09-27-2016, 07:27 AM | #111 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: bending stereotypes
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St. Benedict's definitions
Church use has essentially eliminated gyrovagues as wandering monks, only as hermits. The only allowed Gyrovagues are diocesan approved hermits, and they are subject to a rule negotiated with the bishop, and supervised by the bishop. Most Monks are cenobites, but not all. Most cenobites are monks, but not all. They're separate issues. A rule, here, refers to a prayer rule - a specific charter which details the life of those in the community. Monasticism is inherently about life apart from the rest of society. Monks live their lives on the abbey. Cenobitic Monks live, work, and pray together. Non-cenobitic monks (usually Anchorites) live under an abbot, but not under a rule. non-monastic Cenobites often work away from the abbey, but live by a prayer rule and live in community at their abbey. Most such orders have died out, but in the middle ages, many such orders existed - the most common examples were diocesan right abbeys whose religious were working outside the abbeys - often with orphans and/or the sick. Friars are not cenobites. They neither have abbeys nor abbots. They DO have a rule. Their superiors are Priors. They are itinerant - they go where their prior sends them, and all current friary orders are also communal. They live in smaller communities, from 2 to 20, and larger orders are often rotated through different "houses" within their priory. Not all priories are friary, either. A priory can be...
In the case of subordinate priors of a cenobitic order, it's supposed to be a temporary situation; as soon as the priory stabilizes, it's supposed to get an abbot. Other forms of religious exist as well... The Jesuits, for example, are Itinerant, but not mendicant, have no priors, no abbots, but have chapters... They do not live in community, but have a rule. They are not monastic, but scholastic. Modern orders tend to be either Monastic, Scholastic, or Mendicant, but a few Anchorite orders exist, and many diocesan monastics are technically sarabites. The diocesan sarabite monastics are generally provided a rule by the bishop, and the bishop functions in the place of an abbot, but not being an abbot, they're not cenobites. And, just to make things more confusing... Cenobite, when not used as an adjective, usually refers to non-monastic cenobites, rather than monastic ones. |
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09-27-2016, 07:27 AM | #112 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
Poul Anderson has a number of those from various religions. He has a wodenite Catholic and a wodenite Buddhist. A human from a descendant of Eastern Orthodoxy, several Ythrians worshiping God-the-hunter and so on.
Most Graysons are pious in Honor Harrington. All Fremen in Dune are pious. It is as common as any. More to the point I am not in the cases above talking about the stereotyped religious police state(in Harrington Graysons are like Space Mormons, and Masadans like Space ISIS; the later obviously counts as a religious police-state, but the former is simply a feudal state that plays heavy on religion). I am not familiar with Hard Science Fiction as such, because I tend to prefer it as a vehicle for either narrative or sociology-fiction, tech-porn can be really cool but it does not take much to satisfy my suspension of disbelief. However there are plenty of pious characters in Space Opera. However a lot of the reason may simply be that readers of Hard sci fi are looking for scientific and technological speculation rather then character development.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
09-27-2016, 07:33 AM | #113 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
Quote:
Worf might or might not qualify depending on whether you define a religion as supernatural. His devotion to Klingon tradition, or at least his idea thereof seems to have an air of the religious.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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09-27-2016, 07:39 AM | #114 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
A number of the death gods I have seen in stories seem to be more bureaucratic then malicious. Mandos for instance, simply does an unpleasant job effectively but he is not evil for he enforces just sentences and he has no hard feelings about the matter.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
09-27-2016, 08:34 AM | #115 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Earth, mostly
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Re: bending stereotypes
Several of the characters in A Mote In God's Eye were devout Catholics - well, what Catholicism had become in the Second Empire of Man, anyway. And in the sequel, The Gripping Hand, the events Bury had gone through at the end of the previous novel had tipped him over the edge from determined agnosticism to fairly pious Islam (although to his credit he didn't insist that Sir Kevin adhere to his beliefs).
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If you break the laws of Man, you go to prison. If you break the laws of God, you go to Hell. If you break the laws of Physics, you go to Sweden and receive a Nobel Prize. |
09-27-2016, 04:05 PM | #116 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
Quote:
Last season DS9 took Sisko down the rabbit hole to full on prophet supernatural genre jarring existence, in my opinion. It was like King's The Stand where it starts off science fiction then 90 degree turns to lost book of the bible. It's funny how DS9 became WAY too religious to me but apparently didn't come off as "really" religious to you.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
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09-27-2016, 04:56 PM | #117 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: bending stereotypes
Reading a fanfic called It's Just a Habit where you have a female superhero who doesn't have a secret identity, doesn't intend to fight crime and doesn't wear a skimpy or any special costume. The title is because she is a nun who helps with emergencies, TK including ability to lift herself so she flies (yes she has heard all the Flying Nun jokes), and at lift least one other person for rescues with ability to use it shield herself agains fire and such. She has to keep telling people that she isn't wearing a superhero costume, it's just a habit.
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09-27-2016, 05:13 PM | #118 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
I kind of wanted to play a super that did wear cliche spandex in a setting where no one did that. She was a large woman that flew so didn't get much aerobic exercise. With powers of fire and ice, she went by CandyCane with tacky suit to match.
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Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check. |
09-27-2016, 07:32 PM | #119 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: bending stereotypes
Quote:
As far as all that goes I come off as religious to you and would not come across as especially religious among religious people. Of course part of it is that I don't find conversation much fun when there is no disagreement. Another part is that though I can appreciate the aesthetic attractions of community(and like productions that emphasize it like Fiddler, Stranger among us and even Godfather), like you I don't have an instinct for running with the pack. Another part is that my idea of religion does not emphasize the emotional aspects and insofar as I do I would prefer High Church ritual on the whole(with some reservations) and I attend a Low Church which leaves me out of sorts. I could imagine myself as a monk and might even be a pretty good monk. But you could not tell from my conversation that I was one unless you knew me. Sometimes I do get hot under the collar, but other times I talk about religion because it is a subject like anything else. All that is neither here nor there. But perhaps the fact that your idea of what a religious person would look like and my idea are different is related. To put it another way, one of the characters(not sci fi) who seemed most religious was the end role of Berel Jastrow reciting Psalms in a gas chamber in War and Remembrance, not because he expected divine rescue but because-what better place? For an idea of what I think religious sci fi character's would be like read Anderson's The Problem of Pain.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 09-27-2016 at 08:30 PM. |
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09-27-2016, 10:30 PM | #120 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: bending stereotypes
Quote:
Captain Blaine himself, who is heir to a fairly high-ranking aristocratic title, asks himself at one point during a service if he really believes in the doctrine of the Church or not, or just thinks it useful for morale and politics. He isn't quite sure himself, but he isn't sure enough to say he doesn't. Interestingly, that setting also contains an example of something mentioned upthread, the arranged marriage. Rod Blaine and Sally fall in love, but when they get back into touch with the Empire, they receive what amounts to a politely-worded order to get married. It had been arranged in their absence by Rod's father, Sally's uncle, and the Emperor was on board, so the decision had been made for them. They react rather differently, Rod is amused and Sally is furious, but Rod points out that it comes with the territory of their titles and privileges. As he adds, it was really just blind luck they loved each other, that was tangential to the issue of their respective marriage prospects. |
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