Merlin's Upcoming Conversation with Thirsk

That would assume God's truth is such a difficult sell that EVIL is more attractive to God's children. Is God deficient or the Inquisition that represents God deficient?

I doubt Clyntahn is that oblivious as to make such an argument. If he does, he digs his own theological and actual grave.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:God will have His victory, indeed. The Inquisition will have failed God because they failed to instill obedience to God plan in more than a handful of God's children. This is a religion of works which justifies evil deeds by the good that results. Torturing 1,000 innocents which results 1,000,000 would be sinners obeying God instead is a very large net good and great success for Inquisition.

The corollary is that if they only save a small fraction of humanity despite the evil they do to the larger fraction in order to guide them towards obedience, the good that results is minute compared to the evil done and the Inquisition will have failed.

Not an argument Clyntahn will entertain.

Maybe not one he should, but I don't think he'd actually hesitate. The Inquisition's stance on concentration camp prisoners has been that, in a pinch, better to kill them all to catch whatever heretics are in there. God obliges them to kill the heretic, and gives them a pass at least if there are some friendly fire casualties in the process.

If it turns out that most of humanity cannot resist Shan-wei's lures, it's clearly less of a victory for the Inquisition than it would be had heresy been contained and expunged with just the leaders of Charis Punished. But Shan-wei's powerful and sometimes, what the best mortals can do is only so much. Preserving the faith and obedience of any of God's children when heresy walks the land in apparent triumph is good work, and sheer popularity can never make heresy right or the Inquisition's work better left undone.

PeterZ wrote:That would assume God's truth is such a difficult sell that EVIL is more attractive to God's children. Is God deficient or the Inquisition that represents God deficient?

I doubt Clyntahn is that oblivious as to make such an argument. If he does, he digs his own theological and actual grave.

If mankind after the Fall were all that able to follow God's plan, there wouldn't need to be an Inquisition. But God made Archangels that could fall into sin and rebellion. Safehold's got the same problem of evil any religion hankering after an omniscient, omnipotent, and reasonably benevolent God has. They've got free will and the post-Fall sinful nature of mankind as rugs to sweep it under, and they do. Because man does find Shan-wei's lures alluring, there's the Inquisition.

Maybe, maybe if the Inquisition had been allowed to strike God's terror into the hearts of people across Safehold the way it ought to have been allowed to, then this never would have happened. Maybe the Church was too soft, too sensitive, too lax in its iron duty, thereby allowing the heretic Staynair to poison the minds of arrogant Charis against God and Langhorne's Church.

Now, maybe it's too late for the Inquisition - clear-thinking and valiant servants of God that they are, but still mortal - to terrorize the Out Islands and treacherous Siddarmark effectively. And maybe it is still being held back from its true role as the Church's stern leader by the timid technicians.

Maybe it will take far more loss and far more death before Safehold learns just how wrong laxity in following God's plan is.

Clyntahn cannot back the warm and cuddly theology you'd want him to. He's a man with a hammer - his problems are and have to be nails, not children to hug and explain the joyful news to. And he does not think that man has a better nature to appeal to anymore, not since the Fall. There's fear of God and there's Shan-wei's places to put hooks in the soul - that's it. He's been, by his lights, extraordinarily patient with the technicians and particularly Duchairn's distractions appealing to gratitude and reverence to back up the Church. And with all of that, the navies are scoured from the sea and the armies are pushed back.

Kindness and mercy were always a mistake, and their failure is written on any military map now. He's not going to put up with kid gloves anymore.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:That would assume God's truth is such a difficult sell that EVIL is more attractive to God's children. Is God deficient or the Inquisition that represents God deficient?

I doubt Clyntahn is that oblivious as to make such an argument. If he does, he digs his own theological and actual grave.

If mankind after the Fall were all that able to follow God's plan, there wouldn't need to be an Inquisition. But God made Archangels that could fall into sin and rebellion. Safehold's got the same problem of evil any religion hankering after an omniscient, omnipotent, and reasonably benevolent God has. They've got free will and the post-Fall sinful nature of mankind as rugs to sweep it under, and they do. Because man does find Shan-wei's lures alluring, there's the Inquisition.

Maybe, maybe if the Inquisition had been allowed to strike God's terror into the hearts of people across Safehold the way it ought to have been allowed to, then this never would have happened. Maybe the Church was too soft, too sensitive, too lax in its iron duty, thereby allowing the heretic Staynair to poison the minds of arrogant Charis against God and Langhorne's Church.

