With how shitty some Christians are, you really have to wonder if Lucifer or Satan is truly "evil"

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• halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Lucifer’s crime was daring to question his father.

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  • ICCrawler@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And then there’s the book of Job, the entirety of which is a story where God and Satan make a bet over a guy named Job. Satan says Job is only faithful because of the wealth God has granted him. God says Job is genuinely faithful, and tells Satan he can put Job to the test. So Satan has the entire guy’s family killed by bandits, he loses all his material possessions, and winds up plagued and homeless. Job mostly keeps his faith, yet he is persecuted by his friends (just verbally) who believe his sudden punishments are happening because he must have done something wrong and his faith must be false. Still, he holds out, mostly. Then, when he finally starts to actually crack, God shows up as a fucking whirlwind and goes on a long-ass ramble about how great he is, to which Job humbles himself. God’s response to this is to praise Job. He then chews out Job’s friends who persecuted him and demands they sacrifice 7 bulls and 7 rams and have Job pray for him because God is only gonna listen to Job, nevermind it was all a bet between God and Satan that led to this misunderstanding. Then Job is gifted twice what he had, 14000 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 yoke of oxen, and 1000 female donkeys. A new family, with seven sons and three daughters, and of course the daughters are just the most beautiful daughters in the whole land. Then Job lived another 140 years.

    Something something reading the Bible is the greatest proof you can ever need that it’s bullocks.

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    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Children are fungible of course

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    • dil@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I liked the take on this story in good omens

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  • Bgugi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If everybody you meet is an asshole…

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  • Pudutr0n@feddit.cl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If you have come to understand lucifer as good and god as bad aren’t you just… ermm… nvm.

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    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I mean… God literally commits genocide multiple times, and that’s just from the stories that they chose to actually include. Satan/Lucifer mostly tempts people to do things they want to do anyway.

      Seems pretty cut and dry honestly.

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    • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thinking critically? The dude demanding total obedience and subservience under the threat of eternal torture is not the good guy.

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  • ProbablyBaysean@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    No, I think his crime was that he wanted to take away the whole purpose of life aka living with choice between good and evil. Then the icing was that he wanted God’s glory to be given to him.

    My understanding of the purpose of life is that we have no memory of before, we are faced with plausible good and evil choices, and finally we get some hardware that lasts (physical body). There is some irony that the option for evil comes first from lucifer.

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• Fandangalo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I feel like many Christians in America are completely disconnected from actual values exposed by Jesus in the Bible. Republican (many of the Christians) policy is diametrically opposed to Matthew 25:31. No one quotes John 13:34 because they rather quote Old Testament BS about what’s an abomination. Why not focus on the love for others, including enemies? Why not focus on helping the poor, the sick, the homeless? Why not help the immigrant? The Bible specifically calls this out as a marker of getting into heaven.

  Most of these people don’t even read the book. They like the sense of community at a church, but it feels like it’s formed into a total in:out group mentality. We can’t be a Christian nation as long as there are poor & people struggling.

  Then the Utah governor says something like, “We can’t have people camping wherever they want.” my emphasis. Bud, they don’t WANT to be homeless. The lack of empathy is so apparent.

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  • ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I see those kinds of Christians as revisionist Christians. US evangelical Christianity is like it’s own religion that does not follow the teachings of the Bible or Christ. Their religion is guided by their political dogma, not the other way around.

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    • snooggums@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Yeah, totally different than Cathlocism which never did that kind of thing. Or any of the other sects of Christianity which never did that kind of thing.

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    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      also where the rapture came from, evangelicals.

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    • Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Those kinds of ‘Christians’ are in the Bible; if you take the rather common view that Revelation is not prophetic but rather describes things which have already happened, then they’ve been around since the very start

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  • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Image

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  • derek@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You’re correct.

    Check out “The Separation of Church and Hate” by John Fugelsang. It’s an almost comprehensive teardown of Christofascist ideology using the words of Jesus directly. No extras and no oulled punches. It’s excellent. The author is a comedian and while the content is serious and presented well it’s dressed up as an easier read than I expected.

    I grew up Christian in the American South. I left religion in college and faith generally a few years later. I was initially compelled to leave organized Christianity exactly because it demanded exercising cruelties which Jesus clearly opposed.

