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RedDeathFlower13
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09 Mar 2024, 8:12 pm

funeralxempire wrote:

Basically, their positive attributes are humans projecting on to them?

Ideally they'll all have their own takes on evil, like one can be malicious and vindictive, another it's more through neglect and disinterest, and another who's entirely oblivious to what they inflict, like an out of control toddler.


Precisely. Basically each deity is problematic to humanity.

The so-called God of Light and Justice etc is actually very cruel and coldly detached. He only wants the "purest" humans to find salvation in his grace and even encourages genocidal warfare and persecution in his name.

A lot like Old Testament God aka Yahweh.

The Goddess of "Love" who watches over families and married couples is especially problematic for women in society who are reinforced by negative gender roles. Also the idea that all women have to be "perfect" in terms of beauty, motherhood, and as lovers or else they are unwanted by society.

For her I draw inspiration from Greek Goddesses like Hera the Goddess of Marriage (the one who expected perfection out of wives and mothers and severely punished the women who her husband Zeus raped or coerced into an affair) and Demeter (the Harvest Goddess who favored her daughter The Goddess of Spring but neglected her daughter The Goddess of Winter). Also maybe throw in a bit of the Virgin Mary?

Then the God of Chaos and Darkness who is openly evil and most everyone knows to avoid him. Yet some foolish humans seek him out intentionally after realizing the hypocrisy of the other two deities because in their twisted minds he becomes the god of "Truth" to them.

Think of the Americans who are clinging to Donald Trump as a messiah because they've become disillusioned with the system and truly believe this vile disgusting man is the new beacon of honesty compared to the other failed politicians they've grown tired of. Another good comparison would be the Gernans clinging to Hitler after they became disillusioned with losing WW1.


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funeralxempire
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09 Mar 2024, 8:21 pm

RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:

Basically, their positive attributes are humans projecting on to them?

Ideally they'll all have their own takes on evil, like one can be malicious and vindictive, another it's more through neglect and disinterest, and another who's entirely oblivious to what they inflict, like an out of control toddler.


Precisely. Basically each deity is problematic to humanity.

The so-called God of Light and Justice etc is actually very cruel and coldly detached. He only wants the "purest" humans to find salvation in his grace and even encourages genocidal warfare and persecution in his name.

A lot like Old Testament God aka Yahweh.

The Goddess of "Love" who watches over families and married couples is especially problematic for women in society who are reinforced by negative gender roles. Also the idea that all women have to be "perfect" in terms of beauty, motherhood, and as lovers or else they are unwanted by society.

For her I draw inspiration from Greek Goddesses like Hera the Goddess of Marriage (the one who expected perfection out of wives and mothers and severely punished the women who her husband Zeus raped or coerced into an affair) and Demeter (the Harvest Goddess who favored her daughter The Goddess of Spring but neglected her daughter The Goddess of Winter). Also maybe throw in a bit of the Virgin Mary?

Then the God of Chaos and Darkness who is openly evil and most everyone knows to avoid him. Yet some foolish humans seek him out intentionally after realizing the hypocrisy of the other two deities because in their twisted minds he becomes the god of "Truth" to them.

Think of the Americans who are clinging to Donald Trump as a messiah because they've become disillusioned with the system and truly believe this vile disgusting man is the new beacon of honesty compared to the other failed politicians they've grown tired of. Another good comparison would be the Gernans clinging to Hitler after they became disillusioned with losing WW1.


The one god sounds a lot like gnostic criticisms of 'God the Creator of the material world'. Gnostic Christians identified YHWH with that concept.

The other sounds a lot like how Christians view Satan.

Sounds like a solid concept.


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RedDeathFlower13
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09 Mar 2024, 8:25 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
The one god sounds a lot like gnostic criticisms of 'God the Creator of the material world'. Gnostic Christians identified YHWH with that concept.

The other sounds a lot like how Christians view Satan.

Sounds like a solid concept.


Glad you think so. :)

And just for fun, how about I name these three deities:

Vanilla
Chocolate
Strawberry

:D


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funeralxempire
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09 Mar 2024, 8:55 pm

RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
The one god sounds a lot like gnostic criticisms of 'God the Creator of the material world'. Gnostic Christians identified YHWH with that concept.

The other sounds a lot like how Christians view Satan.

Sounds like a solid concept.


Glad you think so. :)

And just for fun, how about I name these three deities:

Vanilla
Chocolate
Strawberry

:D


:lol:


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09 Mar 2024, 11:05 pm

This is a reminder that I probably need to get around to reading John Gray's 'Seven Types of Atheism', not just because I can relate to his thinking on a lot of topics but because he gets into this as one of the seven.

