126 réponses à ce sujet

[CptPatch]

From whence comes Spirits and Demons?

We know that they are apparently immortal, and there's a LOT of them.  We know that Mages can visit there, popping in and out as they transition to and from the Real World (unless they die in the Fade).

The only other immortals we know of are the Old Gods (which become archdemons once located by the darkspawn) and the ancient Elves before they were brought down by humankind.  Now, the way you get Elves, immortal or otherwise, is by them, uhm, getting romantic with one another (and then only if two genders are involved).

So, where then did all those Spirits and Demons come from?  From the Maker, creator of all things?  (In which case there's an argument about how the Maker is ultimately responsible for all the Evil in both the world and the Fade -- which makes one wonder why should people worship the bastard?)  Or do Demons and Spirits procreate, much like the ancient Elves?  And if procreation is involved, could a mortal mage, uhm, get romantic with a Demon and/or Spirit?

[khathaway71]

*spoiler below*



Yes. Your mage can get romantic with a desire demon in the fade in a quest.

[MarkyBoy147]

rhymes

[CptPatch]

khathaway71 wrote...

*spoiler below*

Yes. Your mage can get romantic with a desire demon in the fade in a quest.

Ooooo!  Do we get teaser cutscenes like the Romance shots in DA:O?

[khathaway71]

*spoiler*



No. Just a fade out with the mage and demon kissing...implying you have uh...relations.

[AntiChri5]

Maker created Spirits and Demons but got bored with em.



Codex mentions it

[CptPatch]

AntiChri5 wrote...

Maker created Spirits and Demons but got bored with em.

Codex mentions it

Sounds like God and His angels from Judeo-Christian mythos.  Still goes back to the idea that if not for God/Maker, there would be no Evil in the world.  (Since He made them, _He_ is ultimately responsible for what they do, because _He_ is the one that gave them the ability to manifest and perpetuate Evil.)  In which case, why are we supposed to revere and worship such a moron?

[taynar09]

Codex mentions it[/quote]
Sounds like God and His angels from Judeo-Christian mythos.  Still goes back to the idea that if not for God/Maker, there would be no Evil in the world.  (Since He made them, _He_ is ultimately responsible for what they do, because _He_ is the one that gave them the ability to manifest and perpetuate Evil.)  In which case, why are we supposed to revere and worship such a moron?

[/quote]

He gave us free will to make and act on our choices. Perhaps he should not have.

[Maria Caliban]

CptPatch wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...

Maker created Spirits and Demons but got bored with em.

Codex mentions it

Sounds like God and His angels from Judeo-Christian mythos.

Yes, because the Judeo-Christian mythos is the only one where there's a Creator god who makes supernatural creatures.

[CptPatch]

taynar09 wrote...
He gave us free will to make and act on our choices. Perhaps he should not have.

Precisely.  By allowing _total_ Free Will, He allowed evildoers to do their thing -- AND allows others to be the victims of that evil.  What have the victims done to deserve evil being heaped upon them?  AND, since God/Maker is all-powerful, He has the ability to intercede to spare the victims from that evil -- which He pointedly doesn't do.  Responsibility falls both on those that commit evil acts, AND those that have the ability to save someone in danger but chooses not to.

The whole spiel about the Maker turning His back on ALL of humanity for all time because of the sins of a relative few individuals is an almost exact mirror of the Judeo-Christian Original Sin concept.  Where is the Justice and Fairness of a "loving" diety in such a concept?  Adherence to such a policy makes God/Maker just as capricious as any of the Greek pantheon (which was VERY well known for capriciousness).

[Crixt]

Sexy time with a demon. How erotic.

[Fate Elixir]

CptPatch would you rather we not have free will? Simply be pawns controlled by the maker's hands? It is because we have free will that our faith means something. Does it mean as much when you force someones hand in marriage as when they willfully choose it? Bad things happen to good people all the time, and it is much easier to accept that by assigning blame to the maker, but the fact is we don't live in a utopia, and if we did we probably wouldn't respect it anyway.

[CptPatch]

Fate Elixir wrote...

CptPatch would you rather we not have free will?

Why does it have to be an all or nothing?  How about, "You can do whatever you want, as long as what you do is not meant to be harmful to anyone else"?  You know, things like
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Thou shalt not steal.
Etc.

