Disclaimer: I'm an atheist and no certainly i'm not a satanist. Ok let's begin it's going to be a very long read so bear with me and no tldr version of it
I was just pondering the mythology of the bible and stumbled upon something that I thought would make for interesting debate on this forum.
According the text of the bible itself, Lucifer was the good guy and God was the evil one.
Here’s the logic, based on the bible itself.
Lucifer was an angel who was pissed that angels, who were divine, immortal and created first by god were created as slaves of god while humans were favored with free will. Lucifer claimed that angles should be treated at least as well as humans and convinced many other angels of this as well.
God told them to shut up and obey, Lucifer launched a rebellion to overthrow the Tyrant who was denying angels their rights and lost.
He and his supporters where exiled from heaven and ended up on earth. Since history is written by the victors their dominion was renamed, “hell” and the supporters of Lucifer labeled as “demons” and Lucifer himself was made into the epitome of evil.
BUT what exactly did Lucifer do that was evil? Let’s examine the evidence.
1. Convinced Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Counter point: God created Adam and Eve to be stupid and amusing pets. He built a nice zoo complete with landscaping, food, water, ECT. But insisted we remain stupid and ignorant of the truth.
When Lucifer told Eve that knowledge is not evil and that Truth is a good thing, she used her free will and logic, (given by god) to come to the conclusion that eating the apple would be a good thing.
God flips out that his asinine rule was broken, (today we call those who try to forcibly keep truth from their subjects dictators and tyrants) kicks out Adam and Eve and proclaims that their descendents will be punished for all eternity, (thus inventing original sin and showing himself to be a giant **** who holds insane grudges).
2. Goads God into the Story of Job.
Background: Job was a god fearing, righteous man who exalted god daily for his healthy family, bountiful crops and livestock and wonderful home.
God boasted to Lucifer of how much Job loved him. Lucifer said it’s because god had given Job such a sweet life. God proceeded to kill Jobs family, destroy his crops and livestock and demolish his home. Job still exalted god, thus proving his loyalty and faith.
Counter point.
Kim Jong IL calls Barrack Obama and tells him of his top general, a man called Ming, who loves Kim Jong IL immensely and tells him everyday what a wonderful leader he is. Obama tells Kim it’s because he has bribed the general with a fine life, of a large house, riches, women and power.
Kim calls in General Ming and his family. Before the general Kim Jong IL shoots the man’s family, then announces that his bank account is gone and his home burned to the ground. General Ming drops to his knees and begs Kim Jong IL to forgive him for whatever he did to displease the dear leader. He exalts the Dictator like never before because he is convinced the tyrant has gone insane and will now kill him.
Kim Jong IL is pleased and calls Obama to gloat that General Ming has proven his loyalty despite Kim destroying his life.
Replace Kim Jong IL with God, General Ming with Job and Obama with Lucifer and you have the story of Job. Now I ask you who is the bad guy in that story? Obama? Or Kim Jong IL?
3. Lucifer tries to get Jesus to save himself rather than be crucified.
Now let’s look at the story of Jesus dieing for the sins of mankind more closely.
Jesus was sent by his dad to be tortured to death by humans because the first humans had used their god given free will to choose knowledge over ignorance, thus disobeying god.
God, the eternal prick that he will soon be shown to be, held a grudge for millennia against the descendents of Adam and Eve, until one day he decides he can forgive humans, BUT only if he stages a dramatic murder of his son at the hands of the same humans he can now forgive.
Rather than just declare humans forgiven, he decides to stage a snuff show that he will lord over humanity for eternity, guilting us into obeying him, (we have too because Jesus died for our sins at the command of his insane father)
For pointing out the insanity of god’s actions and telling Jesus he doesn’t have to die and shouldn’t, Lucifer is called evil.
Now where in the Bible does Lucifer ever kill anyone or do anything we would consider evil? I can’t think of any.
But do you know who is the biggest ******* and bloodthirsty murderer? God, let’s examine the evidence.
