22 KiB
Interesting Fact about Lucifer
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Author: u/xamueljones My arch-enemy is entropy*
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URL: http://actuallykylekallgren.tumblr.com/post/127871934599/witch-boots-emofag420-the-vengeful-crobat
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Score: 16
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Created: 2015-08-31T11:56:25
Post:
Comments:
u/xamueljones [+16] My arch-enemy is entropy (a minute later)
I want to see a story based on this idea without it being Paradise Lost.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+11] Godric Gryffindor (10 hours later)
Golden Compass et. al.
u/PeridexisErrant [+11] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
The trilogy is titled His Dark Materials, fwiw.
Also interesting in that the closest character to the Lucifer archetype has been missing for billions of years, and the Rebellion is going just fine. It's much more about the less powerful characters and the system too; the great leaders on all sides are almost irrelevant when it comes down to it.
u/TimTravel [+1] (20 hours later)
Huh? I seem to remember the creator god was betrayed and imprisoned by Lord Regent, who took over.
u/PeridexisErrant [+8] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (a day later)
Nah, God just got old and senile and impotent, and Metatron hid that to hold onto the delegated supreme power.
It's also claimed (by the rebel angels) that God didn't create anything, just showed up first and told everyone else a creation myth.
u/None [+22] (an hour later)
Alternate Character Interpretations are one thing, but I often find myself slightly worried that our pop-literary canon spends so much time and effort finding ways to cast the Lone Power as heroic and the One as the real bad-guy.
Like, one of these created the universe, and the other decided to muck it up by introducing evil. It should be remembered that Evil is not a cool leather jacket or a short skirt, or even free will: Evil is cancer killing your mother tortuously over years. Evil is people having to live flea-bitten and psychotic in train tunnels because there are no care programs.
On the other hand, said pop-literary canon seems to do so because priests need to justify their positions of authority, so Ultimate Good gets cast as having the right king in charge.
(Sorry for ranting: these kinds of thoughts tend to come of reading Iain Banks books and David Brin's blog and sometimes just the internet at large and realizing that, welp, that whole Enlightenment thing we go on about was really recent and hasn't actually fully won yet, and still needs defense more than "interesting" subversion.)
u/alexanderwales [+19] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
In Christian mythology, Lucifer is almost never the Lone Power. He was an angel who fell from Heaven after a failed rebellion; his primary sin was that he wanted to become higher than God. Further, Satan is usually subordinate to God and part of God's own
Path to Victorydivine plan (though that part varies heavily by denomination).So you can see where the alternate character interpretation comes from. Very few Christians believe that Satan was responsible for bringing death or sin into the world; he's mostly just a guy who really, really hates God and humanity. Those are both pretty sympathetic.
Edit: I am sort of curious how the view of Lucifer in Christianity compares to the view of Lucifer in Judaism, if you have any insight.
u/JackStargazer [+12] Primordial Apologist (3 hours later)
Satan is usually subordinate to God and part of God's own Path to Victory divine plan (though that part varies heavily by denomination).
This is the big one to me. In almost all cases, Lucifer is inherently understood as less powerful than God, and as God is omnipotent, any evil which Lucifer performs is inherently accepted by God simply because despite having the ability to, he has not prevented or reversed it.
Then there's the fact the as God is omniscient, he knew exactly what Lucifer would do when (before?) he created him, and still chose to allow it to happen. So even if Lucifer created evil, God allowed and allows it to happen and so is equally or more complicit.
Hell, under most modern legal systems between parental liability for damages caused by children and vicarious liability of employers from acts of employees, God would be responsible for all of it.
Most sympathetic Devils are either Byronic Anti-Heroes fighting against a much more dangerous evil than themselves, people who have Become the Mask, or guys with the worst PR department in the world. Most of the time they are still assholes, but they are passionate and most importantly human-seeming assholes, usually fighting an alien or apathetic system or being. In almost all of those cases as well, they are not responsible for the creation of evil or death, though they may use it was a weapon or take advantage of it under Pay Evil unto Evil terms.
u/None [+9] (5 hours later)
Judaism has no character representing Lucifer or the Lone Power. The "morning star" in Isaiah is a reference to a Babylonian god who was being insulted. "Satan" is taken to be, roughly, its literal translation: "accuser", God's prosecuting attorney. Judaism believes a Source of Evil would contradict monotheism.
