Should We Make Profiles For The Divine Comedy?

[CloverDragon03]

Assuming that any written word would come remotely close to the "real thing" is contradictory to the point of religion. It's called faith. You can't tier it because it's not fiction. When you put pen to paper a story of God interacting with fictional characters, you have removed autonomy from him. You have created an entity that is bound by an author. Do you really believe so little of the true Christian God?

Say it with me now,

M E D I A
L I T E R A C Y

If anything, I'd say the quickness to claim "media illiteracy" to anyone finding this potentially offensive is very, very reductive

You're also completely missing the point here. It's about, to quote a Commandment, taking God's name in vain. I don't think it's wrong at all for Christian users to find the idea of power scaling something so intentionally close to Him in nature offensive. And genuinely, the fact that you tried to spin that on me as "believing so little" of the God I believe in is the absolute most insulting part of this thread. Please do not do that again, and if you insist on doing so, please do not engage with me any further on this thread's subject matter

 

[SamanPatou]

I think the fact that this needs to be done and that the actual Powers and Stats section does nothing to suggest a fictional interpretation is very telling, as opposed to other "God" profiles that are very clearly fictional even in their justifications and such

This is your mistake here, because Dante wasn't a profet or a messiah, and never had the intention to write a religious text, so everything contained in the profile is indeed a fictional interpretation written with the exact intention of being such.

 

[CloverDragon03]

This is your mistake here, because Dante wasn't a profet or a messiah, and never had the intention to write a religious text, so everything contained in the profile is indeed a fictional interpretation written with the exact intention of being such.

And my point is that this is far too close to the real deal to be valid to index imo, compared to other "God" characters we index

 

[SamanPatou]

You're also completely missing the point here. It's about, to quote a Commandment, taking God's name in vain. I don't think it's wrong at all for Christian users to find the idea of power scaling something so intentionally close to Him in nature offensive. And genuinely, the fact that you tried to spin that on me as "believing so little" of the God I believe in is the absolute most insulting part of this thread. Please do not do that again, and if you insist on doing so, please do not engage with me any further on this thread's subject matter

We have literally all sorts of blasphemy and mockery of christianity as a whole on the site tbh, and the Divine Comedy is suddenly the problem here?

 

[KingTempest]

If one of the issues is that users may mistakenly take it as a profile for actual Christian God, then what we can do is add further clarifications and information to make it clear that this is not the case.

The sandbox's name is called "The One" so that's a choice, or just "God (Divine Comedy)"

 

[SamanPatou]

And my point is that this is far too close to the real deal to be valid to index imo, compared to other "God" characters we index

"Real deal" isn't even a thing as, without getting too political, there are a million different interpretation of God in real life, both among the three main abramitic religions and even within them and all their different currents, which we can count in the hundreds even simply within christianity, so claiming that there's a "real deal" is already extremely wrong. Then you go out to any form of religion based on gods, energies, spirits of nature, spirits of ancestors etc.. and see how the "real deal" of the universe is ultimately so varied in the greater perspective of mankind as a whole.
Divine Comedy God is also based on a representation of god from 700 years ago with many of its points not even been acknoledged by the current Roman Catholic Church, tbh, and even just reading a bit of it already tells you how different it is from what is generally taught.

 

[KingTempest]

"Real deal" isn't even a thing as, without getting too political, there are a million different interpretation of God in real life, both among the three main abramitic religions and even within them and all their different currents, which we can count in the hundreds even simply within christianity, so claiming that there's a "real deal" is already extremely wrong. Then you go out to any form of religion based on gods, energies, spirits of nature, spirits of ancestors etc.. and see how the "real deal" of the universe is ultimately so varied in the greater perspective of mankind as a whole.
Divine Comedy God is also based on a representation of god from 700 years ago with many of its points not even been acknoledged by the current Roman Catholic Church, tbh, and even just reading a bit of it already tells you how different it is from what is generally taught.

