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<blockquote data-quote="Sepulchrave II" data-source="post: 7820334" data-attributes="member: 4303">Discounting the idea of a Paladin who is dedicated to the notion of a “philosophical cause” rather than a specific deity or group of deities, as this seems rather modernistic…Most religions have notions of ritual purity, which is to say that the difference between the sacred and the profane is not necessarily identical to the difference between human ideas of good and evil, or between right and wrong. I suspect that Paladins – as holy warriors – should be more concerned with “purity” which is construed in terms of their religiosity, rather than their morality; this will be particular to a given religion, and encompass various taboos as well as their code.Atonement is for violations of ritual purity rather than morality per se (e.g. burning the wrong kind of incense) and although purity taboos might also overlap with more conventional morality (e.g. committing adultery), the underlying rationale for its “wrongness” is because it violates the sacred, not because it is “evil” by any human measure which makes sense to us.As such, human volition has no place in whether the sacred has been profaned; it is outside of the scope of human agency. The Paladin either breaks their code or they do not; their state of intentionality – willingness – is irrelevant. Obviously, this seems rather unfair from our perspective; there again, our perspective is mortal, not divine.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sepulchrave II, post: 7820334, member: 4303"] Discounting the idea of a Paladin who is dedicated to the notion of a “philosophical cause” rather than a specific deity or group of deities, as this seems rather modernistic… Most religions have notions of ritual purity, which is to say that the difference between the sacred and the profane is not necessarily identical to the difference between human ideas of good and evil, or between right and wrong. I suspect that Paladins – as holy warriors – should be more concerned with “purity” which is construed in terms of their religiosity, rather than their morality; this will be particular to a given religion, and encompass various taboos as well as their code. Atonement is for violations of ritual purity rather than morality [I]per se[/I] (e.g. burning the wrong kind of incense) and although purity taboos might also overlap with more conventional morality (e.g. committing adultery), the underlying rationale for its “wrongness” is because it violates the sacred, not because it is “evil” by any human measure which makes sense to us. As such, [I]human volition[/I] has no place in whether the sacred has been profaned; it is outside of the scope of human agency. The Paladin either breaks their code or they do not; their state of intentionality – willingness – is irrelevant. Obviously, this seems rather unfair from our perspective; there again, our perspective is mortal, not divine. [/QUOTE]

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