Also the unanswered question remains: is Satan a dutiful servant of God, testing people for God’s sadistic pleasure, or did he really rebelled and the big G is not so omnipotent and omniscient as advertised (also what about the free will of angels)?
Well, clearly Satan is Xi Jinping, which means he serves nobody but the great proletarian dictatorship in the People’s Republic of China and the struggle against global imperialism.
I find alternate readings of religious texts interesting though I haven’t looked into it much because my foundation is so weak I cannot discern fact from fiction. There is a book by Periyar about an alternate reading of Ramayana (a Hindu epic). Periyar was a South Indian activist advocating for the rights and identity of South Indians. He says that the villain in Ramayana was not really bad etc. I don’t know Ramayana enough to judge the work but it’s very interesting. My religious relatives got really mad when I talked to them about it.
Well people used to call alternate readings “heresy”, “blasphemy” and so on (some still are). Problem with religious texts is that they are usually written more or less purposefully vague so interpretations can vary wildly and you can prove basically whatever you want since it’s all based on faith anyway, you cannot observably prove anything.
A la Anatole France’s Revolt of the Angels, Satan is a revolutionary fighting against an hedonistic demiurge masquerading as the creator of all things. Demiurge kinda showed up one day after getting the Israelis to worship him and claimed ownership over existence. Right bastard, but the lightbringer and the angel Arcade learn tactics from revolutionaries on Earth to weaponize against the demiurge.
I did not read France, but the “demiurge” immediately rings alarm in my head, since it’s the term often used by “material world evil” types of various severity. It’s like someone looked at subjective idealism and decided it is too sane for them.
The book is a masterwork imo, but also quite deranged as you say lol. Some bangers (all separate excerpts, not placed linearly):
excerpts
People said she was an hermaphrodite, and that as the active and passive principles were united within her in a condition of stable equilibrium, she was an example of a perfect being, finding in herself complete and continuous satisfaction, contented yet unfortunate in that she knew not desire.
“Our project,” he said, “is a vast one. It embraces both Heaven and Earth. It is settled in every detail. We shall first bring about a social revolution in France, in Europe, on the whole planet; then we shall carry war into the heavens, where we shall establish a peaceful democracy. And to reduce the citadels of Heaven, to overturn the mountain of God, to storm celestial Jerusalem, a vast army is needful, enormous resources, formidable machines, and electrophores of a strength yet unknown. It is our intention to commence with France.”
They did not understand that war, which trained the courage and founded the cities of barbarous and ignorant men, brings to the victor himself but ruin and misery, and is nothing but a horrible and stupid crime when nations are united together by common bonds of art, science, and trade.
On the other hand…
lol
Arcade: “Hebrew is my native tongue: in Paradise for a long time we have spoken nothing else.”
Maurice: “Ah, you are a Jew. I might have deduced it from your want of tact.”
Also the unanswered question remains: is Satan a dutiful servant of God, testing people for God’s sadistic pleasure, or did he really rebelled and the big G is not so omnipotent and omniscient as advertised (also what about the free will of angels)?
Well, clearly Satan is Xi Jinping, which means he serves nobody but the great proletarian dictatorship in the People’s Republic of China and the struggle against global imperialism.
Materialism is so wonderful.
I find alternate readings of religious texts interesting though I haven’t looked into it much because my foundation is so weak I cannot discern fact from fiction. There is a book by Periyar about an alternate reading of Ramayana (a Hindu epic). Periyar was a South Indian activist advocating for the rights and identity of South Indians. He says that the villain in Ramayana was not really bad etc. I don’t know Ramayana enough to judge the work but it’s very interesting. My religious relatives got really mad when I talked to them about it.
Well people used to call alternate readings “heresy”, “blasphemy” and so on (some still are). Problem with religious texts is that they are usually written more or less purposefully vague so interpretations can vary wildly and you can prove basically whatever you want since it’s all based on faith anyway, you cannot observably prove anything.
A la Anatole France’s Revolt of the Angels, Satan is a revolutionary fighting against an hedonistic demiurge masquerading as the creator of all things. Demiurge kinda showed up one day after getting the Israelis to worship him and claimed ownership over existence. Right bastard, but the lightbringer and the angel Arcade learn tactics from revolutionaries on Earth to weaponize against the demiurge.
I did not read France, but the “demiurge” immediately rings alarm in my head, since it’s the term often used by “material world evil” types of various severity. It’s like someone looked at subjective idealism and decided it is too sane for them.
The book is a masterwork imo, but also quite deranged as you say lol. Some bangers (all separate excerpts, not placed linearly):
excerpts
On the other hand…
lol
Gnosticism would say yes to both
Yeah this tend to happen when you overthink the supernatural.
Makes for cooler sounding stories at least. The Gospel of Judas is a wild ride