Bible does not describe or mention hell as we understand it. Our vision of hell is constructed upon drawings of Hieronymus Bosch, who drew inspiration from Visio Tnugdali, a 12th century manuscript describing a bad trip of a knight from Cork.
See you next time.
This is why they don’t want people reading. Literacy will have you picking apart common narratives and questioning interpretations of the bullshit those in power have spoon fed you your entire life.
The fact it was edited down to condone owning people is diabolical and should be a perfect reason to hate religion.
I never understood how in 2,000 years or whatever, after all the translations and obvious edits for personal gain, no one thought to change the name of the tree from “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
God forbidding (lol) Adam and Eve from seeking knowledge automatically puts him in the bad camp.
Real answer: It’s not that knowledge is itself evil. It’s that by obtaining the knowledge of good and evil, mankind was responsible for its actions.
The idea is that animals aren’t capable of being good or evil because they have no knowledge of the concept. Whereas humanity’s knowledge and understanding means we’re aware of the morality of our actions.
To put it in a more contemporary, non-religous context - you can’t blame or judge invasive Kudzu or Bark Beeltes for the environmental damage they cause because they aren’t aware of their impact. Humans are aware, and should be held to account for their actions.
Love your response. I see people trying to dunk by just focusing on “knowledge” constantly.
Leaving out the extra words and details feels the same to me as a news outlet blowing up a stupid thing a politician says simply by ignoring a few words before and after the quote.
you can’t blame or judge invasive Kudzu or Bark Beeltes
maybe you can’t, dawg. godsdamned homalodisca vitripennis can suck my numerous buttholes.
deleted by creator
A curious flaw in that story is that Adam and Eve were supposed to know in advance that disobeying and eating from the tree is wrong, before they had knowledge of what wrongness or disobedience is.
I like the evolutionary interpretation, that humans developed the capacity for social cooperation (including interpersonal ethics, moral good and evil) and then realized paradise (the natural world) was actually a bot of a quagmire, teeming with disease and parasites. They were less evicted as realized they could do better.
I like the evolutionary interpretation, that humans developed the capacity for social cooperation (including interpersonal ethics, moral good and evil) and then realized paradise (the natural world) was actually a bot of a quagmire, teeming with disease and parasites. They were less evicted as realized they could do better.
That’s not true. Before civilization, diseases were much rarer because people travelled together in small, consistent groups. Anthropological evidence suggests that the average person had better, more well rounded diets as well. Which isn’t really surprising, pre-civilization is literally the thing we had millions of years to adapt to.
Civilization brought about much higher rates of disease, and also came along side the introduction of class and slavery, which reduced the quality of life of the average person.
Slavery was not viable in hunter-gatherer societies, because slaves could not be sent out to forage or they’d just leave, and they can’t join hunts without being armed. With agriculture, you can sit on the porch with a bow and arrow and make other people do all the backbreaking labor, and with higher, more consistent yields, you can afford to hire an army of dedicated soldiers to go out and capture hunter-gatherer tribes to use as slaves, perpetuating the system.
It wasn’t that humanity just collectively decided to do cities instead of tribes, and it wasn’t like everyone in cities wanted to be there. But once cities were established, systemic forces caused them to expand and become dominant.
This is what the story of Eden is actually about. Once humanity became aware of agriculture and civilization, we no longer had the ability to remain in the state of nature that we were adapted to, where our brains were evolved to make us happy and satisfied, and faced with problems that our brains aren’t designed to handle or cope with.
Nowadays, yes, we have things like medicine and vaccines and basic hygiene, but those things were only developed in the past few hundred years. From the first cities until then, cities were perfect vectors for the disease, tons of people clumped together, just dumping waste on the streets.
I’m pretty sure there were still infectious diseases. Bacteria don’t have to exist inside a host, and viruses sometimes jump species. It also explains why our hindbrains want a small homogeneous community and start distrusting the Jews and Romani even in a village of only a thousand. Small tribes that don’t like each other much are less likely to communicate a pathogen between each other.