    Fugelsang’s book gathers all of the major contradictions between Jesus and modern right-wing Christianity then dismantles any justification for each one just by quoting Jesus. I’m recommending this book to every reasonable person I know as required reading for the present moment. Not just in the US but the world over.

    Fascism respects nothing and if it takes root in a land with the means to export then no shore is necessarily safe harbor.

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  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    they get thier fill from evangelical/televangelist pastors.

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  • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Supply side Jesus

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• zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Have you read the Bible? The only evil shit that Satan does is when he fucks up Job’s life, and that’s in collusion with God. Meanwhile, God is doing evil on almost every page of the Old Testament.

  The reason we’re supposed to hate Satan is because he rebelled against God. Again, if you’ve read the Old Testament, you have dozens of good reasons to rebel against God.

  This train of thought is what lead to the creation of Satanism as a literary movement in the 19th century and then as a religion in the late 20th century.

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  • CitizenKong@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Also, the “satan” that is the Torah is actually more of a job title, that of an “accuser”.

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    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sure, but I’m talking about Satan within Christian mythology, not Judaism.

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• justsquigglez@leminal.space ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  As a man who works in retail, Lucifer was an employee who thought he deserved a raise, and maybe even take over as manager one day, but the current manager didn’t like that so he sent Lucy to burn at the customer service desk (hell) for eternity.

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  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well, there’s also Lucifer’s questionable scheme to genocide and enslave all the customers, though that part is debated.

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    • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Wait, are you saying that Amazon is actually Satan?

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• Pat_Riot@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Lucifer was just unionizing the angels. God is just the first union buster and ran a smear campaign against the organizer.

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  • Thom@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Lucifer is also called “the light bringer” as he is tied to the persuit of knowledge. In other words he was woke and was cast away.

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    • P1nkman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I like the name Lucifer. Which is why I called my dog Lucifer. He’s a 8.2 kilo dog who loves pink, and has diamonds on his collar. He also goes by Luci or Lulu. It’s so much fun to see the confusion in some peoples eyes when I tell them he’s a he.

      I think my favourite was when he was 7 months old, and we were in a confirmation in Norway and was allowed into the church. Afterwards, everyone wanted to meet him, and some faces when they heard his name was fucking priceless!

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• mycodesucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Image

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  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You ever read the three little pigs, from the perspective of the wolf?

    The Bible is one side of a story.

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Cognito ergo Diablo

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    • hogmomma@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think, therefore I’m the Devil?

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• Geodad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The bible is just mythology.

  In the beginning man created god. In the end we’ll either correct the mistake, or it will be our extinction.

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  • gerowen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    We moved on from the pantheons of Greece, Egypt, Rome, the Norse and Aztecs, etc. Hopefully one day our descendants will be smart enough to realize that Abrahamic mythology is no different than any other, it was just more successful.

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  • SabinStargem@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Satan pretty much exists as the bad cop to Yaweh’s police chief. Both are in cahoots, it is just that one can be thrown under the bus when convenient to do so.

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• chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  My interpretation of Book of Job is God and Satan are in a toxic relationship where they egg each other on to fuck with people so you shouldn’t trust either of them.

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• Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Much like how the president is lying about Chicago and Portland being cringe filled dens of sin to keep people from finding out how cool of a city they are.

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  • LMurch@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Portland seems so cool, based on all the live videos they have shared.

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• Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I mean, Lucifer is an angel who questioned the system. We know that statistically, there is a chance he is right and everyone else is wrong. Based on my observations of humanity, the chance of the minority being right is higher.

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  • TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Honestly to me the whole concept of Lucifer as written in the bible to me, makes me question the whole thing.

    like 5 year old me was like “OK wait so how is this guy so stupid that he thinks that he went to battle against god, is he really stupid, everyone knows god is 100% perfectly all powerful”, then you think further and realize literally lucifer was supposedly like the closest angel to god, if anyone has a solid view on gods power, it’s him. Which honestly points to the idea that god… isn’t immortal, isn’t all powerful etc… he just uses that lie as a crux to prevent people from threatening him.

    Honestly the story of the tower of babel cements that even more. Now first of all if you’ve heard this story from christians… get rid of the pre-conception because usually preachers etc remove a lot of what is actually in the text, and add things that aren’t there. The story is not about stupid men trying to build a stairway to heaven.

    The story as written, in short, man was amazingly unified, world peace was achieved. They were building the tower as an enormous landmark so basically people could see their city from wherever they were, as well as just a testament to what they could accomplish when they worked together.

