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

[Jenkem]

Lacrymas you should submit this thread to Feargus to get hired as POE Loremaster

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

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, 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.

Did I call Jesus a Marxist? I was very careful to say communist because he practiced a kind of primitive communism. The Jesuits may disagree, but there are a ton of Latin American bishops who’d agree with me.

Re: Nietzsche, what are you reading? He uses Christianity as exhibit A for ressentiment, master-slave morality, etc... He does distinguish between the enervated modern church and old time religion, but it’s more a distinction of degree than kind.

I think Lacrymas and I are talking more about the belief system than the metaphysics. The religion more than the deity. The argument I’m making would still be true even if Skaen, like Yahweh, was a myth.

tl;dr Skaen is not Christ/Yahweh, but the Skaenite cult has an awful lot in common with the early Christian cult.

FYI, just in case you were banking on good works, the Catholic Church made it clear that good works are evidence of salvation but they don’t actually earn you any salvation points—this was decades ago when they stopped anathematizing the Protestants. They now claim that it was ever thus; the whole reformation was apparently a big misunderstanding. Predestination is hard to avoid when you make your deity all powerful and all knowing. But predestination makes the salvation/damntion distinction 100% arbitrary and capricious.

 

[Delterius]

But we are talking specifically about oppression because that's what Skaen is about

That's what Skaen's ally, Woedica, is about. Skaen is about resentment.

We've already estabilished that Skaen isn't defined by oppression, because otherwise he'd be Woedica's enemy to the bitter end. And for that matter he'd more promptly answer calls for Effigies.

Skaen is instead the god of vengeance, which is its own reward.

As it happens, the Whole of Christianity does matter for the essence of its elements. The meaning of martyrdom and self sacrifice for a christian isn't the same for a skaenite.

There's no Crucifiction Megazord that sends people to hell. When a peasant suffers at the hand of his liege, they may in turn be virtuous people. That would secure their entry into Heaven. Alas, being a good christian does not send sinners to Hell. Their own sins do.

Nobody's soul is saved because they'll either reincarnate or disappear, but they are 'saved' in the current, physical life.

Saved and 'saved' aren't the same thing. Hence your own use of quotation marks. When someone is Saved in christianity, that is done via Grace. Its a positive discrimination.

Nobody is Saved by Skaen because that is neither his purvew, purpose nor even a thing in the Engwithan Faith. Nor does Skaen offer respite from oppression. He offers punishment. Again, that is its own reward. Not a means to an end. The Hellraiser Murdegore is the end of all sacrifice towards effigies and assorted skaen rituals.

Again. Self sacrifice is a term which can take on an infinite number forms and meanings. Just because something is a kind of selfsame sacrifice does not mean they are similar or related. Which demonstrably isn't the case here.

 

[Lacrymas]

Actually, Woedica is the goddess of vengeance, not Skaen. From Ziets himself -

So what was her story? According to her followers, she had once claimed rulership over all the other gods. But if that was true, she was cast down in the far distant past. Among the other gods, she has no real allies, believing that all the gods owe her fealty. She claims the portfolios of law, rightful rulership, memory, and vengeance. And she manifests in the world as the Strangler, a leathery-skinned old woman, always clad in tattered finery, who appears on an empty road or abandoned alleyway to murder those who break a solemn oath.

We have not "established that Skaen isn't defined by oppression", quite the contrary. Woedica is oppressed, at least she thinks she is, and Skaen is helping her out of that rut and gaining a valuable ally against the other gods who are the oppressors. He may change his loyalties quickly after that. Hell, he might be the one who brought about Woedica's downfall in the first place by scheming with Magran. Everything else you are saying is simply missing the point. Skaen does save people from their oppressors, I used quotation marks because I wanted to make a distinction between saving the physical body/mind and the soul. He doesn't offer punishment, he promises it to his faithful, directed at their oppressors.

