Sympathy for the Devil
Jan. 11th, 2009 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatWhile I certainly wouldn't say Satan is a nice guy (after all, his whole point is that he's the source of all evil, right?), I can't help feeling somewhat sorry for him, at least as he's portrayed in popular culture and religion. I mean, if the Bible is correct, he obviously knows the scriptures and is aware that he's going to lose in the end (which can't seem that far away to an immortal being), but he just keeps soldiering on anyway. I guess the Norse gods were sort of similar, in that they all knew they'd die at Ragnarok, but still went on with the deitizing. It's one of the worst kinds of fatalism, isn't it? Mind you, Satan certainly keeps busy, what with his ruling Hell, running the music industry, controlling most of the world's religions (all of them except whatever one the person talking at the time believes in, apparently), disguising himself as every pagan deity, corrupting the world's governments, AND still being willing to make personal appearances in order to tempt relative nobodies and gain control of their souls. So what does he want with all those souls? Yeah, he tortures them, but you'd think it would be a tad bit difficult to torture someone with no physical form, and it would have to get boring eventually, right? If he's the evil genius people seem to think he is, sticking pitchforks into people's asses couldn't possibly be particularly intellectually fulfilling for him. Really, the fundamentalist version of Satan HAS to be bored, if he's going out and doing all this stuff on Earth despite getting most of humanity's souls by default.
While there really isn't much detail about the Devil in the Bible itself, popular theology has painted him as God's favorite angel, who was cast out of Heaven when he tried to steal the big guy's throne. But was he simply greedy and power-hungry, or did he honestly want to make some changes in the way things were being done? What with the vengeful, destructive way God is always acting in the Old Testament, I could see a group of angels resorting to rebellion after their polite suggestions were repeatedly shot down by the boss. The Qur'an actually says that Iblis (the Islamic name for Satan) was cast out of Heaven after refusing to bow down to Adam, even though there doesn't seem to have been any particular reason for him to do so.
Once again, the serpent in Genesis is not explicitly referred to as Satan, and was more likely intended to be an actual literal snake (the story about the serpent being forced to crawl on its belly and eat dust as punishment for its transgressions has a definite air of the "how the leopard got his spots" type of fables). He's popularly identified as the Devil, though, which would mean Satan was responsible for bringing wisdom to mankind. Wait, if Satan is the one who tempts people toward evil, yet he was the one who gave them the ability to tell good from evil in the first place...that doesn't quite add up, does it? Or maybe it's just further evidence of his having to take entertainment where he could find it. I think the Gnostics might have been on to something after all.
While there really isn't much detail about the Devil in the Bible itself, popular theology has painted him as God's favorite angel, who was cast out of Heaven when he tried to steal the big guy's throne. But was he simply greedy and power-hungry, or did he honestly want to make some changes in the way things were being done? What with the vengeful, destructive way God is always acting in the Old Testament, I could see a group of angels resorting to rebellion after their polite suggestions were repeatedly shot down by the boss. The Qur'an actually says that Iblis (the Islamic name for Satan) was cast out of Heaven after refusing to bow down to Adam, even though there doesn't seem to have been any particular reason for him to do so.
Once again, the serpent in Genesis is not explicitly referred to as Satan, and was more likely intended to be an actual literal snake (the story about the serpent being forced to crawl on its belly and eat dust as punishment for its transgressions has a definite air of the "how the leopard got his spots" type of fables). He's popularly identified as the Devil, though, which would mean Satan was responsible for bringing wisdom to mankind. Wait, if Satan is the one who tempts people toward evil, yet he was the one who gave them the ability to tell good from evil in the first place...that doesn't quite add up, does it? Or maybe it's just further evidence of his having to take entertainment where he could find it. I think the Gnostics might have been on to something after all.
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Date: 2009-01-12 12:23 am (UTC)After having had some lengthy online conversations with Satanists in chatrooms, I haven't found them to be any worse than Christians in terms of morals. They're just honest about why they do what they do.
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Date: 2009-01-12 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 02:03 am (UTC)Probably the worst thing I can say about Satanism is that it leans too far towards making excuses for unnecessarily destructive behaviour. That in itself is enough to prevent me from converting to it. That being said, I can find things to agree with (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Satan#The_main_texts_of_Satanism) in Satanism as I can with Christianity, Buddhism, &c.