    God looks down at it and says "wow, look at these humans, when they work together, they can accomplish anything they set their mind to. They keep this up and they would be as powerful as gods. To which, god saw that as a credible threat, and so he smashed the tower, spread them all out, and made them speak different languages. Ensuring that they would be too busy fighting eachother rather then becoming a potential threat to him later.

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    • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      "can be" vs. "should be". But yes, the god of the Torah is a jealous god. I mean, he flat-out says, "you shall have no other gods before me". Not, "no other gods exist", or "you can't respect other gods". Just, none before him. Which says that while he might be omniscient and omnipotent, he's not the only god who is so.

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    • Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I recall as a kid being told most of the angels rebelled with Lucy. That was told in the perspective that God was all powerful to put down the superior numbers. As an adult its more like bro?? Wtf 75% rebelled?

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    • bilgamesch@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The old testament - in many parts - as well as other ancient “religious” texts, is the passed down reflection of humans on the process of “civilizing” themselves during the late neolithic period. It’s all there, beginning with the end of their life as hunter-gatherers and the emergence of diseases of civilization, the hardship and suffering that came along with the “gift” they got that is learning how to cultivate land.

      It’s been the complete loss of everything that made up human life for the largest part of our (pre-)history, suddenly gone, because we literally “tasted the fruit”.

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• SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I like Satan because he brings presents to kids on Christmas made by elves in the North Pole, in exchange for some cookies and a kiss from Mom

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  • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Well played; the anagram there never occurred to me.

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• RattlerSix@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side.” - Mark Twain

  You don’t have to look at Christians to think God isn’t so good.

  In the Bible, Satan kills 10 people, Job’s children, and he did it with God’s blessing while they were having a bet.

  God killed entire cities, all the firstborn of a nation even down to the slave’s children, killed everyone on earth except 8 people, killed a guy for picking up sticks, killed a guy for not allowing the ark of the covenant to fall, told the Hebrews to attack nations and kill every man woman and child in the land and was furious when they left a few alive, had a God-off to show he was more powerful and when the other side converted to believe in him he had them killed, killed David’s son and had his 10 wives publicly raped, killed 42 children for making fun of a bald guy… the list goes on, not to mention that God told the Hebrews to have slave’s, women were property and have to be killed if they ruin the one thing they were good for, their virginity.

  Christians have weirdest relationship with the Bible. Many don’t really read it. If they did, they’d be Jewish. Jesus said to keep the Jewish laws, but Paul said it’s ok not to. Christians go with Paul instead of Jesus and generally disregard the Old Testament except the parts they think prove Jesus was the Messiah.

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  • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The Old Testament is a monotheistically rebranded Epic of Gilgamesh. A lot of the themes were borrowed adapted and rebranded from there and other literature are the time. Even the monotheistic Jewish God was initially given the title of the supreme God in the Canaanite pantheon (El).

    The Old Testament is a time capsule from 5000 years ago. There are some general concepts that can apply to a modern moral life but if you tried to follow everything it says in life today, it would be problematic.

    The clear message in the Old Testament is one of God as the absolute and final authority. Its very clear that the message is one to keep people in check. Theres often bending of the rules and some degree of favoritism towards God’s chosen ones. Does not give off an egalitarian vibe but religion is generally not meant for that. Its generally meant to reinforce hierarchical structures (and to get people to accept them even if they are low in the hierarchy out of fear of God).

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    • RattlerSix@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I agree in general but I can’t think of anything in the OT that is taken from The Epic of Gilgamesh except the Noah’s Ark story, which is a clear rip-off. And the 5000 years ago is too long, I think the oldest books are from the 8th century BCE.

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• kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You mean the god that prioritizes fealty and “love” for him alone over virtue, righteousness and good works? One who will give entrance to heaven to a life long sadistic, violent, and self-centered man who repents in his death bed, but will eternally condemn a man who has fed and clothed millions, who saved lives, who reformed bigots and criminals but questioned the existence of God or worshipped another. Compared to Satan, an angel that wished to overthrow this selfish god. Who values knowledge and choice in humanity. Who rewards ambition and creative joy. Who is stuck in hell with the rest of those condemned by the Almighty. I mean, is really no wonder many Christians are how they are.

