The Light and Darkness

**Not Caelvan**
Being that I am a believer in Death and I feel that your second ending paragraph is an abomination to all three Gods I hold in high regard I will comment on this one passage.

"Death does come at the end of life, but we live our lives full of purpose and hope because we are alive not because we fear death. Please speak up now if you would live your lives differently if tomorrow you found out that you would live forever. How many of you would break your bonds of friendship and give up your work and leave your crops untended or your projects unfinished if you knew you would never die?"


Death comes to us all. For most it is not a pleasant experience. Many, most likely like yourself, do not understand the reasons for it. Many try to thwart it. This is wrong to do, but that is a discussion of another topic.

However there are more people that would change their lives if everyone lived forever that will probably speak up to your challenge. Because my dear cleric, most do not want to be looked at in a bad light for answering yes to the question of "would you change anything" for it would indeed make them in bad light.

Now you speak of Darkness not having a place and light not needing darkness. What of the "light" god Galladel? The judge of souls would not have souls to judge if there is no Death. What of The Chronicler? With no ending to any of our stories he will continue to write about everyone, or just stop writing and cease to exist. Now see, your "perfect" world has lost two gods that weren't even part of "darkness".

On that topic. Valos, to which I see you worship would have no law to uphold. If there is no Chaos then there needs to be no law to counteract that Chaos. If no torture or pain there need no compassion or love. Therefore there will be three and only three Gods that will exist.
Gaia for the unending life. Enax for the authority granted to kings and nobles(if in your perfect world there are such people otherwise Enax will also be no more). Brazen for the creation of material items.

I ask you a question now. Is this the perfect world you pictured?

-Merikh
Priest of Galmachis

Why not let them honor combat? In the North when things of this nature whether it be religious or based on who is chief things came down to honor combat.

It would never be about the blows given or received, it would be about conviction. Who has the stronger will to stand when the fight was over. Now I know that the Church would look upon violence as a last resort, but in many things I see could be handled a more northern way. You southerns are so concerned with words and who speaks in louder volumes, but your hearts should be the only thing anyone should listen to.

This is why Northmen think the ability to read and write is weak, and yes that might make me weak for being able to understand words with a tremendous amount of syllables, but at the end of the day no matter who it is I will stand to them if they wish to test my conviction.

Swyft, there are already so many who wish to sit down and chat and eat and talk over their issues. It goes on and on and on and on and it has become tedious. Now I am not suggestion this solution for everyone, but these two have been at each others throats with parchment for this entire week and with feast approaching rapidly I think we have come past the time for some righteous speech.

Signed, With Truth,
Jack Dimms

Thank you for you position dear Clytie, and you Swyft.

I hope that my message is clear. My use of the imagery of light and darkness is not to suggest the eradication of the other, but to effect the salvation of the other.

There are in scholarly circles, schools which open public forums like this for the purpose of arguments. An argument being distinctly different than a conflict. Arguments are methods of avoiding conflict. I hope this makes sense to you both and any other reader.

Wotcher Mister DuMourne,

I ought to mention that, oddly, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of your message. However, it is worth bearing in mind that, however much it pains us to do so, we would do well to remain patient and sympathetic towards the locals here while they practice their first ungainly attempts to wield logic and empiricism. From what I've studied of their culture, much of their current understanding of the world stems from long-held religious and spiritual beliefs; subsequently, talk of this sort is a large and exciting step forward for them, however ineptly it might be handled at this early stage.

Rather than chastising them for their blunders, I'd ask that you consider encouraging them for their efforts. It appears that they have an awful lot of history to move past, and as much as it is fascinating to observe a society developing in this way, it also isn't our place to scold them for attempting to make forward progress. Although so much of our own history is lost to time, I've no doubt that there was a brief moment that our sort looked to faith as a means by which to understand the world, and made equally artless bungles as we attempted to refine our model.

Very good, Mister DuMourne. As a final thought, remember that many in this part of the world are trained for martial combat. If all one knows is how to beat things with a club... well, I've no doubt that you can infer the rest.

Or beat things with a wrench in your case Mister Goggins?

Signed, With Truth,
Jack Dimms.

I love discussion! It brings things to the fore so much the better to really examine the underlying issues. I thank all that hath supplied their opinions here. The issue of Light and Dark is not going to be settled in a forum such as this, of course, but for those who art uneducated it is a good way to start to understand the concepts.

To Clytie; Thee hath seen Valosians at their worst. I can only apologize for the others of my brethren who overstepped the call of Valos in their zeal. Extremists are one problem, to be sure. So much so that our entire Church dissolved, cast out huge numbers of its corrupt members, and reorganized to become what we were meant to be. What is more insidious then Extremism, however, is Apathy. We fight that every day. What Lucien means to do, I think, is to shake loose the bonds of Apathy from the citizens of Travance. Discussion allows thought, and thought turns into motivation for action. Arguments such as those on this forum, are a side effect of the effort.

We are foremost a service organization to the citizens of Travance. It is just now becoming apparent where our efforts should lie, we are preaching and listening to thee all, and trying to not merely tend the altar as we have in past. Our Gods, whether thee worship them or not, are your Gods, whom stand ready to aid the infirm and defend the innocent. If we fail in that, say so. If we can better help with that, tell us what thee think. We are not hard to find, if not the Monastery, then in the Proper we are everywhere. Stop and talk to a Clergy of Light. Support, or suggestions, it makes no difference, the purpose. We are here for thee.

To the Dark Clergy; We disagree, fundamentally, on the nature of our world. With respect, our positions are not going to be reconciled. That in fact is part of the world; Light and Dark, standing at odds over the hearts and minds of those on Arawyn. Very dramatic. We will be who the Light wills us to be, thou would be as the Dark wills. That is all there is to that. Its the others who listen to the squabbling that are important, not us.