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Maybe angels just use contraceptives? Or can control their fertility?

Contraceptives unlikely; if Yahweh doesn't want it down here, he certainly isn't going to allow it up there.

Meh. On Earth he wants his followers to breed like mad because the most credulous 5-10% of them are being skimmed off for use as a serf labor force; in Heaven he doesn't want his followers to breed like mad because every single one of them is an added strain on his resources. Wouldn't be the first double standard he's applied, either.

Simon_Jester wrote:Meh. On Earth he wants his followers to breed like mad because the most credulous 5-10% of them are being skimmed off for use as a serf labor force; in Heaven he doesn't want his followers to breed like mad because every single one of them is an added strain on his resources. Wouldn't be the first double standard he's applied, either.

There's also the assumption that the contraceptives prohibition actually comes from him and isn't just something that's found its own way into human faith.

Simon_Jester wrote:At a bare minimum, we know Heaven wasn't closed until after 400 AD, since we've got at least one confirmed case of a fifth century Welsh saint showing up.

StrikaAmaru wrote:(I edited my post a bit since you quoted it, it didn't seem clear enough to me...)
Even annoying questioners didn't show up for some 3-400 years more, unless you count the Islamic Golden Age. This is pretty much the essence of my argument, that a thousand years ago, large portions of humanity were sitting prostrate before Yahweh, either part of the Islamic Caliphates, or in the backwards shithole that Christian Europe was at the time.

I'm not saying scientifical reasoning started with the Renaissance, but I really don't remember anyone questioning God's domain before it.

Maybe the Islamic Golden Age is what set him off, c. 900-1000. Or maybe it was the Scholastics in Europe during the High Middle Ages, c. 1200-1300; maybe he got all pissy when he heard that St. Thomas Aquinas had asserted that he couldn't create a triangle with angles adding to more than 180 degrees.

As presented here, Yahweh's standard of "annoying questions" is liable to be very broad- as in any question, except something like "would you prefer your choir in tenor or baritone?" Just the idea that people are actually sitting down and thinking about him, rather than mindlessly doing everything he says, might strike him as presumptuous.

You know, I could see St. Thomas' assertion really setting him off if Stuart's Yahweh has any concept of non-Euclidean geometry. "What do you mean I can't? I know damn well I can and so that's what you are!"

GrayAnderson wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:At a bare minimum, we know Heaven wasn't closed until after 400 AD, since we've got at least one confirmed case of a fifth century Welsh saint showing up.

StrikaAmaru wrote:(I edited my post a bit since you quoted it, it didn't seem clear enough to me...)
Even annoying questioners didn't show up for some 3-400 years more, unless you count the Islamic Golden Age. This is pretty much the essence of my argument, that a thousand years ago, large portions of humanity were sitting prostrate before Yahweh, either part of the Islamic Caliphates, or in the backwards shithole that Christian Europe was at the time.

I'm not saying scientifical reasoning started with the Renaissance, but I really don't remember anyone questioning God's domain before it.

Maybe the Islamic Golden Age is what set him off, c. 900-1000. Or maybe it was the Scholastics in Europe during the High Middle Ages, c. 1200-1300; maybe he got all pissy when he heard that St. Thomas Aquinas had asserted that he couldn't create a triangle with angles adding to more than 180 degrees.

As presented here, Yahweh's standard of "annoying questions" is liable to be very broad- as in any question, except something like "would you prefer your choir in tenor or baritone?" Just the idea that people are actually sitting down and thinking about him, rather than mindlessly doing everything he says, might strike him as presumptuous.

You know, I could see St. Thomas' assertion really setting him off if Stuart's Yahweh has any concept of non-Euclidean geometry. "What do you mean I can't? I know damn well I can and so that's what you are!"

Could you fill some of us in on what exactly those assertions were?

On the fertility question, has there even been mention of young angels?