If infectious diease was not a concern in the bush ages, the capacity to organize larger groups would prevail over their xenophobic cousins, but in civilization we actively have to train kids tolerance of other races and creeds, since their hindbrains are super eager to faction up and wage war on the next block over.
I remember from my anthropology class it was livestock that served as a catalyst for both the propagation of infectious disease and community resistance, usually after a sequence of outbreaks and die offs. But that’s not to say plagues weren’t a problem prior to agriculture.
Of course diseases still existed in hunter-gatherer societies, they just didn’t have the capacity to spread as far. If, for example, during COVID, everyone had formed groups of say 100 people and those 100 people only ever interacted with each other, that would have made it very difficult for the virus to spread. Obviously, that’s impossible today because we are too interconnected, but that was more or less how hunter-gatherer tribes tended to function.
Disease wasn’t a significant limiting factor in the size of those groups because there were other limiting factors. One is resource availability. Without agriculture, what the land naturally produces is what’s available, and larger groups would require more resources. Another factor is social dynamics. The larger a group is, the less likely you are to personally know everyone in the group. Informal collective decision making also gets harder as you scale up, with smaller groups, it’s possible for everyone’s concerns to be heard and accommodated.
The extent to which xenophobia is a product of nature rather than nurture is debatable. I would argue that racist attitudes are taught and passed down, usually informally, rather than being innate. Growing up, I learned one set of stereotypes about Japanese people and another set of stereotypes about Chinese people. The origins of those stereotypes can be traced historically, and it’s not as though everyone comes up with stereotypes on their own and they just happened to arrive at the same ones.
I would say the thing that is more evolutionarily ingrained in us is “Dunbar’s Number,”, which limits the size of our direct social in-group to around 150 people, likely consistent with the size of hunter-gatherer tribes. Modern ideas of race or nationality obviously present an in-group that goes far beyond that number, which suggests that those ideas are learned rather than innate. There is a degree that we have to be taught how to function in a world with regular interactions with strangers in general, but I would argue that treating people differently based on race or other characteristics is learned behavior. Though of course, everyone starts in a state of ignorance and ignorance of someone’s culture can lead to accidental offenses and misunderstandings.
The bible, as we know it, was canonized from the available religious scripts/scrolls of the time. The original work was a quilt of chosen stories designed to tell a narrative. No, no, that’s too Jewish, no, that’s too Muslim. I think there’s not enough wife beating in here, have you considerd…
Any changes in translation are still pale compared ot the section and organiztion of the source material that honestly wasn’t great to begin with. Even at that, whatever it says, preachers place their own spins on it. Whatever it take to get those donations…
And just because one religion didn’t there are other religions out there that are STILL coming up with more source content :)
Wasn’t it that God cast Lucifer down into Hell for asking too many questions?
And that Christianity rules over people with fear that they won’t get into Heaven if they don’t worship God correctly enough?
It makes sense that they’d lie about what Hell is like to lure you over to their side.
I bet Satan is actually a pretty chill dude and everyone just hangs out doing drugs, having crazy sex, and listening to metal all the time.
IIRC, current Catholic view is that Satan got upset that God treated humanity so nicely, to the point of giving us his only son to murder in order to redeem us. But earlier Christian views, and Judaism, has no war in Heaven. Satan was not cast out, is not in charge of, or trapped in, Hell. Satan was the Judaic version of Nemesis, the angel God sent to test mortals.
Also, Lucifer as a name for Satan is a mistranslation. A Hebrew prophet tried to warn the Babylonian king not to make the tower of Babel. He used an analogy the king would recognize, and compared him to a myth from the Babylonian pantheon. The pantheon was ruled by the two brightest celestial bodies, the sun and moon gods. The third brightest celestial body, Venus, tried to usurp them. His rebellion was put down, and he was forced to repeat his unsuccessful coup for eternity as punishment. This is a reference to the fact that the inner planets, Venus, and the as-yet undiscovered Mercury, never fully cross the sky. They rise, traverse, and then reverse and set the same direction they rose from. The whole of the myth wasn’t spelled out in the Bible, but enough was described that it did sound very similar to the war in Heaven, so a translator assumed Lucifer must be a name for Satan. They liked it so much they sprinkled it around in some other places top. Which is how Satan came to be known as Venus/Lucifer the evening/morning star.
