Post by Kho on Jun 9, 2017 19:57:24 GMT
from A Brief Treatise on the Esharan Faith by His Eminence the Lord High Qarqaz to His Sacred Majesty, Haldwin the Sage
The Esharan faith, it is a mystery to no one, has for a long time been in retreat. Even before the Southern invasion of Ergoria (the true name of that which so many today know as 'the North') the Southern religion had begun to make inroads. The Duchy of Berranda, for instance, had for long followed the Southern faith and had fought many wars of aggression against neighbours purely due to their adhering to their own faiths - it was often the case that they were Esharans. While Esharanism has always responded to the discovery of new religions and gods by incorporating them and learning from them - for the Gods are many and bless different peoples with pieces of divine Knowledge and Understanding - these Southerners rejected the Esharan way. They rejected the Gods, in all their glory, and insisted on forcing one uniform God upon all. Other than the manifest impossibility of a sole God existing, this meant that wherever this Southern religion advanced what went before was uprooted. I do not say that they were savage or that they killed unnecessarily - on the contrary, their discipline was exceptional in this regard. But what they did was steal written Knowledge and deny it to those who were equally worthy of it; and what they did was withhold the substantial Knowledge that the Gods had blessed them with - and they were prideful and arrogant, so do you now hear so much as a whisper from them or see them even on the far horizons? The Gods took them with justice and they did not wrong them - but they wronged themselves.
We do not reject this religion of the Southerners, but we must make a firm stand when we come across something so manifestly erroneous that it cannot be incorporated into the Esharan way - indeed, is essentially antithetical to the Esharan faith. This claim that there is a single God, for instance, this 'monotheism' of theirs. It is a logical impossibility - for if there were but one God, one essentially good God at that, then this world of ours would be a paradise and all would be bliss. We would live in the care of the one good God and no evil would touch us. For it is impossible for one God, as the Southerners have often claimed, to encompass every aspect and facet of the many Esharan Gods. How, for instance, can the same God have within itself the unadulterated goodness of Eshar-Qiqarius and yet be also host to the unadulterated hatred and evil of the Dark One - the one know in Sacrye as Gatyx. It is simply impossible. How can this one God, for instance, both be the father of all that exists and source of all happiness, the one who has given us Knowledge and Understanding that we may prosper and achieve Enlightenment, and at the same time be the Dark One who wishes to bring about death and destruction, eradicate all Knowledge and Understanding, and see Enlightenment plunged in darkness? Do these Southerners have minds that they may contemplate or eyes that they may see or ears that they may hear?
The Esharan faith takes all that is good from this Southern faith - its focus on discipline, its dedication to order and stability, but we must reject without reservation all that does not appeal to the light of reason and that which the inherent light of the mind rejects, and with which the heart and soul are ever uneasy. If one surrender Knowledge and Understanding, surrendering the greatest faculty of those who have minds, then we are not worthy of having minds and are naught but animals. So I call on you, if you read this and possess a true mind, to think and be of those who, above all else, pursues the light of Knowledge and Understanding which never strays and never errs.
With that small tangent, it is pertinent now to discuss the more important matters of the history of the Esharan faith and its substance...
The Esharan faith, it is a mystery to no one, has for a long time been in retreat. Even before the Southern invasion of Ergoria (the true name of that which so many today know as 'the North') the Southern religion had begun to make inroads. The Duchy of Berranda, for instance, had for long followed the Southern faith and had fought many wars of aggression against neighbours purely due to their adhering to their own faiths - it was often the case that they were Esharans. While Esharanism has always responded to the discovery of new religions and gods by incorporating them and learning from them - for the Gods are many and bless different peoples with pieces of divine Knowledge and Understanding - these Southerners rejected the Esharan way. They rejected the Gods, in all their glory, and insisted on forcing one uniform God upon all. Other than the manifest impossibility of a sole God existing, this meant that wherever this Southern religion advanced what went before was uprooted. I do not say that they were savage or that they killed unnecessarily - on the contrary, their discipline was exceptional in this regard. But what they did was steal written Knowledge and deny it to those who were equally worthy of it; and what they did was withhold the substantial Knowledge that the Gods had blessed them with - and they were prideful and arrogant, so do you now hear so much as a whisper from them or see them even on the far horizons? The Gods took them with justice and they did not wrong them - but they wronged themselves.
We do not reject this religion of the Southerners, but we must make a firm stand when we come across something so manifestly erroneous that it cannot be incorporated into the Esharan way - indeed, is essentially antithetical to the Esharan faith. This claim that there is a single God, for instance, this 'monotheism' of theirs. It is a logical impossibility - for if there were but one God, one essentially good God at that, then this world of ours would be a paradise and all would be bliss. We would live in the care of the one good God and no evil would touch us. For it is impossible for one God, as the Southerners have often claimed, to encompass every aspect and facet of the many Esharan Gods. How, for instance, can the same God have within itself the unadulterated goodness of Eshar-Qiqarius and yet be also host to the unadulterated hatred and evil of the Dark One - the one know in Sacrye as Gatyx. It is simply impossible. How can this one God, for instance, both be the father of all that exists and source of all happiness, the one who has given us Knowledge and Understanding that we may prosper and achieve Enlightenment, and at the same time be the Dark One who wishes to bring about death and destruction, eradicate all Knowledge and Understanding, and see Enlightenment plunged in darkness? Do these Southerners have minds that they may contemplate or eyes that they may see or ears that they may hear?
The Esharan faith takes all that is good from this Southern faith - its focus on discipline, its dedication to order and stability, but we must reject without reservation all that does not appeal to the light of reason and that which the inherent light of the mind rejects, and with which the heart and soul are ever uneasy. If one surrender Knowledge and Understanding, surrendering the greatest faculty of those who have minds, then we are not worthy of having minds and are naught but animals. So I call on you, if you read this and possess a true mind, to think and be of those who, above all else, pursues the light of Knowledge and Understanding which never strays and never errs.
With that small tangent, it is pertinent now to discuss the more important matters of the history of the Esharan faith and its substance...
