A thing that’s worth remembering is that the Church of the Flame is old. It traces its origin back to the vision of -1,119, which is over six millennia before the full flowering of the Transcend gave the eikones (who are, as you recall, information entities) their technological ochemata.
[Theologically speaking, the eikones are the pure informational concepts which exist beyond; the archai-eikones are ochema, shadows of them. Technically, they’re perfect and perpetual saints¹ of themselves, which should render them inerrant echoes in all cases other than mechanical failure, but unless you happen to be a theologian of high degree, theotechnican, sorcerer-engineer, forge-cardinal, or the like, this is a distinction without a difference.]
It’s also worth pointing out that in addition to the emulation of eikones, the Flamic church itself incorporates the Imperial Respect, animism, ancestor-worship, the mos maiorum, and negentropism, even before we get to its complicated ecumenical relationships with kaeth faiths both old and new, the ciseflish Path of Ever-Growing Plenitude, and myneni animagranulism.
And we haven’t even contemplated minority religions yet. So let’s stipulate that the religious impulse was alive and well long before any gods had access to effectors.
(That’s not really how gods are supposed to work, anyway.
“A god – a real god – is a verb. Not some magnified elder soph with ‘supernatural’ powers. Not some sophomorphic mask hung on the laws of the cosmos. It’s an idea and a force. It’s a concept so strong that it warps reality just by existing. It doesn’t have to want to. It doesn’t have to think about it. It doesn’t even have to be self-aware or volitional or instantiated in any physical way. It just does.”
Miracles are cheap. If you were to ask a Flamic for proof of divinity, they’d not cite those; they’d gesture at everything around them, the works of everyone whose lives have been shaped by those particular immanent ideas, and say “What hath the gods wrought? Look upon their emulators’ works, and know them for truth.”)
When it comes to conflicts with other religions, well -
At the top of the list, of course, is that the relationship with divinity is rather different, inasmuch as the eikones are far more concerned with emulation rather than worship, which they disdain. You’re supposed to become more godlike, which enlightenment is the point and purpose of religion to a Flamic.
“Know, postulant, that the eikones of the true faith desire no worshipful subjection, no flattering prayers or praise of their magnificence rendered meaningless by the praiser’s offered lack of worth. Such things insult the Flame that burns within you as within Them; as above, so below. They desire rather that you grow along Their path of principle so that you may stand in Their sight and have your worth be known.”
“They are the light by which we see the perfection of the Twilight City, and hope to emulate it in ourselves. To worship the light, to bow before the light, rather than aspire to the light, rather than seek the light, is to condemn your soul to a base nature, forever lost in shadow.”
So when considering other religions², the question they ask is, essentially, “Is your god worthy?³”, which is an ethical rather than metaphysical question. Do they beckon their followers towards enlightenment? Volition, creation, excellence, energy, the fulfilment of their highest potential? Or do they push them towards chaos, destruction, and entropy - or even gray neutrality, apathy, helplessness, self-satisfaction, or other diversions from the path?
Do they ask you to stand, or demand that you kneel?
-
Sainthood, in a concept inspired by the Chalion series, is effectively when one gives up one’s will by mantling an eikone, allowing their concept to manifest through your actions. Since the archai-eikones are designed as eternally self-refining versions of that concept as their core drive, they are de facto perfect and perpetual self-saints.
-
Either as the Enquiry After Truth do professionally, or from an amateur perspective.
-
Sadly, this question cannot be answered by a simple hammer-based test.
(Although it might be worth noting that Earth’s ancient paganisms get more respect here. Thor wasn’t interested in groveling, while some more modern religions seem to care about little else.)