  If you haven’t, read Horns by Joe Hill (skip the movie, it’s not the same). It plays a lot with this dynamic. The protagonist isn’t a hero, isn’t “the good guy”, but has a righteous cause and when God fails him, the Devil steps up.

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  • Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Horns is a really good movie though. It’s just, as you said, not representative of the book.

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• Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You can call yourself anything you want, and no one will stop you. Calling yourself a Christian, while violating every tenet of Christian teachings, does not qualify you as a Christian. I finally coined the term Hypochrists for people like that.

  There are plenty of Christians who do follow Christian teachings, to one extent or another, and are generally trying to be decent people. Unfortunately, there are also large numbers of “Christians” who just use the name to justify their selfish behavior, hatred, and cruelty.

  All large religions have, or have had, groups like that. Any social institution that can provide credibility is going to be abused as a tool to gain power by someone. It is appalling that the Hypochrists have become large enough, and powerful enough, to have taken over the popular image of what Christianity is.

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  • Jax@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Hypochrists is a good one.

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  • breadfish@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The only right answer in this thread.

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• DMCMNFIBFFF@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason

  When we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel.

  7. Examination of the Old Testament

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• BanMe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Anne Rice wrote an interesting book in the Vampire series on this, Memnoch the Devil, where the narrative is that Satan created a place for the souls to go that God otherwise would have extinguished in his cold hatred for much of humanity. Satan, who loved humans more than any other angel, rebelled against God’s harsh treatment of them, and was cast down as a result.

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• UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I mean the guy actually met God and decided to rebel. Meanwhile, we have to believe without evidence and assume he knows best. Sure, buddy, sure

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  • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If it were a democracy Satan would still end up in hell.

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• fleebleneeble@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Look into Gnosticism

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  • Maeve@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I wish I'd started with the parent religion, but aspects of gnosticism and hermeticism actually prepared me to begin to understand it, lol. It's a new journey.

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• lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Early christians had an interesting take on this.

  Before the religion organized into a hierarchical orthodoxy, communities distant from the emerging establishment (not particularly attached to jewish traditions) in places like Alexandria were left to their own devices to figure out christianity: they formed loose households & study circles to interpret texts in the context of their local traditions & culture and settled on a number of competing interpretations. Among them emerged a popular, influential interpretation.

  • Reading the older jewish scriptures & newer texts quite literally, they concluded there were 2 deities. 1 of whom, the unhidden Demiurge (Yahweh of the old testament) who had created the material universe, was a vengeful and ignorant deity inimical to human welfare. Consequently, material existence is flawed & evil, and they must escape that realm by seeking personal knowledge of the other, hidden deity: the transcendent spiritual entity, the Silent Depth (or the Monad), who briefly inhabited Jesus with that revelatory wisdom or logos found in the newer texts. In other words, there’s cool god (Jesus’s god) & evil genocidal god (Yahweh).
  • Moreover, they concluded that church authority isn’t needed: Jesus had awoken a spark of divinity in matter that would find its way back to its transcendent source with little need of episcopal authority or sacramental practice.

  This interpretation became known as gnosticism.

  Sticklers with the evil trash god of older jewish scriptures didn’t like this idea, became early church authorities, denounced it as heresy, & purged all the texts they could of it.

  So, yes, even some early christians believed the entity modern christians refer to as god is kinda shit.

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  • elevenbones@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

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• stingpie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Popular Christianity is heavily based on paganism, which is incredibly ironic considering that paganism is generally posed as the antithesis of Christianity. The story of Lucifer is syncretized with the story of Prometheus, although Lucifer doesn’t really benefit humanity at all. According to the popular interpretation, Lucifer is the origin of all evil, became a snake in the garden of Eden, and then tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, the snake isn’t actually connected to Lucifer in the text—that interpretation was added later to explain the problem of evil (why it exists if God is supposedly good)

  The idea that Lucifer is insubordinate and violated the natural hierarchy is very old, but the idea that Lucifer is the origin of evil is relatively new.

  Christian theology contains many holes like this because there’s a tendency towards treating every word in the Bible as literal, where it may have been written allegorically or as a parable, as Jesus often did. (Just to be clear, Jesus did NOT write the Bible, I’m just pointing out that the writers of the Bible may have tried to replicate his style.) This issue is compounded when you include the Old testament, as it contains portions which are clearly mythological, but are nonetheless treated as fact by certain modern Christians.

