Christian Theology 101 - your actual milage may vary

ZOMBIE USER 7466 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 7466** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 2:39 pm

I'm not an expert in theology, nor do I claim that is 'THE TRUTH' or the way Jack's world works, but some may find it useful:

ANGLES:
Classical angels like Gabrial were suposedly created before humans. As 'first generation prototypes' they lack some of the features of the production line model, and are not people, as they lack the ability to choose to do wrong. Effectively they are a form of robots who are programmed to care and do God's will.
There may be a system where dead people can become angels, but don't bet on it. Also Farago is a 'new' Angel, so they do seem to come from somewhere. Though, see TIME.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU
AKA: Life is what you make it, and it seems that death is too. Hell is a nasty place becasue the poeple living there are either seriously depressed, have issues or are just seriously fu*ked up - and are thus influencing the surrounding reality. Take the Cathulu Lords. They were created by an author 50 years ago, and I'm pretty sure that they didn't exsisted in Hell before that - and that they didn't induldge in 'Hentai' tentacle rape before ten years ago.

TIME
...Is a dimension of space. Fortunately, Hell and Heaven exsist outside of conventional reality and therefore time there is something people have brought with them. This means that time there has the consistancy of taffey - and a second on Earth can last a thousand years in Hell, and vice versa. It's also purely subjective, which means it passes differently for everyone.

HEAVEN VS HELL
God Rules OK. God Kicks Ass. God is in charge.
However God is also a meglomaniac dictator with a, well, 'God' complex. He has decided that certian dead people don't deserve to be let back into Paradise, and so they are in Hell. The Angels abide by this becasue it's God's law. That doesn't mean they *like* it. Created as holesum caring beaings, they also *want* to help people. I strongly suspect none of them like sins very much, and happily take the opertunity to kick the Holy Shite out of them at every opertunity their main duties allow them. They also understand (possibly better than God) that a litte kindness can go a long way.

DEMONIC HEALTH INSURANCE
I don't think you really need it. I get the impression that just about any kind of injury is healable in Hell, otherwise, where would the 'eternal damnation' from? Also merely 'impossible' feets become readily survivable.
Being raped by five inch tentacles would break someone into a thousand tiny pieces, but Our Glorious Heroine is walking away with only a sore bottom in only a few minutes time.

MISC
God knows - And David Hopkins presumably. Anyway, fill misc in yourselves. I've rambled on far too long and have probably stuck my foot in it far too many times already.

ANTIcarrot.

Ready your chainsaws!
Start your engines!
Let the idea hacking begin!

Ashton Webster · Post by **Ashton Webster** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 2:53 pm

That's Cthulhu Elder gods and the autor who wrote about them was H.P.Lovecraft. The demons he wrote about, like Cthulhu, Dagon and several more are mentioned in Satanic bible.

DarkBlood_Warwing · Post by **DarkBlood_Warwing** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 4:29 pm

hmmmmmmmmmmm *scribbble* anywhere.If I said that god had a problem and was full of himself elsewhere i'd be banned to here to devner.

of course.....I'd be better in charge.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 3:42 am

Angels have free will by biblical account. A bunch of them decided to do the crazy monkey dance with human females before the flood in Genesis, and their half-breed offspring were the nephilim. (There are alternate theories for the interpretation of that passage involving Seth and Cain's descendants being the 'sons of God' and 'daughters of man' in question.)
Even setting that one aside, the fact that about a third of the Host revolted with Lucifer would seem to indicate that they've got some free will going on. Maybe not the greatest smarts ever if it seemed like a good idea to revolt against God, but the ability to choose is there.

