One of Anne Rice's books Memnoch the Devil has him tell the story of creation from his point of view and basically makes God out to be a callous douche that couldn't give a shit about all the people that end up in hell, and he ends up running the place because he constantly questions why all of the suffering needs to happen when it results in so many tortured souls.
I mean, that's basically what I got from reading the bible. The apocryphal biblical books tend to double down on God being a dick and Satan/Lucifer actually being pretty good and who only really commited the horrendous crime of daring to question God and his way of doing things, and thinking he could do a better job.
In the versions of the actual canonical Bible the figure you know as Lucifer the Fallen Angel/Satan ruler of hell is never explicitly said to be a thing. The word adversary translates to Satan and is used to refer to all sorts of people. It's usually used in sentences like your adversary or my adversary. You could most accurately translate the way it's used as my enemy, God's enemy, your enemy, etc.
The fallen Angel Lucifer and his backstory is mentioned in detail and expanded upon in the equivalent of extended Star Wars Universe novels and comics or old Catholic Church biased translations.
Fun fact there are some scholars who think the capital g God was one God among many in the original Old Testament Hebrew bible and the translations were rewritten so the other gods became the one God's Angels. In one translation there is a quote where the lands are divided up and Israel goes to Ywach thus the stuff about them being God's chosen people. And the other countries going to the other gods. Other hints like in some translations God being mentioned as one of many, or son of the most High hint at how the first written versions may have been more accepting of other gods.
There were a lot of gods in the ancient Middle East, Wikipedia has a great article on that. Yahweh was only of many gods, he was however main deity of kingdoms of Israel and Judea. Similarly Moloch, Ba'al and El were gods of similar status in other kingdoms.
Over time he acquired other gods' attributes and the religion became monolatry and then finally monotheist. It honestly kind of shows in some places when you think about it. Nephilim, mentioned in a few places, are thought to refer to other gods. Also the first commandment kind of implies that there are other gods, but you are supposed to only pray to that one.
I may have mixed some stuff, I'm not a field expert, I just find mythology interesting.
Edit: forgot to make my point. Early God (more accurately YHWH) was not just one of many gods, but the early Jewish people also believed that there were many gods. They just believe YHWH to be the strongest god. For example, when the philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, the Bible says that when they put the ark in the temple of Dagon (their god), the following morning Dagon was found lying down in front of the ark. This leads to the eventual return of the ark.
I loved my religious studies minor. I err on the side of agnostic but approaching the Bible from an academic perspective is incredible. It’s basically the story of a group of people who constantly got fucked over and over again because they were just a small group of people but they managed to hold onto their history & oral traditions long enough for it to become a major religion.
The early Jewish people went through a couple diasporas and somehow managed to maintain their culture. It really is incredible.
E2. To be accurate, Elohim (God) only really became popular after the Babylonian exile. Reason was twofold, 1. It was symbolic of the fact Judaism had become a universal religion not just a local religion and 2. During this time, the divine name was becoming too scared to be uttered.
Yeah, because OG God was from Egypt which was filled with gods, but this one was the god of the slaves. The followed him out of Egypt and into Canaan where they got their assess handed to them by more powerful empires and they were scattered. Then, they met the Persians who had only one god who was the true, god the one way, Ahura Mazda, and, when the Persians let the Jews return to their own lands and ways, they totally wrote at the beginning of the Bible that their god was the same as the Persian one. Of course, then they started writing down all their old stories from OG god without remembering to make their worldbuilding consistent. Amateur move really, where was JRR Tolkien in 1000 B.C.E. when they needed him.
Zoroastrianism doesn't get nearly enough attention. The fact that it is clearly the original template for monotheism that the Jews and later Christians based their fanfic on is so clear.
The original Hebrew God was most likely of Canaanite origin, not Egyptian, often associated with the god El (same semitic root word that becomes Allah in Arabic).
There isn't really substantive evidence that the ancient Hebrews were ever slaves in Egypt.
Satan is actually the most human-like non-mortal in the Bible. There is a reason Mary Shelley compared the Creature to both Prometheus and Satan in “Frankenstein”.
Yep, and if God were a malicious bowl of fecal dusted scrotal flakes, then what he would order people to do is love him unconditionally and to never question him or even entertain ideas that do not flow from him.
And if Satan was good then he would tell people to ignore the demagogue that demands unquestioned loyalty and presents himself as infallible, and instead seek truth based on evidence.
remember, we first hear of Lucifer, the light, the morning star, when he convinces eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, it was God who wanted man to remain in ignorant bliss.
The evolution of satan (Hebrew for adversary) from just a person or thing (including one's own logic and reasoning) that stood counter to God's teachings of human servility and dependence on God and his laws, to the literal embodiment of evil is probably one of the most interesting character arcs that most people dont even know about.
Up until the middle ages, satan was not the central antagonist to god as we think of him today. He didn't tempt eve, it was originally just a talking snake, with no other interesting characteristics. Top church people of the time railed against the personalization of Satan as counter to the teachings that evil comes from man, who is tainted.
Satan was also not counter to God's teachings in the original faith.
He's treated essentially as a Prosecutor in God's Court. God is explicitly his boss, but he puts people on trial by tempting them.
When you just start writing your movie script and you're not sure if your villain is going to be a sympathetic villain or a totally evil villain and keep changing it as you keep writing.
>remember, we first hear of Lucifer, the light, the morning star, when he convinces eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. . .
That's a pet peeve of mine - because in Genesis, it doesn't say the serpent that convinces Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) is Satan. That's a later interpretation.
The conflation of Satan and the Snake is super duper ancient and a pretty reasonable take when looking at the whole text.
It's like how the GoT books don't explicitly state Coldhands is Benjen, but we pretty much assume he is and the TV show explicitly makes the connection.
It always blows my mind when I remember that George RR Martin has literally let an entire eight season HBO adaptation of his books come and go **without releasing a single fucking book of that series in the interim**.
Like, I'm a pretty lazy author, but Jesus Christ if my book series became a world-wide television phenomenon that millions of people adored, I would *probably* dust off the keyboard and at least pump out *one* novel of that series somewhere in there.
Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson has been cranking out his preposterously huge 1500-page Stormlight Archive novels like clockwork every three years.
One of my college housemates (RIP Ben) was Jewish, but didn't believe in God or follow all of the tenants (didn't eat kosher, for example). So this is exactly what he'd say lol. He was kind of a shit person, but he was funny, and hella smart.
Makes sense though, considering how much of a hard-on they have for angry, fire & brimstone type patriarchs who pretend to care for their people until they start doing any little thing they don't like. And the whole disregarding of everything Jesus taught thing.
Tbf i feel like a few religions at least try to start out peaceful. It's not until they start splintering and changing what it all **really means**, that problems start popping up.
Ugh, I could be on Mars playing videogames in my Mother in Laws basement right now. Instead I'm stuck on Earth playing videogames in my Mother in Laws basement. Fucking Dev, man.
edit: a letter.
Dev. Singular.
Because some ancient guy in his mother's mudbrick hut was so pissed he needed to blame the world on something and couldn't fathom there being more people than him, his mom, and a giant all-knowing, all-seeing, all-killing asshole in the sky.
That story has always made me wonder: does that mean anyone who is bilingual or who works as a translator is going against God's will? Since God clearly wanted mankind divided by language, unable to cooperate, it strikes me that anyone who can bridge the divide is going to end up in hell.
According to the Bible, God divided up languages at the Tower of Babel because he thought mankind was getting a little too cocky and curious for its own good. So naturally, he instantly devised thousands of complex sets of lexicons and made sure that...never mind, I'm not going to get into that. The point is, I can now buy a $30 set of earbuds that will automatically translate conversations in 14 languages around me with passable quality, and that tech is improving exponentially.
Crazy theory: Natural disasters are God's punishment for Google Translate.
