Well, Arawn, I'm sorry to see you go just as I am coming in. We all have to play in a game we're comfortable with.
I hope our paths cross in the future.
Regards,
-Andrew
Arawn will hang on a little while and fade out with style. He doesn't have to leave. He just has to be less hostile and more focused on the topic at hand. I have said several times, I am more than willing to let him run a Cathar based beta-story if he wants.
Let me rephrase this. Arawn, you don't have to leave if you don't want. Just please be more tolorant and less hostile. Stay focused on the story at hand. I am more than willing to let you run a Cathar based beta-story. I have said this several times. I do think Cathars are creepy and weird, and are pretty twisted. I view them as dark gnostics or deluded by faeries or some such. But it is more a case that I don't want to touch the Cathar subject with a ten foot pole. I really dislike religeous contraversy. I will be a player in your beta story as well. I will play Carmen (provided you rescue her). She was raised Catholic but her mother is Jewish and Carmen has been gravitating that way as she has matured. She will take a more neutral point of view and will approach matters with a more open mind. It will be an exciting role playing challenge 
I am willing to continue. I can endeavour to focus more on the IC side than the OOC in this particular area.
I'll be succinct in reply to the question of what I 'wanted': a genuine chance to pursue an Enlightenment that doesn't follow established dogma. Finessing the point, it's just that I feel that Magi are frequently going to be 'heretical' in their views, even when they deeply and sincerely Believe themselves to be Christian or Muslim or whatever. The Cathar argument resulted from a mix of IC and OOC issues.
Personally, I find the Cathars to be strange, and can see how they could slide into Dark Gnosticism. Others, I think, would have True Faith. If I stay, I can explore both possibilities, perhaps.
Vares is attuned to Magic. But he certainly recognises that the Divine and the Infernal are very, very, very REAL in this world. He's into Gnosticism and Alchemy and Classical Philosophy. So those ideas will turn up in play.
Acceptable?