Also, like I said some while back, I don't think that Hell is a matter of God having a big cartoon boot kick someone off a cloud into the lake of fire. After all, if God just wanted to toss people in Hell, why bother with the whole Jesus thing when he could toss just fine already? I think that people go to Hell because they picked door #2 on their own. God has a pretty simple 'My way or the highway' policy going on, leaving just one alternative for people who choose not to go with God. To break Christian theology down to the brass tacks, Jesus=accepting God=heaven, not Jesus=denying God=hell. I expect that people are shown the truth of the situation upon their death to allow for an informed opinion, otherwise the majority of the world is screwed when they die unshriven, and basing the fate of a person's eternity off of the tiny speck of time that is a lifetime seems a touch unfair.
If I'm right, and people get to choose whether they go with God's side at the pearly gates, what kind of idiot would choose Hell, right? Paradise, torment, wow, tough call there. But it's like Milton wrote for Lucifer in Paradise Lost, the 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven' line. Sin can't bear the presence of God; take Hitler for example. You think he'd just pop into Heaven and be like, "Hey, whoa, killed a few million people, but I've put my past behind me and just luuuuuuv God!"? I don't. I'd bet the bastard ran screaming all the way to Hell, just to get away from God. There are plenty of people in the world who just couldn't accept God's company. Hell won't lack for occupants, sadly.

Urban Wild Cat · Post by **Urban Wild Cat** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 4:20 am

That's like the Anne Rice version of Hell, where souls who did things like that go and are shown just what they did and the actual implications of thier actions, and it basically tears their minds apart, until they reconcile themselves with what they did.

Kree · Post by **Kree** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 6:13 am

Kree raises a finger. "Um, a slight note - at least some of H.P. Lovecraft's gods, Elder or otherwise, were borrowed from ancient and usually dead religions. Dagon for instance was a Philistinian god who looked a lot like a typical mer-man except he had a distinctly unpleasant personality - I think he was one of the ones that demanded human sacrifices. He was later adopted by the Phoenecians as a god of commerce though they omitted his worst habits."

[ This Message was edited by: Kree on 2002-02-26 06:21 ]

ThingfromtheDeep · Post by **ThingfromtheDeep** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 2:23 pm

Angels have no souls, whereas, humans do, making humans more important to God than Angels. Also, Angels have a will of their own, but being in Heaven most of the time, are not as suspectable to bad influences with the exception of a few like Lucifer.

Later...

Ashton Webster · Post by **Ashton Webster** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 2:35 pm

Kree raises a finger. "Um, a slight note - at least some of H.P. Lovecraft's gods, Elder or otherwise, were borrowed from ancient and usually dead religions.

That's what I had in mind. All of Lovecrafts gods were parts of some old religions and some of them are written in the satanic bible, provig that some people believe in them even today. (note that I'm not a satanist, I've just read the book to see what is satanism all about)

Cypress · Post by **Cypress** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 3:09 pm

I bet bluegrass music was a sign of the comming of the anti-christ! Sure, it's off of Bruno, but it makes a good point!

Fergus · Post by **Fergus** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 5:57 am

Jack's angels have free will, I think. If not, why would Central have to tell Farago to stop petting the rabbit?
Oooohh, here's a thought...
God himself hasn't made an appearence yet. (not that I think He will, this early in the game) Everyone knows that Humans/Furries/Earthdwellers are capable of misinterpreting God's will.
Are angels?
Is Farago or Central right? Was Reckonin sent by God, or did some lowerdown think "Hey, those guys are dissing our Lord!" and send down the big guns without God's approval? Perhaps the whole judgement thing is a misinterpretation...
Wouldn't that be weird/cool?
PS is there one word that means that? I find myself using it more and more on Jack...

BigNemo · Post by **BigNemo** » Wed Feb 27, 2002 3:02 pm

I am no official greeter but... Welcome to the forum, ANTIcarrot!

On 2002-02-24 14:39, ANTIcarrot wrote:
I'm not an expert in theology, nor do I claim that is 'THE TRUTH' or the way Jack's world works, but some may find it useful:

Same here.

By the way, one of the many reasons I like 'Jack' for is, the comic stirs some stimulating discussion.

ANGLES:
Classical angels like Gabrial were suposedly created before humans. As 'first generation prototypes' they lack some of the features of the production line model, and are not people, as they lack the ability to choose to do wrong. Effectively they are a form of robots who are programmed to care and do God's will.

I like the metaphor of Angels being the godly equivalent of robots, at least if we think of Asimov's robots, or eventually Philip Dick's androids ('Blade Runner'). Angels were created first (before the creation of the World if I remember) and were created to serve; according to Revelation (i.e. if you believe) furs... er, mankind

were created to be sons and heirs.

