New owners of Tiktok
(twitter.com)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (54)
sorted by:
In this view ideologies are phantoms that cross from the beyond and possess people lol. This is actually congruent with the existence of Satan, but you're an atheist.
I may be an atheist but I actually get what the Christians (and originally jews) are talking about.
First: ideologies are still metanarratives and world-views that inform morality; and as such they rival religions to some degree when not taken with the appropriate psychological boundaries that a reasonable person must establish when examining an idea set. If an ideology is unlimited in scope, and asserts a moral order, it is fundamentally indistinguishable from a religion, or more specifically: a cult.
Now, for a second, let's talk about Demonology! All of the named demons in the old testament are not really "demons" as we think of them. They are actually Babylonian gods that are rivals to Yaweh. In fact, the Jews are punished by Yaweh because some Jews are occasionally converted or swayed enough by the followers of these Babylonian gods, when they think Yaweh isn't doing enough for them, or isn't protecting them, etc.
The Old Testament basically slanders them as "demons", spiritual monsters meant to take you away from Yaweh and destroy your soul. HOWEVER THEY HAVE A GOOD POINT:
The followings of these polytheistic Babylonian Gods, are really just cults. In fact, most religions really seem like cults around this time. Even going back to the Assyrian Empire, that Empire was ruled by "The Cult of Ashur". Each God that existed in the Pantheon of the Assyrian religion was actually the god of a city. These city-state-gods were the physical manifestation of the metaphysics of the city (like the culture, aesthetics, attitudes, traditions, etc). These gods inhabited statues in the city center at the primary temple. In one instance, the Assyrians conquered a rival city-state, and then literally removed the statue of the rival god, put it on trial, convicted it, and threw it in a dungeon. They saw that their war was both physical and metaphysical; and the metaphysical gods could be treated physically if they lost to the superior god who won the conflict. It's crazy to think that the Assyrians literally put a god in prison, but that's actually how they saw it. The point is, each god has a literal cult-following.
The Babylonians gods are cults. In fact, each of them are condemned, because each of them try to use different mechanisms to try and recruit the jews. Ba'al is a warrior god with the power of lighting, and he is re-framed as a god of violence and murder. In 40k, you could think of him as Khorne. Asher is a god of fertility, but the cult would "worship" through ritualistic prostitution; re-framed as a false god using sex as a weapon. 40k would think of her as Slanesh. And why are the followers of Yaweh opposed to these gods? Because they will destroy your soul. Well, metaphysically, wouldn't it be true that an obsession with violence (the sin of wrath), or an obsession with sex (the sin of lust), be personally destructive to people who followed it. Wouldn't it cause them to hurt themselves in the long run? Absolutely.
So, if the Babylonian cult gods are re-framed as demons; falling under the power of Satan to tempt people from Yaweh... is there any difference from a modern cult that might still use the same tactics? A cult that tempts recruits with sexual availability is still similar to what the cult of Asher would do. And if Asher is a demon, than isn't this temptation to recruit people into this sin Demonic? If it's Demonic, is it not Satanic by virtue of being a larger effort to tempt people from God?
I think it's fair to say that all of this is logically true. So, from a purely metaphysical perspective, if an ideology were to have no boundary conditions and assert a moral framework, and it were to tempt people into opposing Christianity by recruiting them through the same methods that propped up Babylonian cults... is there any reason to not call it Demonic or Satanic?
How can there be any metaphysical difference between a Leftist who has been so conditioned by propaganda that he's screeching online that he's glad Charlie Kirk got shot in the throat and that more people should die; and saying that this person is possessed by the demonic spirit of Ba'al as an act of Satan?
I don't think there is.
It may not be literally true. It may not be materially true. But an ideology possessing someone like this, and a demon possessing someone like this isn't metaphysically different.
And why did the Babylonians predominantly worship Ba'al and the Jews predominantly worship Yahweh?
The Ugarits and Canaanites were Ba'als area. Babylonians chiefly Marduk and Ishtar.
As I understand, the Babylonians predominantly worshiped Bel and Nebo, not Ba'al. That was the Cannanites.
As for why Ba'al and not Yahweh was worshiped by the jews/isralites, that appears to be a difficult theological question that is well outside my knowledge. At the time when they were rival gods, Ba'al and Yahweh were both considered fairly similar, since both were warrior gods, and Ba'al was also a god of sea storms, and Yahweh was a god of thunderstorms.
I guess the way I would look at it is: which god actually helped devotees more? If it's true that Ba'al's rituals involved human sacrifice of children, where as Yahweh had sacrifice of some animals, that might be a good indicator of which cult would have had more pathological tendencies. The modern concept of God is that of a father figure. If any of that goes back to the original Yahweh that was competing with Ba'al, then you have two very similar gods, but one is a fatherly god, where the other sacrifices children. We only need to look around to see how pathological a fatherless society is. So, the society that will have better outcomes for it's people would be a society that worships a father figure, rather than one that demands child sacrifice.
Right, right
You'll have to explain how it's "slandering" these lesser gods when the Israelites were told not to worship Ba'al and Moloch by sacrificing their newborn to them via fire?
What, pray-tell is the civilisational upside to sacrificing newborns in the fire to lesser gods?
You're misunderstanding me. "Slandering" as in: taking them from the concept of a different god, to a literal metaphysical monster. They aren't just neutrally stating: "here is this other god, and this is what it's rituals are like." They are engaging in an act of character assassination against the god.
And rightfully so, because the character of that god encouraged acts of evil and destabilisation of society.