(Our God is more eldritch than yours ;-).)
u/brandalizing [+4] Reserve Pigeon Army (9 hours later)
Although there is the concept of the 'malach hamavet', or the Angel of Death. Not an exact satanic parallel, but an entity known to work counter to god - while, of course, still within His Plan.
u/None [+3] (10 hours later)
Wait, the Angel of Death works counter to God's Plan? News to me.
But anyway, yeah, that guy: all made of eyes and with a sword on which there's a single drop of bile, which he throws into your throat as you die to make your soul come out.
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)
Revelations is hardcore!
u/Ken_M_Imposter [+2] (10 hours later)
"You're wrong, Kyle. God is not a dick!"
u/Vebeltast [+6] You should have expected the bayesian inquisition! (2 hours later)
A thought: Alternate Character Interpretations for $DIETY are often pretty similar to what you'd see from a close-but-not-quite UFAI. Hell: someone decided that their SAI should punish wrongdoing. "Chosen People": someone decided to avoid walking all over everybody by setting to defend their family, followers, or countrymen. Various bigotry: someone decided to hard-code their beliefs.
That said, I agree. Many of the alternate character interpretations for the Lone Power bugged me and I think you hit the nail on the head: there's a trap where they end up being death worship wrapped up in nice words and arguments.
u/protagnostic [+3] (a day later)
Evil is cancer killing your mother tortuously over years
ITT: Times Diane Duane made me cry.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
The second example was from To Visit the Queen.
u/protagnostic [+2] (a day later)
Ah, I haven't read the Feline Wizards books. The Wizard's Dilemma hit me right in the feels, though.
u/nerdguy1138 [+2] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)
Is the third Feline Wizards book available in ebook yet? The only thing I could find was apparently $22, and while I have deeply enjoyed her other books, I spent $35 buying almost the entire rest of her catalog from her own site, so that much to complete it just seems excessive.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
God, I have no idea. When I found out it wasn't officially out back in 2011, I emailed Duane's site manager, and was allowed to "subscribe" and get the ebook at a decent price. Since then there have been no updates whatsoever, even though it's basically a finished book, and a really good one.
u/ajuc [+3] (3 days later)
Like, one of these created the universe, and the other decided to muck it up by introducing evil.
Sorry for nitpicking, but in standard Christian theology that's not what happend. God created Satan. If you think Satan introduced evil, and not the people that do the evil, then Satan isn't responsible either - God is, because God created Satan (and did so while being almighty and omniscient - he knew the consequences and had the possibility to do it better).
There's whole theology branch trying to justify existence of evil, and AFAIK the best argument is "there's no evil as such, evil is just lack of goodness, like shadow is a lack of light, so God didn't created evil - it was always a possibility".
I find this argument wonky (it sugests evil-good scale is like Kelvin scale of temperature - there is ultimately evil act, and everything else is better, and also you can take evil deed, scale it enough times and it becomes good). Also it makes it hard to distinguish evil and neutral actions. Anything suboptimal and better than ultimate evil is similar in kind.
But if you don't accept this argument - the alternative is to accept that God introduced evil, through Satan, which in turn did it through people.
Also regarding the speific example of cancer - Bible says openly God did this when he expulsed people from Eden "you will no longer live forever - you will bear kids in pain and die of sickness".
This (together with the "I'm jealous God", "don't conspire with foreign gods", "the tree of knowledge is dangerous because people could become gods", "tower of babel - I'll destroy that") makes it very easy to read it as totalitarian system propaganda made into mythology.
There's fundmaental tension between God being so obviously more powerful than anything else in his universe that there can be no doubts who wins, and him being so scared of people and other spirits. It just begs for this interpretation.
u/None [+1] (3 days later)
Well I'm not exactly moved by these arguments, because I'm not religious, sooo....
it sugests evil-good scale is like Kelvin scale of temperature
Well, certainly treating it as one-dimensional is bad, but it's obviously a measure over a many-dimensional space. There are small subspaces that we label "good", and yes, basically everything else is less good. And then our brains have separate ways of labelling things that are Bad rather than Lacking Good, and the sections of action/state/history-spaces that are intense in those qualities are labelled Evil.
u/ajuc [+1] (3 days later)
I'm not religious either (but I was, and I strugled quite a lot with these issues when I was 18 or so :) ). Now that I rethink this I kinda start to see the point of that argument. It's the trolley problem. I shouldn't have started this discussion with cashed thoughts from 12 years ago...