On the angelic population issue; I was (once again) trapped by the briefing I got on angels and daemons which said, essentially, that Angels don't breed by Daemons do (and, inter alia there are - or were - roughly twice as many angels as daemons). So, the basic situation is that daemons do have a reasonable birthrate but they also had a fairly high death rate resulting in a stable population. (Implication - with Satan gone the suggestion is that daemonic population will start to rise once they've replaced the appalling casulaties incurred in the Curbstomp War.)

Angels in contrast have a very low birthrate matched by very low mortality. My working assumption is that angelic females simply are not very fertile and the chance of conception is extremely low. This is why Michael-Lan is really so worried about humans taking on the angels; faced with mass human firepower, the angels will take casualties on the same scale as the daemons - and it will take millenia to replace them. In fact, he fears that inflicting Curbstomp War casualties on the very slowly reproducing angels may actually be an extinction event.

Stuart wrote:On the angelic population issue; I was (once again) trapped by the briefing I got on angels and daemons which said, essentially, that Angels don't breed by Daemons do (and, inter alia there are - or were - roughly twice as many angels as daemons). So, the basic situation is that daemons do have a reasonable birthrate but they also had a fairly high death rate resulting in a stable population. (Implication - with Satan gone the suggestion is that daemonic population will start to rise once they've replaced the appalling casulaties incurred in the Curbstomp War.)

Angels in contrast have a very low birthrate matched by very low mortality. My working assumption is that angelic females simply are not very fertile and the chance of conception is extremely low. This is why Michael-Lan is really so worried about humans taking on the angels; faced with mass human firepower, the angels will take casualties on the same scale as the daemons - and it will take millenia to replace them. In fact, he fears that inflicting Curbstomp War casualties on the very slowly reproducing angels may actually be an extinction event.

Sounds like nothing that SCIENCE! can't fix.
But wait, "trapped by the briefing I got". Who briefed you Stuart?

But as has been pointed out elsewhere, Hell is like North Dakota, the population in a few small regions and except for farmers it's a vast lot of unexplored nothing. However that's something that's going to come back is that we had the Hell put, and Dis surrounds hell in something roughly the size of the the US west of the Mississippi and "hell" is just the crater going down into the pit itself. With the Dukes of Hell controling portions of the land between Dis and the pit and from Dis out all correct? The rest of the land is unexplored nothing. You think one or two Dukes would have gotten it into their head to march out and "conqueror himself some land outside the general area in hell itself.

Stuart wrote:On the angelic population issue; I was (once again) trapped by the briefing I got on angels and daemons which said, essentially, that Angels don't breed by Daemons do (and, inter alia there are - or were - roughly twice as many angels as daemons). So, the basic situation is that daemons do have a reasonable birthrate but they also had a fairly high death rate resulting in a stable population. (Implication - with Satan gone the suggestion is that daemonic population will start to rise once they've replaced the appalling casulaties incurred in the Curbstomp War.)

Angels in contrast have a very low birthrate matched by very low mortality. My working assumption is that angelic females simply are not very fertile and the chance of conception is extremely low. This is why Michael-Lan is really so worried about humans taking on the angels; faced with mass human firepower, the angels will take casualties on the same scale as the daemons - and it will take millenia to replace them. In fact, he fears that inflicting Curbstomp War casualties on the very slowly reproducing angels may actually be an extinction event.

It's a bit late to take this route because it's already been established in the story that angels have pretty much the same sexual urges (and vulnerability to corruption) as humans, but it would have been interesting if angels simply had very low sex drive. It would help explain the Bible's contempt for sexuality.

Mr Bean wrote:But as has been pointed out elsewhere, Hell is like North Dakota, the population in a few small regions and except for farmers it's a vast lot of unexplored nothing. However that's something that's going to come back is that we had the Hell put, and Dis surrounds hell in something roughly the size of the the US west of the Mississippi and "hell" is just the crater going down into the pit itself. With the Dukes of Hell controling portions of the land between Dis and the pit and from Dis out all correct? The rest of the land is unexplored nothing. You think one or two Dukes would have gotten it into their head to march out and "conqueror himself some land outside the general area in hell itself.

