Would you be insulted by this religious reveal?

In one of my stories is it revealed that the non-Abrahamitic gods and godesess are in fact missinterpetations of the various not-quite evil yet fallen Abrahamitic Angels angels now living on earth.

Two are named so far: Inari, and Morrigan, the latter even is a major character.

edited 23rd Oct '10 3:11:41 PM by TheBorderPrince

I wasn't insulted by the uses of Christianity in Neon Genesis Evangelion, so no.

"mythological creatures are demons in disguise" is practically Christian canon. Look at what happened to Celtic gods- sorry, fairies.

Look at what happened to Celtic gods- sorry, fairies.

One of 'em got her worshippers redirected to worshipping Mary as a representation of her.

Um. What do you mean "not quite evil"?

Yeah, not particularly weird. As said, christianity has had a tendency to do this kind of thing anyways. This is why the stock depiction of Satan (or other demons) usually looks a lot like a Satyr or Faun, even though his appearance is never described this way (or at all, really) in any abrahamic texts, to my knowledge. A lot of common christian imagery (and sometimes entire chunks of mythology) tends to come from popular art and literature at different time periods, that just stuck. And using imagery from other religions has been done many times. So associations between angels/demons/whatevers and gods or other beings from older religions isn't anything new.

I'm not offended by the sort of thing you're talking about, but I'm the wrong person to ask.

I doubt you'll offend anyone with that who isn't a freaky fundamentalist...but then, such people are offended by fantasy in general, so I'm pretty sure you aren't worried about having them as an audience.

And, if someone's offended by your work, who cares? YOU didn't mean it as a personal insult. Do what you feel is best for your story; if someone takes issue, they don't have to read your stuff. In other words, I wouldn't worry about it.

This wouldn't offend me at all. However, you can be sure that some people will be offended. But there is absolutely no reason you should care, as long as you don't mean to offend anyone.

Not quite evil fallen angels means those good angels that initially joined the Devil's revolt, but later realised they had been fooled. (The Devil realised he had not enough supporters, so he comendeered, by his authority of an archangel, an army of angles, which he said he needed to stop an revolt led by Michael. These guys did fight for the Devil in the beginning of the war, but soon realised their mistake and started fighting the Devil and his supporters.)

This caused them to only being sent down to Earth and lost some some of their powers as a punishment, and not to Hell. The more powerful ones became known by humans as various deities, while the less powerfull ones became known as the fae/youkai/whatever.

In other words: Instead of the ordinary "Pagan god or folkloric creature are turned into a fallen angel at the introduction of Christianity" has it now happened the other way around in this this story.

edited 24th Oct '10 4:09:58 AM by TheBorderPrince

Not really, but seeing as it is, as other posters have pointed out, essentially what Christianity does anyway, I'm not especially interested either.

That said, I was expecting something seriously controversial when clicking on the thread title, so maybe it's just hype backlash of sorts.

I'll have to go with the other opinions. It's what Christianity already does so it's not really bucking any trends for offensiveness.

@The Border Prince:An army of angles, you say?

Not unless you turned it into a Strawman Religious (but I assume you're talking more about Zeus and Thor than, say, Mohammed and Buddha  ^*

Then again, I suppose I would find it annoying if you did it the other way around, so maybe that's just my Double Standard.

Exactly, I try to only mention deities that are from either more or less extinct religions (Morrigan)or deities from religions with an animistic base (Inari). I try to be vauge about other religions, for obvious reasons...

It's your story mate, and most importantly, it's a story. Even if my belief dictates that Angels are more or less robotic (that is, they have almost no free will) and hence rebellion is impossible, there is this possibly apocryphal story:

Two Angels that asked (challenged?) God that, were they transformed into human, they'd still be perfectly pious and not tempted by earthly desires. God agreed and transformed them into two human males. Some time later, they actually did fell in love (or lust) to a human woman. Realizing their mistake, they asked for forgiveness. For their arrogance, God asked them whether they wanted their punishment to be in the human world, and having their sins erased when the End Day came, or a punishment in the Hereafter. They chose the earlier and they were hung upside down in a well somewhere until the Judgment Day, where their sins will be completely erased and they'd resume their duties as Angels.

I don't really believe in that story either, but feel free to run with a variation of it. If I feel any story that I read is about to be (or already is) blatantly offensive just to be offensive (there are stories that, by their nature, has to be blasphemous somewhat and yet tells a compelling story), I'd simply not read it. I don't think you'd be losing readership though. Then again, consider your audience (which is why you're probably creating this thread in the first place, perhaps?)