The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

If Lucifer, a being born in the light and far more intelligent than a human, made the decision to sin with his vanity, rebel against God and be cast down from Heaven, what is stopping the already flawed soul in Heaven from doing the same? Has that ever been addressed by theologians? This is of course assuming the school of thought that souls in Heaven retain their free will and the "not sinning" is not because the ability has been purged to, since that would raise the quandary "why bother allowing the choice if it's going to be taken away eventually?"

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on May 18th 2019 at 1:24:54 AM

This is notably the argument for Purgatory's existence. That you enter heaven after a long period of becoming a better person.

Mind you, in theology, Lucifer's Fall from Grace is never explained or his reasoning.

It just happened.

Did the War in heaven by any chance predate the existence of demons? Because them not being the spawn of fallen angels would itself help explain how Lucifer was corrupted.

Otherwise it might be because Lucifer himself became the embodiment of the idea of evil and sin itself. But that still dosen't address how specifically.

I think the idea of demons and fallen angels being separate entities is a fairly recent invention. In the Bible itself, AFAIK, the term "demon" is used exclusively to refer to the angels cast out alongside Lucifer.

Edited by HailMuffins on May 17th 2019 at 3:10:44 PM

To refer back to an earlier point where people were surprised I use religion for justification of expanding of horizons, I think it's interesting to note not all religions are necessarily exclusive. In the best periods of time in many countries, sycretic religion was not uncommon and you could believe in multiple ones simultaneously.

I've always been fascinated by the Buddhist blind monk and the elephant parable.

@Morning Star 1337: In orthodox Christian theology, 'demon' and 'fallen angel' are synonymous. Lucifer is presumably the first, though the bible does not explicitly state this.

That's what Theosophists, and Nazis, thought. The religions all point out to a hidden truth that only the gifted and initiated could perceive.

Edited by Oruka on May 17th 2019 at 11:24:31 AM

It's also a very common point in Buddhism and Hinduism regarding the supernatural that they are THE TRUTH versus lesser truths.

While that's true, Buddhism also addresses that within its own teachings. In most Zen schools, at least in theory, you're meant to enlighten yourself. Other people can help, or hinder, but in the end it's up to you. There's also the concept of "expedient means", which are basically the high school science versions of the truth - condensed and not strictly speaking accurate, but a close approximation that can be understood by learners, who can then learn more details later when they have the basic framework settled.

Zen Buddhism is an interesting case: "No Truth" is the only truth.

I'd like to propose a debate topic about religion mythology and theology, specifically their interpretations. Some (particularly in defense of some of the nastier implications in certain stories) say the same about this topic as about literature or movies, that we should only judge or interpret them in the value set they were written in.

My personal counterargument to that would be 1, that these stories exist in many versions most of the time and were topics of intense debate right from the start, 2, that if our value systems can change enough to inspire changes in societal systems and legislature they can damn well change the way we analyse and judge the same stories, and 3, that we ourselves live in and grew up with certain (changeable) value sets too, so it's pretty hard to drop that lense to begin with, and we shouldn't really try to drop that lense in my opinion to excuse or explain away unfortunate implications.

What do y'all think?

Edited by akanesarumara on May 19th 2019 at 4:58:12 PM

Not just Zen. The Diamond Sutra expounds on the emptiness of any and all teachings of the Buddha (and the Buddha itself) as empty and fundamentally without self-nature. The different ways are just methods of realising this in the most suitable manner to the individual.

Presentism is a thing, and should be avoided when talking about history. As far as bringing ancient ideas to the present is concerned, societal shifts would render somethings just obsolete or plain wrong. The friction between what is and what should be is one of the central concerns religions have after all.

Edited by TerminusEst on May 19th 2019 at 8:15:45 AM

I meant it not as bringing back old ideas, but more in the sense of arguing "oh, this story/character you say is very misogynistic/racist/whathaveyou is really not, you're just trying to fit a round screw in a square hole, it's a product of its times"

Ah, so plain apologia? Well, that'll always exist. The problem is what type of analysis are you going for, there's quite a few.

Edited by TerminusEst on May 19th 2019 at 8:35:23 AM

Yep more or less. Values Dissonance is also going to be a thing, and it's not necessarily a bad thing that we feel that dissonance even if we perhaps are aware of the reasons for the differences (like, knowing that women were treated as property in Ancient Greece shouldn't stop you from noticing how rough a deal they had in the myths.)

"Look, wife, she didn't mean anything to me. It was just a bit of fun.◊ Look, just to show you how much I don't care, I turned her into a cow◊. How's that?!◊" "Hm... I'll still post a guy with a HUNDRED EYES to keep them ALL on her." Little did she know, hubby would send a fast dude to play music to the guard◊, so sweet that the guard fell straight asleep.◊ And then the fast guy murdered◊ the guard◊ and took the cow back to hubby. The end.

Brought to you by the Mercury Theatre.