I don't think its unexplored nothing. It is far more likely to be used for agriculture and livestocks. Remember, human birth rates were substantially smaller centuries ago. Furthermore, I think its unlikely for humans to have been used as a food resource due to their energy being required to ascend Demons to the next stage. At least if that hadn't been a giant scam, which imho is likely.

I'm going on the assumption the outer regions didn't hold as much allure for the Lords - these didn't provide as much suffering as the Hell crater did. Take the Middle Ages as an example, the most powerful Lords where not necessarily the ones with the largest fief, but those with the best resources - metals, salt, relics, that stuff.

Mr Bean wrote:Sounds like nothing that SCIENCE! can't fix.

Are you proposing artificial insemination for Angels?

Darth Wong wrote:It's a bit late to take this route because it's already been established in the story that angels have pretty much the same sexual urges (and vulnerability to corruption) as humans, but it would have been interesting if angels simply had very low sex drive. It would help explain the Bible's contempt for sexuality.

If Lemuels insistence on laying with his wife and deprivation thereof is any indication, I'd say angels don't have a significantly lower sex drive than humans. Casual sex (with forced whores, essentially) is one of the selling points for Club Montmartre. You don't fulfil a need that isn't there (unless it is an artificially produces need).

Let me toss a wild theory out there but what if Angel's are akin to canines. In the sense that males are ready to go year round but females go into heat. If female angles have significantly lower sex drive limited to certain times of the year naturally but males are ready to go 24/7 then they do face an issue.

Yes, I considered this and was alluding to it with the fertility period I mentioned. But let's assume the time between heats is longer? Would that make any sense? Given Humans, Angels and Demons are supposed to have a common ancestor, how the hell would the angels develop such a trait in a world lacking plate tectonics, seasonal change, climate change and what not? Bubble universes are stable on a grand scale - I suppose million (10^6) or billion (10^9) of years. There is not much incentive for evolutionary process - once you fit your niche and the ecosystem is filled - there will be only incremental changes at best. To illustrate, there are species on Earth perfectly evolved to their niche - and they didn't evolve much more for millions of years, if the fossils are any judge for that.
I'll try another approach. Suppose the heat trait didn't evolve on its own due to its necessity, what if its a side effect of a much more advantageous trait which far outshines the negative impact of heat? Take the flying ability for example - highly useful. Maybe a side effect influences the ovulation period and the better an Angel is biologically predisposed to fly the longer time passes between ovulations?
This opens another avenue - the Hell harpies were the only subspecies capable of flight in numbers to actually qualify as a species - we know nothing of their fertility. Maybe we already triggered an extinction event for harpies, who knows.

Since it's entirely likely the whole species' of Angels, Demons (and Humans) exist due to meddling by outside forces the point might be moot - Angels simply had been constructed that way.

Stuart wrote:This is why Michael-Lan is really so worried about humans taking on the angels; faced with mass human firepower, the angels will take casualties on the same scale as the daemons - and it will take millenia to replace them. In fact, he fears that inflicting Curbstomp War casualties on the very slowly reproducing angels may actually be an extinction event.

Damn you for giving Michael a reasonable cause! Albeit simple surrender would have accomplished preventing that as well - albeit that's not really Michaels modus operandi.

Hey Stuart quick question based on something that got posted on the "just bugs me" page a while back....

Is Micheal's club as male centric as we've seen it portrayed so far (which would make sense since in context of course since Heaven is a very male run society and Micheal is trying to win over the people who already have power rather than working with the rabble) or are is it possible that as Kaylee once said "Look, they got boy whores! Isn't that thoughtful?" (and presumably male on male sex shows) as well, though we just haven't seen them?

Jamesfirecat wrote:Could you fill some of us in on what exactly those assertions were?

St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the leading lights of the Scholastic movement within the Catholic Church during the 1200s. This was a response to the recovery of translated versions of old Greek manuscripts, resulting in the reintroduction of thinkers like Aristotle to the West. The short form is that the Scholastics were trying to apply these new, exotic concepts like "logic" to their theology.