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Date: 2009-01-12 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-13 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 09:27 am (UTC)As you note, the serpent in the Eden story isn't explicitly identified as Satan, though the role he plays is similar. In this case, though, the serpent probably originates in the same body of pre-Biblical folklore from whence Lilith and the "giants in the earth" arise; in that iteration of the Old Testament creation story, there are races that predate Adam and Eve (notably the nephilim, aka the aforementioned giants). It's also worth noting that even in the Gospels, Satan is not generally understood to be coequal with God; he tempts and threatens, but never defies God's (or Jesus') expressed will.
I'm not certain of Milton's sources for the Lucifer myth as told in Paradise Lost, but the popular conception of Satan/Lucifer certainly derives very largely from a fusion of Milton's Lucifer and from Mephistophelis in Marlowe's Faustus;. A lot of the codification of classical demonology also comes out of the medieval/Elizabethan period; Hell itself seems to be largely derived from the classical Greek and Roman underworld by way of Dante, albeit with a bit more fire and brimstone.
Satanism, in a modern context, is something else yet again. To the extent that there's such a thing as organized Satanism, it's centered on the Church of Satan as founded by Anton LaVey and the various offshoots thereof. That sort of Satanism has very little to do with Christian or pre-Christian mythology; rather, it's a mode of deliberately self-centric conduct dressed in black and flavored with a sprinkling of magickal ritual. Its practitioners, if not exactly harmless, are rarely dangerous and certainly not intrinsically evil.
Now what gets called Satanism -- and what might better be described as "anti-Christian occultism" -- is (a) a whole lot rarer than horror fiction and tabloid journalism may suggest, but (b) almost always really bad news if you do happen to run across it. The thing is, in today's world it's just short of impossible to run a "real" classically Satanic cult (holding blood sacrifices, trying to summon demons, casting evil spells on the neighbors) without being noticed by said neighbors. Also, the kind of person who likes to hold blood sacrifices, summon demons, and cast evil spells tends to be the sort who doesn't play well with others. So what you get instead of Satanic cults are weirdo lone-wolf occultists who evolve into sociopaths.
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Date: 2009-01-12 04:18 pm (UTC)I actually know someone who was murdered by a self-professed Satanist-- and I add that, granted, she was also mentally ill; but then her victim was mentally ill as well (and a good practicing Catholic) so it's hardly a good excuse!
I'll reply to the original post here:
I suppose it says something good about the state of my soul that this whole conversation sickens me. But it's also kind of good to point out that even modern-day Satanism as practiced by non-sociopaths (or psychopaths-- does being a murderer automatically push one over the line from socio- to psycho-?) is pretty much the antithesis of what I personally believe Christianity is all about-- selfishness vs. selflessness-- which helps me feel a bit more confident about my Faith in the face of all the fundies who try to tell me I'm Doing It Wrong.
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Date: 2009-01-12 11:49 pm (UTC)The story of Satan being cast out of Heaven might well come from the description of war in Heaven from Revelation 12. And from what I've heard, the concept of the Devil changed somewhat with the Jews' exposure to Zoroastrianism, in which the representatives of good and evil are fairly evenly matched. I remember reading something by the Essenes about a constant struggle between the forces of light and darkness, and the Book of Enoch has a story about rebellious angels led by Azazel being cast into Hell. The idea of Satan's fall was quite possibly intended as a way to connect the old view of the Adversary as God's personal prosecuting attorney with the newer Persian-inspired take on the Devil as God's greatest nemesis.
Hell itself seems to be largely derived from the classical Greek and Roman underworld by way of Dante, albeit with a bit more fire and brimstone.
Dante refers specifically to several characters from Greek and Roman mythology being in his Hell. I remember Greek mythology books stating that Hades was made up of three different sections: the eternally dreadful Tartarus, the eternally blissful Elysian Fields, and the eternally boring Plain of Asphodel. That might have been a somewhat later development in Greek religious thought, though. The Old Testament world of the dead is Sheol, which seems to have been a pretty similar concept to Asphodel, or the Scandinavian Hel. The idea of the dead being rewarded or punished for their deeds in life seems like a more recent concept, relatively speaking.
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Date: 2009-01-12 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 11:50 pm (UTC)