Lucifer's crime was daring to question his father.

After being cast out he was put in charge of overseeing those that were deemed by that same father to be bad after death.

Seems to be a common link there, and it's not Lucifer.

I feel like many Christians in America are completely disconnected from actual values espoused by Jesus in the Bible. Republican (many of the Christians) policy is diametrically opposed to Matthew 25:31. No one quotes John 13:34 because they rather quote Old Testament BS about what’s an abomination. Why not focus on the love for others, including enemies? Why not focus on helping the poor, the sick, the homeless? Why not help the immigrant? The Bible specifically calls this out as a marker of getting into heaven.

Most of these people don’t even read the book. They like the sense of community at a church, but it feels like it’s formed into a total in:out group mentality. We can’t be a Christian nation as long as there are poor & people struggling.

Then the Utah governor says something like, “We can’t have people camping wherever they want.” my emphasis. Bud, they don’t WANT to be homeless. The lack of empathy is so apparent.

Have you read the Bible? The only evil shit that Satan does is when he fucks up Job's life, and that's in collusion with God. Meanwhile, God is doing evil on almost every page of the Old Testament.

The reason we're supposed to hate Satan is because he rebelled against God. Again, if you've read the Old Testament, you have dozens of good reasons to rebel against God.

This train of thought is what lead to the creation of Satanism as a literary movement in the 19th century and then as a religion in the late 20th century.

As a man who works in retail, Lucifer was an employee who thought he deserved a raise, and maybe even take over as manager one day, but the current manager didn't like that so he sent Lucy to burn at the customer service desk (hell) for eternity.

Lucifer was just unionizing the angels. God is just the first union buster and ran a smear campaign against the organizer.

My interpretation of Book of Job is God and Satan are in a toxic relationship where they egg each other on to fuck with people so you shouldn't trust either of them.

Much like how the president is lying about Chicago and Portland being crime filled dens of sin to keep people from finding out how cool of a city they are.

I like Satan because he brings presents to kids on Christmas made by elves in the North Pole, in exchange for some cookies and a kiss from Mom

"I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side." - Mark Twain

You don't have to look at Christians to think God isn't so good.

In the Bible, Satan kills 10 people, Job's children, and he did it with God's blessing while they were having a bet.

God killed entire cities, all the firstborn of a nation even down to the slave's children, killed everyone on earth except 8 people, killed a guy for picking up sticks, killed a guy for not allowing the ark of the covenant to fall, told the Hebrews to attack nations and kill every man woman and child in the land and was furious when they left a few alive, had a God-off to show he was more powerful and when the other side converted to believe in him he had them killed, killed David's son and had his 10 wives publicly raped, killed 42 children for making fun of a bald guy... the list goes on, not to mention that God told the Hebrews to have slave's, women were property and have to be killed if they ruin the one thing they were good for, their virginity.

Christians have weirdest relationship with the Bible. Many don't really read it. If they did, they'd be Jewish. Jesus said to keep the Jewish laws, but Paul said it's ok not to. Christians go with Paul instead of Jesus and generally disregard the Old Testament except the parts they think prove Jesus was the Messiah.

You mean the god that prioritizes fealty and "love" for him alone over virtue, righteousness and good works? One who will give entrance to heaven to a life long sadistic, violent, and self-centered man who repents in his death bed, but will eternally condemn a man who has fed and clothed millions, who saved lives, who reformed bigots and criminals but questioned the existence of God or worshipped another. Compared to Satan, an angel that wished to overthrow this selfish god. Who values knowledge and choice in humanity. Who rewards ambition and creative joy. Who is stuck in hell with the rest of those condemned by the Almighty. I mean, is really no wonder many Christians are how they are.

If you haven't, read Horns by Joe Hill (skip the movie, it's not the same). It plays a lot with this dynamic. The protagonist isn't a hero, isn't "the good guy", but has a righteous cause and when God fails him, the Devil steps up.

I mean, Lucifer is an angel who questioned the system. We know that statistically, there is a chance he is right and everyone else is wrong. Based on my observations of humanity, the chance of the minority being right is higher.

You can call yourself anything you want, and no one will stop you. Calling yourself a Christian, while violating every tenet of Christian teachings, does not qualify you as a Christian. I finally coined the term Hypochrists for people like that.

There are plenty of Christians who do follow Christian teachings, to one extent or another, and are generally trying to be decent people. Unfortunately, there are also large numbers of "Christians" who just use the name to justify their selfish behavior, hatred, and cruelty.

All large religions have, or have had, groups like that. Any social institution that can provide credibility is going to be abused as a tool to gain power by someone. It is appalling that the Hypochrists have become large enough, and powerful enough, to have taken over the popular image of what Christianity is.

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason

When we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest every thing that is cruel.

1. Examination of the Old Testament

Anne Rice wrote an interesting book in the Vampire series on this, Memnoch the Devil, where the narrative is that Satan created a place for the souls to go that God otherwise would have extinguished in his cold hatred for much of humanity. Satan, who loved humans more than any other angel, rebelled against God's harsh treatment of them, and was cast down as a result.

