What was Lucifer's sin?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

In this thread, I inquired as to the nature of Lucifer’s sin.

I then provide my answer:

It seems to me that Lucifer’s actions were precisely the opposite of pride, and that Jesus was consequently a poor psychologist when he identified such as Lucifer’s failing. For, just as an individual with, to use a dull phrase, low-self esteem might turn towards delusions of grandeur in compensation, so too does the tale of Lucifer’s descent strike me as being one of precisely the opposite of pride. Christ reveals himself yet once more a poor judge of human character and a third-rate sage.

In short: how is one ‘prideful’ if one wants another job?

2

I liked your post until you got to the punch-line. Remember the kind of society that the Old Testament and New Testament developed in. Social mobility is not the hallmark of that society. Instead people are born into their positions and live their lives within that role, quite rigidly. Sure, slaves could occasionally become freemen, but they weren’t just like everybody else, they would always be freed slaves and nothing more. That was the way the society in the Levant functioned. But more than that, the society rested on the idea of a rigid social order. If people could change jobs, well, they probably would and then you have unimaginable chaos! Or at least that is how it would have been viewed. So is it any wonder that a servant trying to overthrow his master would be seen as a dangerous thing? Really, there is little more dangerous than someone who doesn’t know their place in the world.

That said, I do think that Shelley’s writings on Satan as presented in Paradise Lost compliments what you’ve presented:

3

The ‘punchline’ was just that. Suspending my disbelief for a moment, I can empathize with Lucifer’s ‘economic’ plight, but I’m more interested in the psychology of the thing: might not Lucifer have actually attained his goal? If we understand the affect of ‘power’ not as a hierarchical and static position but instead as a feeling akin to simply acting, Lucifer certainly did ‘transcend’ God. He became what God is not and could never be. He won.

4

Only from a modern perspective and the story wasn’t designed for modern audiences. There are certainly new and exciting ways to interpret the character of Satan in the modern context, but the exegesis is suspect at best. It is all about what you want to achieve with it.

5

Precisely.

6

The dynamic between God and Satan for me, represents something unsatisfactory because of the extreme nature of it. In the framework you’ve presented, Satan is dynamic for the sake of dynamism, and he revels in the profane in a way that blurs the line between that and the sacred creating equivalence. That is where I think Satan fails, he is an engine without a stator, a dish with the entire spice rack thrown in with no thought of the melange.

7

That’s exactly right! Lucifer (and his real-world counterparts in the various and sundry sects of diabolists) created a sacred order out of the profane, in a way that positively smacks of Georges Bataille. But there is no equivalency here - he (and they) did (do) it with a vitalism and an enrapturedness that Christianity lost in the first century of its existence.

Have you ever been to a rock concert? Been in a moshpit while the guitarists shred their fingers to the bone and the vocalist wails like some banshee out of a Scottish castle? That’s exactly the same aura I’m trying to convey in my interpretation of it. Everything Lucifer did was, to use a Spinal Tappism, turned up to eleven. And there’s something to be said for the sheer vitalism of it all.

8

In Luke 10:18, Jesus does not use the word “Lucifer” and He is not referring to a time in the past, but to the present. His comment comes after the disciples mention even the demons are subject to them. It would be silly to consider Lucifer an actual star that can fall out of the sky – this is not what Jesus meant, and He was not speaking metaphorically.

I have spoken elsewhere on the error of mistaking the “star of the morning” in Isaiah 14 for Satan. Jesus did not make that error.

How about “go beyond” the error, rather than perpetuating it? How can you take yourself seriously when your whole discourse spring-boards off an error?

Or is it Dionysian (sp?) to perpetuate errors… just by ‘virtue’ of their erroneousness? I hear a lot of generalizations about warring furiously and finding release for excess strength – but not really any specifics.

What sort of behavior in particular are you advocating here? Endurance exercises? Addictions of any kind? Picking on someone smaller than you? Endless jibber-jabbering based on error?