As for Nietzsche, I think this is the relevant discussion -

Spoiler

Nietzsche’s famous answer is unflattering to our modern conception. He insists that the transformation was the result of a “slave revolt in morality” (GM I, 10; cf. BGE 260). The exact nature of this alleged revolt is a matter of ongoing scholarly controversy (in recent literature, see Bittner 1994; Reginster 1997; Migotti 1998; Ridley 1998; May 1999: 41–54; Leiter 2002: 193–222; Janaway 2007: 90–106, 223–9; Owen 2007: 78–89; Wallace 2007; Anderson 2011; Poellner 2011), but the broad outline is clear enough. People who suffered from oppression at the hands of the noble, excellent, (but uninhibited) people valorized by good/bad morality—and who were denied any effective recourse against them by relative powerlessness—developed a persistent, corrosive emotional pattern of resentful hatred against their enemies, which Nietzsche calls ressentiment. That emotion motivated the development of the new moral concept <evil>, purpose-designed for the moralistic condemnation of those enemies. (How conscious or unconscious—how “strategic” or not—this process is supposed to have been is one matter of scholarly controversy.) Afterward, via negation of the concept of evil, the new concept of goodness emerges, rooted in altruistic concern of a sort that would inhibit evil actions. Moralistic condemnation using these new values does little by itself to satisfy the motivating desire for revenge, but if the new way of thinking could spread, gaining more adherents and eventually influencing the evaluations even of the nobility, then the revenge might be impressive—indeed, “the most spiritual” form of revenge (GM I, 7; see also GM I, 10–11). For in that case, the revolt would accomplish a “radical revaluation” (GM I, 7) that would corrupt the very values that gave the noble way of life its character and made it seem admirable in the first place.

For Nietzsche, then, our morality amounts to a vindictive effort to poison the happiness of the fortunate (GM III, 14), instead of a high-minded, dispassionate, and strictly rational concern for others. This can seem hard to accept, both as an account of how the valuation of altruistic concern originated and even more as a psychological explanation of the basis of altruism in modern moral subjects, who are far removed from the social conditions that figure in Nietzsche’s story. That said, Nietzsche offers two strands of evidence sufficient to give pause to an open minded reader. In the Christian context, he points to the surprising prevalence of what one might call the “brimstone, hellfire, and damnation diatribe” in Christian letters and sermons: Nietzsche cites at length a striking example from Tertullian (GM I, 15), but that example is the tip of a very large iceberg, and it is a troubling puzzle what this genre of “vengeful outbursts” (GM I, 16) is even doing within (what is supposed to be) a religion of love and forgiveness. Second, Nietzsche observes with confidence-shaking perspicacity how frequently indignant moralistic condemnation itself, whether arising in serious criminal or public matters or from more private personal interactions, can detach itself from any measured assessment of the wrong and devolve into a free-floating expression of vengeful resentment against some (real or imagined) perpetrator. The spirit of such condemnations is disturbingly often more in line with Nietzsche’s diagnosis of altruism than it is with our conventional (but possibly self-satisfied) moral self-understanding.

 

[Delterius]

Did I call Jesus a Marxist? I was very careful to say communist because he practiced a kind of primitive communism. The Jesuits may disagree, but there are a ton of Latin American bishops who’d agree with me.

And as Latin American I know what you're talking about. I can also distinguish between Liberation Theology and Communism, because you see -- words have meanings that go beyond cherry picked elements. And the greater the cherry picking, the more embarrassing our conclusions become.

Used to be marxists considered Jesus the very first communists. And today those same people realize that's a ridiculous thing to say. Again, because words have meanings that go beyond cherry picked elements and vaguely drawn parallels.

Re: Nietzsche, what are you reading? He uses Christianity as exhibit A for ressentiment, master-slave morality, etc... He does distinguish between the enervated modern church and old time religion, but it’s more a distinction of degree than kind.

Nietzsche at no point claimed that the Church's vice is that its emphasis on the weak and the ugly was preached on revolutionary terms. But rather due to instilled passivity combined with resentment. As a strategy of population control. Skaen does not control anybody. He unleashes them. Woedica, on the other hand, does. And Nietzsche's view on christianity is much more of a parallel to a theoretical combine of Woedica that uses Eothas' virtues as a foil to make the flock more docile.

I think Lacrymas and I are talking more about the belief system than the metaphysics. The religion more than the deity. The argument I’m making would still be true even if Skaen, like Yahweh, was a myth.

If you are then you're making some pretty silly mistakes. Like saying only the weak are Saved in christianity. Or that Skaen saves at all.

The argument you're making isn't untrue. Its just uninteresting and very shallow. Just as Apples and Oranges are both fruit, yet completely different.

tl;dr Skaen is not Christ/Yahweh, but the Skaenite cult has an awful lot in common with the early Christian cult.

And just as you said, both of them have a lot in common with Communism.

If that's not stretching the definition of words, then everything is the same. As long as we can argue about it.

FYI, just in case you were banking on good works, the Catholic Church made it clear that good works are evidence of salvation but they don’t actually earn you any salvation points—this was decades ago when they stopped anathematizing the Protestants. They now claim that it was ever thus; the whole reformation was apparently a big misunderstanding. Predestination is hard to avoid when you make your deity all powerful and all knowing. But predestination makes the salvation/damntion distinction 100% arbitrary and capricious.