Thus, at one point Aquinas, in one of his more important works, claimed that God could not do anything which is by nature logically inconsistent with itself, such as creating a square circle or (since he was a good little Euclidean) a triangle with angles that add up to more than 180 degrees. Since that contradicts the definitions of a triangle and a circle, respectively... you get the idea.

Buritot wrote:Yes, I considered this and was alluding to it with the fertility period I mentioned. But let's assume the time between heats is longer? Would that make any sense? Given Humans, Angels and Demons are supposed to have a common ancestor, how the hell would the angels develop such a trait in a world lacking plate tectonics, seasonal change, climate change and what not? Bubble universes are stable on a grand scale - I suppose million (10^6) or billion (10^9) of years. There is not much incentive for evolutionary process - once you fit your niche and the ecosystem is filled - there will be only incremental changes at best.

Also, I'm pretty sure the angels and demons aren't evolved; they're engineered, at least in part, by powers unknown.

Buritot wrote:Damn you for giving Michael a reasonable cause! Albeit simple surrender would have accomplished preventing that as well - albeit that's not really Michaels modus operandi.

Surrender would be over Yahweh's dead body, and Michael's not quite ready to do that. He still doesn't know exactly what happened to Satan... heck, even if he does know, he'd be reluctant to open up human tactics to a similar gambit, given what happened to Deumah when she was used as the portal origin point for the cruise missiles that nailed him.

It seems to me that Michael has only one option left at this point for his coup. He knows humans can and will destroy all of Angelic society in heaven as soon as they get there. Humanity wants blood. This, I believe, is why he's set up Belial running the concentration camp in Heaven, and why he said it was YahYah's orders when he gave them. He pulls his coup before humans figure out how to bring a full assault to heaven, and delivers Yahweh, trussed up like a holiday turkey, as a "gift" to show the new rulers of Heaven are sympathetic with humans and also hate their former cruel overlord. Perhaps he'll even ask earth humans INTO heaven to bust up "Yahweh's" concentration camp, and help cleanse Heaven of his enemies in the process. That's how I'd play it from here, at least - he can't beat the humans, and trying will only slow them down and result in angelic genocide once they learn enough.

Simon_Jester wrote:St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the leading lights of the Scholastic movement within the Catholic Church during the 1200s. This was a response to the recovery of translated versions of old Greek manuscripts, resulting in the reintroduction of thinkers like Aristotle to the West. The short form is that the Scholastics were trying to apply these new, exotic concepts like "logic" to their theology.

Thus, at one point Aquinas, in one of his more important works, claimed that God could not do anything which is by nature logically inconsistent with itself, such as creating a square circle or (since he was a good little Euclidean) a triangle with angles that add up to more than 180 degrees. Since that contradicts the definitions of a triangle and a circle, respectively... you get the idea.

It's amusing to think one guy thinking that God/Yahweh* couldn't create a square circle, something that should be incredibly inconsequential and event petty, is enough for Yahweh to say "screw you" for claiming that he can't contradict himself.

* I use the terms separately due to the position of the in-universe Roman Catholic Church, as we have yet to learn whether it was always Yahweh that they'd worshipped until The Message or whether there was a previously usurped deity as they believe. I wonder what happened to other Christian denominations, or is the RCC the only one left?

You know, I feel sorry for the female angels. From the look of things they have effectively no say in the general policies of Heaven, and yet they're probably going to get shot in large numbers in this war. They've got wings, so they're going to be a target, but with a few exceptions they're no more responsible for the stuff that the war's being fought over than the women of Afghanistan were for Al Qaeda.

Edward Yee wrote:It's amusing to think one guy thinking that God/Yahweh* couldn't create a square circle, something that should be incredibly inconsequential and event petty, is enough for Yahweh to say "screw you" for claiming that he can't contradict himself.

I doubt that was the only thing, but Aquinas was part of a whole movement in the church of Western Europe; he wasn't acting alone. It may have been a cumulative effect.