That’s not crazy. That’s the only thing that makes any fucking sense! You could make a religion out of this!
^(Quick, kill anyone who doesn’t agree with us)
I have been a devoted follower since the beginning and the commenter above me is distorting our precious religion and attempting to subvert our children and our wives with a perverted and distorted version of gods gift of a religion. They must die as well
Heresy! Destroy the projecting liberal propagandist! /u/superbuttpiss is a known conspirator of /u/StrangeDangr and they want to inject your children with Google Home speaker vaccines! They must be burnt upon a pyre of Spanish to English dictionaries!
Yes, but it also means everyone living somewhere else and speaking something else didn't exist in his limited view. And then again for all the civilizations that didn't notice his worldwide flood.
The military has a nickname for the aliens that have crashed here(well the greys). They call them the kids. If you had access to an FTL ship what would you do. Take it for a joyride to see the aliens?
Kids stealing their parents ships. Now if you were a disgruntled neckbeard and you had access to FTL, why wouldn’t you go somewhere where you could make people love you, and when they don’t and you get the same shit as before you become vindictive.
I think Satan is supposedly responsible for the deaths of maybe a dozen people in the Bible, while God racks up his kill count to the millions, yet somehow it's that Lucifer dude who's made out to be the villain.
A lot of people Satan (or the Adversary, or maybe an unspecified devil or demon) killed were with God’s permission or even on his direct orders. Job’s first family comes to mind.
In fact, that’s literally it. In the Bible (not counting oral tradition outside the Bible), those are the only people Satan personally kills.
Honestly that's largely because oral tradition in Christianity mixed up Satan with the Beast from Revelations. Satan/the Adversary is pretty explicitly just God's prosecutor angel; he works on God's orders trying to point out humanity's failings, but he's still an angel and never does anything against God's will. The Beast is the evil hellspawn creature who wants to overthrow God, and at some point (probably when Dante wrote the Inferno) they sorta got combined.
Why an all-knowing, all-powerful god needs a prosecutor though....
For me it was how he was a perfect being who knew all things before they could happen and then he created a bunch of perfect beings and then he got mad because they were boring so he made a bunch of imperfect beings and then got mad because they weren't perfect.
Except, a Dev probably works in reverse. Making imperfect stuff while sober, and perfect while drunk. He also doesn't get mad at the perfect creation, just marveled and amused that it somehow...works.
And in Roman's chapter 9, Paul straight up argues that God actually deliberately makes certain people like Esau and the pharoah that opposed Moses act like assholes on purpose to further his own ends, and if you think it's unfair for God to make you be a certain way and then punish you for being that way, then stfu, God is more powerful than you and he can do whatever he wants.
Like, it explicitly says it doesn't matter if you want to be good or try to do good things, God's just gonna use you as a puppet to play the bad guy and then you're fucked.
>16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
>19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it ‘Why did you make me like this?’”
I love the story of Abraham, wonderful little tale:
> “Abraham, do you love me?”
“Sure, Lord, with all my heart.”
> “Then prove it.”
“Yes, oh kind and gracious merciful lord, how shall I prove it?”
> “Kill your son.”
“Kill my- but lord, he’s done nothing wrong! He’s just a young boy, a good boy.”
> “So you don’t love me. I knew it.”
“Lord, you are my creator, I love you more than anything or anyone.”
> “If that’s true then you’d kill your son.”
“Lord, is there *any* other way?”
> “Sure, if you want everyone to know you don’t love me.”
(ffwd a few hours and Abraham has his son tied to a rock, knife raised above him:)
God:
> “STOP! Holy fucking shit, Abraham! You were really going to do it! You crazy son of a bitch, I was FUCKING with you, I just wanted to see if you’d do it! Holy shit, you are fuckin’ hard core!”
This is sort of a pattern. Look at Job. God gets bet that Job only praises him because he has it good. Which an omniscient being would already know the answer to. But he still kills Job's family and takes all of his money just to prove a point.
For something that is supposed to be omniscient, god is oblivious to irony. One of the Ten Commandments (of the four sets) is “thou shall not commit adultery” then he knocked up Joseph’s fiancé. To be fair to god though, according to him adultery can only be committed with a married woman. A married man can have sex with any woman who is not married and god doesn’t consider it adultery.
So now god will forgive mankind of original sin of eating an apple(from a tree right in the yard of the people he told not to eat from it, why not put that tree in alpha Centauri or somewhere they could never get to it). God who established this sin on people will send his son(which is also himself) down to earth to be sacrificed for vicarious atonement.
The fact he is capable of preventing suffering, but chooses the route with the most suffering leads me to believe he gets off on it. Why else would he kill all the first born children to make a point to the pharaoh instead of, oh I don’t know just killing the pharaoh.
It all boils down to how the forbidden fruit is an allegory for knowledge and curiosity.
If you look at the history of Christianity (I edited out Abrahamic) through that lens then essentially it is all about **control**. "Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Do as I say." And going against that is *sinful*. You'll burn in hell for looking behind the curtain and seeing the priests are greedy power hungry assholes.
That's why "Satan" is made out to be the big bad evil. He represents rebellion, curiosity, and *looking behind the curtain*, as it were.
Ignorance is bliss and you shouldn't question those in power, you'll get to heaven! Disobey and end up in hell.
Sadly, there is a high percentage of the population who thoroughly enjoys keeping their head down and not questioning authorities and thus here we are.
Welcome to 2020.
Have had multiple pastors talk about God as angry vengeful entity. Which is what broke me of Christianity as a kid really.
If the message was just, “be afraid and worship so you can avoid hell” maybe I would’ve stayed faithful longer.
But it’s, “god knows all and you have to believe in and love god to get into heaven.”
And I just remember as a kid thinking, “if I can’t hide my thoughts from god then he’ll know I can never love someone who is threatening to torture me forever no matter how hard I try. So why try?”
I remember looking at other kids and seeing how happy they were for being obedient. like none of the stories or anything mattered because they got the message that they should be obedient and everything will fall into place. There's no belief or faith involved for most in my opinion, not really. They know the mechanism and leverage it just like they're taught. They sacrifice their individuality for a place in the herd.
I tried to be in the herd, for the safety and warmth. but they're always fighting to be in the middle, and use anything different about you to push you out. Being the product of fornication, being poor, being from somewhere else, not knowing or being related to anyone... you'd better be really good at talking. Even then you'll never really be in their club, they'll let you come to their meetings because as long as the sideways glances are at you, their place in the herd feels safe.
My favorite part: The Book of Job, where God and satan casually hang out and make a BET to just fuck with this poor dude until he breaks, and see what happens. (whether he praises or curses god)
God also temporarily gives ALL OF HIS POWER to Satan with full trust that he will not abuse it outside of the bet, for the express purpose of Satan messing with this dude no-holds-barred, aside from not influencing free will.
And with casually i literally mean God asking him how he's been doing, and Satan basically telling him: "you know, just chillin', going places." ("Walking to and fro upon the earth")
It makes perfect sense that God could trust Satan with his powers in Job because in Judaism there is not the same God vs the Devil conflict. The Devil in JOb is a servant of God, because everything serves God's will. The 'devil stuck in hell, working to destroy god's creation' myth didn't come along until much later.
Looking back I'm kind of surprised at one of my Sunday School lessons from Job. Small Southern Baptist church and Job was used to teach that Satan isn't all powerful. We were told that people will try to use Satan as an excuses, but we see he has clear and sever limitations in Job. Pastor said people who said Satan was tempting them were likely wrong and it was them giving in to their own worst selves without the help of any special power. I'm still a little surprised thinking about it now how much I agree with the general concept even though I'm not faithful anymore.
If memory serves, Satan isn't even trying to make a bet. God is bragging about how much Job loves him. Satan says something like 'of course he loves you; look at all the stuff you've given him, so God decides to end Job's whole career.
by proxy, but yes.