Look into Gnosticism. Eventually what got me interested in Luciferianism.

I mean the guy actually met God and decided to rebel. Meanwhile, we have to believe without evidence and assume he knows best. Sure, buddy, sure

Early christians had an interesting take on this.

Before the religion organized into a hierarchical orthodoxy, communities distant from the emerging establishment (not particularly attached to jewish traditions) in places like Alexandria were left to their own devices to figure out christianity: they formed loose households & study circles to interpret texts in the context of their local traditions & culture and settled on a number of competing interpretations. Among them emerged a popular, influential interpretation.

• Reading the older jewish scriptures & newer texts quite literally, they concluded there were 2 deities. 1 of whom, the unhidden Demiurge (Yahweh of the old testament) who had created the material universe, was a vengeful and ignorant deity inimical to human welfare. Consequently, material existence is flawed & evil, and they must escape that realm by seeking personal knowledge of the other, hidden deity: the transcendent spiritual entity, the Silent Depth (or the Monad), who briefly inhabited Jesus with that revelatory wisdom or logos found in the newer texts. In other words, there's cool god (Jesus's god) & evil genocidal god (Yahweh).
• Moreover, they concluded that church authority isn't needed: Jesus had awoken a spark of divinity in matter that would find its way back to its transcendent source with little need of episcopal authority or sacramental practice.

This interpretation became known as gnosticism.

Sticklers with the evil trash god of older jewish scriptures didn't like this idea, became early church authorities, denounced it as heresy, & purged all the texts they could of it.

So, yes, even some early christians believed the entity modern christians refer to as god is kinda shit.

Popular Christianity is heavily based on paganism, which is incredibly ironic considering that paganism is generally posed as the antithesis of Christianity. The story of Lucifer is syncretized with the story of Prometheus, although Lucifer doesn't really benefit humanity at all. According to the popular interpretation, Lucifer is the origin of all evil, became a snake in the garden of Eden, and then tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, the snake isn't actually connected to Lucifer in the text—that interpretation was added later to explain the problem of evil (why it exists if God is supposedly good)

The idea that Lucifer is insubordinate and violated the natural hierarchy is very old, but the idea that Lucifer is the origin of evil is relatively new.

Christian theology contains many holes like this because there's a tendency towards treating every word in the Bible as literal, where it may have been written allegorically or as a parable, as Jesus often did. (Just to be clear, Jesus did NOT write the Bible, I'm just pointing out that the writers of the Bible may have tried to replicate his style.) This issue is compounded when you include the Old testament, as it contains portions which are clearly mythological, but are nonetheless treated as fact by certain modern Christians.

Satan was the good guy.

Heinlein wrote about this very topic in "Job: A Comedy of Justice".

I hear that. Catholic school kid here.

Lucifer ain't that bad on my book tbh.

It's funny cause... when you're a small kid it's very common to want to be a good boy/girl/other. Many of us, at an early age, wanted the approval and validation from those that knew and understood how things worked (in our eyes), but most importantly, had power over us. Lots of us wanted to be seen as good by them. You know, like lots of people (the ones that actually try) want to be seen as good by god.

Lucifer is a symbolic representation of.. well.. whatever it is one associates to them. However, most people associate the satanic impulse to that of individuation, of blazing our own trails and rejecting the established (maybe divine?) order. You know, like teenagers. Teenagers basically want to understand how much of what they were told and warned of was not true and how much power they have to change the things they were told could not be changed.

When many of us become adults, we realize that the people telling us how things worked when we were small children were pretty clueless, and many of the things they taught us were mistaken, but it doesn't matter if they were or they weren't. What matters is some of those people looked after or cared about us and did the best they could with the hand they got dealt. And you know... passing that down is a nice thing. No one's gonna send you to hell if you don't, ofc. You'll just feel better if you do.

And even if they go completely against everything we tried to convey at some point, that's just how people learn and grow (or transcend what was previously thought possible) so it's all part of the game.

Oh and yeah, Christians can be really shitty. Satanists can be shitty. The church can be shitty. Everyone and everything can feel really shitty at times. You know what isn't shitty though? When you make things better for other people. idk about you but it makes me feel good.

And about lucifer? Following the image of him or any other representation of what we aspire to have or become is pretty much the same as following any other aspiration. Like... whatever a deity represents to you or even rational stuff like love of knowledge. If you dedicate yourself to its pursuit and worship it through your actions more than anything else, you will see it everywhere and it will become the most important thing... until it fails you in a time of deep existential crisis and then you'll look for the next thing.

That's just how it goes. Now please excuse me while I go to keep dedicating my worldly existence to the big Great Pudu in the Sky.

Have a good one. :)

The only way Christianity makes any sense to me within the real world (aside from it being not real) is if Satan wrote the Bible pretending to be God, while denigrating the good guy as the rebellious angel Lucifer. If Satan had written the Bible instead of God, would you expect more genocide, slavery, torture, and rape, or less? So why is there any in the first place?

