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Topic: How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if? (Read 3495 times) |
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Hermit
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #1 on: 2009-08-20 11:30:53 » |
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I found the misplaced effort and apparently unaccustomed mental exercise by the faith-filled more sad than funny. Perhaps we missed an amusing response or meta-amusement. Did you see something specific as amusing or just the entire ludicrous premise?
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All the Hermits
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #2 on: 2009-08-20 13:46:48 » |
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from the link:
Quote:| How could Lucifer have rebelled against God thinking that he could take His place if he TRULY knows God (i.e. lived with Him, communicated with Him, knew of His omnipotence), moreso than the people on Earth who claim that they know God. That is an irrational situation and makes no sense, therefore must be perceived as a false story. Whats your take on the rationality of it? |
Yeah not A LOT there, but just someone picking out some irrationality. Religion is simply full of them. It's like pointing out that water is wet. In any case religion only makes sense by NOT thinking it through and just listening to the story. Anyway omnipotence isn't critical to the story so its okay to ignore it at times. Or perhaps it would be easier to just think of it more like superpotence (like greek gods or superheros) rather than omnipotence.
The thing about Lucifer that interests me more is that he's the bringer of light . . . he's the guy who helps out humanity by providing us important knowledge we need and yet Christianity makes him out as the bad guy. Not a very pro-human attitude in my opinion.
I tend to focus more on how the audience reacts to mythological characters and stories and less on how the characters interact with each other.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #3 on: 2009-08-20 21:05:24 » |
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[MoEnzyme] The thing about Lucifer that interests me more is that he's the bringer of light . . . he's the guy who helps out humanity by providing us important knowledge we need and yet Christianity makes him out as the bad guy. Not a very pro-human attitude in my opinion.
[Hermit]
I think you may be missing the point that Lucifer, "The Light Bearer," is mentioned exactly once in the Babble.1. Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Not terribly surprising perhaps given that "Lucifer" was imported from the Eastern Mythos, almost certainly contemporaneously with "Christ."
More interestingly, the "Morning Star" is much more frequently seen:1. Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
2. Revelation 2:28 And I will give him the morning star.
3. Revelation 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. The kicker comes when you realize that unlike the previous texts, the last one allegedly identifies Jesus as being the "Bright and Morning Star" or as is meant by the Morning Star" everywhere else in the Babble, Lucifer.
So God and the Devil are, in the biblical Mythos, one and the same. Only most of the JudeoChristians seem not to have realized this. Which makes it fun with a capital "F" to toss it at them so as to watch the wriggling.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #4 on: 2009-08-20 22:32:20 » |
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heh, yeah. . . well whatever, like I say, how people react, identify etc. says a lot more to me rather than the minute details of the story.
I've already laid out my preference for gnostic versions of god thingies. Yeah its crazy too, but I don't deny that its a simple matter of indoctrination with me. I was raised a blaspheming UU from the cradle. I don't provide any defense for them. I only admit that they are familiar to me.
To me, Lucifer is something entirely different from the demiurge. An independently GOOD thing despite stupid god thingies as I view it. Not in any necessary conflict with demiurge, but definitely a different thing entirely.
I think of Lucifer more as a Promethean character, and hence while not an object of worship, certainly a fellow travelar to be embraced and learned from as much as possible.
My pal, Lucifer 
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Mermaid
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #5 on: 2009-09-08 16:52:27 » |
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i too think lucifer in terms of prometheus.
there is an entire tribe in iraq that worships 'shaitan'/lucifer/satan called the yezidis.
from wiki:
In the Yazidi belief system, God created the world and it is now in the care of a Heptad of seven Holy Beings, often known as Angels or heft sirr (the Seven Mysteries). Preeminent among these is Tawûsê Melek (frequently known as "Melek Tawus" in English publications), the Peacock Angel. According to the Encyclopedia of the Orient,
The reason for the Yazidis reputation of being devil worshipers is connected to the other name of Melek Taus, Shaytan, the same name the Koran has for Satan.[9]
Furthermore, the Yazidi story regarding Tawûsê Melek's rise to favor with God is almost identical to the story of the jinn Iblis in Islam, except that Yazidis revere Tawûsê Melek for refusing to submit to Adam, while Muslims believe that Iblis' refusal to submit caused him to fall out of Grace with God, and to later become Satan himself.[10]
[...]
but then again, they stoned a 17 year old girl to death because she fell in love with a moslem..that aside..it's all very cool.