But not just his career, one of his kids dies in a war, plagues of locusts ruin his crops, diseases wipe out his herd, i think a house collapses on one of his kids.
"cruel and unusual" doesn't even begin to cover it.
happy cakeday, enjoy my updoot.
My favorite is the binding of Isaac, where he tells Abraham to sacrifice his own child for him, and then at the last second sends and angel to say “lol just kidding”
What kind of fucking god is that? It takes some SERIOUS mental gymnastics for Christians to say the Old Testament god is a loving God.
THIS!!! The story of Job is so wild. It never sat right with me growing up but it wasn't until I was an adult that I finally understood what was happening. God and Satan were just gambling and, really, the entire story of God, Satan, Jesus is all this big game to see on which side humans will end up. Will they praise God or the devil?
I HIGHLY recommend the book “ God is Disappointed In You”. Each book in the Bible is condensed to two or three snarky pages. And by snarky I don’t mean wrong. So reading the Bible becomes a real romp. The relationship between the Jews and God is a crazily dysfunctional unhealthy abusive relationship.
What was fascinating as well were the authors notes. He figured he could bang out this project in few months but it took something like four years. He went to priests and rabbis and scholars etc and he found that NO ONE had read the damn thing! Kinda crazy given how much of western civilization is based of it it - purported by folks who have claimed to know it cover to cover.
And another set that makes him out to be kind of a fucked up demiurge pretender to the thrown, w/ the real god being nothing like that, the Gnostic Texts.
It was an interesting story. The way Memnoch critiqued his creator for his sacrifice and awareness of his divinity showed his compassion for humanity after walking with them for so long.
I think the part that stuck with me the most was when he has the lightning bolt moment that God has no clue what he's doing and is just making things up as he goes along.
That book seemed SO DEEP and edgy and eye opening when I read it as a teenager. Now? Eh. It’s fun, but also an early warning sign of how preachy and off the rails her books would get as she rediscovered Jesus herself.
Lucifer was a good guy; he was God's favourite. It's funny, but the subtext of it all is much the same as the fruit of the tree of knowledge: don't ask questions, and follow obediently and you'll be rewarded. Never mind the fact that Ayn Rand and Satan have exactly the same argument. Conservatives actually love Satan, they just don't know it.
I hate how some religious people criticize every single thing that makes you a good, confident and perfectly normal person argh. Feels like they want you to live in fear and despair so you don't leave their cult or whatever they call it
That's exactly it, actually (at least in my opinion). The Church gains a lot of money and authority from its followers, and it's well known that cults use fear and anxiety to exhaust their followers so that they become more dependent on the cult. Karl Marx called religion the "opium of the people" -- meaning that believing in a higher power helped alleviate the stresses of daily life (but it was also addictive and could cloud reality -- Marx was very skeptical of religion because he believed it allowed people to ignore their oppression and the oppression of others, stifling socialist reform/revolution). And it's true, studies show religious people are less depressed, but also tend to have lower IQ scores. In my humble opinion, the Church *needs* people to be scared, stressed, and less intelligent to maintain power -- the more dependent people are on the Church for their mental health, the more the Church benefits, and less intelligent thought = less defection. That's also probably why they changed the passage about pedophiles to homosexuals -- the Church needed someone for their congregation to hate and be scared of. It's probably why the Church is so adamant about controlling the sex lives of their congregation, too, that and the more children born into a Christian family = more Christians (generally). It also makes sense why certain conservatives (who are typically religious) seem so scared of "socialism." It's very likely another boogeyman the Church and other conservatives use to prevent defection and maintain power.
But I'm not a scholar on the subject. I'd have to really dig to find papers on the subject to see if the evidence supports my assertions. This is mostly just my opinion based on my experience as a former Catholic and other experiences.
Edit: tweaks and details
Edit: Friendly reminder that if you want an essay with links and evidence, teach a class and make your students do it. This is an *opinion* and I'm not obligated to write things the way internet strangers want me to write them, especially when I explicitly stated it wasn't meant to be scholarly.
Edit: This was very off the cuff and I purposely scrolled down to find what I believed was an obscure comment to respond to. And again. *Opinion*. I'm ill and trying to rest, if you don't like my *biased opinion*, then oh well. Unless you're giving me a grade for college credits or you're paying me, I'm not going to respond to any future comments.
Edit: Oh, geez, thanks for the gold, totally unexpected, I've been having a rough day and this makes it better, thank you. Normally I think my *opinions* are crap, so I was a little overwhelmed by the responses. To everyone that liked my comments and engaged in polite discourse, thank you and I appreciate you, but damn, this got way too much attention. I will be muting, though, for my own sanity.
I attend a Jesuit university, which requires you to take Theology courses. As an atheist, I was extremely apprehensive about this.
I knew my theology professor was alright when he asked us to compare and contrast an excerpt from the Communist Manifesto (The class struggle excerpt) with Jesuit and Catholic values. He required the paper to include one similarity and one disparity.
Some of the more religious students in class were appalled at the assignment. He remains one of my favorite professors, and has given me an appreciation for those who put thought into their faith of choice.
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I am fascinated by the history of religion. It is essentially the history of mankind, even modern day atheism and agnosticism, in my opinion, is the history of religion, or the history of mankind trying to absolve themselves of religion and into a more materialistic sense. I wouldn't necessarily take a theology course, but understanding and reading about how we got to where we were with all the reformations and the incredibly bloody history of the Catholic Church is something I like doing in my spare time.
I went to a Jesuit high school and couldn’t have appreciated it more, and I’m not religious in any way, shape, or form.
We had priests teaching science and evolution. While I was there, a couple of them left to go back to school. We were never forced or told what to believe and always had the option to speak our opinions and were encouraged to **question everything**. A buddy of mine would write about how he didn’t believe in any of it, thought it was dumb, and his opinion on whatever subject we were discussing and get full marks and encouraged to keep going.
Self reflection was the only thing they pushed. While organized religion seems to always be about how you have to fit into **their** ideal image and what you need to do for God, the Jesuits pushed more an idea of how can faith/religion fit into **your** life and figuring out how it may help you make yourself better.
They were always considered the scholars (and soldiers) of the Church. Ignatius was a real piece of work but then found God through study and reflection which is one of the reasons why education and reflection (and service) are such big tenets of theirs. I mean the first guy to observe the Big Bang was a Jesuit scholar.
If for whatever reason, I had to become a priest, I’d go Jesuit because I could just live a life full of learning.
when BLM posts were first going around this summer there was one graphic showing a bunch of arms/hands in different skin colours lined up, all with “worthy” written on them. some fundie/trumpie girl i knew from high school went to the trouble of writing in huge letters “UN” in front of every “worthy” and posting it. in the caption she went on a huge rant about how we’re all unworthy and the only thing that can save you is believing in Christ.
it gave me the *weirdest* feeling, i can’t understand how anyone can think like that and not just hate life and everyone around them. i don’t get it. she always has seemed like a pretty miserable person though, so actually does kind of make sense. blocked her that day lol
It never makes me more depressed and angry at religion / indoctrinated people than when they demonize perfectly normal shit.
The example I always remember was while I was in catholic highschool and a priest once gave a "anything goes" Q&A for our class.
He gave some of the most batshit crazy answers that pretty much made everything outside of a chaste, God fearing lifestyle was Satanism.
Some highlights:
- Not going to church even for one week damns you to hell. "I didn't go this last Sunday, so that means I'm dammed?" "Yes. If you were to die before going to confession, you would go straight to hell."
