How To Convert entire populace

Even if, as you hope, an atmosphere of tolerance can prevent outright war, there are a lot of other ugly ways for religious conflict to interfere with development.

Maybe teach critical analysis in the primary schools. Heck, use the Writ as source material. "How do we know the Book of Pasquale is true? Today in class we will learn how to prove things by experiment".

Gradualism might or might not work. There's already a theological wedge issue about Creation (can't go into details, spoiler) that opens up discussions which, starting with orthodoxy, lead straight into fundamental questions.

Tararoys wrote:This is why Staiyner and the Bretheren have been emphasizing tolerance for centuries. Staiyner is also pounding a personal relationship with God as one of the central tenets of the Church of Charis. Between those two concepts, the conclusion once a few more heresies start showing up is "that dude's personal relationship with God is really weird, but I'll tolerate it" instead of "Kill the heretic!"

If Charis can make the doctrine of tolerance stick in it's own lands, it has a chance of weathering the storm more or less intact, with most of it's populace grumpily arguing points of doctrine instead of hacking each other to bits with swords. If they can move carefully enough, then, by increments, the revelation that the archangels were people will be just one more step in a long journey,. Sure, it'll be a weird belief,, but by then so many other weird beliefs will be crawling around that that one won't trigger a war.

But let's assume the worst: there is a whole round of vicious religious wars lasting hundreds of years, like what happened during the Christian reformation. It is possible that, like the Catholics and Protestants, safehold will settle into a truce of mutual exhaustion, where the majority of people will get so sick of the bloodshed on both sides and tell their respective extremists to go to hell.

n7axw wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:...marked the end of the last war in Europe when shots were fired in anger over religion....

I guess ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and during WWII don't count as "shots fired in anger" then?

n7axw wrote:Nice come back and valid point, although I suspect that the Balkans issue is more ethnic than religious.

A more valid challenge to my premise would be the Brits Irish problem in N. Ireland. That can be portayed as a struggle to liberate Ireland of English domination.

But it does have to be stated that both situations have a strong religious vector. And if we think about it, there are probably more exceptions to my statement.

Don

Nope your original statement is quite right, viewed in context as a rebuttal of Tararoy's statement that the Christian reformation in Europe led to "hundreds of years" of religious wars. Muslim v Christian conflict in the Balkans has nothing to do with the Reformation. The Irish Troubles in the C20th were basically a political issue, unhappily complicated by religion.

There has been discussion in other threads about the return of the Archangels. I also just finished listening to Paityr's discussion of Schuler, and I see a possibility, though it will have something of a deus ex machina feel to it. Also, I'm not the first to bring up this idea.

The archangels' return is actually just the return of Schuler, or a PICA facsimile thereof. We find out that Schuler is much more like the "Schuler of the Key" than the "Schuler of the Book". We find out that Schuler is actually a believer in the original mission statement of Ark, and after the death of Langhorne and company saw a way to institute that plan, after the appropriate low-tech period.
Having seen what has happened, Schuler "blesses" the schism and introduces a new religious text, which modifies the old without destroying it. (I have come in fulfilment of the law, not to abolish it.)
This new text modifies the books of Schuler, Chohiro, Pasquale, and Sondheim; not by invalidating them, but rather by stating that God has seen that his children have done well keeping the laws of Pasquale and Sondheim, and now they are ready to begin to understand why those laws were written as they were.

This will actually make life more difficult for the Inner Circle in the short run, because it overlays their ultimate goal of secular power over religious power. However, it lays the ground work for people to begin advancing technology in a manner acceptable to the Writ.

eldrwyrm wrote:There has been discussion in other threads about the return of the Archangels. I also just finished listening to Paityr's discussion of Schuler, and I see a possibility, though it will have something of a deus ex machina feel to it. Also, I'm not the first to bring up this idea.

The archangels' return is actually just the return of Schuler, or a PICA facsimile thereof. We find out that Schuler is much more like the "Schuler of the Key" than the "Schuler of the Book". We find out that Schuler is actually a believer in the original mission statement of Ark, and after the death of Langhorne and company saw a way to institute that plan, after the appropriate low-tech period.
Having seen what has happened, Schuler "blesses" the schism and introduces a new religious text, which modifies the old without destroying it. (I have come in fulfilment of the law, not to abolish it.)
This new text modifies the books of Schuler, Chohiro, Pasquale, and Sondheim; not by invalidating them, but rather by stating that God has seen that his children have done well keeping the laws of Pasquale and Sondheim, and now they are ready to begin to understand why those laws were written as they were.

This will actually make life more difficult for the Inner Circle in the short run, because it overlays their ultimate goal of secular power over religious power. However, it lays the ground work for people to begin advancing technology in a manner acceptable to the Writ.