Now, maybe it's too late for the Inquisition - clear-thinking and valiant servants of God that they are, but still mortal - to terrorize the Out Islands and treacherous Siddarmark effectively. And maybe it is still being held back from its true role as the Church's stern leader by the timid technicians.

Maybe it will take far more loss and far more death before Safehold learns just how wrong laxity in following God's plan is.

Clyntahn cannot back the warm and cuddly theology you'd want him to. He's a man with a hammer - his problems are and have to be nails, not children to hug and explain the joyful news to. And he does not think that man has a better nature to appeal to anymore, not since the Fall. There's fear of God and there's Shan-wei's places to put hooks in the soul - that's it. He's been, by his lights, extraordinarily patient with the technicians and particularly Duchairn's distractions appealing to gratitude and reverence to back up the Church. And with all of that, the navies are scoured from the sea and the armies are pushed back.

Kindness and mercy were always a mistake, and their failure is written on any military map now. He's not going to put up with kid gloves anymore.

Yes, and all the while, Hell's foundation quivers. Clyntahn is gradually being choked out and reduced to irrelavance. His reach is shrinking as fewer and fewer people believe what he says.

There are religious groups in our own time who suffer that fate. The world swirls disinterestedly around them as they remind themselves that they are the last of God's remnant.

Don

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Taking the Devil's advocate position.

Clyntahn doesn't need to don kid gloves. He simply needs to let those that can "ape" Charis best do so. Using the boot behind the neck approach to process management is fine. He just needs to demand the right sort of performance. He isn't. He rewards loyal/obedient failure following the old rules. He does not reward trying new things. Bottom line is that we do agree Clyntahn will double down on brutality against risk takers. That will be his downfall.

PeterZ wrote:Taking the Devil's advocate position.

Clyntahn doesn't need to don kid gloves. He simply needs to let those that can "ape" Charis best do so. Using the boot behind the neck approach to process management is fine. He just needs to demand the right sort of performance. He isn't. He rewards loyal/obedient failure following the old rules. He does not reward trying new things. Bottom line is that we do agree Clyntahn will double down on brutality against risk takers. That will be his downfall.

Yes. The point I'm making, however, is that the scope of his activities is narrowing as the Jihad loses ground. Also, poeple even on his side are starting to make a distinction between the Grand Inquisitor and Mother Church. His declining influence means it is more difficult for him to assume that his will can be carried out. So he becomes more extreme and less rational.

Don

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Don,

Clyntahn is a true believer. He MUST be. If wasn't, he would be use his power to intimidate to demand the jihad "ape" Dohlar. That's the surest way to maintain power for him. Because he insists on applying his power to enforce status quo policies that continue to fail in securing victory, he must believe something is more important that holding on to power. Either that or he is stupid. Stupid in the way Shakespeare's Caesar was stupid in Julius Caesar.

PeterZ wrote:Don,

Clyntahn is a true believer. He MUST be. If wasn't, he would be use his power to intimidate to demand the jihad "ape" Dohlar. That's the surest way to maintain power for him. Because he insists on applying his power to enforce status quo policies that continue to fail in securing victory, he must believe something is more important that holding on to power. Either that or he is stupid. Stupid in the way Shakespeare's Caesar was stupid in Julius Caesar.

My own view is that what Zhaspahr Clyntahn truly believes in is Zhaspahr Clyntahn rather than in any transcendant power beyond himself. Of course he is fully able to convince himself that anything that he wants to be the truth really is the truth including the assertion that what he is doing is serving God.

That being said, your assertion doesn't seem to me to contradict my previous post.

Don

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PeterZ wrote:Don,

Clyntahn is a true believer. He MUST be. If wasn't, he would be use his power to intimidate to demand the jihad "ape" Dohlar. That's the surest way to maintain power for him. Because he insists on applying his power to enforce status quo policies that continue to fail in securing victory, he must believe something is more important that holding on to power. Either that or he is stupid. Stupid in the way Shakespeare's Caesar was stupid in Julius Caesar.

He's got a hard mission there. He's in charge of curbing innovation. His power is largely from holding the keys to dispensations permitting it. Right now, the jihad to preserve that power (oh yeah, the Church too - incidentally) requires allowing every innovation they can come up with, because Charis is certainly doing so.

