Talk:Religion in the Twelve Colonies (RDM)/Archive 1

Religeous Variance

Specifically, in the bit about funerals... It sounds a bit harsh to say that priests do the funerals regardless of the beliefs of the deceased. It makes it sound like they're Muslims getting Catholic funerals. I couldn't tell you the difference between a Methodist funeral and a Protestant funeral if my life depended on it. I think that this (apparently) unilateral handling of funerals is more indicative of the (mostly) unified religeon of the Colonies, rather than a callous behavior of some kind of oppressive theocracy. The only people who seem like they have a truely different religeous idea are Tigh, Adama and Billy, and they don't seem to strongly anti-religeon that they'd roll over at their religeous funeral. I didn't make an edit to reflect this, though, because this is rather subjective. --Day 04:23, 10 September 2005 (EDT) (Post Script: I'm working on getting that picture. My Mac's having some technical issues.)

Unknowns

Rules applying to the priesthood may or may not be the same throughout the Twelve Colonies. It is possible that certain schools of the priesthood practice celibacy, but Chief Tyrol stated that his father was a priest and his mother an oracle, so it would not be adhered to by all denominations of the religion of the Twelve Colonies.

This may vary considerably from one Colony to the next: Gemenons believe in the literal truth of the Sacred Scrolls and are quite fundamentalist, while Capricans seem fairly secular in their treatment of Church-State relations.

I really don't see the point in noting may-or-may-nots and it-is-not-knowns. The idea here is to state everything we do know - everything we don't state is logically unknown. I'm not opposed to informed speculation, but simply listing the areas we haven't heard about seems fruitless.

The Chicken And Egg Origin of the Greek/Kobol Gods

Since the 13th Tribe populated Earth, all the while bringing their religion from Kobol, this suggests that the Greek gods are the offshoots to the Kobol gods, not the reverse. This fits with the other Olympian gods not (yet) mentioned in the Kobol religion, but present in the Olympian religion.

This suggestion creates several interesting possibilities for thought.

• There wasn't a human population already on Earth with its own religion. The religion of Kobol grew to form the Olympian gods.
• There was an existing human population, and the Colonial humans and native terrans merged genes and religion, which might have included other beings we know as the Olympian and quasi-Olympian gods.
• The Tribe somehow lost their technological base of information and went into a new dark age similar to what the Tribes experienced before, increasing their need for divine aid (and expansion of the Kobol religion to form the Olympian components). This also kept the 13th Tribe from returning to know the fate of their brothers in the other Tribes.
• The 13th Tribe landed in the Mediterreanean area of Earth (presuming their Earth is "our" Earth), in what we historically have called the "seat of human civilization."

The hologram in the Tomb of Athena suggests that the constellations and celestial bodies of Earth were either known already to the Kobol tribes and were programmed into the Tomb before they left, or a 13th Tribe member from Earth returned to do this. If neither are true, then there is real problem with how the Tomb received this information, and the need or ability for the Arrow of Apollo to be available (and noted in the Sacred Scrolls) as capable of showing the way to a place the Tribes had not yet visited (unless you count in the "all this has happened and will happen again" part of the Scrolls).

I edited the article with the point in mind as it seemed too strong to suggest otherwise. Thoughts on this or points against the notion? (This also keeps us from blowing brain cells on who created what.) Spencerian 16:34, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

See the "Three Exodus" portion of Sacred Scrolls for something that explains this. It was written by me, so perhaps I'm biased towards it being true, but if it is, then the pictures inside the Tomb of Athena do fall under the "All this has happened before..." clause. As does the dissemination of the Gods. However, I agree that it's probable that the 13th Tribe brought the Lords of Kobol with them to Earth. It's just that, after that, they also brought them back to Kobol so that they would be there to be brough to Earth again in the next cycle. I hope that's coherent. It's hard talking in circles like this. --Day 18:07, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

I don't think its necessary or interesting to note that in this much detail - the History article covers the origin of the twelve colonies in substantially more detail. To that end, I'd prefer to revert your comments, if you're not terribly attatched. --Peter Farago 18:10, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

Actually it's not that bad. I'm going to clarify it slightly, but it would probably be useful to keep it. --Peter Farago 18:16, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

Zephyr

About where in the episode is this mentioned? Is it explicitly stated that the Zephyr is named after a God, or is it just mentioned? It is my understanding that a zephyr is a gust of wind and, thus, not an imp[robable name for a ship with that meaning. Unless it's explicit, I think this point is ambiguous at best. --Day 18:11, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

No, he's right. See Zephyrus. Very nice catch, Spence. --Peter Farago 18:14, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

Woah! Zephyrus lived in a cave on Thrace? That can't be accidental. It hadn't occured to me until I saw it, but I knew this. I played a pice a few years ago called the March of the Young Thracians or something. Anyway, I'm not sure about Zephyr, still. He wasn't one of the "main" Greek Gods, as it were, so I don't think we can make an assumption that he's a Lord of Kobol. They may have lesser gods like the Greeks did that just have never been mentioned, or it might be that some effects dude at Zoic named the ship that because it makes a good name for a ship, not realizing that it's also an allusion to a Greek god. --Day 18:22, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

A link to Kara Thrace's article already noted this, which is where I felt the Zephyr note was credible. Kara's name (as in a human aided by the "winds") and the link to Zephyrus couldn't be a coincidence--RDM had that one down. Spencerian 09:55, 4 October 2005 (EDT)