And this profile directly tackles the Christian interpretation of God, primarily the non heretical teachings of God taught by the early Christian church which hasn't changed or been tweaked by mainstream Christian teachings from back in the 2nd century all the way to the 21st, tackling concepts such as the trinity and the incarnation to its core, even a core part of the profile being the "form" which is just a copy and paste of the teachings of the "ousia", the "essence", the "being", etc.

There are millions of different interpretations of God in real life, but Christianity primarily shares a single one, and this profile tackles that single one. That's the argument that he's referencing.

The representation of God from 700 years ago by the church is the exact same representation of God 1900 years ago... by the church, which is the same as the teachings of now... by the church. So with all due respect, this is a nothing point.

It's like me saying there's a bunch of interpretations of Thor then me copying the Völsungasaga's teachings phrase for phrase and saying "it's just one interpretation, there's a lot"

 

[Ultima_Reality]

Yeah, I will back up Tempest on this particular point, because I don't like the whole "This is an old interpretation of the Christian God that isn't taught anymore" thing. The Comedy (And by extension the profile) effectively outlines the orthodox Christian teaching on the nature of God. Period.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

You're also completely missing the point here. It's about, to quote a Commandment, taking God's name in vain. I don't think it's wrong at all for Christian users to find the idea of power scaling something so intentionally close to Him in nature offensive.

Forgive my articulation here, but I believe saying this makes it an argument of ideology.

Like, I believe that everyone is free to practice the faith, just as everyone is free to deny it. The problem arises when one tries to apply their faith upon one who wishes to deny it. That's where I draw the line. The Divine Comedy is an expression of the faith, not the faith itself. If the depiction of God is "too intentionally close" to the real deal, then it might have been the author's prerogative. That is not on us. We just index fictional characters. The Divine Comedy for all intents and purposes, is not canonized as part of the bible, and as such should have no bearing on sacred scripture. Why then, would it be fair to speak of it like it was? If we deny The Divine Comedy on the site, are we not imposing the will of the faith (which many have mentioned it before to be separate from) onto something that it should have no bearing on?

We have to divest ourselves of the notion that this is the true depiction of God. It is not. There is no Church of The Divine Comedy. If us indexing him is taking the Lord's name in vain, then we must rid ourselves of all his depictions; including Narina and Lord of The Rings. We can either lose faith over blasphemy or have faith in spite of it. I choose the latter.

 

[SamanPatou]

You missed by point, I didn't mean the figure of God itself, but rather everything else surrounding it in the Comedy, like Limbo which isn't considered a thing anymore by the church.
This to say, a lot of the cosmology of the Comedy isn't officially recognized by the church, from the very structure of the three planes.

 

[KingTempest]

You missed by point, I didn't mean the figure of God itself, but rather everything else surrounding it in the Comedy, like Limbo which isn't considered a thing anymore by the church.
This to say, a lot of the cosmology of the Comedy isn't officially recognized by the church, from the very structure of the three planes.

I'd argue the cosmology is separate from the character.
Cause the character is 1:1. The doctrine and identity of the character is the same. Outside religious beliefs of the cosmology and other figures are different, but the primary being of worship is a push.

Like if someone were to index Moses I would not care. But God? Nah

 

[CloverDragon03]

I think I'm going to step away from this thread. It's been pretty hard on me, I imagine due in no small part to the subject matter at hand hitting too close to home - given my beliefs. Apologies for any inconvenience caused

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

I feel many points are being intellectually dishonest. Nevertheless, I personally am neutral here. I was raised in Christianity (I don't currently hold Christian belief, to be noted), am soon to be engaged to a Christian partner. While discussing this with them and a group of friends, I came to the conclusion we really need to reevaluate a lot of our approaches to these kinds of verses/depictions. It doesn't sit well with me to allow a depiction of God that is frankly downright insulting to faith (SMT), yet would raise so much controversy to accept a verse/depiction that goes on so much detail to the beauty of what God is as part of its narrative.

Still, I believe the controversy is undeniable, and we have deemed this as sufficient enough to disqualify profiles in the past (JttW was almost completely rejected at one point, but left under compromise).