lousyliar on 7/9/2006 at 17:23
The Hammers do have something in common with the Templars, which IIRC correctly are the forefathers of freemasonry. Mason, builder, it's pretty obvious. But they also sound like Christians, it's true.
llorenth on 10/9/2006 at 05:44
The Hammerites resemble (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism) Calvinists (more specifically (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan) Puritans) more than normal Catholics. The Hammers are much more fanatical, liturgical literalists (they don't like the impure additions of the Mechanists and Karras, for instance). They are obsessed with work and productivity (like Puritans), and really LIVE their religion throughout their day. The way they stick their noses into the affairs of the City, even though they themselves don't control it (though maybe at one time they did), is also reminiscent of the way Puritans see how government must derive from religion, because "secular governors are accountable to God." They punish people they believe the City went too easy on, because they don't acknowledge the City rulers' authority in the matter of sin and punishment. Also, the decorations of Hammerite temples are usually pretty austere (though I've seen some very Medeival stuff thrown in that tastes much more of pre-Lutheran Christianity), as are their uniforms. Their lives are pretty ascetic, more of a desire for simplicity than for martyrdom/suffering.
Puritans would name their children things like Good-works Johnson or Chastity Smith, i.e. after virtues and such as opposed to common names; many named Hammers have names like Brother Chisel, Brother Diligence, etc as opposed to the common names of the City, which run a cultural gamut (both given and family names) from Ramirez (Spanish?) to Shemenov (Russian?) to Sven (Scandinavian) to lots of English names (Lionel, Ian, Davidson). Actually :idea:, thinking about it some more, I guess in these last two ways (and several others, such as their hierarchy with most members being "brothers" AKA friars) they resemble a cenobitic monastic order ((
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Saint_Benedict) Benedictine sort) more than normal Catholics, and to some extent more than even Puritans, who eschewed most church hierarchy, "vestments, images, candles etc." So they're like a hodgepodge of Puritan and Catholic monastic traditions, I guess.
deathshadow on 11/9/2006 at 07:02
Comparing the hammers to the Calvinists or Puritans is WAY off - for several reasons. The Calvinists didn't build cathedrals, prefering the simple wooden church to the excesses of Catholicism, they weren't paramilitary (in action they were more akin to a lynch mob) and rarely were they the dominant religion in an area - even in the new world they had trouble holding on to one 'city'.
You also seem off a bit in your information - but in the 'nice' traditional american pop culture version of the story way... Your bit about the names is more a SEPARATIST thing, than what you'd expect out of the Puritans. CONTRARY to popular belief, the Separatists were the antithesis of the Puritans, yet because they both came to the new world and settled within 40 miles of each-other (Plymouth and Boston respectively) everyone seems to get them mixed up.
Little history lesson here - those guys in the black pointy hats with the buckles - Those ain't Pilgrims; Those be Puritans from Boston. The Pilgrims were separatists who dressed, well, from finery to rags... in colors - in fact, nobody wore black because the dye cost too much. The closest modern analogy would be that they were hippies, preaching a kinder, gentler church. The names werent' always for virtues either, so much as just words from the only book most of them knew - the Bible. You were as likely to find War, Pestulance, Death and Famine as you were people named Temperance, Prudence, Courage and Justice.
Ok, Rant off, back on topic... The puritans ARE a good example of religious zealotry, but on the whole most religious militance had ended sometime around the mid 14th century, well before the time the groups you mentioned came into being.
Comparisons to the Roman Catholic Church on the other hand, especially from the 11th to the 13th centuries, is spot on. Paramilitary? Yup. Zealous in persecution of herecy? Yup. Full blown cathedrals and massive stone churches? That's them.
Protestant groups, on the whole, fall WAY short of their orthodox brethren; Salem was an abberation - 250 years of Crusades is not... 326 years (1492 to 1818) of inquisitions is not... Mel Gibson is not...
After all, the Roman Catholic Church has a VERY important word in it - Roman, as in Rome. Onward Christian soldier, marching as to war...
But, any good Christian soldier worth his salt would know that.