Instead, we are taught, "Obey those rules or burn in Hell."  Meanwhile, just because someone doesn't believe that there is a Hell, others suffer from the actions of the disbelievers.  Where's the Justice in that arrangement?  Yeah, the perps suffer for eternity, but not before they've made everyone's lives here and now a living hell.

My gripe isn't about the limitations on my Free Will, but rather why must _I_ suffer at the hands of another just so he can have total Free Will?  What did _I_ do to deserve such treatment?  What's the point of leading a Good life if the consequences are that I get to be everyone else's kick toy?  As the ultimate parental authority figure -- giving us guidance and direction to our lives -- God/Maker sure makes a _lousy_ parent, letting some kids run amok, torturing and abusing their siblings.

And for some parental oversight, I'm supposed to be thankful, and constantly praising and thanking God/Maker for _everything_?

Earth or Thedas, it doesn't matter: religion is a crock.

[Fate Elixir]

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist personally. Look around. The marvels never seem to cease. There is evidence overflowing. The Human body is nuts! No person, not even groups of our smartest, could come close to designing it. Look at the mountains, at photosynthesis, or gravity. If the Earth were one degree off with its gravity it would be catastrophic. If we were a smidge closer to the sun we would burn up. A smidge closer to Mars and we freeze up. Like it or not, the Earth was designed for life. You made the comment "what did I do to deserve such treatment" , every breath is a gift, and a privilege. What did we do to deserve to live? Yet we are given such a gift. I'm not trying to tell you your wrong, or that you'll burn in hell if you don't believe (people saying such things give religion a bad name), I'm just trying to provide an alternative point of view. Believe it or not, I respect your point of view and find it interesting. To quote my favorite scripture "Faith is the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for" - Hebrews . Take care.

[Halfno]

Hmm... So if me and my partner were to teleport to the fade then have sex, and she happened to be pregnant, would she remain pregnant upon returning from the fade?

[k9medusa]

The Matrix -- "your mind makes it real...."

[I Valente I]

khathaway71 wrote...

*spoiler below*

Yes. Your mage can get romantic with a desire demon in the fade in a quest.

bow cheeka wow

[Grovermancer]

Here is the codex entry -- the Maker's First Children.


It's found where that spirit Guardian in the Ashes temple asks you about your regrets.

[Gill Kaiser]

Fate Elixir wrote...

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist personally. Look around. The marvels never seem to cease. There is evidence overflowing. The Human body is nuts! No person, not even groups of our smartest, could come close to designing it.

I realise you're being completely reasonable and non-evangelical here, but I simply have to argue with some of your points. The theory of evolution explains how the human body's nuttiness developed, as I'm sure you're aware. The fact that the human body is intricately designed does not presuppose the existence of an intelligent designer, unless one is unable to fathom the idea that complex products may be created by natural processes given enough time and a means of retaining and filtering data, which DNA and natural selection provide.

Fate Elixir wrote...

Look at the mountains, at photosynthesis, or gravity. If the Earth were one degree off with its gravity it would be catastrophic. If we were a smidge closer to the sun we would burn up. A smidge closer to Mars and we freeze up. Like it or not, the Earth was designed for life.

I think you have it backwards. Life as we know it developed on Earth. Earth life was designed in and by the conditions on Earth. If we were a smidge closer to the sun, we would indeed burn up... but another, more heliophilic form of life might have developed instead, were that the case. To think that life could not exist in any other form than that which we presently have knowledge of is to make an egregious supposition.

Also, the very fact that intelligent beings like you and I exist in order to muse upon these questions requires our planet to have been habitable in some form, enough for life to develop. This simple fact completely negates your point about gravity, for example. There might be billions of Earth-like planets in the universe with gravity that is 'one degree off' from ours, and on these planets life may not have formed. It stands to reason that some planets would have the 'correct' gravity, and it also stands to reason that we, as we are now, would only develop on one such planet. There is nothing miraculous about it, it's simply a matter of odds.

As for the mountains and other natural 'wonders'... you may think they look nice, or that they are impressive. However, such opinions are completely subjective. To a visiting alien they might seem incredibly ugly. The way they look in no way suggests the existence of a higher power.

Modifié par Gill Kaiser, 02 avril 2010 - 05:37 .

[CptPatch]

Fate Elixir wrote...
If the Earth were one degree off with its gravity....

