Isaac Black (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seol_plumfall) wrote2009-08-26 05:46 pm
seol_plumfall) wrote2009-08-26 05:46 pm
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→Seol 18: The Heresy
The Common word good has many ambiguities. For instance, when one says the Light is good, he usually means that the Light has absolute, positive ethic value. However, if one says chocolate is good, he usually means that it brings comfort and pleasure.
We who follow the faith of the Light areindoctr taught that the Light is absolute ethic good. This belief dictates that those who utilize the Light must be good and that those who are destroyed by it must be evil. This seems a sufficient theory for humans those who live in cities under the Light, protected by paladins who shield them from the undead and lose their powers if they stray from goodness.
But at times, this theory seems tobe inconsistent fall short of a wholly satisfying explanation regarding some phenomena of the larger world.
First, use of the Light does not seem to guarantee "goodness" in the intuitively reasonable sense of beneficence and virtue. Yes, some paladins and priests have been observed to lose their access to the Light when their souls became stained by truly evil deeds. However, a considerable level of cruelty and destructivenessis tolerated in some organizations may rest in the heart of a Vindicator warrior of the Light. Many innocent lives have been ended or ruined by Seals, wars among sapient beings prolonged by Judgments, and corrupt civilizations defended by Shields. The Light may even be enslaved subdued grasped through force rather than virtuous intention.
Second, lack of access to the Light -- in anthropomorphic language, the "scorn" of the Light -- does not seem to be an intuitively reasonable measure of evil or even lack of goodness. Many of the peoples of this universe produce heroes, value compassion and justice, understand self-sacrifice and love, and have no priests of the Light whatsoever. Perhaps these people could come to believe. However, some people already believe with a zealous intensity and dedicate their entire beings to the principles of the Light and receive nothing; such has occurred on Draenor, upon which physical illness has cut off the most pious souls from the Light they still adore. No amount of prayer can "redeem" them while the half-sincere on Azeroth can easily access the Light's reservoir of power.
These first twoobjections difficulties may be solved by adopting the stance that if the Light is absolute ethic good, then ethic value is determined by the Light and that any successful use of the Light must have been towards absolute ethic good. This position is one to which paladins infamously fall back and which has brought us them us much distrust, even hatred from those who would be our allies. For while this position seems to be logically sound it requires one to accept the actions of the Scarl slaughter based on political and racial difference, grossly disproportionate retribution, mistakes of the naaru made in the haze of anger, and outwardly honorable acts that prolong or create suffering as all absolutely good.
I believe there is also a third difficulty against which even this position may not be able to defend. This difficulty is that as there are more and more paladins of the many different nations in recent years, they often find themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield. When two holy warriors can smite one another with perfect proficiency, it becomesutterly insensible somewhat untenable to claim that both combatants, who may even be full of rage and hatred and irreconcilable philosophical differences, are both absolutely right.
Perhaps, despite these difficulties, it is objectively true that the Light is, on some cosmic level, absolute good; perhaps these apparent inconsistencies arise only from our flawed perspectives as mortals. I fear, however, that stubborn adherence to thisnonsensical difficult philosophy is not always helpful in choosing the most compassionate action and is grievously damaging to our relations with those who could be our friends.
I wonder if it would not be of more immediate help to imagine the Light differently -- to consider if, perhaps, the Light is not good.
To consider if the Light is, instead, good.
We who follow the faith of the Light are
But at times, this theory seems to
First, use of the Light does not seem to guarantee "goodness" in the intuitively reasonable sense of beneficence and virtue. Yes, some paladins and priests have been observed to lose their access to the Light when their souls became stained by truly evil deeds. However, a considerable level of cruelty and destructiveness
Second, lack of access to the Light -- in anthropomorphic language, the "scorn" of the Light -- does not seem to be an intuitively reasonable measure of evil or even lack of goodness. Many of the peoples of this universe produce heroes, value compassion and justice, understand self-sacrifice and love, and have no priests of the Light whatsoever. Perhaps these people could come to believe. However, some people already believe with a zealous intensity and dedicate their entire beings to the principles of the Light and receive nothing; such has occurred on Draenor, upon which physical illness has cut off the most pious souls from the Light they still adore. No amount of prayer can "redeem" them while the half-sincere on Azeroth can easily access the Light's reservoir of power.
These first two
I believe there is also a third difficulty against which even this position may not be able to defend. This difficulty is that as there are more and more paladins of the many different nations in recent years, they often find themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield. When two holy warriors can smite one another with perfect proficiency, it becomes
Perhaps, despite these difficulties, it is objectively true that the Light is, on some cosmic level, absolute good; perhaps these apparent inconsistencies arise only from our flawed perspectives as mortals. I fear, however, that stubborn adherence to this
I wonder if it would not be of more immediate help to imagine the Light differently -- to consider if, perhaps, the Light is not good.
To consider if the Light is, instead, good.
Astrolabe 11 ← Seol 18 → Astrolabe 12