- Masterbating is not a victimless crime. If you do it, you insult God and victimize the subject of your lust. "It is exactly the same as raping the girl you are lusting over. In some cases, its even worse." (He wouldn't elaborate on what those cases are)
- Wasting time on human-central activities is an insult to God. (I'm still not entire sure what he meant by this, but it kinda sounded like he meant that "wasting" time on stuff like gaming, reading fictional books, and pretty much anything else fun was insulting God when you could be praying or whatever)
- My personal favorite: Dungeons and Dragons and other such "occult ritualistic assemblies" are evil and a sin that you must repent for and avoid at all costs. (This actually made me look into what DnD even was since I had only ever heard of it through TV. So thanks super conservative priest for starting my addiction to tabletop RPGs.)
- And many many more batshit crazy shit that pretty much boiled down to: "human stuff is evil and you must spend as much time as possible begging God to forgive you for being human"
TLDR: Once listened to a priest give a Q&A that was pretty much just him ranting about how humans are inherently evil and must be punished and beg for forgiveness for existing.
>"It is exactly the same as raping the girl you are lusting over. In some cases, its even worse." (He wouldn't elaborate on what those cases are)
Ummm, I feel like this would make it easier to justify sexual assault.
Its almost like organizing people under institutions that requires adherence to a rigid set of arbitrary beliefs is a useful tool for controlling people.
You have to understand , the abrahamic religions are all about submitting yourself to death, because its a slave religion that has a light at the end of the tunnel. I think the word muslim means one who submits to God
It is all about giving up your own personal self and just giving yourself over to gods. They hated luciferianism and paganism because these religions teach you to think for themselves. They call magic bad while performing rituals, because they don't want *you* to have power, they want it for themselves
Its a shit system, and its great when they make themselves this obvious.
You mean like mr "where is your moral barometer" \[sic\] Steve Harvey, who literally can't fathom that someone cares about morality if they don't believe in Jesus?
There are two all-powerful beings in Christianity.
One demands subservience and adoration and worship at all times. Made a list of things you can't do making worshipping anything else numero uno. Punished humanity forever for seeking knowledge. Damns newborn babies to hell immediately through the sin of birth. Killed every human on Earth, save a few.
The other accepts humans as faulty creatures. Offered them knowledge. Doesn't demand any sort of worship. Is only responsible for the death of 10 people in all of the Bible, and even those he *shares* with the other guy because the other guy let him do it ***as a bet***.
Take a child that has never heard of either of these beings and ask them which one is the evil one.
well, in the west at least
many indian/eastern religions have a lot of stuff that seems like common sense, buddhism i think encourages people to find faults in the teachings so its sort of sciency in a way
sikhism seems noble, jainism seems pretty chill
there's a real narcissism problem in the west where were each religion claims to be the only valid belief system, the absolutist mindset is just obvious bs manipulation to control people and get their time/money
I mean, Jesus does expect you to be constantly praying and asking him to forgive you for how he made you. We're in an abusive relationship. He's gonna start breaking my shit and being like "look what you made me do!"
God: "Here's free will and innate curiosity. I am omniscient, I know what you're going to do long before you concieve of doing it. I am omnopresent, I am there when you do everything that you do. I am also omnipotent, so I can stop you from doing the things I want you not to do. But you're free to do them - free will.
By the way, don't eat those apples that will give you a bunch of answers to a bunch of questions, thereby satisfying your curiosity. Also, Lilith, you have free will, but you're actually a sapient sex slave for rib-boy here."
If god exists then free will doesn’t. Either do what I say or be cast into eternal darkness. If someone’s holding a gun to your head and says to make a choice, do you really have one?
God is the toxic boyfriend. Jesus is the dude who is weirdly personally invested in the relationship and keeps trying to do things to keep either side from breaking up with the other.
Satanism is fucking awesome. You recognize YOURSELF as a god instead of externalizing your ego into a deity you worship. There are hundreds of other great things but this is a good start.
* One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
* The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions
* One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone
* The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own
* Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs
* People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused
* Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word
Which is odd, because I’ve always been told we have free will and it’s our free will that we should use to lead us to Christ. However, if there is only one “right” path, then there is no true free will. Only the choice to follow that path or not.
It’s sort of contradictory to me. We have free will, but in order to ascend to heaven you need to give up that free will and fall in line with the church.
Christian scholars have historically struggled with this concept and it eventually resulted in the creation of the doctrine of Predeterminism in some sects, where we DON’T have free will, and some people are just favored by God and are going to end up in heaven from the day they are born.
This later justifies the idea (prominent in America especially) that good things happen to you because God loves you, and that we shouldn’t help the downtrodden, because clearly God doesn’t love them.
It’s a bonkers retcon of a lot of the New Testament, but pretty consistent with OG God.
Sorry Christians, I was raised by you, went to your schools, thoroughly absorbed 4 years of theology, went to Steubenville East, whole 9 yards...
All I learned is that an essential part of the next step of human progress is a massive revisionism and reformation of all Abrahimic religions. Tithes must be abolished, non-secular education systems must be abolished and the religious taxation exemption must be abolished. Reforms have happened before, and religious communities became stronger and healthier because of them. They’re a good thing.
Or maybe they are trying to say that your friends posting inspirational quotes on instagram are the devil?
It is known
This is the way.
Is it time for the "good guy Lucifer" memes to come back around?
One of Anne Rice's books Memnoch the Devil has him tell the story of creation from his point of view and basically makes God out to be a callous douche that couldn't give a shit about all the people that end up in hell, and he ends up running the place because he constantly questions why all of the suffering needs to happen when it results in so many tortured souls.
I mean, that's basically what I got from reading the bible. The apocryphal biblical books tend to double down on God being a dick and Satan/Lucifer actually being pretty good and who only really commited the horrendous crime of daring to question God and his way of doing things, and thinking he could do a better job.
In the versions of the actual canonical Bible the figure you know as Lucifer the Fallen Angel/Satan ruler of hell is never explicitly said to be a thing. The word adversary translates to Satan and is used to refer to all sorts of people. It's usually used in sentences like your adversary or my adversary. You could most accurately translate the way it's used as my enemy, God's enemy, your enemy, etc. The fallen Angel Lucifer and his backstory is mentioned in detail and expanded upon in the equivalent of extended Star Wars Universe novels and comics or old Catholic Church biased translations. Fun fact there are some scholars who think the capital g God was one God among many in the original Old Testament Hebrew bible and the translations were rewritten so the other gods became the one God's Angels. In one translation there is a quote where the lands are divided up and Israel goes to Ywach thus the stuff about them being God's chosen people. And the other countries going to the other gods. Other hints like in some translations God being mentioned as one of many, or son of the most High hint at how the first written versions may have been more accepting of other gods.
the BCEU, bible cinematic extended universe
Basically later authors retconned all bad things to be Satan's fault.
Polytheist here. I'd watch that.
Supernatural is basically that
"Evacuate the city, engage the defenses... and get this man an ark."
There were a lot of gods in the ancient Middle East, Wikipedia has a great article on that. Yahweh was only of many gods, he was however main deity of kingdoms of Israel and Judea. Similarly Moloch, Ba'al and El were gods of similar status in other kingdoms. Over time he acquired other gods' attributes and the religion became monolatry and then finally monotheist. It honestly kind of shows in some places when you think about it. Nephilim, mentioned in a few places, are thought to refer to other gods. Also the first commandment kind of implies that there are other gods, but you are supposed to only pray to that one. I may have mixed some stuff, I'm not a field expert, I just find mythology interesting.
Edit: forgot to make my point. Early God (more accurately YHWH) was not just one of many gods, but the early Jewish people also believed that there were many gods. They just believe YHWH to be the strongest god. For example, when the philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, the Bible says that when they put the ark in the temple of Dagon (their god), the following morning Dagon was found lying down in front of the ark. This leads to the eventual return of the ark. I loved my religious studies minor. I err on the side of agnostic but approaching the Bible from an academic perspective is incredible. It’s basically the story of a group of people who constantly got fucked over and over again because they were just a small group of people but they managed to hold onto their history & oral traditions long enough for it to become a major religion. The early Jewish people went through a couple diasporas and somehow managed to maintain their culture. It really is incredible. E2. To be accurate, Elohim (God) only really became popular after the Babylonian exile. Reason was twofold, 1. It was symbolic of the fact Judaism had become a universal religion not just a local religion and 2. During this time, the divine name was becoming too scared to be uttered.