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  • Garbagio@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Wasn’t “Lucifer” as a concept post-biblical? Obviously in the Torah you have The Satan, the judge on God’s divine council. Lucifer is a post-biblical interpretation of various prophetic scripts to make Satan out to be the overarching “evil” of the bible. Which is funny because that interpretation of Satan (and God) comes from Zoroastrianism, which holds that there is a great good spirit and great evil spirit.

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    • sunflowercowboy@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Lucifer existed before but didn’t become entangled with Satan until after christianity had roots. So it is a post biblical merge, but pre-biblical. The concept is older, the merge changed the focus of the concept.(69 is just number, until it becomes a joke as well.)

      Satan and more properly the ‘Devil’ as is the main concept in modernity. This is due to the romans using this translation preferably from the Greeks. The devil then got most of their iconography from Pan and some roman art traditions. This is far more important than people realize. Anyways, all this was forming in the roman zeitgeist while Christianity was not canonical to the empire yet.

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  • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I like the Gnostic explanation that the being who created the material universe was a lesser deity of some sort (I think they call it evil but I’d probably go with chaotic or something). It made people to have intelligent-ish beings to interact with, and it put the Trees of “Knowledge of God & Evil” and “Life” in the Garden (for some reason) but didn’t want Adam & Eve to become knowledgeable & immortal.

    In this telling, the “Serpent” is Jesus by which they mean the physical projection of the actual highest actually all powerful, all loving, etc etc god, and it wants to free A&E so it convinced them to eat the fruit.

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  • Hadriscus@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I know next to nothing about Christinanity and this little taste had a nice archeological vibe to it. Can I ask you a followup question? What do we know about Jesus’ style? Are the different accounts of his life consistent enough that we can infer a style of expression?

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    • stingpie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      One thing we know about Jesus is that he was very good at using rhetorics. Other than the accounts in several books about him using rhetorical techniques very advanced for the day, there’s also evidence that he was skilled enough to start a religion. But any information finer than that is hard to prove. The books are over a thousand years old, written at different times by different people, followed by several translations, so we can’t know his exact word choice or style of speech with certainty. The closest to the ‘source’ are ancient Greek texts which were likely translated from some other language.

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• PunnyName@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Satan was the good guy.

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Even our language has been perverted. When we like something, we call it good - a word that is derived from god: we put it in god’s vicinity. Therefore, it is instilled in us that everything we like must be close to god.

    Satan isn’t close to god but i still like them. How do i convey that in a single word?

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• Pudutr0n@feddit.cl ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I hear that. Catholic school kid here.

  Lucifer ain’t that bad on my book tbh.

  It’s funny cause… when you’re a small kid it’s very common to want to be a good boy/girl/other. Many of us, at an early age, wanted the approval and validation from those that knew and understood how things worked (in our eyes), but most importantly, had power over us. Lots of us wanted to be seen as good by them. You know, like lots of people (the ones that actually try) want to be seen as good by god.

  Lucifer is a symbolic representation of… well… whatever it is one associates to them. However, most people associate the satanic impulse to that of individuation, of blazing our own trails and rejecting the established (maybe divine?) order. You know, like teenagers. Teenagers basically want to understand how much of what they were told and warned of was not true and how much power they have to change the things they were told could not be changed.

  When many of us become adults, we realize that the people telling us how things worked when we were small children were pretty clueless, and many of the things they taught us were mistaken, but it doesn’t matter if they were or they weren’t. What matters is some of those people looked after or cared about us and did the best they could with the hand they got dealt. And you know… passing that down is a nice thing. No one’s gonna send you to hell if you don’t, ofc. You’ll just feel better if you do.

  And even if they go completely against everything we tried to convey at some point, that’s just how people learn and grow (or transcend what was previously thought possible) so it’s all part of the game.

  Oh and yeah, Christians can be really shitty. Satanists can be shitty. The church can be shitty. Everyone and everything can feel really shitty at times. You know what isn’t shitty though? When you make things better for other people. idk about you but it makes me feel good.

  And about lucifer? Following the image of him or any other representation of what we aspire to have or become is pretty much the same as following any other aspiration. Like… whatever a deity represents to you or even rational stuff like love of knowledge. If you dedicate yourself to its pursuit and worship it through your actions more than anything else, you will see it everywhere and it will become the most important thing… until it fails you in a time of deep existential crisis and then you’ll look for the next thing.

  That’s just how it goes. Now please excuse me while I go to keep dedicating my worldly existence to the big Great Pudu in the Sky.