* I use the terms separately due to the position of the in-universe Roman Catholic Church, as we have yet to learn whether it was always Yahweh that they'd worshipped until The Message or whether there was a previously usurped deity as they believe. I wonder what happened to other Christian denominations, or is the RCC the only one left?

Some of the really wacky ones probably just got wackier; others dissolved entirely, I suspect. Most of the ones that had millions of members before probably have a few thousand (harassed, miserable, confused) members now, trying to rationalize things in a way that lets them keep up the rituals they really liked having before.

A cumulative effect makes sense, but for some reason Stuart's depiction of Yahweh makes him sound... well, obviously it could have just occurred over time, but by in-universe 2009-2010 he sounds just off-his-rocker that the above example alone would have offended Yahweh's opinion of himself so much for him to fly off the handle, or alternately that he believes that people really should believe that he can be both immortal and to be able to kill himself with conditions that should make them directly contradictory.

I wonder what happened to the Eastern Orthodox Churches? It looks like only the Roman Catholic Church has avoided being absorbed into the secular nation-states that remained, much less fielding its own military contribution (actual utility aside) under its own banner to the HEA.

Simon_Jester wrote: Thus, at one point Aquinas, in one of his more important works, claimed that God could not do anything which is by nature logically inconsistent with itself, such as creating a square circle or (since he was a good little Euclidean) a triangle with angles that add up to more than 180 degrees. Since that contradicts the definitions of a triangle and a circle, respectively... you get the idea.

If we're talking about the actual Euclidean problem of squaring the circle, there's nothing inherently logically contradictory about that one. It's one of three construction problems that the ancient mathematicians never solved and that turn out to be impossible. The problem is as follows: Given a circle, construct a square having the same area. So you're not actually trying to turn a circle into a square or anything like that which would be an inherent contradiction. If you add the condition that the construction must be done with a straightedge and compass, it turns out to be impossible, but that wasn't actually proven until the 19th Century.

BTW, the other two problems are trisecting the angle, and doubling the cube, i.e. given a cube, construct a cube having double the volume of the given cube.

The whole thing is somewhat ruined by the fact that, in real life, Pi is a measured physical constant and not a mathematical thing. It could change; it fact, it does. There's also every possibility that, even in flat space-time, space is quantized such that there is a concrete solution anyway.

Yahweh, if he were a real god, would have every right to be annoyed at those philosophers for constructing a thought experiment based on geometry that has nothing to do with reality, and claiming he can't square the circle based on that.

tortieconspiracy wrote:If we're talking about the actual Euclidean problem of squaring the circle, there's nothing inherently logically contradictory about that one.

Yes, I know. Aquinas wasn't talking about the Euclidean problem of squaring the circle. He was talking about God creating a geometric construct which at once matched the definition of a circle and the definition of a square. Which would be impossible, as you say. Which was his point: that even if God is defined as all-mighty, there can still be limits on his capabilities imposed by logic.

Which is the sort of thing that would really piss Yahweh off in this story.

I always liked the thought experiment of an infintely powerful god that can jump over any object and at the same time can create an object that can never be jumped over. Trying to figure out he could jump over it was a fun little logical inconsistency to toy around with.

Edward Yee wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote: * I use the terms separately due to the position of the in-universe Roman Catholic Church, as we have yet to learn whether it was always Yahweh that they'd worshipped until The Message or whether there was a previously usurped deity as they believe. I wonder what happened to other Christian denominations, or is the RCC the only one left?

IIRC the Quakers are still around and reached pretty much the same conclusion as the vatican although quicker and less legalistically. Basically they rejected The Message en masse because it went in total contradiction to their concept of God. I think most Protestant sects dissolved. Don't know about the Orthodox.

As is mentioned in Armageddon the Church of Scotland is up and running because it rejected The Message, but the C of E is not in its original form (the Archbishop of Canterbury urged acceptance of The Message) and much of its assets were seized by the State. That was probably a mistake as many of its senior clergy were not in agreement with the Archbishop and several senior bishops were openly against it as being a message from 'their God'; the British government will probably face some sort of legal action in the future because of its actions in this regard.