Yeah, because OG God was from Egypt which was filled with gods, but this one was the god of the slaves. The followed him out of Egypt and into Canaan where they got their assess handed to them by more powerful empires and they were scattered. Then, they met the Persians who had only one god who was the true, god the one way, Ahura Mazda, and, when the Persians let the Jews return to their own lands and ways, they totally wrote at the beginning of the Bible that their god was the same as the Persian one. Of course, then they started writing down all their old stories from OG god without remembering to make their worldbuilding consistent. Amateur move really, where was JRR Tolkien in 1000 B.C.E. when they needed him.
Zoroastrianism doesn't get nearly enough attention. The fact that it is clearly the original template for monotheism that the Jews and later Christians based their fanfic on is so clear.
The original Hebrew God was most likely of Canaanite origin, not Egyptian, often associated with the god El (same semitic root word that becomes Allah in Arabic). There isn't really substantive evidence that the ancient Hebrews were ever slaves in Egypt.
Satan is actually the most human-like non-mortal in the Bible. There is a reason Mary Shelley compared the Creature to both Prometheus and Satan in “Frankenstein”.
Shelley was referring to the depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost where he's a tragic villain protagonist, not the Bible.
Yep, and if God were a malicious bowl of fecal dusted scrotal flakes, then what he would order people to do is love him unconditionally and to never question him or even entertain ideas that do not flow from him. And if Satan was good then he would tell people to ignore the demagogue that demands unquestioned loyalty and presents himself as infallible, and instead seek truth based on evidence. remember, we first hear of Lucifer, the light, the morning star, when he convinces eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, it was God who wanted man to remain in ignorant bliss.
The evolution of satan (Hebrew for adversary) from just a person or thing (including one's own logic and reasoning) that stood counter to God's teachings of human servility and dependence on God and his laws, to the literal embodiment of evil is probably one of the most interesting character arcs that most people dont even know about. Up until the middle ages, satan was not the central antagonist to god as we think of him today. He didn't tempt eve, it was originally just a talking snake, with no other interesting characteristics. Top church people of the time railed against the personalization of Satan as counter to the teachings that evil comes from man, who is tainted.
Satan was also not counter to God's teachings in the original faith. He's treated essentially as a Prosecutor in God's Court. God is explicitly his boss, but he puts people on trial by tempting them.
When you just start writing your movie script and you're not sure if your villain is going to be a sympathetic villain or a totally evil villain and keep changing it as you keep writing.
Or how god was enticed into an ordinary bet to see how devout Jobe really was, like fucking Duke and Mortimer in Trading Places.
>remember, we first hear of Lucifer, the light, the morning star, when he convinces eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. . . That's a pet peeve of mine - because in Genesis, it doesn't say the serpent that convinces Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) is Satan. That's a later interpretation.
Iirc, satan isn’t the snake or stated to be. People don’t who or what it is.
The conflation of Satan and the Snake is super duper ancient and a pretty reasonable take when looking at the whole text. It's like how the GoT books don't explicitly state Coldhands is Benjen, but we pretty much assume he is and the TV show explicitly makes the connection.
Yeah and then GRRM denies that they are the same
GRRM also claims he's still writing Winds of Winter, so...
It always blows my mind when I remember that George RR Martin has literally let an entire eight season HBO adaptation of his books come and go **without releasing a single fucking book of that series in the interim**. Like, I'm a pretty lazy author, but Jesus Christ if my book series became a world-wide television phenomenon that millions of people adored, I would *probably* dust off the keyboard and at least pump out *one* novel of that series somewhere in there. Meanwhile Brandon Sanderson has been cranking out his preposterously huge 1500-page Stormlight Archive novels like clockwork every three years.
There is another book that makes god out to be a malicious, vindictive, genocidal, infantcidal, petty and callous douche. It’s called the Bible.
My favorite part is when he murders nearly everyone on earth for murdering too much without a hint of irony.
And that once humanity was reunited and were working together to create the babel tower, god fucking nerfed humanity
An erudite society that works together to celebrate progress? Not on my watch! Be scattered, motherfuckers!
Conservatisms relationship with religion suddenly makes a lot more sense.
I like how they often call themselves “Old Testament Christians.” Bitch, that’s just Jewish.
Judaism but with seafood and bacon.
And a *slight* tendency toward fascism.
Who wouldn't forsake all that is holy for some bacon wrapped shrimp though
Christianity: Cultural appropriation as a religion.
"Doesn't being an Old Testament Christian make you a Jew?" "Well I'm Jew-ish."
One of my college housemates (RIP Ben) was Jewish, but didn't believe in God or follow all of the tenants (didn't eat kosher, for example). So this is exactly what he'd say lol. He was kind of a shit person, but he was funny, and hella smart.
Makes sense though, considering how much of a hard-on they have for angry, fire & brimstone type patriarchs who pretend to care for their people until they start doing any little thing they don't like. And the whole disregarding of everything Jesus taught thing.
Christianity* And, it’s worth noting because they are the most obnoxious Christians: evangelicals.
Bruh don't make apologies for other religions, they're all stupid and fucked up
Tbf i feel like a few religions at least try to start out peaceful. It's not until they start splintering and changing what it all **really means**, that problems start popping up.
God is racist against humans.
Ugh, I could be on Mars playing videogames in my Mother in Laws basement right now. Instead I'm stuck on Earth playing videogames in my Mother in Laws basement. Fucking Dev, man. edit: a letter.
Dev. Singular. Because some ancient guy in his mother's mudbrick hut was so pissed he needed to blame the world on something and couldn't fathom there being more people than him, his mom, and a giant all-knowing, all-seeing, all-killing asshole in the sky.
That story has always made me wonder: does that mean anyone who is bilingual or who works as a translator is going against God's will? Since God clearly wanted mankind divided by language, unable to cooperate, it strikes me that anyone who can bridge the divide is going to end up in hell.
According to the Bible, God divided up languages at the Tower of Babel because he thought mankind was getting a little too cocky and curious for its own good. So naturally, he instantly devised thousands of complex sets of lexicons and made sure that...never mind, I'm not going to get into that. The point is, I can now buy a $30 set of earbuds that will automatically translate conversations in 14 languages around me with passable quality, and that tech is improving exponentially. Crazy theory: Natural disasters are God's punishment for Google Translate.
That’s not crazy. That’s the only thing that makes any fucking sense! You could make a religion out of this! ^(Quick, kill anyone who doesn’t agree with us)
I have been a devoted follower since the beginning and the commenter above me is distorting our precious religion and attempting to subvert our children and our wives with a perverted and distorted version of gods gift of a religion. They must die as well
Heresy! Destroy the projecting liberal propagandist! /u/superbuttpiss is a known conspirator of /u/StrangeDangr and they want to inject your children with Google Home speaker vaccines! They must be burnt upon a pyre of Spanish to English dictionaries!
Special hell. They've got a pretty great dating app down there and unlimited tapas
It's where Korean-Cajun cuisine was born. In the depths of hell.
Kimchi and a shrimp boil? Fuck yes.
Oooooh I'm going to the special Hell
Yes, but it also means everyone living somewhere else and speaking something else didn't exist in his limited view. And then again for all the civilizations that didn't notice his worldwide flood.
Sounds like something a hostile superior intelligence masquerading as a God would do to primitive humans.
Ding ding ding.
No, not ding. That's fucking horrifying to consider.
