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From: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) vexen |
Date: July 12th, 2006 12:12 pm (UTC) |
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I agree with all that... the statement that if there was actually an evil god, things would be much worse makes sense... and is the rightful opposite of the argument that if there was a good god, things would be much better... in reality, the conclusions I give on my " If there is a God, it is an Evil God page is that it is more sensible to assume that if there is a god, it isn't concerned with morality, nor with Humans in particular... ie, it not homocentric, and it is amoral (amoral=not moral, and not immoral either). |
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From: catkin |
Date: July 11th, 2006 04:04 pm (UTC) |
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some rambly ponderings
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I'm interested by this line:
"Recognizing Satan as the personified meta-figure of reality is self-affirming, life-affirming, positive, honest and clarifying."
And so I followed some links to get a better idea of the imagery. I definitely believe that to truly accept and embrace life, we HAVE to say yes to the darkness, the suffering, and the death. I don't agree in good-evil dichomoties, if anything all I can see is you either open up to joy and pain, or you close down and numb to all of it.
Satan is interesting because he strikes me as kind of 'god's shadow'. all the nasty bits of existance have been kind of passed off onto him. When did the notion of satan come into existance anyway? Is he mentioned in the bible or is it mythological lore? What I really like is how the typical cloven-hoof image is basically a twist on the nature god Pan, and thus it's easy to see how this condemnation of Satan goes hand in hand with condemnation of the body/nature/carnality/lust.
In my own searchings and readings, the "personified meta-figure" imagery that helped me grasp it all in a new way came more from goddess symbols. The same goddess is often shown with multiple different aspects from mother to demonic looking destroyer and everything in between..also there is the link with nature. Plus the understanding of cycles, the necessity of death followed by rebirth.. in fact I was struck a while a go that the whole jesus story is a kind of watered-down version of this motif. I really think the whole concept of evil/darkness/chaos/nature/women(?) as being something to combat and squash has been very destructive and IS related to the monotheistic religions (which all seem to come from the same place anyway? funny how they are engaged in religious wars all the time...)
I still see the use of Satan as an intesting symbol..is it deliberatly meant to be antagonistic towards God/christians/etc? Also I was wondering what it is about this concept that makes it different from the goddess-imagery, and I think it comes down to that attitude of deliberate rebellion and self-generating/determining life. The flaw with goddess based religions is they can kind of suck everything into the ongoing cycles and not allow for individual creativity/will...kind of like the overprotective mother who doesn't let her children go. There seems to be something about Satan which is encompassing of humanity as well as 'divinity' - so perhaps more satan is jesus' shadow? hmm.. instead of the "yes father I will do your will" more of "fuck you I want the power/stuff for myself"?
anyway I'm not sure where this is all going, just sharing some thoughts. I do enjoy seeing you tackle monotheism head on..it's a bit more complex and challenging than people seem to think. It strikes me as a big tangled mess of mythologies and dogma, and most of all denial and control. Do you ever try showing your arguements to christians/jews etc? does it ever get a decent reaction?
- Cat
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: July 12th, 2006 12:47 am (UTC) |
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here goes
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Maybe there is no justification for the existence of evil except that it had no other choice? 'Evil' sounds pretty abstract anyway. At least, if I had to choose between existence and non-existence, I would inevitably have chosen the former, whether it was moral or not. God may or may not exist, it makes little difference. At least for moral, it doesn't, since morals are man-made standards for men to follow. No god in his right mind would care for morals.
If there are gods, they must be hiding from us. There's no need to blame an abstract or divine creature for everything either. Not when god didn't need to create such a thing as 'evil'. We managed to do that for ourselves, didn't we? I hardly think Nature considers her earthquakes and tornadoes evil. So, it's a point of view. It's even a HUMAN point of view, a matter of perception. Not that I don't have the slightest idea as to what's 'right' or 'wrong'. I just can't tell if it's been imprinted upon my genes through generations of selective breeding, or if it's a logical consequence of my upbringing, or what. Probably some of both. I perceive my "morals" as pure instinct.
As for Christianity:
I still think it's a little too much to ask me to wait until after I die to know if there is a god, and still 'serve' this potentially fictional being, not knowing whether it cares or what it'll do to me IF it cares. If it turns out that I am completely wrong, and that when I die I suddenly find myself burning in Hell, I will deal with that then. There are limits to precaution.
I also think all this stuff about infinity is just boasting. Why can't god be infinitely logical and reasonable too? If it is so great as to be INFINITE...well, duh! Besides, infinity is just another abstract... if god's so 'infinite' in all he does, why would he care what I (or a couple of Cro-Magnons like Adam and Eve,) do with our genitals? If I was an infinite being, if I had infinite power and endless influence, I would have never cared about what little people on a tiny little planet made of their short lives. But hey, maybe he got power-mad. If so, he must have gotten infinitely power-mad. That sucks. Especially because of the existence issue, which has come to its natural consequence so that god is now going through an existential crisis.
A priest I met once, argued that since the universe exists, someone had to create it. This he considered to be valid proof that there is a god, or a creator if you want. He had little faith in the modern conviction that the universe came into being as a result of some unexpected event. And even if that's what happened, he said, it would be too late to do anything about it now. God or no God; if it's human it only gives credibility to the Satanic thought that every man is a god. If it's infinite it must be the universe itself, and it's obvious that the universe complies to none of the theological descriptions of god (that I have seen or heard or read about,) cold and indifferent as it seems. If god is indeed a spiritual being, or some other absurd creature that can see us all from its vantage point on a cloud in the sky, for example Xenu, the criminal master-mind in scientology-mythology... well, then we're all screwed.
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From: vexen |
Date: July 13th, 2006 01:36 pm (UTC) |
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| From: flashcat |
Date: July 13th, 2006 03:45 pm (UTC) |
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From: vexen |
Date: July 13th, 2006 04:16 pm (UTC) |
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