9

Regarding these two passages contextually, as you seem to lack the faculty to do, it is quite apparent that the second refers to the Babylonian king, whereas the first is but a poor paraphrase of the latter. It is known from philological evidence that associating Lucifer with the Day Star was as common an occurrence in the Levant as early as 50 A.D. as it is today - one can quite clearly see that Luke fucked up his mythology by not recalling the context of the Isaiah passage.

crivoice.org/lucifer.html

Luke fucked up, trying to retroactively validate Christ’s messianic claims by appeals to vague Old Testament passages. This would eventually evolve into the current Fundie vogue for finding ‘messianic prophecies’ every which way one looks.

How about shutting the fuck up and let the text speak for itself?

But you seem to have difficulty with such an esoteric concept. For, if you had the ability to read, you’d have noticed this –

It does not matter if the ‘fall from Heaven’ is supported by Biblical ‘evidence’; I’m arguing traditional Western religious concepts, not Fundamentalist literalist notions which were unknown even a hundred and fifty years ago.

Something infinitely healthier than “deny thyself” and “hate the flesh”.

And, even if not - what then? Will your faith move my mountain?

God is dead; let us prey.

10

I am pretty sure that your last line; “God is dead let us prey” is missspelled
but it does make an interesting statement as it stands.

If what I have been taught about Satan and god is correct. I should say how I was taught to interpret the writings. Satan got too big for his britches and god took him down a peg or two. Not being a wasteful sort God put him in a useful position.

But, as I have put forth before: You don’t give your enemy a reward. And you most assuredly do not give them a powerful domain just about equal to yours. So God could not have punished Satan. He infact, rewarded Satan.

An equally interesting disscusion is your line God is dead , Let us prey

I love it. It conjures interesting possibilities. Did you mean it as such or was that a typo? Oh come on lie, tell me you meant it :laughing:

11

Dionysus,

The foundation of ILP is respect. This is especially important on the religion board where people have strong emotional ties to their religiophilosophies. Disagreement is good, unnecessary name-calling is not.

Here is where I am not so sure. I adore the atmosphere of a rock concert, probably for the same reason you do. Only it isn’t the singer wailing that is the Dionysian experience, it is the pit-itself. Within the crowd at a concert one’s individual aspect is completely subsumed by the crowd. The individualized “you” ceases to exist and all that is left is the writhing crowd. The danger of embracing Satan as some sort of standard is that it makes it easy for one to mistake the crowd for the singer. The singer himself is Apollonian – the dreamer dreaming, strumming on his lyre.

To me that actually touches on one of the contradictions within Christianity, from my perspective. The liturgy is a very good example of a Dionysian experience, it really is one of the few areas (along with things like rock concerts and sports games) where we as individuals can really reconnect with our collective self in an obvious and overt manner. However, the manner through which this is accomplished deals with radically individualized beings. So, individuals enter a church and become one through the ritual of the liturgy. But rather than stop there and embracing the shared humanity with other parishioners, the goal is to transcend human relationships and to enter into a personal (individualized) relationship with the divine; indeed it is only through this personalized relationship that salvation can occur. So rather than having religion act as a Dionysian spoiler against many of the Apollonian pressures of a specialized society, it instead becomes an affirmation of the Apollonian mindset.

The problem I have with the Satan metaphor is that I am unsure it actually fixes this problem.

12

The role of Satan was designed to fit the script which the writers had in mind; he was to represent an example of tyranny and disobedience. As the Christian religion is a system invented to indoctrinate and control people, such a story must be both anthropologically comprehensive and mystically awe-inspiring if it is to influence and remain, gathering strength through generations, as an ideology. Really all you have with Christianity is a surreal, make-believe story that had to be similiar, and modeled from, human civilization, for it to work.

Immediately one thinks “gosh…if I’m bad I might get exiled from civilization too, like Lucifer.”

That, dear friends, is the extent of the message behind the story. The ruling class, as history has shown, has gone to great lengths to establish its rule over the working classes. Part of this effort is inventing elaborate religions to subordinate the masses. You need only to analyze history and the evolution of political systems to undermine the development of religion and metaphysics in general. If I told you that the first “religious” official was simply a fat guy who didn’t want to work and who, with the king’s assistance, convinced the lower classes that he was the "elected representative of “God”, and therefore had the job of dressing nicely, walking around aimlessly, and comforting the struggling workers with promises of rewards in heaven, …you’d say “nuh-uh! Are you serious? That’s all it is?!”