Everything below about the evil-good scale is based on my cashed thoughts from the time I was Christian, leaving it here but it kinda makes no sense when you dispose with the sins and punishment:
The 1-dimension was irrelevant, what's important is that it has no distinct good and bad states, it's arbitrary. I found it very hard to think in that way, and I suspected all people do. It just feels wrong to have no qualitative distinction between "not giving to charity", and "beating up someone". The whole concept of sin requires some cut-off point, after which you are OK. With evil-as-shadow there is no such point, you could always do better, so why you can be punished for some things and not for other? If it's a problem with our brains and not the reality - then it's still harsh on humans to create them with faulty morality-meters and then judging by how well they were able to reprogram it.End of cashed thoughts based rambling.
Still the point that Roman Catholic theology (and many others I suspect) invites "Satan = good guy rebel" interpretation stands.
u/Ozimandius [+1] (12 days later)
What exactly do you find 'wonky' in the evil as lack of good argument? Basically it seems like because you find the scale hard to read it doesn't make sense. My dog can't read a thermometer but that hardly means that temperature doesn't exist on a continuous scale (sorry not comparing you to a dog, but if some omni-potent/scient being is the one making/reading the scale we would be less than a dog in comparison presumably). Anyway, I might not be able to judge an ultimately evil act against one slightly better, but I know when something shitty is going on just like my dog knows when its hot outside.
I agree that a strict reading of the bible would lead you to a God who purposefully created evil, of course. So if that's your reasoning it makes sense. But people making theodicy arguments almost all believe that the bible stories (especially the early ones) are metaphor, not history.
I'm also not religious but I would believe that it is inevitable that if you create a creature with truly free-will that it will eventually chose to exercise that freedom even if it meant not living in eternal bliss anymore. I think many would rather explore the unknown or not just do what Daddy tells them for all eternity. I am sure after a billion years of orgasming, a bit of pain might be a welcome new experience. Which makes the story of someone saying "Fuck you dad I don't want to live under your roof anymore and damn the consequences" make perfect sense to me.
u/Jiro_T [+2] (18 hours later)
Evil is cancer killing your mother tortuously over years.
I know which of God and Satan is supposed to have introduced cancer into the world, and it's not Satan.
(At least unless you buy into certain religious ideas about the Fall metaphysically changing everything else in the universe, and even then, God arranged it so the Fall could do that.)
u/None [+1] (a day later)
certain religious ideas about the Fall metaphysically changing everything else in the universe
I thought that was canon?
Oh well, I'm not Christian.
u/ajuc [+1] (3 days later)
Roman Catholic canon is - God introduced death and sickness when expulsing people from Eden.
u/MugaSofer [+1] (22 hours later)
I think you have it backwards.
The story is that God created Eden; a perfect world, where there was no hunger, or death, or pain. And the Adversary, greatest among God's creations, rebelling against God, persuaded Man to disobey God; thus ruining everything forever.
I haven't read the Young Wizards books, but it sounds like the One is the traditional Christian-mythology Devil, and the Lone Power is God, just with the serial numbers filed off.
u/None [+6] (23 hours later)
I haven't read the Young Wizards books, but it sounds like the One is the traditional Christian-mythology Devil, and the Lone Power is God, just with the serial numbers filed off.
Uh, no. Duane (author of the series) has explicitly stated she came up with the core worldbuilding concepts after having come across a line in Talmud that she liked, and the books themselves make explicit reference to a character trying to talk to the One by praying in a church.
It's a much, much more Manichean theology than IRL religion allows, but if you read the books, you would see that it does more-or-less align itself with the way religion reads things, just... with a lot more good sense than usual.
(For example, many races, when they reach their Choice (eg: they achieve full sapience and become moral/spiritual agents, and thus have to choose whether to act for the Bright Powers or the Lone One), actually attempt to abolish death via some massively overpowered reality-warping spell. This actually plays right into the Lone One's hands. One of Its favorites was a species who decided to try to abolish entropy by stopping time, and had to be frantically talked out of it by an intervening wizard.
It never says, straightforwardly, "Take my option so you can suffer and die more." It says, "Choose My service and I will give you the power to dominate the world, and whatever you want, you can reach out and take."
