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Author Topic: CSG update #1 - introduction  (Read 41097 times)
sporky
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« Reply #45 on: February 19, 2016, 09:57:52 am »

But the motivation might have been very different when you consider the state, the church, and the sponsors the crew represented.
Also, it was comparatively cheap to build and equip the ship, there were thousands of such expeditions organized these centuries, while the New Ark is an ultra-expensive one of a kind project.
When you say the motivation may have been different, do you mean the pilgrims or the mother ship people?

The pilgrims were their own church and had to work on behalf of their sponsor for 4 out of 6 days or something, but definitely the motivation was having control over their little community and the labor and goods were the means.

Yeah, a starship would be in another league fiscally, but versimilitude aside, the pairing of a mega corporation with an extreme religious group would make for an interesting setting. The corp gets the benefit of the group cohesion provided by a shared religion in their crew, and the group could trade a percentage of their output for a certain amount of time. The ship automatically enforcing the arrangement by not providing 100% rations if enough space dust isn't harvested (or whatever) could be cool, especially when the group perverts over the generations and nobody remembers why they do anything.
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Vahha
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« Reply #46 on: February 19, 2016, 10:32:55 am »

Yeah, whatever mission(s) the sponsors/ship builders and the colonists themselves originally pursued was buried recycled with them.
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« Reply #47 on: February 19, 2016, 11:17:58 am »

The corp gets the benefit of the group cohesion provided by a shared religion in their crew...
Yeah, I'm guessing that "religious cohesion" would last just about until they'd escaped earth's gravity well and someone noticed his neighbor holds his fork in his left hand instead of his right, as God clearly intended.
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sporky
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« Reply #48 on: February 19, 2016, 01:43:44 pm »

Yeah, whatever mission(s) the sponsors/ship builders and the colonists themselves originally pursued was buried with them.
The Pilgrims? Those dudes were taking notes.  I mean, I didn't do my own primary research, but that book up there is heavy on the details. Everything they did was documented with correspondence and journals. Just have to adjust for personal bias. Are you not into history?
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sporky
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« Reply #49 on: February 19, 2016, 01:47:05 pm »

The corp gets the benefit of the group cohesion provided by a shared religion in their crew...
Yeah, I'm guessing that "religious cohesion" would last just about until they'd escaped earth's gravity well and someone noticed his neighbor holds his fork in his left hand instead of his right, as God clearly intended.

A generation ship is probably a stretch. But the pilgrims stayed on mission till the originals were pretty old. Their kids and grandkids got a lot more interested in money. So based on this historical example, cohesion lasted about 50 years.
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Dewey_Master
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« Reply #50 on: February 19, 2016, 01:53:21 pm »

Yeah, whatever mission(s) the sponsors/ship builders and the colonists themselves originally pursued was buried with them.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

It is never the burial that is controversial. The controversy lies in the meaning of the Resurrection. What will the mission mean (and denial of it is still an interpretation of that original mission) after the original missioners (= "Apostles" in Greek) are dead and buried?

The general approaches in religion are idolatry, iconoclasm, sacramentalism, and mysticism. In the broadest of strokes, their approach to the original mission is one of reception, interpretation, discernment, and inspiration, respectively. Let's use the first chapter of Genesis to illustrate some differences:

Idolatry: "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." "Evening came and morning followed." "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it." For the idolater, religion is about correct belief and correct practice (discoverable by faith rather than reason). What matters about this story is how God creates from nothing by power of his word, the number of days involved in the work, and the divine ordinances of procreation and dominion.

Iconoclasm: "Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation." The iconoclast is embarrassed by all historical, cultural, and contingent underpinnings of religion. All true meanings of religion must be universifiable and rational. The creation story, for the Iconoclast, is simply a way of emphasizing the importance of work (6 days) - rest (Sabbath) balance.

Sacramentalism: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created him." A sacramental approach (= "sacred mystery" in Greek) holds together faith and reason, history and eternity, flesh and word in all of its paradoxes. In the case of the above passage, where modern psychology would say God was invented as a way for us to image ourselves; the sacramentalist argues that humans are created for us to image God. Think of a couple saying, "I love you," and sharing a kiss. The kiss does not merely represent the spoken love (as the iconoclasts would have) nor is the contact between lips the essence of the act (as the idolaters would have); rather, the kiss is the love between the couple made flesh.

Mysticism: "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind (=spirit) swept over the waters." The mystic is principally concerned with a direct and personal encounter with divinity--most characterized by Spirit. In the Eastern tradition this has emphasized the formlessness, darkness, and waters (=deep) of the above passage. God is not known except by our knowledge of what we do not know about God, so attention is paid precisely to darkness and silence. In the Western tradition, emphasis has been laid on desire (even erotic desire) and beauty. The poems of Saint John of the Cross capture both elements.



Now, I don't expect Genesis 1 to be the exegetical battleground for the CSG, but these various lenses are helpful to keep around for other situations. Think of the Binding of Isaac. Is this (1) a heroic and unproblematic act of great faith, (2) a horrible misunderstanding of who God is by early representatives of a particular religion, (3) an anti-type to the sacrifice of Jesus which ends all other sacrifice (cf. Rene Girard), (4) well, read Fear and Trembling or scope out Caravaggio's two takes for how divergent different mystic takes (even by the same author/artist) can be.

