely: the moment you actually know ANYTHING WHATSOEVER about Skaen or anything that is being discussed.

I read that as a twisted reflection of the immaculate conception.

Again, if you don't actually stop and think about what these things actually are you can trace any cool sounding parallel you want.

The immaculate conception is an absolute God implanting a divine child into the womb of a mortal woman.

The effigy are flesh puppets, golems of hate and resentment created from willing sacrifices.

These things are nothing like the other.

Just as the effigy is a twisted reflection of the crucifiction.

One is God, the son sacrificing himself in order to redeem the sins of all mankind up to that point.

The other is a bunch of people drinking freshly picked noble blood and gouging their eyes out to become dervishes of death and destruction.

These two are nothing like the other as well.

No one is saying that Christ is morally equivalent to the Skaen cult,

We aren't arguing the morality of anything. Just that apples, ~~amazingly~~, aren't oranges. Even though one can trace the incredibly informative parallel that they are both fruits.

 

[Ulfhednar]

More importantly, Matthew 10.34:

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Skaen would tell you to murder these people, though. That's a lot different than saying get prepared to be stabbed by those closest to you for following what you believe.

That may not be how Christianity is today, let alone sees itself today, but the Church was a lot more militant about these things 1800 years ago. Skaen also brings the sword.

That's the point though - in it's earliest stages, Christianity wasn't militant AT ALL. It's biggest selling point was its martyrs.

 

[Lacrymas]

What I'm saying is not vaguely defined and we've mentioned a lot of parallels to Christianity, not a single thing. The hope that you think is vague is the hope of being liberated from your oppression by your god, how is that vague? The difference is that Skaen does it now instead of after death. The self sacrifice/martyrdom that you think is vague is the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to take up the sins of his chosen, and the self sacrifice of a person to be made into the Effigy to take up the burdens (oppression) of his chosen. How are those things vague?

The parallels between the Immaculate Conception and the spirit of vengeance thing is impregnating a mortal woman with the seed of a god who will bring about the goals of the religion. How is that vague? The problem here is the writing of the cult of Skaen, being treated as horror movie cliches rather than a serious exploration, not of the idea itself.

 

[Delterius]

The hope that you think is vague is the hope of being liberated from your oppressors by your god, how is that vague?

How are you liberated from oppressors?

That's the single, most basic piece of scrutiny I can offer.

If in defining your point any further completely implodes the argument, then just let it die already.

The self sacrifice/martyrdom that you think is vague is the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to take up the sins of his chosen, and the sacrifice of a person to be made into the Effigy to take up the burdens (oppression) of his chosen.

Completely wrong.

The Effigy does not 'take up burdens'. It murderfucks and tortures its enemies.

The Crucifiction isn't about how we should totally crucify every pagan in the empire. It is one holy person dying for the benefits of all others.

Again, you think its interesting to point out Apples and Oranges are both fruit. I extend my jazz hands for you. But they are not the same.

 

[Lacrymas]

You are liberated from your oppressors by scheming and plotting with Skaen's blessing or that you go to Heaven where you'll be forever washed in the Love of God (i.e. no oppression) and the certainty in both religions that your oppressors will be punished. At least the modern version, Kyl von Kull offers a more ...ancient solution. The Effigy does alleviate oppression, no idea how you can even argue that. Sure, it does it by murdering, but I've already stated too many times that Skaen is proactive in its liberation. Or have you not realized yet that it's a twisted reflection?

 

[Delterius]

You are liberated from your oppressors by scheming and plotting with Skaen's blessing or that you go to Heaven where you'll be forever washed in the Love of God (i.e. no oppression).

If the goal of Skaen is to bring about the end of oppression, then riddle me this:

Why does he support Woedica?

 

[Lacrymas]

We don't know yet, if we'll ever know. My interpretation is that he thinks Woedica's power is being suppressed by the other gods (which is true) or he thinks he'll gain a valuable ally in scheming against the other gods (Durance mentions that Skaen and his faithful rarely act alone if you sacrifice someone in the blood pool) or both. I also wouldn't say that his goal is bringing about the end of oppression, just giving the means to freedom to the oppressed. If any god can truly have an ultimate "goal" they work towards.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yes, hatred, violence and bloody retribution isn't Christian, but him being on the side of the oppressed is, which is what is important in the context I bring up and which is the Christian aspect of it. He can be both at the same time! Shocking, I know.

+ the last few pages...



P.S. Lacrymas, you're crazy.

 

[yes plz]

Given that Skaen's response to most Effigys is apparently "lol fuck off" and the last time one worked led to a bloody revolt that ended with a noble family flayed alive, and that according to the wiki the POE2 encyclopedia mentions "In Dyrwood, Skaen's faithful often double as torturers and executioners, delighting in the fall of high-status prisoners", plus that Skaen abandons those who reach a higher station in life, I'd say Skaen cares more about hurting (and in the most painful ways possible) those in authority than he does genuinely helping the oppressed.

This could also explain why he currently supports Woedica: it hurts the gods currently in authority.