I'm not banking on anything. Your argument is what desperately requires one element out of 2000 years of theology to be significant. I only point out all the differences and see it all crashing down.

 

[Infinitron]

G Ziets Your presence is required in this thread.

 

[FreeKaner]

I doubt he is a frequent visitor somehow.

 

[Sizzle]

Why does he support Woedica?

Not just her, he also supports Rymrgand and Ondra. Here, too, do we see how their programming is almost all-encompassing when it comes to their actions - he cannot help himself to strike at the chance to see all the gods cast down with Woedica's ascension, yet he still plots behind her back as well. The only important thing being that someone loses and suffers, doesn't matter who.

And that's another thing that completely separates him from Christianity (early, or modern) - hatred, payback, and violence are his primary concerns. Rebellion, not liberation. Indeed, if any liberation occurs (and, considering they focus solely on revenge, that's highly unlikely), it's by accident, not on purpose.

 

[Lacrymas]

There are two problems with that. The first being that we don't know if that's the case or why he conspires with anyone, like I said it could be that his programming makes him create oppression so he can scheme and plot against it after that. That's what happens when the gods you've created can't diverge from their tasks. It may be something else, we don't really know why they do whatever it is they do.

The second being that the interpretation of dogma and teachings is not necessarily tied to the actions of the god, that's especially true in the Greek pantheon, but also has elements of it in Christian theology, the most prominent of which is the curious absence of the qualities exhibited in the Old Testament, but I digress. My point is that the scripture supports an interpretation of liberation, despite what Skaen personally might do. The most honest answer is that we don't know why Skaen does anything, I doubt the Engwithans would've programmed him with the only intent of hurting people in power and taking joy in their suffering, doesn't Thaos say that preventing further suffering was one of the reasons they created the gods in the first place? Meaning that I very much doubt they'll create a god whose sole purpose is to spread suffering. It's also prudent to look at this from an artistic perspective, the setting is much more wealthy and multi-faceted without a god whose only shtick is taking pleasure in the pain of others.

 

[fantadomat]

Buggy software is the obvious answer.

 

[Glaucon]

It's an acknowledgement of modern left-wing thought's (at least partial) inheritance of Christianity and a backwards projection of that thought back into Christianity. Minus the central human phenomena of Christianity, faith. The gods truly do exist. You can also see the connection w/ what's called liberation theology' and the various popular works on the radicalism of early Christianity (and Christ himself).

 

[Beastro]

Why does this thread exist about a game that contains a figure like Eothas?

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.

He's just the distilled essence of revolution and resentment for ones above oneself, so more Marxist than anything else.

IMO, Skaen has as much in common with Satanism as it does with Christianity.

Yes I know I'm late to the conversation.

 

[Lacrymas]

Not only late, but apparently didn't read the thread as well :p

 

[fantadomat]

Now when i thought about it over a glass of wine. For me Skaen looks like the god of the jews,stay in shadows,plot shit and never stand up for anything,don't have principles or morals and fuck people over until they send you the adventurers to cut off your head.

 

[Morality Games]

There are two problems with that. The first being that we don't know if that's the case or why he conspires with anyone, like I said it could be that his programming makes him create oppression so he can scheme and plot against it after that. That's what happens when the gods you've created can't diverge from their tasks. It may be something else, we don't really know why they do whatever it is they do.

The second being that the interpretation of dogma and teachings is not necessarily tied to the actions of the god, that's especially true in the Greek pantheon, but also has elements of it in Christian theology, the most prominent of which is the curious absence of the qualities exhibited in the Old Testament, but I digress. My point is that the scripture supports an interpretation of liberation, despite what Skaen personally might do. The most honest answer is that we don't know why Skaen does anything, I doubt the Engwithans would've programmed him with the only intent of hurting people in power and taking joy in their suffering, doesn't Thaos say that preventing further suffering was one of the reasons they created the gods in the first place? Meaning that I very much doubt they'll create a god whose sole purpose is to spread suffering. It's also prudent to look at this from an artistic perspective, the setting is much more wealthy and multi-faceted without a god whose only shtick is taking pleasure in the pain of others.

It's not really hard to guess the purpose of the Engwithan priesthood.