I always thought it was Satan was given a promotion for dissenting.
God cast Lucifer down into Hell for asking too many questions?
I mean, it’s a mythology that changes based on who is telling the tale, so…
Yeah, sure, if that’s the story you want to tell.
But other reasons range:
- He tried to create stuff from nothing, a thing only God is capable of doing, and was cast out for this blasphemy
- He fucked God’s Wife (Lilith, the First Woman)
- He taught humanity to defy God by lying, which is the True Original Sin
- He was dispatched by God, deliberately, as a Loyal Opposition and all part of the Great Plan
- That shit ain’t even in the Bible, you’re a heretic for believing it
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?
Die, Heretic!
No, wait, I thought it was all made up fairy tales intended to intimidate and control people.
I mean yeah, if we’re being real it’s all just a load of shit to give people something to fear so they have some reason to not rape and steal and murder so much.
And she brought forth her hardcorest son, and wrapped him in denim and leather, and kicked him out to heaven; because there was no room for them in hell.
Fine, I will watch Belzeboss again. It’s been more than a week, anyway.
Also remember in the Bible Satan killed 10 people for coming into his house to kill him which is very understandable on the other hand. God killed over 2 million people for the crime of not believing in him makes you wonder who really is the bad guy…
Satan’s house is just a place you can go to?
Maybe if we knock and brought a bottle?
Proper etiquette.
Only if you’re invited it seems.
Yea, you never been?…
As someone who was raised Catholic, but learned to think for myself I can tell you: there is no way Satan is PUNISHING bad people. If Satan wants to spread evil and chaos he would be REWARDING bad people NOT punishing them.
Um… May I draw your attention to all the psychopaths & pedophiles currently running the world & reveling in wealth & luxury? Bad people are absolutely being rewarded. The concept of God vs Satan is debatable but there is definitely some horrific fuckery afoot.
Something about being a jealous god is a huge red flag.
You have encountered Gnostic thought (and related heresies!) The Gnostics believed that the God of the Christian Old Testament was actually Satan all along. It is an interesting rabbit hole to fall down into.
It’s interesting to think of the world religions that could have been, had the scales of power tipped in different directions. Gnosticism is an interesting take on Abrahamic religions, almost like a blend of Christianity and Buddhism.
There were even literal Greek Buddhists before there were Greek Christians. Heck, Christianity as we know it might not have survived without the original Greek drafts of the New Testament. There’s another universe out there where the eastern Greco-Romans were way too busy with the karmic cycle and achieving enlightenment to worry about the execution of some random guy with daddy issues in the desert.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the giant Buddha statue that the Taliban blew up in Afghanistan several years ago was Greek work.
There are also plenty of accounts from (I think) the Abassid empire where Greeks and Buddhists were both present in Baghdad at the same time. I forget why that ended, maybe because of the Seljuks or the Mongols, can’t remember.
And of course, there’s an account in the Buddhist canon of a philosophical debate between a buddhist monk (Nagasena) and a Greek king named Menander (Milinda in Pali), which took place in the first or second century BC.
But damn… thinking about a world where Greco-Buddhism became the religion of the West… what could’ve been, eh?
Some say Jesus was actually influenced a lot by Buddhist philosophy or even has been to India
Also by stoicism. Remember Stoicism (but, like, actual Stoicism, not the tiktok-alfa-male “stoicism”) was very popular among both Roman and Greek people at that time, so…
God that sounds like such a better world.
Who says that was a different universe? You should understand by now how history frequently forgets such peaceful people in favor of the authoritarian de jure.