 

[CptMace]

I find his comparison between christianity and Skaen very interesting. Looks like it has proven worthy of discussion, according to the said last few pages.
Crazy, sure, but interestingly so.

 

[Delterius]

We don't know yet. My interpretation is that he thinks Woedica's power is being suppressed by the other gods (which is true) or he thinks he'll gain a valuable ally in scheming against the other gods (Durance mentions that Skaen and his faithful rarely act alone if you sacrifice someone in the blood pool) or both.

And yet he'd risk bringing about the Queen Goddess of Oppression and Nobiliarchy?

So maybe liberation isn't Skaen's promise. Almost like the more you know about the things being discussed, the more laughable any comparisons become. But I digress -- if Skaen's promise was liberation, he'd oppose the God of hierarchies until her bitter end. Not just until she's down.

The heart of the answer to that question lies in the fact that Skaen is one god of a pantheon, with a very special ethos. He's the God of secret hatred, resentment and rebellion. He's not antithetic to oppresion. He thrives in it. His is not the promise to liberate all peasants everywhere. Magran and especially Eothas would be better equipped to fulfill that goal, either in promising strength to all who can take it or a never ending cycle of forgiveness and rebirth. Skaen, on the other hand, never forgets and never forgives. He offers revenge as its own reward. That's the Effigy. Not an altruistic sacrifice by a caring God to redeem his flock. But a desperate attempt to summon Pinhead and deliver pain, destruction and torture upon the powerful. That's a pretty big difference. And that's why your example is neither useful not very interesting.

You can probably draw as many parallels between real world religions and all of the Gods of Eora. But they aren't all the same. Just as not every act of self sacrifice are parallels of one other just because they are sacrifices of the self.

 

[CptMace]

You guys realise that if a designer for Deadfire ever reads this thread, he's gonna be sweating bullets at the degree of scrutiny and the attention to details displayed here. Gives me a good chuckle. Good stuff.
On another note, I finally know why "I'd be the effigy" is a common expression in poe. I had no idea what the effigy was, whatsoever.

 

[pomenitul]

I was once told about aspiring rabbis who, for their final examination, would be tasked with proving that eating insects is kosher (locusts notwithstanding). The purpose was to stretch their argumentative abilities to their breaking point and beyond, as no test is more telling than the encounter with the impossible. I sometimes wonder whether Lacrymas is using the Codex in a similar manner, practicing his rhetorical scales, as it were.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Sure, that is slightly more palatable. But according to the logic espoused in this thread the inverse is just as acceptable. Jesus was a marxist because some vaguely defined notion of class struggle. That's ridiculous.

Jesus was a communist because he preached communal ownernship of property. He and his followers basically lived on a kibbutz—read the book of acts. Oceans of ink have been spilled on the subject. It’s certainly open to debate, but given that the Pope agrees with me, I’m going to say that the idea is not ridiculous.

One is God, the son sacrificing himself in order to redeem the sins of all mankind up to that point.

The other is a bunch of people drinking freshly picked noble blood and gouging their eyes out to become dervishes of death and destruction.

These two are nothing like the other as well.

If we’re going to take these faiths on their own terms, it’s absurd to draw a distinction between physical and spiritual violence. Christians don’t need to punish their oppressors because their god will do it for them in the afterlife. In fact, that’s worse than anything Skaen’s people can do to your body. A big part of the sales pitch for the early church was that you, the downtrodden will be saved, while the powerful will be punished for eternity. Yahweh just does the job himself rather than outsourcing it to his followers.

This dynamic of “we the weak are saved, you the strong are not” is among the reasons why I don’t have much trouble accepting the notion of early Christianity (and even modern Christianity) as driven by a kind of sublimated vengeance. This is not some novel idea I’m pulling out of my own ass. It’s been a consistent theme of the religion’s critics from Tacitus to Julian the apostate to Nietzsche.

How many other religions are built on the revenge fantasies of the poor and the downtrodden? Maybe early Judaism, which becomes Christianity, but I can’t think of another. Islam was an elite phenomenon, same for nearly every kind of polytheism. Buddhism falls into the ressentiment category but it lacks the divine vengeance component.

You say Skaen is the god of secret hatred and rebellion; so was Yahweh! That’s
my point!

Oh, well, passive resistance is not the same as violent resistance. The early Christians saw themselves and described themselves as rebels.

As for Skaen’s motives versus Yahweh and son? I’m more concerned with their followers. Is Skaen a true champion of the oppressed? Maybe not, but neither is Jesus. He just creates a new class of winners and losers called the saved and the damned. I’d certainly rather be tormented by Skaen for years—not that his victims last that long—than tormented by Yahweh forever.

Besides, as an a omnipotent, omniscient deity, Yahweh’s motives are ineffable—see book of Job. But since the Old Testament is also canonical, and there’s a lot of bad shit in there, the proposition that those motives are entirely benevolent is not a slam dunk.

 

[Lacrymas]

And yet he'd risk bringing about the Queen Goddess of Oppression and Nobiliarchy?

