Talk:Cylon Religion

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This should probably be merged with content from God (RDM). --Peter Farago 14:26, 30 December 2005 (EST)

I concur and will likely begin such at some point today if it's not done before I come back to it. --CalculatinAvatar 14:28, 30 December 2005 (EST)

I agree --Zareck Rocks 18:59, 30 December 2005 (EST)

I do not. The "God" page includes more materials and references for other things not strictly from the Cylon religion alone.--Ricimer 21:24, 30 December 2005 (EST)

Contents 1 Source for Polytheism Being Blashemeous 2 Quote Collecting 2.1 Natasi 2.2 Baltar's Six 2.3 Conoy (Ragnar Anchorage Copy) 2.4 Conoy (Gemenon Traveler Copy) 2.5 Valerii (Caprica Copy) 2.6 Caprica Cylons 3 Conclusions 3.1 Questions raised 4 Why couldn't they just mass-produce? 5 Historical Comparison 6 View of Humanity 7 Different religous viewpoints per model? 8 To Merge with God...

Source for Polytheism Being Blashemeous

I know that "Cylons view the worship of multiple gods as blasphemeous against their God." is true. I believe it is specifically attested in 33, but I wanted to be sure before claiming such. Can anyone verify that or any other particular source? --CalculatinAvatar 14:27, 30 December 2005 (EST)

Deleted scene, Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part I. --Peter Farago 14:34, 30 December 2005 (EST)

Also noted as "false gods" by Sharon Valerii in Home, Part I. --Spencerian 14:39, 30 December 2005 (EST)

Part II, FWIW. --Peter Farago 19:05, 31 December 2005 (EST)

Quote Collecting

At present, I think the best thing to do here to ensure an accurate and well-cited entry is to scan episode transcripts for relevant comments and group them by topic and source, similar to the way we did Sacred Scrolls. --Peter Farago 16:47, 30 December 2005 (EST)

Natasi

Here's all Natasi had to tell us about God before her death:

Natasi: You know that's not really why I did it.
Baltar: No, you did it because you love me.
Natasi: That, and God wanted me to help you.
Baltar: Right, He spoke to you, did he? You had a chat?
Natasi: He didn't speak to me in a literal voice. And you don't have to mock my faith.
Baltar: Sorry. I'm just not very religious.
Natasi: Does it bother you that I am?
Baltar: It puzzles me that an intelligent, attractive woman such as yourself should be taken in by all that mysticism and superstition, but I'm willing to overlook it on account of your other attributes.

Baltar's Six

From the Miniseries:

Baltar: That was your job?
Six: Officially. Unofficially I had other motives. We had something, Gaius. Something special.
Baltar: This is insane.
Six: And what I want most of all is for you to love me.
Baltar: Love you.
Six: Of course, Gaius. Don't you understand? God is love.

Conoy (Ragnar Anchorage Copy)

From the Miniseries:

Conoy: I'm an observer of human nature. When you get right down to it, humanity is not a pretty race. I mean, we're only one step away from beating each other with clubs, like savages fighting over scraps of meat. Maybe the Cylons are God's retribution for our many sins. What if God decided he made a mistake, and he decided to give souls to another creature? Like the Cylons.

Conoy (Gemenon Traveler Copy)

From "Flesh and Bone":

Thrace: Sleeping?
Conoy: Praying.
Thrace: I don't think the gods answer the prayers of toasters.
Conoy: God answers everyone's prayers.

Conoy: You believe in the gods, don't you? Lords of Kobol and all that?
Thrace: Why should I tell you?
Conoy: Come on, it's not a trick question. I just wanna see how much I got right. So you pray to Artemis and Aphrodite?
Thrace: Where's the warhead?
Conoy: I was right. See, our faiths are similar but I look to one god, not to many.
Thrace: I don't give a damn what you believe.
Conoy: To know the face of god is to know madness. I see the universe. I see the patterns. I see the foreshadowing that precedes every moment of every day. It's all there, I see it and you don't. And I have a surprise for you. I have something to tell you about the future.
Thrace: Is that so?
Conoy: It is. But we have to see this through to the end. What is the most basic article of faith? "This is not all that we are. "See, the difference between you and me is, I know what that means, and you don't. I know that I'm more than this body, more than this consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream but in truth, I'm standing on the shore the current never takes me downstream.