Quote from: MoEnzyme on 2009-08-20 22:32:20
heh, yeah. . . well whatever, like I say, how people react, identify etc. says a lot more to me rather than the minute details of the story.
I've already laid out my preference for gnostic versions of god thingies. Yeah its crazy too, but I don't deny that its a simple matter of indoctrination with me. I was raised a blaspheming UU from the cradle. I don't provide any defense for them. I only admit that they are familiar to me.
To me, Lucifer is something entirely different from the demiurge. An independently GOOD thing despite stupid god thingies as I view it. Not in any necessary conflict with demiurge, but definitely a different thing entirely.
I think of Lucifer more as a Promethean character, and hence while not an object of worship, certainly a fellow travelar to be embraced and learned from as much as possible.
My pal, Lucifer
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MoEnzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #6 on: 2009-09-21 12:33:33 » |
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Mermaid,
Well, what's one stoned-to-death 17 year old compared to the thousands of innocents killed every year in jihadi suicide bombings. There's no real ethical comfort there, don't misunderstand me, but just a cost comparison.
Anyway, I basically get my promethean idea from the garden of eden story. The "evil" one got us to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That, of course was important information which we needed, so this "evil" one was actually doing us a favor. And perhaps he was really doing what "God" (the demiurge) could not do by himself. So in actuality this myth is written backwards. God is the dark one (without knowledge), and Lucifer is the bringer of Light, as his name initially meant. The only way to gain knowledge in the situation is to break free of (disobey) the demiurge. Lucifer simply catalyzes the process, and hence he is probably the protagonist of this story, or at least "one of the good guys".
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Mermaid
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #7 on: 2009-09-21 19:48:51 » |
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lets not forget the other kind of 'jihadi suicides' where we send thousands of troops to protect other countries' interests. when i hear hyperbole, i have learned to ignore it.
re the 'backwards mythology', i found sumerian mythology(enki/enlil) interesting..made me wonder if at some point, the whole thing was reversed.
Quote from: MoEnzyme on 2009-09-21 12:33:33
Mermaid,
Well, what's one stoned-to-death 17 year old compared to the thousands of innocents killed every year in jihadi suicide bombings. There's no real ethical comfort there, don't misunderstand me, but just a cost comparison.
Anyway, I basically get my promethean idea from the garden of eden story. The "evil" one got us to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That, of course was important information which we needed, so this "evil" one was actually doing us a favor. And perhaps he was really doing what "God" (the demiurge) could not do by himself. So in actuality this myth is written backwards. God is the dark one (without knowledge), and Lucifer is the bringer of Light, as his name initially meant. The only way to gain knowledge in the situation is to break free of (disobey) the demiurge. Lucifer simply catalyzes the process, and hence he is probably the protagonist of this story, or at least "one of the good guys".
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Hermit
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #8 on: 2009-09-22 09:08:40 » |
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I seem to have, once again, lost a post. Mermaid has filled in some of what I wrote about.
It seems almost superfluous to observe what anyone even slightly familiar with the history of asymmetric warfare has long known, that even though the concept of suicide attacks were introduced in the late 1960s to the Middle East, by the Japanese, they didn't become popular with Middle Eastern people until the CIA came up with the concepts of martyrdom and car bombs and introduced and disseminated these wonderful inventions for use against America's enemies in the Lebanon and Afghanistan.