Turns out, humanity and its ilk hell bent on insisting they’re so important are just cancer. Pure and simple. Terminal cancer we’re all watching take hold.
What ilk? Like chimps?
🤪
Well, I’m not not gnostic. Or aagnostic, if you will.
Austrian Agricultural Nostic?
Ok, so now I’m wondering if Milton read the Gnostic texts. I’m still amazed that the church approved the publication of Paradise Lost, much less Paradise Regained.
ty for reminding me to crosspost
That would explain a lot of historical (and recent) behaviour by many Christians.
Satanic temple runs the after school satan project, which teaches kids science, critical thinking, and rationalism. Also, the Hellions Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL) project champions non-discrimination policies while offering secular-aligned values like empathy, compassion, inclusion, and justice without religious coercion. Sessions feature hands-on projects, STEAM activities, arts, games, community service, and local history tours.
The christians think its inappropriate and want it shut down.
“NoOoOoOo, but they’re Satanists, they do satanic rites killing and eating children and making orgies!!1!1!!1”
Sheep go to heaven.
Goats…go to hell.
I don’t wanna go to sunset strip, I don’t wanna feel the emptiness
Gold marquees with stupid band names. I don’t wanna go to sunset strip.
Goats go to… HELL.
Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
Gnosticism coded.
is there a community that treats the bible as pure literature? like a character deconstruction, perhaps examining god’s motive, or things like that. with absolutely 0 literal or figurative interpretation, no bashing or deconstructing beliefs, just treating it like the odyssey or harry potter
You should read paradise lost.
Paradise lost is largely pulled from Zoroastrianism influence on Christianity, not the bible. The Bible is largely devoid of depictions of satan or hell, traditionally describing evil as an absence of God. Zoroastrianism’s influence on Christianity introduced a lot of the dualistic themes of evil vs good and heaven vs hell that is so prominent in evangelical Christianity that we know today.
The post is about good and evil, which is why I brought up paradise lost, because of the themes revolving around good and evil. I wasn’t suggesting it because I believed it was influenced by the bible. At the start of the poem Satan is trying to reclaim heaven. He’s the underdog, which sort of makes him the hero. It sort of flips the script on good and evil by making Satan the underdog. When Satan gets to earth and decides to fuck with god’s creation, (man,) god is like, “OK chat, what are we going to do about this?” God’s only son is like, “I’ll sacrifice myself to save man, it’s ok though, because I’m just going to end up back in heaven anyway.” When I read those lines, my though process was like, is it even really a sacrifice if he just goes back to heaven anyway and knows that will be the outcome? If the only son wasn’t really sacrificing anything, was he really the good guy? Is holding back knowledge from your “children,” really a benign act?
The post is about good and evil
I thought you were responding to the person who asked if there was a good literary deconstruction of the Bible?
My point was that Paradise lost is a good literary deconstruction of how people interpret the duality of good and evil, but that duality is largely not found in the actual Bible.
That would be cool. I have the great displeasure of knowing too much about the bible.
It would be fun to discuss it in a place where its given the same level of believability (0%) that I carry for it.
How people interpret the Bible for their shitty actions for the past 2000 years makes it a really important book - whether you believe it or not. In that case alone knowing this book better is probably a good thing.
Yes, communities that read the bible as mythology are plentiful, usually in academic circles. Biblical scholarship features a lot of this, comparing tropes in the text with other mythical tropes to get at what was going on.
Dan McClellan bounces between sorting out more precise translations of the original Hebrew / Aramaic / Koine Greek, and then mythical deconstruction of biblical stories to get at the intentions of their original authors.
That really is how we should treat it tbh!
God flooded the zone
He always were.
Catharism says that the Old Testament “God” is Satan and Jesus was the real God who entered Satan’s Earth and said, "Don’t listen to this shit. This is fake. Just ignore it and love everyone.
“I will return after this world has turned to shit, and I will save those who understand the real point, and leave the rest of you to reality, giving you eternal life. Then I will return again and kick the fuck out of Satan after you have had a thousand years under his hellscape and then decide to either forgive you and bring you home, or simply destroy you, because you still didn’t learn your lesson.”