1. Kicking out Adam and Eve from paradise for eating from the fruit of knowledge.
As explained previously, knowledge is something all should strive for and not shun because their dictator tells them to avoid it.
2. Tower of Babel
At one time all people spoke the same language. They decided to get together and build a tower so high it could reach heaven, (a foolish idea since humans have gone into space and not found heaven thus it is not a place the builders of the tower could ever have reached).
God was so angered by what he saw as arrogance by the people that he smashed the tower and scatted them all over the earth, making them speak different languages so that they could never again understand each other enough to work on another tower.
Note that the misunderstanding the results from different languages results in countless wars that kill many tens of millions of people.
Counter point.
You work in Japan, your toddler child who lives in New York tells you he is building a boat with his friends that he will use to cross the oceans and reach Tokyo.
You fly into a rage, smash his boat, and then kidnap your child’s friends and leave them at different end s of the city and make each child unable to understand, (inevitably leading to misunderstanding and hatred) other children. You are left secure in the thought that your child will never be so arrogant to try to build a homemade raft to circle the earth again.
Now what would we think of such a parent? We would put their child in protective service and probably put the parent in jail or at least in a psychiatric hospital because they are obviously crazy and in need of professional help.
But when god does its suddenly ok and the fault of the kids for attempting to work together to accomplish an impossible task?
3. Noah’s Ark and the flood.
God gave humans free will to decide for ourselves whether or not to obey him. Most people chose not to. So God decided to kill everyone on earth, including millions of innocent babies, as well as every plant and animal.
He then decides to spare one family, a family that does obey him, because then the descendents will be more likely to obey him.
Now when god speaks to Noah, Noah is aware of whom god is, because obviously some people do believe in god and obey him. The millions of god fearing and god obeying people who are not part of Noah’s family? Well **** them too, they can die with all the innocent babies god suddenly feels like drowning.
When god is done drowning the world, (why the need to kill all those animals, why not just send a plague to target the wicked, thus sparing all the faithful and the babies?) he promises to never drown it again, (though he could destroy it in some other way).
What amazes me is that the story of Noah is told to children as an example of god’s love.
WAIT A SECOND! God commits the greatest act of genocide in history, kills more people than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined and then we are told that Lucifer is the evil one?
4. Killing the first born of Egypt
So the Israelites are forced into exile, go to Egypt where they are enslaved by the Egyptians. God sends Moses to free his people. Pharaoh refuses and orders the first born son of each Israeli family killed.
Before that can be carried out, god sends the angel of death to kill the first born of every Egyptian family. Not just Pharaoh’s son, but every first born son in Egypt.
This act of genocide is commemorated by the holiday of Passover.
Why is god punishing innocent people, many of them children for the barbarity of one man?
And why is it ok when he does it?
5. Ordering genocide in his name
Specifically I am referring to ordering the Israelites, now freed from Egypt, to attack and kill the Canaanites, including every man, women and child, even the dogs!
Not only does god love to commit genocide but apparently he loves to make us humans do it too!
Of course, some religious folks will say, “Any thing god does is by definition moral, evening mass murder or ordering mass murder in his name”.
Let me get this straight, killing scores of innocent men, women and children is ok, as long as god told you too? Isn’t that what Osama Bin Laden says he’s doing?
Or what about the 12 crusades that were launched in the Middle Ages? Those were ordered by the Popes who are supposedly infallible because they have a direct line to god.
6. Allowing rape, slavery, exploitation of women and all the other nasty shit that’s in “his good book”.
In the bible you’ll find examples of rape, incest, slavery and massive chauvinism all justified. Oh and let’s not forget the story of Abraham, ordered to sacrifice his own son. Lucky for him god chose to send an angel to stay Abraham’s hand at the last instant but really, why not just look into the man’s soul to determine the depth of his faith, isn’t god suppose to be all knowing? Must he really order his follows to kill their own children to prove something to him?