Right, but he is a god, the Colonials apparently know about him, and we don't have any knowlege on whether the colonials separate the Lords of Kobol from minor deities - so it's probably important to note, and there isn't really a better place for it. (FWIW, they did apparently distinguish between upper and lower demons). --Peter Farago 18:29, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

Liturgy

Does anyone know what language Elosha's funeral prayer is in at the end of the Mini-series? --Peter Farago 18:30, 3 October 2005 (EDT)

Priesthood

Spencerian added:

Like denominations on Earth, it is possible that there are varying kinds of priests and customs that share elements of worship of the Lords of Kobol, with some subtle or significant differences. It is probable that, based on their devotion, a Genemon priest (in comparison to one, say, on Caprica) may have a more defined worship or celebration process, or may speak or pay more respects to one or a handful of Lords in preference over others, as Kara Thrace devoted prayer to her specific Lords. The contrast would be akin to the Catholic, Episopal, and Lutheran churches of real-world Earth.

As my fellow contributors know, I frown on plausible but baseless speculation. I don't think this is useful here. --Peter Farago 20:48, 1 November 2005 (EST)

Removing. --Peter Farago 03:08, 3 November 2005 (EST)

Zoic

Where and in what capacity did Zoic "release" those names? --Peter Farago 14:28, 8 December 2005 (EST)

You know this "reference" as well as I, and I would as well like to see the press release or web site reference where Zoic gave us this information. I know this is circular and that the Great Delete Key of the Citation Jihad may be quivering over that item, but I did note its non-canonical nature, but at the same time, considering its an official production company of the show, its also hard to prove them wrong--this information might be in the mysterious series bible for all we know. Maybe Joe would know old Ernestborg9's resource. --Spencerian 15:26, 8 December 2005 (EST)

Non-canonical is one thing, but uncited and non-canonical is past my limit. I mean, we could just start making random shit up and say that Zoic said it, and really, nobody would be there to catch us. We have to police ourselves on this. --Peter Farago 15:35, 8 December 2005 (EST)

If this is the case, we need to delete ALL the battlestar pages or rework them to remove those old Zoic references. I'm OK on this, but we have a lot of work to do. The Zoic thing here has been like the "weird uncle" in the family that you don't talk about or leave the daughters with, but let come to family gatherings anyway. Probably time to purge all references to Zoic's battlestars, maybe moving them to the Zoic page, and deleting the rest. --Spencerian 16:15, 8 December 2005 (EST)

Well, the best thing to do would be to find the source of the quote, but I haven't had any luck. --Peter Farago 16:22, 8 December 2005 (EST)

Atlantia

How should we handle this reference? The Atlantia and Pacifica were presumably named after the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (in real life). The Atlantic ocean is named for Atlas, not Atlantia, but that's not necessarily implied by anything on-screen (and if it were really named after the ocean, it would probably be Atlantica.) --Peter Farago 15:00, 8 December 2005 (EST)

I'd stick to what we know, until we find something better. Atlas was a founder of Atlantis, so we can add this contradicting resource since Pegasus also has differing sources of origin. Greek myth is always full of contradictions anyway. Given that there's no Atlantic Ocean in the Colonies as far as we know, and the Lords tend to be Olympian, not Titan, gods, I'd go for the dryad origin. --Spencerian 15:26, 8 December 2005 (EST)

The Jealous God

Ricimer said: Although it is tantalizing to claim that the Cylon God is the rebelious Lord of Kobol, I don't think #6 has ever claimed that they're the same one.

When Six says to Baltar, "Blasphemous, stupid lies. There have never been any other gods, only the One," it seems to me that she's referring to the one Elosha was just speaking about. You may be right that the inference is too tenuous for the article, though. --Peter Farago 18:56, 12 December 2005 (EST)

I love this idea as well, very tantalyzing indeed, but perhaps it belongs in an analysis section to be added to the deleted scenes article. --Mason 23:21, 12 December 2005 (EST)

You see although I'd like to equate the two, I don't think we can yet; it's more for an "Analysis" section. It seems to me that Number Six in that scene was talking about ALL of the Gods that Elosha was talking about, the Jealous God AND the other 11 collectively. It's not clear enough of a statement. I'm kind of secretly hoping that the cylons were taught the advanced technology needed to make humanoid Cylons from the Count Iblis equivalent of this series, which turns out to be the jealous Lord of Kobol; however, as Ron D. Moore has pointed out, that would kind of "gut" the religion of the Cylons: the Cylons are sentient beings in their own right, and all sentient beings have a claim to a soul and a concept of god once they're intelligent enough to grasp such concepts, and turning around and saying "well the whole idea of Cylons having a religion and thinking they have their own souls? Turns out they got duped by a god-like alien, which, although very powerful, ain't really a god, just more like Q from Star Trek or something", saying that would somehow seem to unfairly lessen the Cylons in my opinion. Maybe they can work the two concepts together tactfully (Cylons developed a concept of God BEFORE meeting Count Iblis, and Iblis is claiming to be the "real Cylon god"? , etc.). I don't know. But we don't have a lot to go on. --Ricimer 01:43, 13 December 2005 (EST)

Original Series definition: a title of nobility (e.g. Lord Baltar)

Re-imagined Series definition: in military parlance, directive to continue the attack; otherwise used to refer to journalists ^{(TRS: "Maelstrom")}

Original Series definition: a title of nobility (e.g. Count Iblis)