I am irreligious, but just saying what the Cathars believed, which actually does match the story of the Bible.
Or it is all aliens. Maybe it’s aliens. Maybe. It is definitely aliens.
Next on the History Channel: did velociraptors work along side Hitler to plan for a fourth reich in Antartica? Maybe. But it was probably aliens.
This is also the general gnostic view. Yaldabaoth the deciever.
That was “Satan’s” unspeakable name. We shortened it to YHWH.
Satan just means adversary. Baal simply means Lord and as it was translated, some references to Baal were switched to God and others to Satan.
Now, some views separate YHWH and Satan: one example of contention is the story of Job, however, it could be argued that the demiurge was arguing with himself to test the limits of his creations’ loyalty.
Or we are genetically engineered great apes by the Annunaki. Depends on if you prefer spiritual or sci-fi.
Actual Bible study is fucking fun! God would smite people from a flaming flying craft with “pillars of light”… you mean lasers? And angels would come down from this ball of fire and talk to the humans. I am not saying it was aliens, but it was definitely aliens.
Laser Raptors aren’t unheard of in Kung Führer’s universe.
that does make some sense to me
And by destroy, I mean simply cease to exist. Exactly what atheists expect, and only using the group to point out their approach.
The fire and brimstone for all eternity shit?
Someone tell me where that is in the Bible.
I am being serious, not pompous or any shit. I am a Bible nerd, and that sounds like a fun deep dive, if you can get me started.
Again, honest.
God that would condemn anyone to eternity of torture is more scary thought than anything else. Maybe scarier than there being chance of being damned in the first place. Especially since it would mean that god is not good, forgiving or loving. To think that church would claim such thing as hell would even exist just proves that they have betrayed their mission for secular power. Got to have something to scare the people with so they keep obeying.
Though I think what it says in bible is that hell is that God doesnt protect you anymore, which i think could be conjectured to mean you are free prey to anything and everything or that existence without god would be just as bad. But that church hasnt set the record straight either also tells something.
I once had kind of crisis of faith and sought a priest to talk about stuff. I couldnt find one in the church of my former own religion (evangelic lutherian) so i ended up contacting someone from… i think its called “free church”, as I have a friend who is part of it and he seems quite sensible good to talk to about things. The guy ended up being rather horrible person (as in, he thinks what trump is doing is at least partly good) and it was quite clear all he cared about was to convert me to their cult. I remember questioning he existence of hell to him and from what i recall he answered, he said something along the lines that people have been focusing too much on god’s forgiveness. His meaning being there is too much carrot and not enough stick. It was many years ago and i dont have good memory to begin with, but I still remember the general sentiment. Funniest thing was that i had much better and helpful conversation in my own head before meeting the “priest”, with the mental image of the priest that i hadnt met yet.
It also doesnt help much that christianity is huge amalgam of different religions that have been destroyed and taken over. The whole world “hell” likely comes from norse god Hel and the concept from her domain (people who dont go to valhalla go to hels domain, i think. and valhalla being the “heaven” equivalent in eyes of christian priests as why they would try to understand other religions beyond how to convert people away from them)
I think the core thing from the true god, or whatever would be appropriate term here, has likely always been very simple and clear. Then over time more and more crap got attached to it to serve bigger and smaller goals for religious leaders. Maybe they thought goals justify the means, maybe they cared more about secular power or even didnt really bealieve what they preached in the first place but saw it as handy tool. Sometimes i also wonder if the potential evil thing that rules this world is actively working towards corrupting anything that could help people from being actually saved from here.
I have nothing to sell you, but seoul is simply destruction.
Not the same as the Norse Hel. Europeans tried to translate the Bible, and it got convulted. Then even further, it was purposefully manipulated.
Just a facepalm after another.
The story of Jesus is actually very interesting, as well as the story of Satan. I mean, if people understood the story better, Disney would buy the rights.
/sardonism