Thrace: But then I keep forgetting, you're not human. You're a machine.
Conoy: I am more than you could ever imagine. I am God.
Thrace: I'm sorry, you're God? Wow, nice to meet ya. That's good, that's good. We'll give you a couple of minutes for that.
Conoy: It's funny, isn't it? We're all god, Starbuck, all of us. I see the love that binds all living things together.
Thrace: Love? You don't even know what the word means.
Conoy: I know that God loved you more than all other living creatures and you repaid his divine love with sin, with hate, corruption, evil. So then he decided to create the Cylons.
Thrace: The gods had nothing to do with it. We created you. Us. It was a stupid, frakked-up decision and we have paid for it. You slaughtered my entire civilization! That is sin! That is evil, and you are evil.
Leoben: Am I? I see the truths that float past you in the stream.

Conoy: All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
Thrace: Don't quote scripture. You don't have the right to use those words.
Conoy: You kneel before idols and ask for guidance and you can't see that your destiny's already been written. Each of us plays a role, each time a different role. Maybe the last time, I was the interrogator and you were the prisoner. The players change, the story remains the same. And this time... this time, your role is to deliver my soul unto God. Do it for me. It's your destiny, and mine. And I told you I had a surprise for you. Are you ready? You're gonna find Kobol. Birthplace of us all. Kobol will lead you to Earth. This is my gift to you, Kara.

Valerii (Caprica Copy)

From "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II":

Valerii: I don't know if you can hear this or not, Helo, but what we had between us was important. It was very important.
Agathon: Why?
Valerii: Because it was the next step. Because it brings us closer to god.
Agathon: Don't mock the gods, okay? It's a human belief, I'm human, they're our gods.

From "The Farm":

Valerii: Procreation. It’s one of God’s commandments: "be fruitful". We can’t fulfill it we tried so we decided to— Thrace: To rape human women?
Valerii: No if you agreed to bear a children it’d be voluntary maybe even set you up with someone you like.
Thrace: Like you two kids?
Valerii: We’re different.
Thrace: What the frak is that suppose to mean?
Agathon: They have this theory maybe the one thing they were missing was love. So Sharon and I— we were set up to—
Thrace: To fall in love? They didn’t ask Sue-Shaun if she wanted to fall in love, right? They put a tube in her, and they hooked her up into a machine!
Valerii: They know who you are, Kara. You’re special. Leoben told you that. You have a destiny.

From "Home, Part II":

Valerii: Eleven O'Clock. Twenty degrees elevation. There's a formation of twin rocks up ahead.
Agathon: Yeah, I've got it.
Valerii: I think those are the Gates of Hera.
Thrace: You think?
Valerii: I'm putting together a lot of pieces from a lot of sources beyond your scriptures. If I'm right, that's the spot where your god supposedly stood and watched Athena throw herself down o nto the rocks below out of despair over the exodus of the 13 tribes.
Zarek: Supposedly? I thought the Cylons believed in the gods.
Thrace: Yeah, don't get her started. They believe in one true God or something like that.
Valerii: And we don't worship false idols.
Lee Adama: You were quick enough to come on this mission. Lead us all to some tomb only actually mentioned in our false scriptures.
Valerii: We know more about your religion than you do. Athena's Tomb, whoever, and whatever she really was is probably up there. That part is true.

Caprica Cylons

From "Bastille Day":

Doral: They would have destroyed themselves, anyway. They deserve what they got.
Six: We're the children of humanity; that makes them our parents, in a sense.
Doral: True. But parents have to die. It's the only way children come into their own.

