Lol it's Scott we are talking about, the difference between angelic ciphrang and regular ones might simply be the use of lube

Asking who destroyed the monastery is like asking who killed JFK. I mean who wouldn't want them dead. The Consult has motive, Kellhus has motive, hell even the Gods have motive. It's just a matter of who got there first. My money is on Kellhus.

I went back and read the context of my comment and I'm not sure what motivated that brackets... usually, I have something pretty specific in mind.

It's the darkness that comes before all of us

Maybe none of them ever got as fair as the Inchoroi did to figuring it out?

You have to admit it's still improbable. Why only one alien race has figured it out? And even if we assume that this very small probability came through, why not employ the help of others? I am sure the Inchies would be an insignificant percentage of the damned population in the universe if Earwan judgement applied everywhere.

Here, I will attempt to give you my take on the metaphysics of Earwa, without using any terms from science or philosophy. Before talking about the Gods, let’s take some time to do some ground work.

A human is considered a single entity, but why is that? A human being is formed by matter. Matter forms his organs and those organs form the human being. But all those materials are many, so what makes a human something which is singular and different than the sum of its parts? The answer is emergence.

Emergence is a phenomenon that can happen when two elements form a relation. The classic example to describe emergence is that of a molecule of water. A hydrogen atom has certain characteristics and the same applied to an oxygen atom. But the molecule of water has characteristics that didn’t originate from any of those atoms that are its materials.

With that new found knowledge, let’s try to answer why a human being is consider a single entity. Well, because it has a sense of identity, an ego and a consciousness. Those characteristics are not directly related to any single one of his parts, but are characteristics born from the relations between those parts.

Now it's time to take a vacation to Earwa. The first thing that catches the eye here is that on Earwa morality is not subjective at all. There is judgment, there is an afterlife and there is damnation. There are also two major religions here, but what are they about?

Both religions agree that there is a material world and a conceptual world. The conceptual world is the home of beings called Ciphrang. Those beings hunger for souls and are responsible for punishing the souls of sinners. This is also the home of the Gods. The Gods reward their faithful by snatching their souls when they die and saving them from damnation.

According to Inrithism, there are a hundred Gods that represent important aspects of human life. Those Gods can interact with their followers in the physical world and their followers can interact with the Gods through prayer. Since the interaction goes both ways, the Gods are shaped by their followers and the followers are shaped by their Gods. The Gods represent human concepts, so their own parts are human ideas.

Inrithism also promotes the idea of a higher entity, the God of Gods. According to Inrithism the God of Gods is the sum of all souls, including the Gods. So if every soul is a vector, the God of Gods is the single equivalent vector of all souls. Since every ensouled creature in Earwa can interact with every other ensouled creature, the God of Gods knows itself infinitely and defines itself. It is also considered immanent, which means that it is a part of, and interacts with the world. This implies purpose, a plan which can translate to fate.

Fanimry on the other hand doesn’t accept the hundred as Gods. The hundred are seen as Ciphrang instead. Now this is more a matter of semantics than anything, the hundred love their souls like the lesser Ciphrang, but they also offer respite from damnation. Fanimry also disagrees with the nature of God.

According to Fane, the God is transcendent and singular. But what does that mean? Well the Solitary God does in no way interact with the world and is a single entity. But if every soul is a part of the God how can this be? Simple, it’s emergence again. Like a human being, the Solitary God is not only defined by the sum of souls, but also by their relations to one another and the new characteristics those create. But why doesn’t he interact with the world? Again, like a human being, he can’t interact with his parts, because they are out of “sight”, he is unaware of them. But if he is singular, how can he have an identity and a purpose? Without other beings to interact with he can’t. Thus he has no purpose. So if you wonder why the Chissaurim aren’t marked, it’s because they recall the memory of the Solitary God to do their miracles and you can't go against the will of a being that has no purpose.

I will probably do another post about fate as a system’s purpose, including feedback mechanisms, the circle of death and rebirth, and probably the nature of time.   

Mimara's perspective throughout Cil Aujis sees things she shouldn't be able to see, both literally out of body experiences and the metaphysical seeing as you mention.

Yeah, that's why i think anything she says that doesn't seem to have an apparent cause is suspect, in a way it comes from the darkness. Mimara is pregnant with an important soul (a big part of the God). A fetus is a separate creature, but also a part of its mother while still in the womb. The JE is just the expression of that, she shares God's vision, she remembers more than any other being about the true nature of things.

I believe that the present tense in her POV's represents that her perception is influenced by the God, which is aware of all timespace, so there is no past or feature. If you consider God a system, then time itself is the emergent property that expresses the interaction between it's parts.

I think that the Nonmen are too anthropomorphic for it to be a coincidence. They embraced philosophy sooner, so their society evolved faster than that of the humans. This kind of reminds me of the ancient Greeks. They also had a saying : "Πας μη έλλην βάρβαρος", which means every non Greek is a barbarian. Kind of how the Non Men see humanity.

There is also the fact that even if it's rare, it is possible to interbreed with humans, so their genetics must be extremely similar, implying a common origin. Add this to the fact that we know only about five tribes of Men, and the only other groups we know that could push that number to seven are the Nonmen and the Inchoroi and you can reach some pretty crazy conclusions.

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About the Nonmen magic points, the Gnosis is a tool that hasn't evolved for thousands of years. They are awesome with the Gnosis not because they have honed their minds with logic, but because as philosophers they have a natural affinity for the abstract. It's easier for them to recall their soul's past even if their brain can't store their own memories. Kellhus is a special case, since he has embraced both science and the abstract. He is conceptually (and probably even genetically) a hybrid.

I didn't know about the forum archive either. That's nice . I started reading a little and i already have a new signature!

[EDIT]
Btw, who is FB?