I will only suggest that there is no evidence to suggest that Schueler was less committed to Longhorne's plan than Langhorne himself and that none of those people were particularly sane by the time they arrived at Safehold. I don't see any copy of their personalities whether in a PICA or virtual reality as being any more sane than they were. The whole notion of a return is predicated on making the children behave and making sure God's plan stays on track which is another way of saying that technology stays dead.

Don

n7axw wrote:

eldrwyrm wrote:There has been discussion in other threads about the return of the Archangels. I also just finished listening to Paityr's discussion of Schuler, and I see a possibility, though it will have something of a deus ex machina feel to it. Also, I'm not the first to bring up this idea.

The archangels' return is actually just the return of Schuler, or a PICA facsimile thereof. We find out that Schuler is much more like the "Schuler of the Key" than the "Schuler of the Book". We find out that Schuler is actually a believer in the original mission statement of Ark, and after the death of Langhorne and company saw a way to institute that plan, after the appropriate low-tech period.
Having seen what has happened, Schuler "blesses" the schism and introduces a new religious text, which modifies the old without destroying it. (I have come in fulfilment of the law, not to abolish it.)
This new text modifies the books of Schuler, Chohiro, Pasquale, and Sondheim; not by invalidating them, but rather by stating that God has seen that his children have done well keeping the laws of Pasquale and Sondheim, and now they are ready to begin to understand why those laws were written as they were.

This will actually make life more difficult for the Inner Circle in the short run, because it overlays their ultimate goal of secular power over religious power. However, it lays the ground work for people to begin advancing technology in a manner acceptable to the Writ.

I will only suggest that there is no evidence to suggest that Schueler was less committed to Longhorne's plan than Langhorne himself and that none of those people were particularly sane by the time they arrived at Safehold. I don't see any copy of their personalities whether in a PICA or virtual reality as being any more sane than they were. The whole notion of a return is predicated on making the children behave and making sure God's plan stays on track which is another way of saying that technology stays dead.

Don

Don,

That doesn't make sense. If the Return is supposed to be a way to make the children behave, then people need to know about the Return. If people don't know about the Return, then they can't scare their children straight by telling them about it.

No one except the Wylsynn family knew about the Return.

eldrwyrm wrote:There has been discussion in other threads about the return of the Archangels. I also just finished listening to Paityr's discussion of Schuler, and I see a possibility, though it will have something of a deus ex machina feel to it. Also, I'm not the first to bring up this idea.

The archangels' return is actually just the return of Schuler, or a PICA facsimile thereof. We find out that Schuler is much more like the "Schuler of the Key" than the "Schuler of the Book". We find out that Schuler is actually a believer in the original mission statement of Ark, and after the death of Langhorne and company saw a way to institute that plan, after the appropriate low-tech period.
Having seen what has happened, Schuler "blesses" the schism and introduces a new religious text, which modifies the old without destroying it. (I have come in fulfilment of the law, not to abolish it.)
This new text modifies the books of Schuler, Chohiro, Pasquale, and Sondheim; not by invalidating them, but rather by stating that God has seen that his children have done well keeping the laws of Pasquale and Sondheim, and now they are ready to begin to understand why those laws were written as they were.

This will actually make life more difficult for the Inner Circle in the short run, because it overlays their ultimate goal of secular power over religious power. However, it lays the ground work for people to begin advancing technology in a manner acceptable to the Writ.

This idea has been proposed numerous times before, in several forms.

The version I proposed at one time is that Schueler was actually dedicated to Langhorne's cause and believed that hiding was the best way for humanity to survive. But Shan-Wei's insistence that it would be impossible to prevent technology from rising gave Schueler some doubts. He understood that if Shan-Wei was right, Langhorne's plan would doom humanity to eventual destruction when they ran into the Gbaba again without warning. Even though he believed Langhorne was right, he couldn't risk the fate of humanity on the chance that Shan-Wei was right. So he set up a Return as a fail-safe, to look for signs of technological development that Shan-Wei predicted.

That said, Don is correct that there is no evidence even suggesting that Schueler might not have been a fervent believer in Langhorne's plan.

SWM wrote:No one except the Wylsynn family knew about the Return.

Right out in plain view, staring us in the face, that's the key point everyone but you missed.

Whatever the reason for the secrecy it must have been ... interesting.

Technically, you are correct: the Reformation never got a look-in in the Balkans, so can't be blamed for the current state of affairs.