Also, given MoEnzyme's infatuation with Islam, I wonder if it merely slipped his mind that suicide is strictly condemned by Islam, and therefore to refer to "Jihadi suicide bombings" is definitely not in any way, shape or form, an Islamic idea. He also probably knows that the great Jihad is internal and the lesser Jihad, or Jihad of the Sword is only possible when called for by a Caliph - which institution does not exist today. Which is why no person engage in a "martyrdom operation" would refer to it in these clumsy and utterly incorrect neocon terms.
I wonder if MoEnzyme considers that we should measure the cost efficiency of other attacks in the same way? 13 Israelis vs 1,417 Palestinians in Operation Cast Lead. 19 martyred hijackers vs 2,974 not-so-innocent deaths (given that the US is a democracy and thus our government policies are supported by the population, the USA's support of Israeli ethnic cleansing makes every American guilty of this attack on the Ummah in the eyes of many Muslims.) in the 9/11 attacks. How about a few hundred martyrs set against the millions of ethnically cleansed, displaced, murdered (killing in an illegal war is murder) and impoverished Iraqi and Afghans? Does MoEnzyme draw any conclusions about these operations given their clear cost inequalities?
As for the theological discussion, the key point is that the vast preponderance of religious works are noise sources, verbose Rorschach blots. People can read anything they like out of them and usually do. What they draw out of them tells you about the reader, not about the work in question. As in this case.
Mermaid wondered if, "at some point, the whole thing was reversed"
After centuries during which Middle Eastern archaeology was largely about trying to confirm the babble, which naturally works perfectly every time - and would work just as well if it were tried on Mars, and decades during which it has been used to attempt to justify Zionist land grabbing, the consensus is tipping towards concluding that the Sumerians created the "Old Testament" for the hill tribes of Judea in about 722-622 BCE, based largely on prior Sumerian mythos, personalities, people and gods while they programmed in a strong array of memetic obstacles against their principle enemies, particularly the Egyptians and Babylonians. Some small fragments of earlier verbal traditions seem to have made it into the mix, but not on any significant scale. Subsequently the works have been repeatedly rewritten to emphasise or de-emphasise certain aspects of the memeplex (e.g. the removal of polytheism and the moon goddess consort and minimisation of child sacrifice) presumably based on political considerations and many traditions were established asserting how certain meaningless phrases ought to be interpreted.
So the answer to Mermaid's question might well lie in what she means by "the whole thing" rather than "reversed" simply because any operation performed on noise leaves noise.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #9 on: 2009-09-22 14:06:01 » |
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I briefly considered a particular strain of Islam, specifically Sufism. While I later decided it really wasn't for me, I remain culturally interested in it and perhaps sympathetic to them depending on the issue, so if you wish to attack me via that route, please criticize me on those merits, and I'll consider that. I'm not going to consider all criticisms of Islam. As a whole, it holds no greater sway over me than Christianity, Judaism, or any other traditonal dogmas. Frankly I'm a bit more interested in gnostism than any of them.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #10 on: 2009-09-22 17:22:08 » |
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MoEnzyme:
I'm sorry that my brief note felt like an "attack" to you, when it merely asked some questions (which I'd still like to see answered) and raised a few, hopefully interesting, points.
I'm delighted to hear that your infatuation with Islam is no more. Aside from it being no better than any of the other Abrahamic religions (which is to say, very bad, but certainly no worse than Christianity or Judaism and in some ways more sensible), Islam being largely rote based, it would probably not have suited you at all.
Kindest Regards
Hermit&Co
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #11 on: 2009-09-22 21:07:44 » |
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Quote:| As for the theological discussion, the key point is that the vast preponderance of religious works are noise sources, verbose Rorschach blots. People can read anything they like out of them and usually do. What they draw out of them tells you about the reader, not about the work in question. As in this case. |
I operate under such an assumption myself. However its the noise that everyone else to some extent at least hears if not actively listens to at this time and place in the universe. I assume in a different place and time in a different culture I would be talking about an entirely different set of stories. When I discuss theology, I do so with a similar attitude that I would discuss Greek mythology - it just happens to be the current mass mythology.