From "Final Cut":

Valerii: I'm still alive. She's still alive. I told you.
Six: That's incredible. And the baby?
Biers: It was saved. We lost two raiders relaying the images back to the fleet, but I think the sacrifice was worth it.
Doral: We must proceed with caution. The child's life must be protected at all costs.
Biers: Yeah. Truly is a miracle from God.

Conclusions

I have deliberately left Baltar's six out of the quote collection above, since the actual nature of her identity is highly debateable. Given their context, all the quotes above should be largely trustworthy, with the exception of the two Conoy, which must be taken with a grain of salt. I think that we can safely conclude the following:

1. The Cylons believe in a single God. (numerous refs)
2. They have access to a broader set of documents and scripture than the Colonials. (Valerii, Home pt. II)
3. They acknowlege the historical existance of the Lords of Kobol. (Valerii, Home pt. II)
4. They consider worship of these other gods to be misguided at best; blasphemous at worst. (Conoy, Flesh and Bone; Valerii, Home pt. II)
5. They believe themselves to be the legitimate successors to humanity within God's plan. (Conoy, miniseries; Doral, Bastille Day; Conoy, Flesh and Bone)
6. They share the Colonials' belief in the Cycle of Time. (Conoy, Flesh and Bone)
7. They believe sexual procreation is a divine imperative. (Valerii, The Farm)
8. They suspect that love is necessary to accomplish the former. (Valerii, The Farm)

Additionally, we can tentatively conclude the following, if we're willing to trust some of Conoy's comments:

1. They engage in prayer, which implies belief that their God can be consulted or appealed to. (Conoy, Flesh and Bone)
2. They have an somewhat opaque ontology, expressed by Conoy's "stream".

Other points to consider:

1. Natasi denies that God spoke to her in a "literal voice".

Questions raised

• If the Cylons have access to more historical documents than the Colonials, they must have received them from a third party. Who?

--Peter Farago 20:03, 1 January 2006 (EST)

Perhaps they wrote their own? --Redwall 22:00, 1 January 2006 (EST)

I do not believe that at any time during "Home, Part II" we ever heard the Cylons say that they "have access to a broader set of documents and scripture than the Colonials". --Ricimer 23:50, 1 January 2006 (EST)

Boomer: "I'm putting together a lot of pieces from a lot of sources beyond your scriptures." --Peter Farago 01:29, 2 January 2006 (EST)

It's also possible that she was simply referring to historical evidence available to the Colonials but ignored by the more religious of them (a situation similar to many fundamentalists of today). --Redwall 10:53, 2 January 2006 (EST)

Fair point. --Peter Farago 12:46, 2 January 2006 (EST)

Further, they do not "have a somewhat opaque ontology"; just because someone didn't understand what he was saying doesn't make it "opaque"; what Leoben was saying were in fact Gnostic and/or vaguely Buddhist ideas, etc. And remember, the Cylons believe that "God is love". --Ricimer 23:50, 1 January 2006 (EST)

If you can explain Leoben's stream-imagery to me in terms of Gnostic and/or Buddhist ideas, I would be delighted. I find them impenetrable. --Peter Farago 01:31, 2 January 2006 (EST)

Why couldn't they just mass-produce?

I think the Cylons were a bit stupid if they thought they could only reproduce biologicaly. They're robots, so why didn't they just decided to follow the 'be fruitful and mutiply' commandment by just mass-producing themselves using factories? That would fufill that commandment very well. And why do they have a reilgon in the first place? That's not very robot-like. Surely industrial production could too count as a form of reproduction? I can't see the logic behind this.

They mimic human form -- and thus everything about it, right down to how we reproduce -- because they believe that it will bring them closer to their God. -- Joe Beaudoin 10:59, 6 March 2006 (CST)

"Not very robot-like"? Anything that gains a high enough level of sentience will ponder such questions as the existence of the soul and life after death. --The Merovingian 14:07, 6 March 2006 (CST)

Historical Comparison

The Merovingian removed this passage: "One observer can easily compare the religious conflict between the Colonials and the Cylons to the rise and spread of Christianity and Judaism in Europe during the final days of the Roman Empire and the dethronement of the religious beliefs the Greeks and the Romans believed in." because he felt it was a bit too POV. I don't agree, though it could certainly use cleaning-up grammatically speaking. -- Noneofyourbusiness 20:13, 10 April 2006 (EST)