We don't know why he does it. He might be doing it because bringing about oppression is the only way he can be validated because he can end it, he'll just switch his loyalties after the act is done and begin anew. Kind of like someone irl creating problems they then solve so they can be hailed as a hero. Don't forget that they are programs which have specific tasks and Skaen is a twisted reflection of a savior, so I wouldn't put such a scheme beneath him.

 

[FreeKaner]

This thread has more effort spent into general philosophy of PoE's Pantheon than the developers ever have.

 

[CptMace]

RPGCodex delivers the true pnp experience yet again. The players are the one crafting the plot and world for the DM by their own debates. Now it takes a good DM to make anything good with it, of course.

 

[Delterius]

Jesus was a communist because he preached communal ownernship of property.

Jesus wasn't a dialectical materialist. He wasn't a marxist and he wasn't a communist. These words pertain to ideologies and an ideal from a specific period of history and they, in fact, deny a great deal of what makes up christianity.

Christians don’t need to punish their oppressors because their god will do it for them in the afterlife. In fact, that’s worse than anything Skaen’s people can do to your body. A big part of the sales pitch for the early church was that you, the downtrodden will be saved, while the powerful will be punished for eternity. Yahweh just does the job himself rather than outsourcing it to his followers.

So you're saying they are in fact different in a very large number of ways that go beyond the umbrellas of adjectives? What a shocker.

This dynamic of “we the weak are saved, you the strong are not”

But that's neither Christian nor Skaenite.

Skaen saves nobody. No one is supposed to be safe from Rymrgand.

Christ doesn't just save the weak or the oppressed. Not according to any church tradition that I know of. The Catholic Church in particular has a strong notion of salvation through works, which for the powerful is a form of 'noblesse oblige'.

And you should really re-read Nietzsche in particular. Because he never said something so basically wrong like that. If anything, Nietzsche proves my point. Skaen has nothing to do with Christianity. One is vengeance incarnate, rebellion. If anything, Nietzsche's Christianity is a hypocritical Megachurch of Eothas-Woedica.

 

[Lacrymas]

Christians don’t need to punish their oppressors because their god will do it for them in the afterlife. In fact, that’s worse than anything Skaen’s people can do to your body. A big part of the sales pitch for the early church was that you, the downtrodden will be saved, while the powerful will be punished for eternity. Yahweh just does the job himself rather than outsourcing it to his followers.

So you're saying they are in fact different in a very large number of ways that go beyond the umbrellas of adjectives? What a shocker.

You say they are different, but they aren't, so no idea what to make of that. The only difference is in the time period, one punishes NOW, while the other punishes in the afterlife for the same things. The important part is a step behind that, the certainty in both religions that your oppressors will be punished.

Skaen saves nobody. No one is supposed to be safe from Rymrgand.

He saves as much as it is 'permitted' in the established cosmology of PoE. Again, it's an issue of a time period, not ideas or philosophies.

 

[Delterius]

The only difference is in the time period, one punishes NOW, while the other punishes in the afterlife for the same things.

Actually, you're wrong. Again. And, once again, in a very obvious way.

The christian God has a much longer list of what is permissable and what isn't than 'don't be oppressive'.

Unless of course you think that 'don't act in a way I consider bad and act in a way I consider good or else' is yet another parallel between Eora and Christianity.

He saves as much as it is 'permitted' in the established cosmology of PoE. Again, it's an issue of a time period, not ideas or philosophies.

No he doesn't. Nobody is Saved in PoE. There's no heaven. Everyone reincarnates.

Which, again, is another Really Big Difference between Eora and Christianity.

 

[Ziggy]

Skaen is usually depicted as a small, bald man

worrisome theological implications

 

[Jenkem]

WE WUZ SKAENZ

 

[Efe]

i thought souls were slowly ground to dust by each rebirth rather than rymrgand having a hand in it.
they just gave him that pantheon.
do believers even influence gods in any way? they have their cycle and its irrelavant to anything else, much less worship of others.
following this, what incentive does skaen have for helping woedica or perpetuating suffering?

 

[Lacrymas]

Actually, you're wrong. Again. And, once again, in a very obvious way.

The christian God has a much longer list of what is permissable and what isn't than 'don't be oppressive'.

Unless of course you think that 'don't act in a way I consider bad and act in a way I consider good or else' is yet another parallel between Eora and Christianity.

But we are talking specifically about oppression because that's what Skaen is about, we aren't talking about the entirety of Christianity, so that point is moot. I've said from the beginning that I don't mean Skaen = Whole of Christianity, that's just insane and missing the point.

No he doesn't. Nobody is Saved in PoE. There's no heaven. Everyone reincarnates.

Which, again, is another Really Big Difference between Eora and Christianity.

Nobody's soul is saved because they'll either reincarnate or disappear, but they are 'saved' in the current, physical life. That is in line with the other things of Skaen, his punishments are also physical. As opposed to Christianity, where the soul is what is being saved or punished, almost as if Skaen is a twisted reflection of that.