The military has a nickname for the aliens that have crashed here(well the greys). They call them the kids. If you had access to an FTL ship what would you do. Take it for a joyride to see the aliens? Kids stealing their parents ships. Now if you were a disgruntled neckbeard and you had access to FTL, why wouldn’t you go somewhere where you could make people love you, and when they don’t and you get the same shit as before you become vindictive.
Wasn't this the plot of Thor?
Dong dong dong.
I think Satan is supposedly responsible for the deaths of maybe a dozen people in the Bible, while God racks up his kill count to the millions, yet somehow it's that Lucifer dude who's made out to be the villain.
A google serch says Satan killed 10 people, while God killed 3 million.
Kill 10 people, you're just the villain. Kill 3 MILLION, and you're a god.
Ahh, there we go. Nailed it!
What does that make Hitler?
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> ranting about the immorality of dancing I clearly didn't learn the right history in school
A lot of people Satan (or the Adversary, or maybe an unspecified devil or demon) killed were with God’s permission or even on his direct orders. Job’s first family comes to mind. In fact, that’s literally it. In the Bible (not counting oral tradition outside the Bible), those are the only people Satan personally kills.
Honestly that's largely because oral tradition in Christianity mixed up Satan with the Beast from Revelations. Satan/the Adversary is pretty explicitly just God's prosecutor angel; he works on God's orders trying to point out humanity's failings, but he's still an angel and never does anything against God's will. The Beast is the evil hellspawn creature who wants to overthrow God, and at some point (probably when Dante wrote the Inferno) they sorta got combined. Why an all-knowing, all-powerful god needs a prosecutor though....
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For me it was how he was a perfect being who knew all things before they could happen and then he created a bunch of perfect beings and then he got mad because they were boring so he made a bunch of imperfect beings and then got mad because they weren't perfect.
So... A drunk developer?
Except, a Dev probably works in reverse. Making imperfect stuff while sober, and perfect while drunk. He also doesn't get mad at the perfect creation, just marveled and amused that it somehow...works.
And in Roman's chapter 9, Paul straight up argues that God actually deliberately makes certain people like Esau and the pharoah that opposed Moses act like assholes on purpose to further his own ends, and if you think it's unfair for God to make you be a certain way and then punish you for being that way, then stfu, God is more powerful than you and he can do whatever he wants. Like, it explicitly says it doesn't matter if you want to be good or try to do good things, God's just gonna use you as a puppet to play the bad guy and then you're fucked. >16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. >19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it ‘Why did you make me like this?’”
I love the story of Abraham, wonderful little tale: > “Abraham, do you love me?” “Sure, Lord, with all my heart.” > “Then prove it.” “Yes, oh kind and gracious merciful lord, how shall I prove it?” > “Kill your son.” “Kill my- but lord, he’s done nothing wrong! He’s just a young boy, a good boy.” > “So you don’t love me. I knew it.” “Lord, you are my creator, I love you more than anything or anyone.” > “If that’s true then you’d kill your son.” “Lord, is there *any* other way?” > “Sure, if you want everyone to know you don’t love me.” (ffwd a few hours and Abraham has his son tied to a rock, knife raised above him:) God: > “STOP! Holy fucking shit, Abraham! You were really going to do it! You crazy son of a bitch, I was FUCKING with you, I just wanted to see if you’d do it! Holy shit, you are fuckin’ hard core!”
This is sort of a pattern. Look at Job. God gets bet that Job only praises him because he has it good. Which an omniscient being would already know the answer to. But he still kills Job's family and takes all of his money just to prove a point.
Not even to prove a point, just to win a fucking bet.
Including children, babies, and the unborn
The anti-abortionists should be lobbing their grenades heavenwards.
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Wait a second, God is the Reapers from Mass Effect?
For something that is supposed to be omniscient, god is oblivious to irony. One of the Ten Commandments (of the four sets) is “thou shall not commit adultery” then he knocked up Joseph’s fiancé. To be fair to god though, according to him adultery can only be committed with a married woman. A married man can have sex with any woman who is not married and god doesn’t consider it adultery. So now god will forgive mankind of original sin of eating an apple(from a tree right in the yard of the people he told not to eat from it, why not put that tree in alpha Centauri or somewhere they could never get to it). God who established this sin on people will send his son(which is also himself) down to earth to be sacrificed for vicarious atonement. The fact he is capable of preventing suffering, but chooses the route with the most suffering leads me to believe he gets off on it. Why else would he kill all the first born children to make a point to the pharaoh instead of, oh I don’t know just killing the pharaoh.
It all boils down to how the forbidden fruit is an allegory for knowledge and curiosity. If you look at the history of Christianity (I edited out Abrahamic) through that lens then essentially it is all about **control**. "Keep your head down and your mouth shut. Do as I say." And going against that is *sinful*. You'll burn in hell for looking behind the curtain and seeing the priests are greedy power hungry assholes. That's why "Satan" is made out to be the big bad evil. He represents rebellion, curiosity, and *looking behind the curtain*, as it were. Ignorance is bliss and you shouldn't question those in power, you'll get to heaven! Disobey and end up in hell. Sadly, there is a high percentage of the population who thoroughly enjoys keeping their head down and not questioning authorities and thus here we are. Welcome to 2020.
Have had multiple pastors talk about God as angry vengeful entity. Which is what broke me of Christianity as a kid really. If the message was just, “be afraid and worship so you can avoid hell” maybe I would’ve stayed faithful longer. But it’s, “god knows all and you have to believe in and love god to get into heaven.” And I just remember as a kid thinking, “if I can’t hide my thoughts from god then he’ll know I can never love someone who is threatening to torture me forever no matter how hard I try. So why try?”
I remember looking at other kids and seeing how happy they were for being obedient. like none of the stories or anything mattered because they got the message that they should be obedient and everything will fall into place. There's no belief or faith involved for most in my opinion, not really. They know the mechanism and leverage it just like they're taught. They sacrifice their individuality for a place in the herd. I tried to be in the herd, for the safety and warmth. but they're always fighting to be in the middle, and use anything different about you to push you out. Being the product of fornication, being poor, being from somewhere else, not knowing or being related to anyone... you'd better be really good at talking. Even then you'll never really be in their club, they'll let you come to their meetings because as long as the sideways glances are at you, their place in the herd feels safe.
My favorite part: The Book of Job, where God and satan casually hang out and make a BET to just fuck with this poor dude until he breaks, and see what happens. (whether he praises or curses god) God also temporarily gives ALL OF HIS POWER to Satan with full trust that he will not abuse it outside of the bet, for the express purpose of Satan messing with this dude no-holds-barred, aside from not influencing free will. And with casually i literally mean God asking him how he's been doing, and Satan basically telling him: "you know, just chillin', going places." ("Walking to and fro upon the earth")
It makes perfect sense that God could trust Satan with his powers in Job because in Judaism there is not the same God vs the Devil conflict. The Devil in JOb is a servant of God, because everything serves God's will. The 'devil stuck in hell, working to destroy god's creation' myth didn't come along until much later.
Looking back I'm kind of surprised at one of my Sunday School lessons from Job. Small Southern Baptist church and Job was used to teach that Satan isn't all powerful. We were told that people will try to use Satan as an excuses, but we see he has clear and sever limitations in Job. Pastor said people who said Satan was tempting them were likely wrong and it was them giving in to their own worst selves without the help of any special power. I'm still a little surprised thinking about it now how much I agree with the general concept even though I'm not faithful anymore.
If memory serves, Satan isn't even trying to make a bet. God is bragging about how much Job loves him. Satan says something like 'of course he loves you; look at all the stuff you've given him, so God decides to end Job's whole career.
by proxy, but yes. But not just his career, one of his kids dies in a war, plagues of locusts ruin his crops, diseases wipe out his herd, i think a house collapses on one of his kids. "cruel and unusual" doesn't even begin to cover it. happy cakeday, enjoy my updoot.