We may assume that the 'first law' and 'second law' of angels (Asimov again!) is 'an angel will never turn against God' and 'an angel will always serve God'. Asimov himself looked for ways of 'cheating' with the laws in some of his works about robots (don't ask about titles - my sci-fi books are still packed since my last moving). God created Lucifer nearly as beautiful and powerful as himself, and so Lucifer was (somehow) allowed to think that he was God himself. This way he could overrun the law and turn against God. As for the fallen angels who followed Lucifer, he had just to cheat them into believing that he was the true God... so they actually were his first victims. (OK, maybe to describe the Evil One as sort of a Nexus 6 model gone nuts is a bit borderline, but hey it's for the sake of discussion!)

I agree that angels were not given knowledge - this does not mean necessarily that they have no free will (before original sin, mankind had no knowledge, but still had free will - they would not be evil because they were still innocent) (I could quote a source for angels lacking knowledge, but it is a bit laughable...

)

HEAVEN VS HELL
God Rules OK. God Kicks Ass. God is in charge.
However God is also a meglomaniac dictator with a, well, 'God' complex. He has decided that certian dead people don't deserve to be let back into Paradise, and so they are in Hell. The Angels abide by this becasue it's God's law. That doesn't mean they *like* it. Created as holesum caring beaings, they also *want* to help people. I strongly suspect none of them like sins very much, and happily take the opertunity to kick the Holy Shite out of them at every opertunity their main duties allow them. They also understand (possibly better than God) that a litte kindness can go a long way.

Allow me to disagree. My opinion (or my belief if you prefer) is that God doesn't damn us - we damn ourselves. He gave us free will - he made us free to the point we are allowed to believe He doesn't exist if we choose to. He would just be glad if all of us achieved salvation - He will rejoyce every time a sinner changes his heart - but, hey, in the end that's up to us. The only way He could eventually save us would be to take away our free will - before we do wrong! - but that would make our existance meaningless - morally speaking, it would be the same as shooting us in the forehead. (actually, He could just kill us before we damn ourselves... but mankind wouldn't last long that way!)

We usually think of salvation as reward and damnation as punishment. As I see it, however, reward and punishment are human categories, things we invented to make our human society work somehow (stick by the rules and you're rewarded, break them and you're punished). In this life, we also like the idea of good guys being rewarded and bad guys being punished - but God's way is not necessarily our way.

I think that Salvation is what actually gives the final meaning to existence, like for a caterpillar turning into a butterfly - if the caterpillar fails its metamorphosis, its existance as a caterpillar becomes meaningless. Damnation, as failure to achieve salvation, is punishment to itself - and gives Lucifer a good grab on the damned soul, which he enjoys a lot, as it is the only way he can take a petty revenge on God.

(This didn't come out as I wanted to - I am too tired now - we can discuss this further if you are interested)

Oh boy, I didn't want to write that much

_________________
Long live and prosperBig Nemo (...just like the classic comic character, only grown up)------------------
Life is like the ladder to a henhouse - short, steep and full of s(-beep-)t (anonymous)

[ This Message was edited by: BigNemo on 2002-02-27 15:06 ]

Roubam · Post by **Roubam** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 2:28 pm

A quick note- H.P. Lovecraft actually did invent many of his gods. Some were Biblical, Satanical, or otherwise, but some were original. For instance, Azathoth (chaos), Yog-Sothoth (?), the famous Cthulhu (alien-god), and Nyarlathotep (evil behind chaos) are all original, I believe.

ZOMBIE USER 6344 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 6344** » Thu Feb 28, 2002 2:50 pm

*off subject*
Ever thought that maybe God was drunk when her created the world, and thought like: "Damn, why did I do that? I don't remember a thing! Oh heck, maybe it will work anyway."

Just a thought

Vazagi · Post by **Vazagi** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 5:11 am

That would explain the platypus

DarkBlood_Warwing · Post by **DarkBlood_Warwing** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 8:40 am

do demons have 'free will'

hmm.......sad........weren there 'angel' type things before Chirstainaty and the religon they stole ideas from.

it's all one big messed up chain.
lets all fix it.
prehaps i can *grins evily*

Cypress · Post by **Cypress** » Fri Mar 01, 2002 11:06 am

"Need a smith?"

Cypress lifts up his heavy malus.

"I dont do windows or blackholes"