Yes. That’s all it is.

13

Butcha know what else? You know why Christianity is so brilliant? Because as a conspiracy (which it is), it is an example of the double switcharoo.

What did Jesus do all the time? He criticized the Pharisees, the secular elites, the despots, and anybody else who claimed to have “divine significance.” The writers designed the story this way so that it would appear to the reader that Christianity was a revolutionary religion that usurped all previous, corrupt religions.

Now, if you were skeptical about the motivations of religion (think Marx here…“religion as an opium” etc., etc.), you would invite this new religion because it appeared to be anti-establishment, and therefore, anti-despotic (anti-ruling class). BUT IT WASN’T! No, no, no. Because while it was indeed critical of the present day religious institutions, it nonetheless replaced one system of metaphysics with another: this new God and new religion.

The result of ALL religion, ethically and economically, is alienation and class conflict.

My God is right and your God is wrong. Die heretic scum…etc., etc.

So what do you suppose was in store for this new religion? I’ll tell you. A new metaphysics which would incorporate democratic, capitalistic systems.

No, you say, because Jesus represented the proto-communist (collective efforts, compassion, charity, virtue, what have you). Sure, but THAT metaphor was not intended here. What was intended here was something like this: we are all equal in God’s eyes and therefore, in the new political system of capitalism, we all have an equal right to participate in a free market.

The writers of the religion HAD TO KNOW (unless they were morons) that there was nothing more to man’s existence than his material economy. They knew there was no heaven. What they needed to do was replace the old despotic system with a new one: enter bourgeois society. Christianity was the revolution from despotism to capitalism- the priest becomes the employer- the proletarians become the lower-middle class consumers.

We are in some serious shit, people.

14

Male gorillas pound their chest to show they are threatened… to put up a front. Dionysus uses the “f” word over and over. Not a Tolkein fan, I see.

If I have time, maybe I’ll reply.

15

Ichthus:

Are you implying that Dionysus, like a male gorilla, wishes to express himself in a violent, coercive manner, but has, unlike a male gorilla, evolved the capacity to speak, and, as an alternative to beating his chest, merely utters the “f” word when angry?

16

All you have is time, Ichthus.

[ ahem ]

…dont wanna wait til tomorrow,
Why put it off another day?
One more walk through problems,
Built up, and stand in our way ,ah
One step ahead, one step behind me
Now you gotta run to get even
Make future plans, dont dream about yesterday, hey
Cmon turn, turn this thing around
Right now, hey
Its your tomorrow
Right now,
Cmon,its everything
Right now,
Catch a magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything

[ cue piano melody ]

17

I’d like to address a couple very minor points. First, seeing the physical world as evil isn’t a Christian teaching, it’s a Gnostic teaching, and gnosticism is a heresy. So, embracing Creation as good can’t be the basis of Satan’s rebellion- God wouldn’t disagree.
Xunzian, my understanding is that the sects of Christianity that are individualistic aren’t liturgical, and the sects that are liturgical aren’t individualistic. You might have some exceptions, like the Episcopalians, but for the most part that’s how it is.
Also, I think it’s important to point out that from an Orthodox perspective, at least, the liturgy brings us together in Christ. So, the idea that one can approach Christ corporately through the liturgy, and individually through one’s private prayer life, isn’t so much of a contradiction. It perhaps would be, though, if the benefits of communal worship were seen as completely accounted for by the human participants.

18

It certainly is a Christian teaching, but that’s not what I was suggesting. I was implying that Satan chose immanence as opposed to transcendence because, for he who is transcendental, immanence is ‘above’.

19

Everyone worth knowing makes war upon God. Everyone else is either spineless or gullible.

20

Dionysus – if you must suspend disbelief to talk about something – what is your motivation for talking about it? You have nothing better to do? Did you know that in Spanish, levantate (sp?) means – get up/stand up/… rise… ascend.

I offer you a song…