That's all at the door of the _other_ major branches of Christianity

Unfortunately, calling either the Balkans or Northern Ireland an ethnic conflict is, at best, facile, because in most of both areas the defining characteristic of the competing ethnicities is religion. [the one exception is the Albanians of Kosovo, who can be distinguished by language and to some extent culture as well as religion]

The three-way brangle in northern Yugoslavia was primarily between Catholic and Orthodox Christians, with both sides taking a swipe at the Muslims mostly because they could - unlike the Croats and the Serbs, the Bosnians didn't have an armed-to-the-teeth rump state egging them on and backing them up.

Northern Ireland is somewhat more of an ethnic and cultural divide, but not much. Very little of the north can be regarded as part of the Gaeltach - and the eastern Catholics had, at least until recently, very little more regard for it than the Protestants in any case. It's true that the Protestants were imported in the 17th century, but given that most of their ancestors had crossed the North Channel going the other way 1100 years earlier, it can be argued that they were just going home again. I actually have ancestors on both sides of the divide, and can't see much difference between them besides which church they attended.

Randomiser wrote:

n7axw wrote:Nice come back and valid point, although I suspect that the Balkans issue is more ethnic than religious.

A more valid challenge to my premise would be the Brits Irish problem in N. Ireland. That can be portayed as a struggle to liberate Ireland of English domination.

But it does have to be stated that both situations have a strong religious vector. And if we think about it, there are probably more exceptions to my statement.

Don

Nope your original statement is quite right, viewed in context as a rebuttal of Tararoy's statement that the Christian reformation in Europe led to "hundreds of years" of religious wars. Muslim v Christian conflict in the Balkans has nothing to do with the Reformation. The Irish Troubles in the C20th were basically a political issue, unhappily complicated by religion.

There need to be alternate emotional and devotional outlets to the CoGA or no conversion tactic will ever succeed.

OWL's library must include Lord of Light. Has anyone thought of introducing Buddhism? It's theoretically possible to be a Buddhist and CoGAian at the same time, so it could be snuck in. Once in place, people will be going to church on Wednesday and meditating every day, making a pilgrimage to Zion once in a lifetime and constantly avoiding alcohol, etc. After a while they will be Buddhists who go to church on Wednesday rather than CoGAians who also follow the Eightfold Way.

Merlin would shrink from it, but ecstatic or mystical cults that aim for direct union with God would replace the emotional need for Langhorne worship among their members.

Islam's refusal to attribute divine attributes to anyone except God would undercut the archangels and open the ground to exposing them as human.

SWM wrote:

eldrwyrm wrote:There has been discussion in other threads about the return of the Archangels. I also just finished listening to Paityr's discussion of Schuler, and I see a possibility, though it will have something of a deus ex machina feel to it. Also, I'm not the first to bring up this idea.

The archangels' return is actually just the return of Schuler, or a PICA facsimile thereof. We find out that Schuler is much more like the "Schuler of the Key" than the "Schuler of the Book". We find out that Schuler is actually a believer in the original mission statement of Ark, and after the death of Langhorne and company saw a way to institute that plan, after the appropriate low-tech period.
Having seen what has happened, Schuler "blesses" the schism and introduces a new religious text, which modifies the old without destroying it. (I have come in fulfilment of the law, not to abolish it.)
This new text modifies the books of Schuler, Chohiro, Pasquale, and Sondheim; not by invalidating them, but rather by stating that God has seen that his children have done well keeping the laws of Pasquale and Sondheim, and now they are ready to begin to understand why those laws were written as they were.

This will actually make life more difficult for the Inner Circle in the short run, because it overlays their ultimate goal of secular power over religious power. However, it lays the ground work for people to begin advancing technology in a manner acceptable to the Writ.

This idea has been proposed numerous times before, in several forms.

The version I proposed at one time is that Schueler was actually dedicated to Langhorne's cause and believed that hiding was the best way for humanity to survive. But Shan-Wei's insistence that it would be impossible to prevent technology from rising gave Schueler some doubts. He understood that if Shan-Wei was right, Langhorne's plan would doom humanity to eventual destruction when they ran into the Gbaba again without warning. Even though he believed Langhorne was right, he couldn't risk the fate of humanity on the chance that Shan-Wei was right. So he set up a Return as a fail-safe, to look for signs of technological development that Shan-Wei predicted.

That said, Don is correct that there is no evidence even suggesting that Schueler might not have been a fervent believer in Langhorne's plan.

Well another possible reason for Schueler to have a change of heart may be due to the presence of a family.
When he first came to Safehold, he just lost his entire family on Earth so he is committed to keeping the remaining survivors of humanity safe at all cost.

But after a few decades, he now have a new family on Safehold and even descendants.

It's one thing to do what Langhorne proposed to total strangers, but it comes to your own family and descendants, Schueler may have a more open mind about that.