In my opinion, it's not that it's POV; it's just a very poor analogy. --Peter Farago 19:36, 10 April 2006 (CDT)

I think it should be removed, because it is a POV poor analogy. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 21:14, 10 April 2006 (CDT)

View of Humanity

The view of humanity stuff needs to be cited (obviously I know where it came from, and it is mentioned in edit summary, but it needs to be in the article). Also, it's missing the later parts about "Maybe we were wrong about that", and the co-existing, and then the Earth quest. Just leaving the parts about killing the humans off is an incomplete picture. --Steelviper 09:44, 9 November 2006 (CST)

Concerning religion of the cylons and the colonies.

Keeping Ron Moore's twists and turns from the original series I would like to suggest that the Lords of Kobol and the "jealous" god, are for all intensive purposes the Cylons. They are modeled after and therefore more directly linked to the deities say than Adama is "being Zeus" among the humans. So much so that specific units have become avatars, perhaps posessed of a lord or at the very least evolving an actual soul in likeness of a lord.

12 cylons = 12 olympians Final Five - Temple of Five

The mystery of the final five hints to them being something other that the existing models. Perhaps these five could not be replicated like the others because of their conflict with the cylon god.

Clearly a more human "being" is developing in Deana in her search for enlightenment, in Caprica in her search for Love and in Sharon in her self acceptance. With Deanna the search for enlightenment became so overpweing the entire line was boxed. With Sharon it's almost as if the humanity Boomer clung to has moved to Agathon. Boomer is not the woman that would not leave her human apartment after resurrecting, but both have in their own fashion esentially accepted who they are. Caprica appears in a constant state of conflict that many humans will relate to, while her etherial counterpart is the self assured herald of her cylon maker.

For all the pagan references in the original series we still had Count Iblis and the ship of lights taking on very familliar christan concepts of angels and satan. Nothing is ever quite that black and white in the reimagined series.

While the reference has been fleeting, the notion of a god outside the Lords of Kobol is clear, and he would be the cylons god. Dodona Selloi seems to refer to the cylon god as nothing more or less than a lord of kobol. My thought is that somehow this jealous god has sort of ensnared the likeness perhaps even conciousness of the lords in creating the cylon race, so closely that single copies become avatars of the lords. The final five could be so possesed that they are not part of the cylon race, refusing the mechanations of the cylon god. Others an avatar is what we see developing in Sharon, Deanna and Caprica.

And even the cylon god, the Count Iblis whose voice was that of the imperious leader in the original series has a model: Brother Cavel. Cavel is horribly wicked, he is always urging his fellow cylons to the most horrific of actions. He appears out of nowhwere all the time. And yet, strangely, he seems to honor the importance of free will in his dealings with his brother cylons, something you would expect of an Abrahamic god. He's not Satan then who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, he is just far more satanic or evil than any characterization offered by a member of a known pantheon of gods.

Yet another twist, If the Abrahmic god were competing with beings like himself (greek gods), how satanic might he appear? An abrahamic god accepts free will: I can't make you worship me. But is flawed like miltons Satan, if you don't worship me , your damned. Satan's flaw in paradise lost was saying better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. What he should have said was better to live free on earth not rule in hell. So Cavel is a marvelous blend of an Abrahamic God & Satan floating through space in a base ship with 7 of 12 would be Olympians. Caprica/ Aphrodite, Sharon Athena and Deanna/Hestia(?). Starbuck/Artemis is the next to come forward?

Adama and Laura as Zeus and Hera? Two reason for two of the final five to stay where they are. They have human avatars leading the fleet. Three male cylons just go with the flow, well the male gods were always kind of boring anyway. At least if your a fan of Wonder Woman.

