PeterZ wrote:Absolutely! Had the CoGA been more based on Faith and less on pure works, then the vulnerability would not be so great. That's the primary message from Job; have faith that God does have a purpose worthy of one's faith. The CoGA does not preach faith. It preaches obedience. What was the Work Saint Everahrd wrote? I believe it was on Faith and Obedience. His belief got him assassinated.
n7axw wrote:
I just read the book of Job which knocks the theory that things going well implies divine favor right in the head. Too bad Safehold doesn't have something similar in the Writ.
Don
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While the Safeholdian religion is structurally based upon Christianity (specifically the Catholic Church during medieval Europe) the religion's practices seem to have far more in common with Judaism in the sense that the
Writ espouses an actual way of life. Langhorne and Bedard (and Chihiro later) had to set up things this way because the human colonists needed a guidebook for survival and colonization on an alien planet. Building the religion around commandments that helped in colonization and worked 100% of the time allowed them to both ensure survival and eliminate any questioning of the natural world around them. The key problem was always the concentration of coercive power in the hands of the Church and its corrupting effects. The "Archangels" didn't consider how much authority the Church would lose in the eyes of the colonists' descendants when that happened and didn't take the necessary steps to place safeguards against it.
But you shouldn't dismiss good works as a foundation for faith. Judaism teaches that hearts follow good deeds after all - that faith is best found with doing good works in this world (even if faith was initially absent). The trouble with CoGA is that they have been hypocritical in their practices, allowing the clergy to get away with outright murder at times and to evade responsibility for their actions. How can you demand from God's children that they adhere to God's law if you yourself violate it all the time?