So examining the evidence from the bible itself we have god, acting as the genocidal tyrant who gives us free will and the choice to obey or not, then kills us en mass for choosing wrong vs. Lucifer, the angel who’s only sin was to disagree with god and who thinks that all sentient beings have an inherent right to self determination and should use logic to think for themselves, (the basis of western civilization).
Who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy? Seems pretty obvious to me.
Moreover let me put this hypothetical before you.
If you did a survey of a thousand Americans and told them of a General Lao, a tyrannical and petty, grudge holding dictator of some Asian country and Commander Tzu an opposition leader who believed in self determination and logical thinking, (i.e. democracy) and who launched a failed coup attempt to unseat the despot General Lao, and asked them, “who do you support and who should the United States support?”
What do you think the results would be? Every one of them would say “Commander Tzu is the good guy and General Lao is the bad guy.” In fact many might say the US should send military aid to Commander Tzu.
Now what would those same people say if you told them that all the atrocities committed by General Lao were actually described in the bible as committed by God and the actions of Commander Tzu were committed by Lucifer?
Do you think that could give people some pause, perhaps give them some reason to think for themselves instead of blindly accepting propaganda and living instructions from some ancient “magic book” written millennia ago?
No, that's probably too much to ask. After all, Lucifer is the epitome of evil and God is all love and compassion, it says so in the bible
Please note, I am not arguing that Christians should abandon their faith and start worshiping Lucifer instead, (after all we are talking about mythology here, I would no more argue that someone should worship Ares over Zeus because one Greek god is an ******* and the other a cool guy) but rather that blindly accepting what’s written in some book as divine truth and deciding to live your life by it is foolish.
I find it amusing that so many fundamentalist Christians have no idea of what horrors lie within “the good book”.
These same people will point to me, a secular humanist who believes that humans must ban together to create a society in which all people have access to the basic necessities of life as well as a good education in order to ensure equality of opportunity so that we may all maximize our potentials and thus maximize aggregate happiness in the world, as an immoral person for not accepting what is in their magic book, yet they, who claim that “every word in the bible is literally true” are virtuous for blindly following orders from the greatest genocidal dictator of all time.
I was just pondering the mythology of the bible and stumbled upon something that I thought would make for interesting debate on this forum.
According the text of the bible itself, Lucifer was the good guy and God was the evil one.
Here’s the logic, based on the bible itself.
Lucifer was an angel who was pissed that angels, who were divine, immortal and created first by god were created as slaves of god while humans were favored with free will. Lucifer claimed that angles should be treated at least as well as humans and convinced many other angels of this as well.
God told them to shut up and obey, Lucifer launched a rebellion to overthrow the Tyrant who was denying angels their rights and lost.
He and his supporters where exiled from heaven and ended up on earth. Since history is written by the victors their dominion was renamed, “hell” and the supporters of Lucifer labeled as “demons” and Lucifer himself was made into the epitome of evil.
BUT what exactly did Lucifer do that was evil? Let’s examine the evidence.
1. Convinced Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Counter point: God created Adam and Eve to be stupid and amusing pets. He built a nice zoo complete with landscaping, food, water, ECT. But insisted we remain stupid and ignorant of the truth.
When Lucifer told Eve that knowledge is not evil and that Truth is a good thing, she used her free will and logic, (given by god) to come to the conclusion that eating the apple would be a good thing.
God flips out that his asinine rule was broken, (today we call those who try to forcibly keep truth from their subjects dictators and tyrants) kicks out Adam and Eve and proclaims that their descendents will be punished for all eternity, (thus inventing original sin and showing himself to be a giant **** who holds insane grudges).
2. Goads God into the Story of Job.
Background: Job was a god fearing, righteous man who exalted god daily for his healthy family, bountiful crops and livestock and wonderful home.
God boasted to Lucifer of how much Job loved him. Lucifer said it’s because god had given Job such a sweet life. God proceeded to kill Jobs family, destroy his crops and livestock and demolish his home. Job still exalted god, thus proving his loyalty and faith.
Counter point.
