Talk:Cylon Religion/Archive 1

This should probably be merged with content from God. --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)

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.