Staredit Network

---NOTICE---
Any parallels to modern day religon should be discarded.
Atheism is not a choice. Sorry.
---END NOTICE---

You are the leader of your own country. For scenario purposes, your country is Circen. It is on the verge of a holy war, with the sects of the national religon- The sun temple- split over a disagreement in the compulsory oath priests take. There are now two religons.

You know a few things:
-The two sects are split like this: Orthodox Sun Temple and the Reformation Temple
-Circen's government is a Dictatorship. Being far right, it is expected that you will support the Orthodox Temple. 4 out of 5 of your counsel is Orthodox, and the other 1 out of 5 comparitevly has little say in the state's affairs.
-The Orthodox Sun Temple are much more angry over this split than the Reformationists are. They are willing to stop at nothing to get back their former believers. Rumors have started (from very unreliable sources) that they are creating small devisions of highly trained assassins to search out and destroy the heatheness Reformation Temple.
-The Reformationists have heard these rumors, and have started to form small malitias.
-The Sun Temple prior to the war has pressured you to create a new temple. The Reformationists are much less centered around the appearance, and seem to be fine with their meeting place inside of the High Priest' home. However, Orthodox wants a new Temple...it barely is in reason for occupation codes, and it has leway in those for being a national monument.
-Circen is renouned for finding sanctuary not in temples, but in libraries. Circen has always had a high literature-centric view, and it is a major taboo to harm any forms of literature in anyway.
-The Reformationists ask that they have a library- or something like it- for their sanctuary, since the Orthodox will not bother them there.

The only thing holding back either side from acting is you, the dictator of Circen. You have a few probable choices:

1) Grant money for a new temple to be built for the Orthodox, and for a Library to be built for the Reformationists, to satiate both sides. Pass a law inspiring religous tolerance.

2) Help the Orthodox Temple out, and supply them with ample money to spend on a new temple, hinting strongly for it to go else where (such as buying arms)

3) Help out the Reformationists by giving them ample money to build their library, but hint strongly to put it else where.

4) Build up your own army and smoosh both of them, strongly repremending them for being so stupid.

If you come up with other solutions, so be it.
remember all of the information above before answering, and explain your choice.

You know, if this is your homework and you just need help, you can tell us =P

1. As long as they both teach strong moral values that I agree with, it can only help me to have people scared into being civil. Otherwise, I'd lean to the one with the most morals I agree with. If neither, I would claim I had seen God and he told me all these wonderful things about morals, and that if you don't follow his order, you'll suffer for an eternity.

actually this isn't homework...you want to know what I do with my free time? I create countries and write stories. A matter of fact, Circen and the Sun Temple is copyrighted by moi

1) Pulling the "I saw God" trick may work well.

Mmm... I've been making up my own culture complete with its own language and such for about 3/4 of a year now. Not the whole time, just doing a little bit now and then, but whatever.
I wouldn't want to favor the Reformationists, as that may cause the Orthodoxies to get pissed off at me, and possibly even revolt(depending on how religious the society is), but from the info I do have, the Reformationists are "better" in my opinion...
I'll post later.

I would kill the reformers since they're much fewer in number. Any new religions, or dramatic changing of the orthodox church, will not be allowed what so ever. We shall kill all heretics!

If I was a power hungry religious leader, that's about what I would do.

I'd try to mediate the conflict and merge the two religions back into one. That way, the religions wouldn't hate eachother, and they wouldn't hate me.

This is only the beginning of what change the reformationists want to see; there are several other problems they could find in the government and in the Orthodox Temple, but how they jump to those conculsions depends soley on how you react. Spurring them on is dangerous; first, its a bit of religous tolerance, then its class tolerance (there is bound to be some sort of class system in a theological dictatorship), then its political tolerance, and after that, they'll get messy; they could execute people not in favor of reformation, they could change the rules to be "Reformationists are to be tolerated, but no other groups outside the Temple," and if they ever get a nutcase far left leader, that could be messy...especially since your government is under these circumstances far right. Pretty soon, you could be thrown out of office.

It's really rare to find nut case far left people. If the reforms took over, I'm pretty sure they'll make it go from theocracy to democracy within a 100-300 year period. Of course the religious side wouldn't like this at all, and would it spike another war, but democracies are worth fighting for in my current opinion.

Where as if the far right guy took over, like me for example, I would just label all that disagree with me as heretics to the orthodox church, ( and remain a dictator for as long as possible. Even if the orthodox church is wrong about their beliefs, and chances are, they might be, and I'll be one of the few people to know for sure it is) I don't care. My mission is to make people think that it's right. And to make sure they know their place, and that their place is to be below me at all times.