Kim Jong IL calls Barrack Obama and tells him of his top general, a man called Ming, who loves Kim Jong IL immensely and tells him everyday what a wonderful leader he is. Obama tells Kim it’s because he has bribed the general with a fine life, of a large house, riches, women and power.
Kim calls in General Ming and his family. Before the general Kim Jong IL shoots the man’s family, then announces that his bank account is gone and his home burned to the ground. General Ming drops to his knees and begs Kim Jong IL to forgive him for whatever he did to displease the dear leader. He exalts the Dictator like never before because he is convinced the tyrant has gone insane and will now kill him.
Kim Jong IL is pleased and calls Obama to gloat that General Ming has proven his loyalty despite Kim destroying his life.
Replace Kim Jong IL with God, General Ming with Job and Obama with Lucifer and you have the story of Job. Now I ask you who is the bad guy in that story? Obama? Or Kim Jong IL?
3. Lucifer tries to get Jesus to save himself rather than be crucified.
Now let’s look at the story of Jesus dieing for the sins of mankind more closely.
Jesus was sent by his dad to be tortured to death by humans because the first humans had used their god given free will to choose knowledge over ignorance, thus disobeying god.
God, the eternal prick that he will soon be shown to be, held a grudge for millennia against the descendents of Adam and Eve, until one day he decides he can forgive humans, BUT only if he stages a dramatic murder of his son at the hands of the same humans he can now forgive.
Rather than just declare humans forgiven, he decides to stage a snuff show that he will lord over humanity for eternity, guilting us into obeying him, (we have too because Jesus died for our sins at the command of his insane father)
For pointing out the insanity of god’s actions and telling Jesus he doesn’t have to die and shouldn’t, Lucifer is called evil.
Now where in the Bible does Lucifer ever kill anyone or do anything we would consider evil? I can’t think of any.
But do you know who is the biggest ******* and bloodthirsty murderer? God, let’s examine the evidence.
1. Kicking out Adam and Eve from paradise for eating from the fruit of knowledge.
As explained previously, knowledge is something all should strive for and not shun because their dictator tells them to avoid it.
2. Tower of Babel
At one time all people spoke the same language. They decided to get together and build a tower so high it could reach heaven, (a foolish idea since humans have gone into space and not found heaven thus it is not a place the builders of the tower could ever have reached).
God was so angered by what he saw as arrogance by the people that he smashed the tower and scatted them all over the earth, making them speak different languages so that they could never again understand each other enough to work on another tower.
Note that the misunderstanding the results from different languages results in countless wars that kill many tens of millions of people.
Counter point.
You work in Japan, your toddler child who lives in New York tells you he is building a boat with his friends that he will use to cross the oceans and reach Tokyo.
You fly into a rage, smash his boat, and then kidnap your child’s friends and leave them at different end s of the city and make each child unable to understand, (inevitably leading to misunderstanding and hatred) other children. You are left secure in the thought that your child will never be so arrogant to try to build a homemade raft to circle the earth again.
Now what would we think of such a parent? We would put their child in protective service and probably put the parent in jail or at least in a psychiatric hospital because they are obviously crazy and in need of professional help.
But when god does its suddenly ok and the fault of the kids for attempting to work together to accomplish an impossible task?
3. Noah’s Ark and the flood.
God gave humans free will to decide for ourselves whether or not to obey him. Most people chose not to. So God decided to kill everyone on earth, including millions of innocent babies, as well as every plant and animal.
He then decides to spare one family, a family that does obey him, because then the descendents will be more likely to obey him.
Now when god speaks to Noah, Noah is aware of whom god is, because obviously some people do believe in god and obey him. The millions of god fearing and god obeying people who are not part of Noah’s family? Well **** them too, they can die with all the innocent babies god suddenly feels like drowning.
When god is done drowning the world, (why the need to kill all those animals, why not just send a plague to target the wicked, thus sparing all the faithful and the babies?) he promises to never drown it again, (though he could destroy it in some other way).