For the particular setting at hand, A Canticle for Leibowitz would be a great resource in showing how a twice-buried religion might be adapted at a personal and social level at intervals of 600 years. Vince, are you familiar with this work?
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Dewey_Master
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« Reply #51 on: February 19, 2016, 02:00:59 pm »

Yeah, I'm guessing that "religious cohesion" would last just about until they'd escaped earth's gravity well and someone noticed his neighbor holds his fork in his left hand instead of his right, as God clearly intended.

Why do you think so much of the Torah is established precisely to prevent such abominations (left = sinistra) from happening in the first place? Now, a cosmopolitan modern or post-modern society and culture will not maintain religious cohesion in a strong sense of the term. But there are tribes who have maintained their religious cohesion (if not identity) pretty successfully at least up through the age of exploration. I suppose the generation ship would exist somewhere between the two. Maybe something like Medieval Christendom with a strong sense of common religion existing amidst the many controversies, political machinations, and even armed conflicts (so, yes, also a strong sense of heresy, schism, and competing orders).
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Vahha
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« Reply #52 on: February 19, 2016, 03:40:52 pm »

I'm glad I've sparkled such an insightful discussion.
I was speaking about the Colony Ship, not the Pilgrims, I've no comments reg. the Pilgrims as I have a very limited knowledge of the subject. Of course the main question here, the main factor, is how many generation passed since the Departure.

PS: reg. the logs (or even instructions) covering the mission and the motivation of the flight, I guess some generations after they are written the descendants will indeed pay them very little attention. Whatever my grand-grand-grandparents were planning to accomplish and whatever they strongly believed in that's of very very little relevance for me.
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sporky
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« Reply #53 on: February 19, 2016, 05:17:47 pm »

Got it, I misunderstood
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Dewey_Master
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« Reply #54 on: February 20, 2016, 01:57:25 am »

PS: reg. the logs (or even instructions) covering the mission and the motivation of the flight, I guess some generations after they are written the descendants will indeed pay them very little attention. Whatever my grand-grand-grandparents were planning to accomplish and whatever they strongly believed in that's of very very little relevance for me.

That's because your grand-grand-grandparents' parents were not directly shaping your political and religious world. If they had, they would be relevant to you whether you paid them any mind or not. The Constitution of the United States of America stretches beyond the generational gap you propose, but its text (however interpreted) is certainly relevant for life within (and beyond) its national borders. The case is even stronger for sacred stories. Note that I say "stories" rather than "texts" because most of those belonging to the tradition will have virtually no exposure to the texts themselves (such texts might not even exist in oral cultures) but will still be imbued with the world fashioned by their ideas (or at least by ideas attributed to them).

Affiliation to such large political and religious bodies is typically something one is born into though both immigration and conversion exist. There are also subsets of the above that are more typically voluntary, based on special interest. The Federalist Papers is an important historical source of interpretation for some Americans. The Lives of the Desert Fathers is an important historical source of interpretation for some Christians.

I imagine the Generation Ship would have both legal charter(s) as well as important and revered sectarian opinions by "saints" from the Civil War. There is also the case, at least in the religious world, of vowed communities. Whether eremitical (fast and wrestle with demons), monastic (pray and work), military (repent and fight), mendicant (preach and travel), missionary, or apostolic; these communities with centuries of tradition are still governed by their centuries old founding documents. Members of the Benedictine Order have their rule read to them piecemeal over dinner again and again; its relevance is continually being reinforced. The Rule of Augustine demands to be read at least weekly. These texts are 1500 years old, and they are still being observed today.

Again, even people who don't give a damn or who have no idea are still being impacted by all of these influences to the degree that they affect the culture at large or proximate sub-groups.
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Vahha
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« Reply #55 on: February 20, 2016, 02:51:27 am »

In the case of the US Constitution it is effectively enforced by the state for these centuries. Should the state be altered or replaced the Constitution would be quickly changed or forgotten.
As for the colony ship, at some point there was the mutiny that broke this link. And if we consider religious norms passed through generations within a family, again they change quite dramatically under external social and cultural circumstances.
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Oliver_Cromwell
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« Reply #56 on: April 11, 2018, 01:01:56 pm »

"The Pilgrims got pretty ISIS on the natives, so there are some historical diplomatic incidents to use."

No.

Too much Marxist history me thinks.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/were-american-indians-the-victims-of-genocide/

https://books.google.com/books?id=WhPMfcl24XQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=indian+wars+puritans&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRn8Lc5bLaAhVp04MKHVKeDc4Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=and%20conclusion&f=false

New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620-1675
pg 323

"The important question is not whether the Puritans should have settled in New England or expanded their initial footholds - domination by the Puritans or some other European group would have come eventually - but how humanely and justly they introduced their brand of western civilization into the neolithic world of the American Indian."

And while we are at it here is a good antidote to the propaganda of the puritans being joyless brutal theocrats: https://www.c-span.org/video/?414926-1/myths-england-puritans
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SolarTradition
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« Reply #57 on: April 13, 2018, 09:53:18 am »

Generally speaking, I'd say the original Christian (or Muslim, or Hindu) missionary expansions were essentially motivated by material interests (= lands, resources, slaves) and converting the locals (that's specifically noted in their scriptures), while a new super-distant world would satisfy neither of these motivations.

That's a pretty materialistic interpretation of history and I'm sure the "neo-Christian" foundation wouldn't agree. Smile
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