  Have a good one. :)

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• Olhonestjim@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The only way Christianity makes any sense to me within the real world (aside from it being not real) is if Satan wrote the Bible pretending to be God, while denigrating the good guy as the rebellious angel Lucifer. If Satan had written the Bible instead of God, would you expect more genocide, slavery, torture, and rape, or less? So why is there any in the first place?

  Look at 2000 years of Christian history. As soon as they could, they usurped political power in the most powerful nation in the area; Rome. Then began slaughtering and torturing anyone anywhere who thought different. They claimed divine rights and authority. They committed genocide in every single nation on the planet over nearly 2000 years. They perfected the dark arts of torture. They conquered earthly territory and plundered earthly wealth. They slaughtered so many that they built orphanages the world over where they could claim divine morality, but also rape children for centuries.

  What did Lucifer do exactly? He told the first people that God was a lying dick and they should rebel against him, as he did.

  Wouldn’t you?

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• reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I got really stoned one time as teenager and thought I had come to the very real and imminent discovery that Christianity is and was always the work of deep evil to silence and quell all other true religions. The crusades, the burning of the library at Alexandria, Pope John Paul III sitting on his throne of pure gold, It all made perfect sense. Don’t question it, just have faith.

  I more or less fell headlong into atheism of a sort shortly thereafter, so part of me must really believe that on some level I guess?

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  • Tracaine@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Seth Ian gnosticism. You beheld the demiurge and stopped short before seeing the light of the pleroma. You’re not wrong, but there’s a few more steps on the path yet.

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    • deacon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You’re getting downvoted but I believe you’re principally correct. Except it’s Sethian.

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    • reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I read the excerpt on Wikipedia and it didn’t seem to fully describe my own experiences, though I expect it doesn’t hold a candle to the depths of the topic. I will have to read more to see if it helps verbalize the feeling I get towards organized religion.

      Thank you for this.

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• Rhaedas@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Heinlein wrote about this very topic in "Job: A Comedy of Justice".

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• Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  hes also known as samael before the fall, or lightbringer, which is pretty much the opposite in his current form. plus there were other angels that fell with him, but they are more obscure and depending different texts?

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• Generica@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Blessed be the Satanic holidays!

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• fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I felt this way coming from the Midwest to down south. There are plenty of biggots west of the missippi too but folks like the west borrow morons are rare. Down south id hear biggots on the goddamn radio.

  At least for the most part, as an outsider, Midwest churches were mostly just seen doing charities (like that’s all Jesus asked them do for others…).

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• LemUser@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Isn’t this the theme of WICKED? The “good” people are wicked and the “wicked” people are good. Of course, anyone who has done DMT knows that the insectoid creatures, machine elves, aliens, angels, clowns, snakes and green lady are all good which does make you wonder if we have it all backward.

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• Asidonhopo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You might be interested in Dr. Ammon Hillman, his doctorate is in classical philology and he has a masters in immunology as well, he’s been reading and translating Ancient Greek for 35 years, including a lot of neglected medical texts. He asserts that both the Old and New testaments of the Bible were originally written in Greek, within a couple hundred years of each other. He has a lot of praise for Satan and the figure’s apparent origins in Greek culture (Diana Lucifera and other mentions), and talks about Satan predating both Judaism and Christianity.

  Hes also got plenty of scorn for Jesus, who according to his seemingly rigorous translation of the Greek bible was on a lot of drugs throughout his life and during his death, and was sexually exploiting and trafficking minors (the Apostles apparently ranged in age from 10-19)

  He did some decent interviews on the Danny Jones show and on Hamilton Morris’s podcast, and Ammon hosts a live stream a couple times a week at Lady Babylon on youtube. The name of his channel comes from Medea, a “sorceress” from Scythia who became queen of Babylon at one point. She was Hecate’s daughter and sister to Circe from the Odyssey, and apparently was the first named person in history referred to as a “Christ”, a term that he has showed at length refers to the use of drugs in antiquity. We get the word “medicine” from Medea.

  Pretty outlandish if you’re not familiar with him but despite his sometimes abrasive and eccentric presentation style I feel like the picture he paints of the ancient Greek world during the few centuries around the time of Jesus makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that his channel is non-monetized and he doesnt accept donations for what he does sharing what he’s found in half a lifetime of studying Greek source texts.

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