Look at 2000 years of Christian history. As soon as they could, they usurped political power in the most powerful nation in the area; Rome. Then began slaughtering and torturing anyone anywhere who thought different. They claimed divine rights and authority. They committed genocide in every single nation on the planet over nearly 2000 years. They perfected the dark arts of torture. They conquered earthly territory and plundered earthly wealth. They slaughtered so many that they built orphanages the world over where they could claim divine morality, but also rape children for centuries.

What did Lucifer do exactly? He told the first people that God was a lying dick and they should rebel against him, as he did.

Wouldn't you?

hes also known as samael before the fall, or lightbringer, which is pretty much the opposite in his current form. plus there were other angels that fell with him, but they are more obscure and depending different texts?

I got really stoned one time as teenager and thought I had come to the very real and imminent discovery that Christianity is and was always the work of deep evil to silence and quell all other true religions. The crusades, the burning of the library at Alexandria, Pope John Paul III sitting on his throne of pure gold, It all made perfect sense. Don’t question it, just have faith.

I more or less fell headlong into atheism of a sort shortly thereafter, so part of me must really believe that on some level I guess?

Isn't this the theme of WICKED? The "good" people are wicked and the "wicked" people are good. Of course, anyone who has done DMT knows that the insectoid creatures, machine elves, aliens, angels, clowns, snakes and green lady are all good which does make you wonder if we have it all backward.

I will choose the path that's clear.

You might be interested in Dr. Ammon Hillman, his doctorate is in classical philology and he has a masters in immunology as well, he's been reading and translating Ancient Greek for 35 years, including a lot of neglected medical texts. He asserts that both the Old and New testaments of the Bible were originally written in Greek, within a couple hundred years of each other. He has a lot of praise for Satan and the figure's apparent origins in Greek culture (Diana Lucifera and other mentions), and talks about Satan predating both Judaism and Christianity.

Hes also got plenty of scorn for Jesus, who according to his seemingly rigorous translation of the Greek bible was on a lot of drugs throughout his life and during his death, and was sexually exploiting and trafficking minors (the Apostles apparently ranged in age from 10-19)

He did some decent interviews on the Danny Jones show and on Hamilton Morris's podcast, and Ammon hosts a live stream a couple times a week at Lady Babylon on youtube. The name of his channel comes from Medea, a "sorceress" from Scythia who became queen of Babylon at one point. She was Hecate's daughter and sister to Circe from the Odyssey, and apparently was the first named person in history referred to as a "Christ", a term that he has showed at length refers to the use of drugs in antiquity. We get the word "medicine" from Medea.

Pretty outlandish if you're not familiar with him but despite his sometimes abrasive and eccentric presentation style I feel like the picture he paints of the ancient Greek world during the few centuries around the time of Jesus makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that his channel is non-monetized and he doesnt accept donations for what he does sharing what he's found in half a lifetime of studying Greek source texts.

I felt this way coming from the Midwest to down south. There are plenty of biggots west of the missippi too but folks like the west borrow morons are rare. Down south id hear biggots on the goddamn radio.

At least for the most part, as an outsider, Midwest churches were mostly just seen doing charities (like that's all Jesus asked them do for others...).

I like the approach of - there is no tue good or evil, but acts of nature. Life feeds on life.

Being Christian or going to church doesn't make you a good person any more than a speed limit sign prevents people from speeding.

I think if a being like lucifer exist and is truly evil then it has tricked these 'christians' in to worshiping it instead of the god.

Good chance what we call the Satan at some point we're originally a god from a pagan religion, like Beelzebub for example. If they were good that depends, if they were replaced in the first place perhaps that old religion was worst compared to what predates Christianity, another thing also is perhaps replaced because were forced to by the invaders.

Dat Demiurge be at it again

The concept of good and evil is actually very limiting and tends to raise people with twisted worldviews. Most intelligent people learn that morality is complex, reality is not black and white, and to wish harm upon others to ensure personal bliss is rather sociopathic and fucked up.

Christianity faces a major foundational dissonance. Early tribalist (in group, out group thinking) values that have to coexist with radical empathic universalism. They usually ignore the development of Jewish traditions, and it took priests centuries of dissertation to mesh both views together. But they are incompatible. To believe in clearcut good and evil, and also things like a reward heaven (an idea also eradicated in most Jewish tradition). One must learn to suspend empathy for the fellow human being. To be happy while knowing others are harshly suffering (aka "they deserve it"). To think that one's own cruelty will be forgiven just by saying a magical incantation is also fucked up.

Now, the solution given to it is not widely accepted, and is the source of schisms in different Christian cults. Jesus's message is that of universal forgiveness with radical empathy. The abolition of heaven and hell. But many intermediate concepts had to be inserted to make it make sense with organized religion. Like sin forgivenes through repentance, second coming prophecies to delay the forgivines, apocalyptic prophecies to delay the abolition of hell and other exceptionalist interpretations.

Anyways, I started rambling, but Christianity is incapable to be internally consistent as it is. And some dogmatic views require people to be actively assholes by definition.

I think about this all the time. He probably just believes in science and kindness.

Have you ever read Paradise Lost?

Since he's the one driving them, you can't wonder too much