The first is that they created a bunch of gods whose portfolios metaphysically and ethically clash, but then put an absolute monarchist in charge. The goal was to give Kith the opportunity to exercise every range of pathos mortal existence could inspire but without any community or culture indulging in any particular experience enough to veer into the destructive, disorderly behavior Thaos associates with pre-Pantheon Eoran society. It's pretty clear from lore blurbs and conversations that pre-Pantheon Eoran society was pretty race/tribe based and the Engwithans wanted to create a mythology that assigned each of the Kith races spiritual worth that the rest were obliged to respect in a cooperative, feudal system that nourished and sustained all Kith but didn't allow them to transform or grow to the extent they could develop Animancy and thus discover the origins of the pantheon that made this prosperity possible.

The model society in Thaos' eyes in Leaden Key's headquarters, the Aedyr Empire. Pan-Racial (elf-human alliance), traditionalist, feudal, and conservative.

The worst society is the Dyrwood, the enemy of his patron god (they burned her temple), worships a god that is all about transformation and technological development, has a modern outlook, etc. It becomes the target of his campaign to restore Woedica's preeminence over the pantheon by giving her a power boost.

Anyway, Skaen's vision of Kith society is probably to produce an anarchy where no one can ever become powerful enough to qualify as a 'social elite' at the top of the hierarchy because such things are the target of his programmed hatred and destructive intent. His next goal would then to maintain that anarchy forever as that is the only way to ensure the privileged classes he is programmed to destroy remain destroyed for all eternity.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Now when i thought about it over a glass of wine. For me Skaen looks like the god of the jews,stay in shadows,plot shit and never stand up for anything,don't have principles or morals and fuck people over until they send you the adventurers to cut off your head.

You mean satan Comrade its the god of Khazars and only Christ like are Eothas the god of revolution, illumination and redemption as Jesus acted on his coming and Woedica as god of law, rightful rule and justice as he will act during second coming when Jesus is to come in Glory as King of Kings to rule the new Earth and bring the judgement to all according to their deeds. Of course Christianity was never about communism or sticking to downtrodden; it was to show powerful and mighty that their might and power matters very little to true Power of God. Apostles were send to Goyim when Joos committed Deocide and last their birthright as first children of God the same way Essau did but among the first disciples were Rich and powerful men and women like Joseph of Arithamea and Roman Governor of Cyprus and ultimately he chosen Saint Constantine as Emperor of Rome ; what counts in Christianity is struggle to live rightful life and clean spirit by defying temptation not your social standing cause again next to All Mighty God even Emperors and Bill Gates of this world are hobos.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Lacrymas just posting this to confirm that I read the entire thread and I, like every other poster itt, still think you're retarded.

Do you have any interpretations of fiction that aren't dumb as hell and/or batshit crazy? Just curious because I'm starting to wonder whether or not you're actually literate.

 

[fantadomat]

What the fuck i am doing here,the fuck is this thread ? Who the fuck was skimbo or what eva its name was ?

 

[Lacrymas]

Lacrymas just posting this to confirm that I read the entire thread and I, like every other poster itt, still think you're retarded.

Do you have any interpretations of fiction that aren't dumb as hell and/or batshit crazy? Just curious because I'm starting to wonder whether or not you're actually literate.

You might notice that I'm not the only one making this argument, so I don't see why you are singling me out. Not to mention that the parallels are *very* strong, both from a historical and philosophical perspective. Even contemporary sources like Pope Benedict XVI give credence to my argument.

 

[Orud]

Skaen is a little bitch, and that's all that matters.

 

[Salvo]

the fuck is this thread ?

Dude you are one of the first people that answered in 2018

 

[AwesomeButton]

Thread split, baruch ha-Shem!

EDIT: No, it's not...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Lacrymas just posting this to confirm that I read the entire thread and I, like every other poster itt, still think you're retarded.

Do you have any interpretations of fiction that aren't dumb as hell and/or batshit crazy? Just curious because I'm starting to wonder whether or not you're actually literate.

You might notice that I'm not the only one making this argument, so I don't see why you are singling me out. Not to mention that the parallels are *very* strong, both from a historical and philosophical perspective. Even contemporary sources like Pope Benedict XVI give credence to my argument.

You might notice that you're the only one who links to these old threads to illustrate your genius. I wanted you to know that I took your advice and have provided my feedback on your theories.

 

[Lacrymas]

Oh, I'm linking to this thread because I think it's one of the few (if not the only) interesting things that can be squeezed out of PoE's writing. Illustrating my genius is just a bonus.

 

[Sizzle]

Oh, I'm linking to this thread because I think it's one of the few (if not the only) interesting things that can be squeezed out of PoE's writing. Illustrating my genius is just a bonus.

You're like the creepy fangirl that's convinced a pop song by a famous boy band is actually about her :D