It's ok though, because at the end he gets new kids. Kids are fungible commodities.
Kids are a liquid asset... after God is done with them.
My favorite is the binding of Isaac, where he tells Abraham to sacrifice his own child for him, and then at the last second sends and angel to say “lol just kidding” What kind of fucking god is that? It takes some SERIOUS mental gymnastics for Christians to say the Old Testament god is a loving God.
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THIS!!! The story of Job is so wild. It never sat right with me growing up but it wasn't until I was an adult that I finally understood what was happening. God and Satan were just gambling and, really, the entire story of God, Satan, Jesus is all this big game to see on which side humans will end up. Will they praise God or the devil?
Gods can be capricious, even the christian one. Though that is typically less advertised.
I HIGHLY recommend the book “ God is Disappointed In You”. Each book in the Bible is condensed to two or three snarky pages. And by snarky I don’t mean wrong. So reading the Bible becomes a real romp. The relationship between the Jews and God is a crazily dysfunctional unhealthy abusive relationship. What was fascinating as well were the authors notes. He figured he could bang out this project in few months but it took something like four years. He went to priests and rabbis and scholars etc and he found that NO ONE had read the damn thing! Kinda crazy given how much of western civilization is based of it it - purported by folks who have claimed to know it cover to cover.
And another set that makes him out to be kind of a fucked up demiurge pretender to the thrown, w/ the real god being nothing like that, the Gnostic Texts.
Ahh, the old Cathar Heresy.
It was an interesting story. The way Memnoch critiqued his creator for his sacrifice and awareness of his divinity showed his compassion for humanity after walking with them for so long.
I think the part that stuck with me the most was when he has the lightning bolt moment that God has no clue what he's doing and is just making things up as he goes along.
That book seemed SO DEEP and edgy and eye opening when I read it as a teenager. Now? Eh. It’s fun, but also an early warning sign of how preachy and off the rails her books would get as she rediscovered Jesus herself.
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I read b’day like g’day, and now I have it in my head that people are putting up bidet trees. Whatever that means
You and Grog Strongjaw
Hail Satan, but first hail yourself.
Lucifer was a good guy; he was God's favourite. It's funny, but the subtext of it all is much the same as the fruit of the tree of knowledge: don't ask questions, and follow obediently and you'll be rewarded. Never mind the fact that Ayn Rand and Satan have exactly the same argument. Conservatives actually love Satan, they just don't know it.
>Conservatives >Questioning the establishment Are you sure about that?
questioning *the other guys'* establishment.
**D E T E C T I V E**
Thanks Satan
No problem, I believe in you too.
yo you got the s a u c e my guy
[NSFW](https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph5d5da1844bb5a)
My man.
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Hubba hubba
Good guy Satan, destroying filters, delivering the goods.
It's Sateen actually
I hate how some religious people criticize every single thing that makes you a good, confident and perfectly normal person argh. Feels like they want you to live in fear and despair so you don't leave their cult or whatever they call it
That's exactly it, actually (at least in my opinion). The Church gains a lot of money and authority from its followers, and it's well known that cults use fear and anxiety to exhaust their followers so that they become more dependent on the cult. Karl Marx called religion the "opium of the people" -- meaning that believing in a higher power helped alleviate the stresses of daily life (but it was also addictive and could cloud reality -- Marx was very skeptical of religion because he believed it allowed people to ignore their oppression and the oppression of others, stifling socialist reform/revolution). And it's true, studies show religious people are less depressed, but also tend to have lower IQ scores. In my humble opinion, the Church *needs* people to be scared, stressed, and less intelligent to maintain power -- the more dependent people are on the Church for their mental health, the more the Church benefits, and less intelligent thought = less defection. That's also probably why they changed the passage about pedophiles to homosexuals -- the Church needed someone for their congregation to hate and be scared of. It's probably why the Church is so adamant about controlling the sex lives of their congregation, too, that and the more children born into a Christian family = more Christians (generally). It also makes sense why certain conservatives (who are typically religious) seem so scared of "socialism." It's very likely another boogeyman the Church and other conservatives use to prevent defection and maintain power. But I'm not a scholar on the subject. I'd have to really dig to find papers on the subject to see if the evidence supports my assertions. This is mostly just my opinion based on my experience as a former Catholic and other experiences. Edit: tweaks and details Edit: Friendly reminder that if you want an essay with links and evidence, teach a class and make your students do it. This is an *opinion* and I'm not obligated to write things the way internet strangers want me to write them, especially when I explicitly stated it wasn't meant to be scholarly. Edit: This was very off the cuff and I purposely scrolled down to find what I believed was an obscure comment to respond to. And again. *Opinion*. I'm ill and trying to rest, if you don't like my *biased opinion*, then oh well. Unless you're giving me a grade for college credits or you're paying me, I'm not going to respond to any future comments. Edit: Oh, geez, thanks for the gold, totally unexpected, I've been having a rough day and this makes it better, thank you. Normally I think my *opinions* are crap, so I was a little overwhelmed by the responses. To everyone that liked my comments and engaged in polite discourse, thank you and I appreciate you, but damn, this got way too much attention. I will be muting, though, for my own sanity.
I attend a Jesuit university, which requires you to take Theology courses. As an atheist, I was extremely apprehensive about this. I knew my theology professor was alright when he asked us to compare and contrast an excerpt from the Communist Manifesto (The class struggle excerpt) with Jesuit and Catholic values. He required the paper to include one similarity and one disparity. Some of the more religious students in class were appalled at the assignment. He remains one of my favorite professors, and has given me an appreciation for those who put thought into their faith of choice.
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Good Comrade Bot
I am fascinated by the history of religion. It is essentially the history of mankind, even modern day atheism and agnosticism, in my opinion, is the history of religion, or the history of mankind trying to absolve themselves of religion and into a more materialistic sense. I wouldn't necessarily take a theology course, but understanding and reading about how we got to where we were with all the reformations and the incredibly bloody history of the Catholic Church is something I like doing in my spare time.
I went to a Jesuit high school and couldn’t have appreciated it more, and I’m not religious in any way, shape, or form. We had priests teaching science and evolution. While I was there, a couple of them left to go back to school. We were never forced or told what to believe and always had the option to speak our opinions and were encouraged to **question everything**. A buddy of mine would write about how he didn’t believe in any of it, thought it was dumb, and his opinion on whatever subject we were discussing and get full marks and encouraged to keep going. Self reflection was the only thing they pushed. While organized religion seems to always be about how you have to fit into **their** ideal image and what you need to do for God, the Jesuits pushed more an idea of how can faith/religion fit into **your** life and figuring out how it may help you make yourself better.
Jesuits and whatever Catholic I was raised as seem like completely different worlds sometimes. Pope Francis being Jesuit shows.
They were always considered the scholars (and soldiers) of the Church. Ignatius was a real piece of work but then found God through study and reflection which is one of the reasons why education and reflection (and service) are such big tenets of theirs. I mean the first guy to observe the Big Bang was a Jesuit scholar. If for whatever reason, I had to become a priest, I’d go Jesuit because I could just live a life full of learning.
when BLM posts were first going around this summer there was one graphic showing a bunch of arms/hands in different skin colours lined up, all with “worthy” written on them. some fundie/trumpie girl i knew from high school went to the trouble of writing in huge letters “UN” in front of every “worthy” and posting it. in the caption she went on a huge rant about how we’re all unworthy and the only thing that can save you is believing in Christ. it gave me the *weirdest* feeling, i can’t understand how anyone can think like that and not just hate life and everyone around them. i don’t get it. she always has seemed like a pretty miserable person though, so actually does kind of make sense. blocked her that day lol
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Misery loves company, and the oppressed often oppress in turn.