This is why it's very rare for a species to Choose rightly by just refusing the Lone One's offers outright, seeing correctly that what's really being offered is death as a lifestyle, even though the few instances shown in the books are shown to have achieved nigh-utopian lives that way.)
u/MugaSofer [+2] (a day later)
Offering awesome-sounding deals where you get Phenomenal Cosmic Power, which should be refused because they're Evil and any deal they offer is always playing into their hands ... sounds like the devil to me, yeah.
But those are much better deals than I've ever heard of the Devil offering, I gotta admit. I'll definitely have to check the series out.
u/None [+4] (2 days later)
But those are much better deals than I've ever heard of the Devil offering, I gotta admit.
They're still not very good deals. Examples include, "Devote your species to My service, and I will make you conquerors of the cosmos^also ^a ^totalitarian ^hive ^race ^whose ^primary ^source ^of ^nutrition ^is ^fully-conscious, ^self-aware ^dissenting ^individuals !" Or, "Work for me, and I can help you take your planet back from the filthy mammals^but ^you'll ^be ^maladapted ^for ^life ^on ^your ^homeworld ^so ^everything ^will ^hurt ^all ^the ^time !"
Hmmm... Duane pulled that trick twice. Interesting. It's still offensive both times.
u/nerdguy1138 [+3] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)
I thought Timeheart was that place, "where what is loved, is preserved"
u/nerdguy1138 [+2] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)
Um, no. The LP created death, specifically entropy, and wove it into the fabric of the One's Creation. if you want epic, read High Wizardy, that's my favorite so far. (Currently on A Wizard Alone)
u/MugaSofer [+1] (a day later)
Oh, right. I had the names backwards! Thanks.
Embarrassing ...
u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+3] (7 hours later)
Are you OK with it being Japanese adult game? If you are, you can try playing Tears to Tiara. (NSFW, eroge, you have been warned, proceed at your own risk, there is Lucifer fighting for equal rights. He is not really satanic, though.)
u/logrusmage [+1] (5 hours later)
What's wrong with Paradise Lost? Lucifer is clearly its hero and its a great story to boot (if you skip some of the long dragged out descriptions and angel battles).
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (9 hours later)
if you skip some of the long dragged out descriptions and angel battles
It's a very well-written story, but it frequently has sections I just slogged through. Also, it's to avoid people mentioning it since it was the only example I could come up which didn't portrayed Lucifer as an evil being, or went with Evil is Sexy.
u/omni222 [+1] (10 hours later)
Sort of cheating, but Cradle of Filth's album Damnation and a Day is a reimagining of Paradise Lost. The protagonist is Feriluce, and he's joined throughout the story by several allegorical female characters.
One of the curious elements in PL's treatment of Satan is that, at one point, he nearly relents and returns to God, but God reaches down and hardens his heart, causing him to remain an adversary. Similarly, Feriluce realizes his mistake fairly early in the story ("An Enemy Led the Tempest") and eventually wants nothing more than to be left alone to love Faith ("Thank God for the Suffering"), but any joy he finds is constantly taken from him by a vengeful God and a jealous Michael.
u/embrodski [+1] (2 days later)
I'm quite fond of Devil's Advocate, and I won't apologize for it. Especially Lucifer's monologue near the climax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGR4SFOimlk
u/Tholo [+6] (3 hours later)
And Terry Pratchett was the first to write Equal Rites.
u/Schlessel [+2] (16 hours later)
RIP sir Pratchett
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
u/embrodski [+2] (2 days later)
My main problem with this book is that the entire tragedy could have been avoided if God and Satan had just sat down and had an actual five-minute discussion, rather than the comedy-of-errors that relying on an unreliable messenger caused. I found it annoying rather than tragic.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
That bothered me, too, but I also realized that none of these people had the experience of thousands of years of cohabitation with millions of others. They were all, of necessity, naive.
u/None [+3] (47 minutes later)
So, by this logic, when someone demands equal rights, you should deny them their existing rights and exile them. Frankly, if this church was right about God, I'd have to question who was really Evil.
u/Kishoto [+1] (a day later)
"No, that's not how it works!"
"Then tell me how it works, reverend!"
"...There are some things man isn't meant to know. "
" Shit like that is what gave the spaghetti monster traction in the first place. F#^& off."
u/I_Like_Spaghetti [+0] (a day later)
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