Can't recall where I heard it, but this seems to apply:
"If only one star in a thousand was similar to our Sun as to size and intensity, AND
if only one star in a thousand even had planets, AND
if only one solar system in a thousand had planets that were in the "sweet zone", AND
if only one system in a thousand with planets had suitable planets in the "sweet zone", AND
if only one such planet in a thousand such actually spawned life, AND
if only one such planet in a thousand spawned _intelligent_ life, AND
if only one such intelligent species actually survived to the point where it developed space travel....
.....we would _still_ be dealing with millions of space-traveling intelligent species.

THAT is how big the Universe is."

The fact finding each other is a massive game of Needle In A Haystack doesn't prove that Humanity is the product of a unique, singular Intelligent Design.  We just haven't bumped into another intelligent species spawned from another planet -- yet.  (Or maybe we have, depending on how much stock you put in UFOologists.)

Modifié par CptPatch, 02 avril 2010 - 04:19 .

[Sigma Tauri]

Grovermancer wrote...


Here is the codex entry -- the Maker's First Children.


It's found where that spirit Guardian in the Ashes temple asks you about your regrets.

So, is that a cultural view of creation or a universal one?

[CptPatch]

monkeycamoran wrote...

Grovermancer wrote...


Here is the codex entry -- the Maker's First Children.


It's found where that spirit Guardian in the Ashes temple asks you about your regrets.

So, is that a cultural view of creation or a universal one?

Good point.  Who is to say that the postulations of the Chantry are infallible _fact_?

[Sigma Tauri]

CptPatch wrote...
Good point.  Who is to say that the postulations of the Chantry are infallible _fact_?

Other than Bioware, in-game evidence that supports the Chantry's view of creation. However, that's not the real case, where it seems Bioware's mimicking the contradictory religious opinions in the real world. That's fine, but as a mythology there has to be a universal idea of creation that all living creatures in Dragon Age's Mortal Realm have referenced.

[marbatico]

Grovermancer wrote...


Here is the codex entry -- the Maker's First Children.


It's found where that spirit Guardian in the Ashes temple asks you about your regrets.

the part about the demons being thrown out of the golden city and into the fade sound alot like god throwing lucifer (satan) and the other rebelling angels out of heaven, into hell.

[Fate Elixir]

Gill Kaiser - This is the classic age old argument of Evolution vs Creation. You and I both know that there is no right or wrong answer. That is a matter of personal belief and worldview. The debate can and would rage on until the sun came down if we decided to take it there. I commend you for putting together a thoughtful and respectful response. I am always happy to have a civil exchange of ideas.

To address your overall theme I will try and be simple and to the point. Richard Dawkins (One of the four horseman of evolutionary leaders) says that it is not left to only chance or design. He states that natural selection explains everything. This theory has as many holes as swiss cheese. First off not every organism competes with each other. Secondly, and more importantly,  there are many things in this world that are irreducibly complex (look up bio-chemist Michael Behe  for more on this). For instance if you look at the cilium of a sperm cell (the tail), what evolved first, the tail (cylium) or the head? They both depend on each other, and both serve no purpose seperately. There are other such examples as the eye, or bacterial flagellum among others. This of course is just one question that needs to be examined to be a proponent of evolution. The other is simply that all beings had to have evolved from one single celled amoeba. Science has never been able to explain how every random mutation is beneficial in the form of specific informational increase, and observable physical change.

One important note is that microevolution has been observed and is real (canines teeth formational changes over centuries for instance), however the theory of macroevolution has never been observed by the human eye. This of course is the change of species and not just suttle physical changes. Nobody has ever observed a horse turn into a dog, or a fish into a whale. At this rate of reasoning why won't a bicycle turn into a motorcycle if left in the garage long enough? Dawkins actually believes that if you were to walk in a forest and randomly find a stopwatch having never seen one before, that if given enough time the components could self assemble into that functional watch. I hope my Xbox evolves into a Xbox 360 soon cause I want some new video games.

It is true that it takes faith to believe in a higher power, but it takes just as much faith (in my opinion, more) to believe in the theory of evolution. Simply ask the following question to test what you believe, what came first the chicken or the egg? If you can't answer this definitively (and none of us can) than maybe you should stop to consider that we may not know as much as we think. The debate goes on...

Modifié par Fate Elixir, 02 avril 2010 - 08:51 .