What amazes me is that the story of Noah is told to children as an example of god’s love.
WAIT A SECOND! God commits the greatest act of genocide in history, kills more people than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined and then we are told that Lucifer is the evil one?
4. Killing the first born of Egypt
So the Israelites are forced into exile, go to Egypt where they are enslaved by the Egyptians. God sends Moses to free his people. Pharaoh refuses and orders the first born son of each Israeli family killed.
Before that can be carried out, god sends the angel of death to kill the first born of every Egyptian family. Not just Pharaoh’s son, but every first born son in Egypt.
This act of genocide is commemorated by the holiday of Passover.
Why is god punishing innocent people, many of them children for the barbarity of one man?
And why is it ok when he does it?
5. Ordering genocide in his name
Specifically I am referring to ordering the Israelites, now freed from Egypt, to attack and kill the Canaanites, including every man, women and child, even the dogs!
Not only does god love to commit genocide but apparently he loves to make us humans do it too!
Of course, some religious folks will say, “Any thing god does is by definition moral, evening mass murder or ordering mass murder in his name”.
Let me get this straight, killing scores of innocent men, women and children is ok, as long as god told you too? Isn’t that what Osama Bin Laden says he’s doing?
Or what about the 12 crusades that were launched in the Middle Ages? Those were ordered by the Popes who are supposedly infallible because they have a direct line to god.
6. Allowing rape, slavery, exploitation of women and all the other nasty shit that’s in “his good book”.
In the bible you’ll find examples of rape, incest, slavery and massive chauvinism all justified. Oh and let’s not forget the story of Abraham, ordered to sacrifice his own son. Lucky for him god chose to send an angel to stay Abraham’s hand at the last instant but really, why not just look into the man’s soul to determine the depth of his faith, isn’t god suppose to be all knowing? Must he really order his follows to kill their own children to prove something to him?
So examining the evidence from the bible itself we have god, acting as the genocidal tyrant who gives us free will and the choice to obey or not, then kills us en mass for choosing wrong vs. Lucifer, the angel who’s only sin was to disagree with god and who thinks that all sentient beings have an inherent right to self determination and should use logic to think for themselves, (the basis of western civilization).
Who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy? Seems pretty obvious to me.
Moreover let me put this hypothetical before you.
If you did a survey of a thousand Americans and told them of a General Lao, a tyrannical and petty, grudge holding dictator of some Asian country and Commander Tzu an opposition leader who believed in self determination and logical thinking, (i.e. democracy) and who launched a failed coup attempt to unseat the despot General Lao, and asked them, “who do you support and who should the United States support?”
What do you think the results would be? Every one of them would say “Commander Tzu is the good guy and General Lao is the bad guy.” In fact many might say the US should send military aid to Commander Tzu.
Now what would those same people say if you told them that all the atrocities committed by General Lao were actually described in the bible as committed by God and the actions of Commander Tzu were committed by Lucifer?
Do you think that could give people some pause, perhaps give them some reason to think for themselves instead of blindly accepting propaganda and living instructions from some ancient “magic book” written millennia ago?
No, that's probably too much to ask. After all, Lucifer is the epitome of evil and God is all love and compassion, it says so in the bible
Please note, I am not arguing that Christians should abandon their faith and start worshiping Lucifer instead, (after all we are talking about mythology here, I would no more argue that someone should worship Ares over Zeus because one Greek god is an ******* and the other a cool guy) but rather that blindly accepting what’s written in some book as divine truth and deciding to live your life by it is foolish.
I find it amusing that so many fundamentalist Christians have no idea of what horrors lie within “the good book”.
These same people will point to me, a secular humanist who believes that humans must ban together to create a society in which all people have access to the basic necessities of life as well as a good education in order to ensure equality of opportunity so that we may all maximize our potentials and thus maximize aggregate happiness in the world, as an immoral person for not accepting what is in their magic book, yet they, who claim that “every word in the bible is literally true” are virtuous for blindly following orders from the greatest genocidal dictator of all time.