As for the mathematics of death - while I expect no politician to actually figure things this way, I think its at least an objective way to measure things. Suffering is more subjective where death is not. The current markets on death seem to value whiter English speaking non-Muslims greater than others. Perhaps that should pain people who claim to care about all humans. I don't claim that concern for myself but it doen't make me feel comfortable either. I'd like to think I'm better than this, but I'm not going to place any bets on it - at the end of the day there are currently too many people on planet earth for our own good.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #12 on: 2009-09-23 02:09:26 » |
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Quote from: Mermaid on 2009-09-21 19:48:51 lets not forget the other kind of 'jihadi suicides' where we send thousands of troops to protect other countries' interests. when i hear hyperbole, i have learned to ignore it.
re the 'backwards mythology', i found sumerian mythology(enki/enlil) interesting..made me wonder if at some point, the whole thing was reversed. |
Re: jihadi suicides; sure feel free to spread the blame around. In retrospect it seems ever more certain that GWB sent us into Iraq largely on his strange interpretation of biblical scripture, so I'm willing to include US Christian crusaders within the category of "jihadi suicides". Same animal different flavor.
re: backwards mythology - its basically a narrative change of the point of view. You hear all these stories told with one party as the "good guy", and another party as the "bad guy". Try writing the same recognizable story but from the other point of view. You get different meanings out of it then. I know Hermit objects that its still "just noise", but not exactly. It now allows us to connect to a believer through the same story. It may be just the tool to get new ideas past an otherwise heavy filter. Of course Hermit may be right that its all just a waste of time, but I remain optimistic about such experiments. At least it gives us something different to talk about than the usual atheism v. religion discussions. Those can get old.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #13 on: 2009-09-23 02:21:37 » |
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It seems that my "jihadi suicides" got blown up a bit . . . I think my original point was that while the Yezidis did some fucked up thing in the case of the Yezidi woman who fell in love with a Muslim, it doesn't compare to many more fucked up things like "jihadi suicides" and now as others have added Christian crusaders in re: invading Iraq. Perhaps thats the end of it, but feel free to nitpick. I seem to have some slack ready spend on the topic. 
ps. Hermit's attack on me (I know he didn't intend it that way, but its more fun to interpret it that way) was trying to get me to take on some Muslim point of view because some time ago I had some infatuation about becoming a particular flavor of Muslim. Well, today I'm on the Yezidi's side and this time I REALLY mean it. But feel free to check back tomorrow.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Mermaid
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Re:How could Lucifer have rebelled against God if?
« Reply #14 on: 2009-09-23 18:56:29 » |
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sigh. look...there was no need to bring 'jihadi suicides' while speaking of the yezidis. its your obsession, not mine. you are the one picking the nits, not me.
i think studying mythology..especially the ancient ones from which our modern mythologies/religions have sprung from...is very useful.
moving on...yezidis are a tribe. tribal culture is more black and white than grey and fuzzy. it's just the way it is...doesnt matter if they are from the middle east or africa or the americas or asia.
p.s. you need cake. and booze. lots of it.
Quote from: MoEnzyme on 2009-09-23 02:21:37 It seems that my "jihadi suicides" got blown up a bit . . . I think my original point was that while the Yezidis did some fucked up thing in the case of the Yezidi woman who fell in love with a Muslim, it doesn't compare to many more fucked up things like "jihadi suicides" and now as others have added Christian crusaders in re: invading Iraq. Perhaps thats the end of it, but feel free to nitpick. I seem to have some slack ready spend on the topic.
ps. Hermit's attack on me (I know he didn't intend it that way, but its more fun to interpret it that way) was trying to get me to take on some Muslim point of view because some time ago I had some infatuation about becoming a particular flavor of Muslim. Well, today I'm on the Yezidi's side and this time I REALLY mean it. But feel free to check back tomorrow.
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