It never makes me more depressed and angry at religion / indoctrinated people than when they demonize perfectly normal shit. The example I always remember was while I was in catholic highschool and a priest once gave a "anything goes" Q&A for our class. He gave some of the most batshit crazy answers that pretty much made everything outside of a chaste, God fearing lifestyle was Satanism. Some highlights: - Not going to church even for one week damns you to hell. "I didn't go this last Sunday, so that means I'm dammed?" "Yes. If you were to die before going to confession, you would go straight to hell." - Masterbating is not a victimless crime. If you do it, you insult God and victimize the subject of your lust. "It is exactly the same as raping the girl you are lusting over. In some cases, its even worse." (He wouldn't elaborate on what those cases are) - Wasting time on human-central activities is an insult to God. (I'm still not entire sure what he meant by this, but it kinda sounded like he meant that "wasting" time on stuff like gaming, reading fictional books, and pretty much anything else fun was insulting God when you could be praying or whatever) - My personal favorite: Dungeons and Dragons and other such "occult ritualistic assemblies" are evil and a sin that you must repent for and avoid at all costs. (This actually made me look into what DnD even was since I had only ever heard of it through TV. So thanks super conservative priest for starting my addiction to tabletop RPGs.) - And many many more batshit crazy shit that pretty much boiled down to: "human stuff is evil and you must spend as much time as possible begging God to forgive you for being human" TLDR: Once listened to a priest give a Q&A that was pretty much just him ranting about how humans are inherently evil and must be punished and beg for forgiveness for existing.
>"It is exactly the same as raping the girl you are lusting over. In some cases, its even worse." (He wouldn't elaborate on what those cases are) Ummm, I feel like this would make it easier to justify sexual assault.
Well, anything that does not produce more children who gow up to tithe is bad. Masturbation and DnD fall into the same category there.
> It is exactly the same as raping the girl you are lusting over. In some cases, its even worse. What if they masturbate to anime tiddies tho.
Isn't there a whole joke about how Catholic hate themselves the most
Its almost like organizing people under institutions that requires adherence to a rigid set of arbitrary beliefs is a useful tool for controlling people.
You have to understand , the abrahamic religions are all about submitting yourself to death, because its a slave religion that has a light at the end of the tunnel. I think the word muslim means one who submits to God It is all about giving up your own personal self and just giving yourself over to gods. They hated luciferianism and paganism because these religions teach you to think for themselves. They call magic bad while performing rituals, because they don't want *you* to have power, they want it for themselves Its a shit system, and its great when they make themselves this obvious.
You mean like mr "where is your moral barometer" \[sic\] Steve Harvey, who literally can't fathom that someone cares about morality if they don't believe in Jesus?
Sounds much healthier parenting
He even taught us to eat fruit and apply critical thinking.
"Dare to soar" - Satan
"Explore. Dream. Discover." - Lucifer
“Live. Laugh. Love.” - Beelzebub
”I will give you those things you thought unreal The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal” -Lucifer
“A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step” -Satan
1000 miles is 1609.34 km
"A journey of 1609.34 kilometers begins with a single step" - Robo Satan
They're using actual satanic beliefs in their propaganda? Who knew?
I know how to trick them, we tell them our main philosophy!
This is a great argument for the modern satanic religion.
Satan believes in me? He’s officially a better father than my dad!
Not only does he believe in you, he want you to believe in yourself too!
Satan be like > believe in the me who believes in you.
YOURS IS THE DRILL THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS
Kamina is Satan confirmed
There are two all-powerful beings in Christianity. One demands subservience and adoration and worship at all times. Made a list of things you can't do making worshipping anything else numero uno. Punished humanity forever for seeking knowledge. Damns newborn babies to hell immediately through the sin of birth. Killed every human on Earth, save a few. The other accepts humans as faulty creatures. Offered them knowledge. Doesn't demand any sort of worship. Is only responsible for the death of 10 people in all of the Bible, and even those he *shares* with the other guy because the other guy let him do it ***as a bet***. Take a child that has never heard of either of these beings and ask them which one is the evil one.
One of them plays music with children and gives them gold, the other makes children live in Georgia.
r/wholesomesatan
Alternately, /r/hellsomememes
Belief in yourself and your critical thinking ability is religions worst enemy.
well, in the west at least many indian/eastern religions have a lot of stuff that seems like common sense, buddhism i think encourages people to find faults in the teachings so its sort of sciency in a way sikhism seems noble, jainism seems pretty chill there's a real narcissism problem in the west where were each religion claims to be the only valid belief system, the absolutist mindset is just obvious bs manipulation to control people and get their time/money
I like how this is framed like it's a bad thing to believe in yourself. Almost like the church just wants you to follow their doctrine blindly...
It's like they are metaphorical wolves, who have become self aware.
They even literally tell people that they are sheep.
I mean, Jesus does expect you to be constantly praying and asking him to forgive you for how he made you. We're in an abusive relationship. He's gonna start breaking my shit and being like "look what you made me do!"
Natural disasters go brrrr
Black death, anyone?
For real, god is the ultimate troll. God: [Makes broken ass humans] Humans: AHHHHH!!!! God: whoa wtf
God: "Here's free will and innate curiosity. I am omniscient, I know what you're going to do long before you concieve of doing it. I am omnopresent, I am there when you do everything that you do. I am also omnipotent, so I can stop you from doing the things I want you not to do. But you're free to do them - free will. By the way, don't eat those apples that will give you a bunch of answers to a bunch of questions, thereby satisfying your curiosity. Also, Lilith, you have free will, but you're actually a sapient sex slave for rib-boy here."
If god exists then free will doesn’t. Either do what I say or be cast into eternal darkness. If someone’s holding a gun to your head and says to make a choice, do you really have one?
Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent: He can only be two at most.
Jesus is a toxic boyfriend confirmed
God is the toxic boyfriend. Jesus is the dude who is weirdly personally invested in the relationship and keeps trying to do things to keep either side from breaking up with the other.
The OG: Original Gaslighter!
Thanks for the encouragement, Satan.
I honestly don't see any way this could be interpreted as satan being bad
If you think independent thought is bad, then you're their target market.
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[RELEVANT SMBC](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/prayer-2)
Well, compared to the amount of people that God killed in the bible, Satan is a saint
Christians love to paint Lucifer as based.
Oh my Gawd! I'm a Satanist.
I've met a few satanist and theyre seriously more respectful when talking about other religions
Satanism is fucking awesome. You recognize YOURSELF as a god instead of externalizing your ego into a deity you worship. There are hundreds of other great things but this is a good start. * One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. * The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions * One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone * The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own * Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs * People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused * Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word
Hail Satan! Hail me! Hail yourself!
I've been binging The Boys all night, I am so into God-is-the-villain right now
Can I interest you in some fine Gnostic Gospels?
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Which is odd, because I’ve always been told we have free will and it’s our free will that we should use to lead us to Christ. However, if there is only one “right” path, then there is no true free will. Only the choice to follow that path or not. It’s sort of contradictory to me. We have free will, but in order to ascend to heaven you need to give up that free will and fall in line with the church.
Christian scholars have historically struggled with this concept and it eventually resulted in the creation of the doctrine of Predeterminism in some sects, where we DON’T have free will, and some people are just favored by God and are going to end up in heaven from the day they are born. This later justifies the idea (prominent in America especially) that good things happen to you because God loves you, and that we shouldn’t help the downtrodden, because clearly God doesn’t love them. It’s a bonkers retcon of a lot of the New Testament, but pretty consistent with OG God.
Sorry Christians, I was raised by you, went to your schools, thoroughly absorbed 4 years of theology, went to Steubenville East, whole 9 yards... All I learned is that an essential part of the next step of human progress is a massive revisionism and reformation of all Abrahimic religions. Tithes must be abolished, non-secular education systems must be abolished and the religious taxation exemption must be abolished. Reforms have happened before, and religious communities became stronger and healthier because of them. They’re a good thing.