Or fast guy would have gotten the cow back to hubby, except wife-y sent a gadfly to chase the poor cow halfway over the world.^note  Where cow met chained-up titan, who told cow she can only turn back to human if she goes back to hubby... because this way someone would be born generations later, incidentally of hubby himself, that would free chained-up titan. Wife-y sacred animal being cows just makes everything better too.

Sorry, couldn't resist. beautiful pieces of art.

On a serious note though, interestingly some versions I heard tell of Io's particular story were like "Zeus was so bad at hiding this particular affair that Hera caught up with them before he did anything to her." Not that it excuses anything but she is the only paramour of Zeus I saw where he is prevented from having his way with her.

Speaking of fast guys, I don't remember Hera ever being able to do anything against Hermes or his mother Maia either. And no, it's not because "he was born before she was married to Zeus so technically she had to live with it" - Hermes is younger than Apollo, whose mother Hera cursed so no land with roots in the ocean will suffer her to stop for long enough to give birth.

Edited by akanesarumara on May 19th 2019 at 7:35:19 PM

iirc Maia was Genre Savvy enough to hide out in a cave, away from Hera's notice, to have and raise Hermes. When Hermes was grown he made himself pretty useful; he was the messenger of the gods and had a lot of miscellaneous jobs including shepherd of souls, so Hera didn't really punish him.

The most she did to divine kids is driving Dionysus temporarily mad; most of her vindictiveness is aimed at the demigod kid or mortal woman. Maia was a Titan, thus divine, but Leto was a nymph and Semi-Divine. Leto also didn't hide away, so she was an easy target for Hera.

Edited by ILikeRobots on May 19th 2019 at 10:52:51 AM

I think it might depend on how obvious Zeus was about his flings partly. Boasting and partying about Heracles basically led to the worst Hera reaction.

Like, in most of his animal/rain transformations, the fling usually ends up safely. Perhaps Herc would be luckier in life if Zeus didn't throw a party after disguising himself pretty well as Amphitryon. But when he tries transforming the lady he had his way with instead of hiding them in the sticks (Leto, Maia and Europa got off pretty safely) or just has them wandering around boasting about their relationship with him (poor, poor Semele) it ended up very poorly.

Hera's patience is weird, in a nutshell?

Edited by alekos23 on May 19th 2019 at 10:19:45 PM

The fandoms of Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, and My Little Pony have nothing on the Classical fandoms of Greek Mythology and The Bible (and Christian Saints and Martyrs). You are going to see the exact same episode, vignette, or story with reboots, sequels, prequels, retreads, revisions, directors' cuts, uncensored versions, adaptations of adaptations of adaptations, alternate endings, fix fics, possession sues, composite characters... You'll see a single phrase being obsessed over, looked at from every possible angle, milked for every little bit of importance, relevance, meaning, wisdom that it could possibly be worth, and beyond. There's intense debates on Subs Vs Dubs, which words it is okay to leave untranslated, how literal or idiomatic translations should be. People will dress up as the main characters, or make an immense deal of extremely obscure side-characters with brief and humiliating appearances. They'll be very particular about parts they like and they dislike.

My point is fandom stuff is Older Than Dirt.

I remember one story had Medea marry Achilles in the Underworld.

That strikes me as the original Fix Fic.

Mind you, even with Values Dissonance, the fact so many audiences sided with Medea over the centuries is something I've always been amused by.

speaking of fandoms, equating religions to fandoms does make the ridiculous elements of them pretty clear

Probably because pretty much everyone and their grandmother can recognise that with the nature of Greek mythology being what it is, Medea's original characterization was 'a capable female deuteragonist with a mind of her own who doesn't play second fiddle to the male lead' and therefore generation upon generation of Ancient Greek misogynist asshole decided to add so many ever-escalating villainous actions to what was originally her epilogue in order to put down this uppity woman that her original main story ended up as more of a prologue.

Edited by Robrecht on May 19th 2019 at 12:58:47 PM

You can also make the comparison to anything like politics and ideology.

:)

Honestly, I felt like the assumption things were added to be a dangerous one. One of the things we discussed about Beowulf was the theory that the poem had to be a Pre-Christian one that had Christian elements added later.

My response was, "Would you believe the same of the Lord of the Rings?"

It's possible a Christian author just came up with a really badass story.

In the case of Medea, nothing prevents her from having the ruthless elements of her character that are, in many ways, some of her most interesting elements. Its the assumption Lighter and Softer is automatically the original.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 19th 2019 at 4:00:34 AM

Except for the fact that we have several written versions of Medea's story and you can literally track their chronology by how much post-Jason villainy is added.

Also, regarding Beowulf:

Yeah, you could indeed say the exact same thing about Lord of the Rings.

You know... the Lord of the Rings that gets its concept of Elves and Dwarves from pre-Christian Germanic mythology and calls its world 'Middle Earth' as a direct translation of the name of the world in pre-Christian Germanic religious cosmology.

No elements of pre-Christian stories there, all Original Creations by Tolkien, do not steal.

Edited by Robrecht on May 19th 2019 at 1:15:38 PM