The twist from original series to re-imagined series are always surprising and wonderful in many ways. In the world of Sci Fi televison, the original Galactica made huge advances by considering the existence of higher beings. Where would the Ancients of Stargate or the Vorlons of Babylon be without Battlestar Galactica? Will we see actual communion with higher beings in the re-imagined series? I don't expect to. It would gnaw at the the gritty realism of the show.

The idea of this entire exodus from the colonies seeking earth, unifying to a new Kobol, then breaking off back to earth and the colonies over and over seems entirely plausible. Gods are at the very least real in a metaphoirical sense and 12 cylon models living in peace with a vast race of humans on new a Kobol in the end sounds far more believeable than actual gods and godesses co-existing with man.

Different religous viewpoints per model?

Ok we know the Cavil models are atheist. We know Sixes are particularly devout. Three's seem to question their faith. Leoben makes comments like we are all god (gnosticism?). I think Boomer implied Simon (or was it Doral) couldn't bear to speak God's name. I think none of the models actually agree on what their god is. Cavil's are cynical, Simon's are empirical, Sixes are zealots, Leoben's are into mysticism or some such, Three's seemed to be in spiritual turmoil. --Meteor 25 January 2007.

Cavil, his atheism sounds more like a speech from Lucifer discrediting god. The idea that the "jealous god" and the "one whose name cannot be spoken" are one and the same, and perhaps the Cylon God is a fun line to pursue. Why would the human then have such reverence for the temple of Five and those five priests, if they were followers of a fallen go? If I'm not mistaken isn't the name "Yahweh" or "Jahovah" sort of not supposed to be spoken?

I'm of the faith we have 10 cylon models that represent these archetypes of humanity, aka the gods or Lords of Kobol. Makes perfect sense for the colonies gods to be archetypes as well. You see that all the time in mythology. But in the series the two "top spots" of this a-typical archetype pantheon have human avatars Zeus/Adama and Laura/Hera. So the two leading cylon positions are based on judeo christian "super powers" that they would call God and Satan. And if that is the case...then Cavil, as #2, is number two, to you know who.

Different religious view points are hitting you from every possible angle on this show. Now Has anyone taken to to the worship of RDM I wonder? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mevenstar (talk • contribs).

Hi, Mevenstar. You're seeing another layer that the Cylons didn't appear to anticipate. They moved to human form and modeled themselves to twelve human archetypes to become closer to God. However, they didn't take into account that each archetype would have differing interpretations on the nature of God. As a result (among other things, I'm sure), there is a mysterious rift with five Cylons (Final five), and increasing discord between machines that are no longer just machines, but individuals. As you saw in "Downloaded" and in "Rapture", the Cylons have only one answer to when a fellow Cylon does not meet the status quo of behavior, who behaves way outside what that model does characteristically: box 'em. (Be sure to sign your comments!) --Spencerian 07:56, 22 February 2007 (CST)

FWIW, Yahweh's name is indeed not supposed to be spoken, except once a year by the High Priest. It is written out, but Jewish people substitute it for Adonai (=Lord) or other names. --Catrope 09:33, 22 February 2007 (CST)

To Merge with God...

...is surely a good thing (like V'Ger did), but in this case I'm asking about combining God (RDM) (recently disambig-ed) with this article. I think to avoid confusion we should use God (RDM) as the article, with this article name as a redirect. I don't see a lot of difference between them, although there is some analysis here that could be added or omitted altogether. Thoughts? --Spencerian 13:00, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

It's a somewhat large article though. Combining them could make it a bit overloaded. However, we could also cut down on the listing of mentions of ´"God" as that doesn't really do much anyways. --Serenity 14:00, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

I've generally thought that the quotes were a hedge not to discuss the subject, too. I'll make a more detailed comparison and try to excise or swap about data between the articles to keep them on-topic and over-repetitive. Unless the quotes have any direct significance to how the Cylons view or worship him, I'll likely start striking some things for concision. --Spencerian 14:12, 25 May 2007 (CDT)

Update on God (RDM) done. I moved a section from there to here as it was more apropos for the comparisons between God and Colonial polythesism. --Spencerian 13:09, 31 May 2007 (CDT)