Even if it is just about holding on to power, he's got to let go some power - authorize innovations pretty freely - in order to retain it at all. And the more the precedent is set, the more it becomes a habit, the harder it will ever be to put the genie back in the bottle.

I think he's well aware of that. It's why he's so grumpy so often - that and losing, and just not being one of nature's cheerful happy souls. He's making up for it, where and as he can, by asserting the Inquisition's terror role promoting sheer orthodoxy in general, but that's not the sort of power that the Church or society is going to tolerate being used on it nearly so much as the quiet Prohibitions gatekeeping duty they do normally.

I do think he does assign a value to the Inquisition's work that an outside observer can distinguish from just holding onto power. He is a true believer, but his belief really is tied up with his own power - it's wrong for people to defy the Grand Inquisitor or Zhapsyr Clyntahn, and it's really really wrong when they're doing both at once. The Grand Inquisitor is assigned by Langhorne's Church to enforce orthodoxy. That's his sincere belief, but mixed up with it is the narcissism and sociopathy - it's not accidental that he's sure he speaks with God's voice.

That may count as a special form of stupidity, depending on how you like to label things. It's certainly not rational, or healthy. But he's not really thinking either that there is something so precious that he won't violate it even if it means losing - he isn't able to take the idea of losing the war seriously to do that kind of calculation.

My point is that he can assert his power and demand success even if it means aping Charis. That would consolidate his grip on Safehold. His influence would not be dissipating and he would not be under the stress he is now under. If he can rationalize anything, he would have done that. Since he did not, he is either a true believer or a stupid unprincipled megalomaniac.

n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Don,

Clyntahn is a true believer. He MUST be. If wasn't, he would be use his power to intimidate to demand the jihad "ape" Dohlar. That's the surest way to maintain power for him. Because he insists on applying his power to enforce status quo policies that continue to fail in securing victory, he must believe something is more important that holding on to power. Either that or he is stupid. Stupid in the way Shakespeare's Caesar was stupid in Julius Caesar.

My own view is that what Zhaspahr Clyntahn truly believes in is Zhaspahr Clyntahn rather than in any transcendant power beyond himself. Of course he is fully able to convince himself that anything that he wants to be the truth really is the truth including the assertion that what he is doing is serving God.

That being said, your assertion doesn't seem to me to contradict my previous post.

Don

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Ok, a specific form of idiot savant it is.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Don,

Clyntahn is a true believer. He MUST be. If wasn't, he would be use his power to intimidate to demand the jihad "ape" Dohlar. That's the surest way to maintain power for him. Because he insists on applying his power to enforce status quo policies that continue to fail in securing victory, he must believe something is more important that holding on to power. Either that or he is stupid. Stupid in the way Shakespeare's Caesar was stupid in Julius Caesar.

He's got a hard mission there. He's in charge of curbing innovation. His power is largely from holding the keys to dispensations permitting it. Right now, the jihad to preserve that power (oh yeah, the Church too - incidentally) requires allowing every innovation they can come up with, because Charis is certainly doing so.

Even if it is just about holding on to power, he's got to let go some power - authorize innovations pretty freely - in order to retain it at all. And the more the precedent is set, the more it becomes a habit, the harder it will ever be to put the genie back in the bottle.

I think he's well aware of that. It's why he's so grumpy so often - that and losing, and just not being one of nature's cheerful happy souls. He's making up for it, where and as he can, by asserting the Inquisition's terror role promoting sheer orthodoxy in general, but that's not the sort of power that the Church or society is going to tolerate being used on it nearly so much as the quiet Prohibitions gatekeeping duty they do normally.

I do think he does assign a value to the Inquisition's work that an outside observer can distinguish from just holding onto power. He is a true believer, but his belief really is tied up with his own power - it's wrong for people to defy the Grand Inquisitor or Zhapsyr Clyntahn, and it's really really wrong when they're doing both at once. The Grand Inquisitor is assigned by Langhorne's Church to enforce orthodoxy. That's his sincere belief, but mixed up with it is the narcissism and sociopathy - it's not accidental that he's sure he speaks with God's voice.

That may count as a special form of stupidity, depending on how you like to label things. It's certainly not rational, or healthy. But he's not really thinking either that there is something so precious that he won't violate it even if it means losing - he isn't able to take the idea of losing the war seriously to do that kind of calculation.