I'm more convinced that it would be something like a local noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin) to our earth where certain human conceptions and man-made relics end up getting fed back into the system and having a degree of causal power. It gets to that same place though where when political analysts who are in the geekier GameB and LessWrong parts of the web sometimes talk about egregores (a concept from 19th century occultism that's has a lot of value with respect to politics and sort of 'mass mind' activities) and it can be tough to sort out whether network effects look like mass mind or whether there are such things as beings made of many people or their interactions where there's an actual Thomas Nagel 'what it's like to be' them. That's sort of the territory I see gods and goddesses resting in. If for example people can sing certain ens or prayers without knowing which deity it's dedicated to and see a particular deity and find out from someone else after having written down their dreams and guessed that they did encounter who they were supposed to? There are plenty of potential answers to that which have little or nothing to do with whether or not gods or goddesses are real and more to do with the way the cosmos handles information.


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10 Mar 2024, 9:28 am

RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
Both interesting points.

If I had the talent I would write my own fantasy world story in a Misotheistic style where the gods and goddesses people worship are real but are the actual evil villains of the story who have spread lies to their followers and causing wars and disasters for their own amusement.

Maybe create a trinity of not-so-holy gods?

A god of light, law, order, and justice

A god of darkness, crime, chaos, and injustice

A goddess of love, compassion, mercy, and motherhood.


The twist of course being that they're all equally bad and the hero of the story is the only one who confronts them.

Reminds me of a few video game story plots.
Usually in role playing game fantasy settings.


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RedDeathFlower13
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10 Mar 2024, 9:52 am

Edna3362 wrote:
RedDeathFlower13 wrote:
Both interesting points.

If I had the talent I would write my own fantasy world story in a Misotheistic style where the gods and goddesses people worship are real but are the actual evil villains of the story who have spread lies to their followers and causing wars and disasters for their own amusement.

Maybe create a trinity of not-so-holy gods?

A god of light, law, order, and justice

A god of darkness, crime, chaos, and injustice

A goddess of love, compassion, mercy, and motherhood.


The twist of course being that they're all equally bad and the hero of the story is the only one who confronts them.

Reminds me of a few video game story plots.
Usually in role playing game fantasy settings.



Yeah I've always wanted to create my own fantasy video game world. 8)


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AnanstrixG
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15 Mar 2024, 5:46 am

I am certainly not a misotheist (and had not heard the term before, cool!). I'm more of an agnostic-atheist somewhere. I don't believe in a being or group of beings that created all, and I also know that there is so much out there that is beyond comprehension for a 3-dimensional meat puppet (though I do think in more than 3D but that is just a question of relative axes - I digress).

I was raised Jewish, and while I sort of understand the "kind and loving" Christian god from a historical/sociological standpoint, the Hebrew god was not that at all. I believe the JHVH god was originally one of a pantheon, and was very jealous. Here is one of the translations of the second commandment in full, from Hebrew:

You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I the L‑rd your G‑d am a jealous G‑d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.

Pretty harsh stuff, right?


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RedDeathFlower13
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15 Mar 2024, 7:58 am

AnanstrixG wrote:
I am certainly not a misotheist (and had not heard the term before, cool!). I'm more of an agnostic-atheist somewhere. I don't believe in a being or group of beings that created all, and I also know that there is so much out there that is beyond comprehension for a 3-dimensional meat puppet (though I do think in more than 3D but that is just a question of relative axes - I digress).

I was raised Jewish, and while I sort of understand the "kind and loving" Christian god from a historical/sociological standpoint, the Hebrew god was not that at all. I believe the JHVH god was originally one of a pantheon, and was very jealous. Here is one of the translations of the second commandment in full, from Hebrew:

You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I the L‑rd your G‑d am a jealous G‑d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments.

Pretty harsh stuff, right?



Indeed. It reminds me of a funny quote from the sitcom The Nanny when Fran's mother Sylvia (who is Jewish) told her daughter after they got into a disagreememt. "I have a higher power on MY side! And 'ours' is not a 'merciful' God." :lol:

Also you might find this video interesting? It explains the origins of Yahweh from a Jewish Scholar's standpoint. He explains the archelogical evidence in how this deity was actually created by combining a God of War with the God of Storms El in the Canaanite pantheon and it was absorbed into Judiasm. Really fascinating stuff! :nerdy:

https://youtu.be/mdKst8zeh-U?si=xCfs644qaYKQ2CDd


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AnanstrixG
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15 Mar 2024, 8:59 am

That's a great video, just watched the whole thing. Still absorbing it :)

It certainly fills in a lot of the fragments I've got running around in my memory.

haha, sometimes when the proselytizers come by, I tell them that I was already saved, they are the ones who needed a messiah. Because just saying "no" doesn't work.

Anyway, very interesting.


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RedDeathFlower13
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15 Mar 2024, 9:06 am

AnanstrixG wrote:
That's a great video, just watched the whole thing. Still absorbing it :)

It certainly fills in a lot of the fragments I've got running around in my memory.

haha, sometimes when the proselytizers come by, I tell them that I was already saved, they are the ones who needed a messiah. Because just saying "no" doesn't work.

Anyway, very interesting.


Very glad you enjoyed it! :D


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