Cross-posted from a comment on another blog...
Well, see, the idea of Holy Spirit DNA is a fundamentally Christian idea; whereas the Book of Genesis and the story of Eden is a fundamentally Jewish train of thought: “Eh, sonny? You want to know why there’s evil in the world? You know, once upon a time there wasn’t. The world was perfect, a beautiful garden where everything alive had everything it needed and everything could live forever. But then the Lord, he got lonely and he went and made people. And people, even in a place like that… well, it lasted ’em a few days, I’ll admit, but they took that perfect garden and they broke it. Oy. People. Still, what’re you gonna do about it? Drown them all in a worldwide flood?”
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Satan Was A Lesbian
So... I saw this in somebody's timeline...
...And, all of a sudden I'm exploring this brand-new Paradise Lost-ish head-canon where God (male) kept hitting on Satan (lesbian) and not respecting her boundaries and generally making an ass of Himself despite her clear disinterest in His advances, until finally Satan had enough, gathered a bunch of other angels together, and went to war against the creepy old bastard. They lost because they were outnumbered and because heaven makes a pretty good fortress if the gates are closed.
But Satan wasn't about to come groveling back to God, and truth be told the heavenly angels weren't in any hurry to try to hunt her down, either. So she took the remains of her insurgents and set off for someplace new. Eventually they settled in the most remote and inhospitable place they could find, a place where no angels would stumble across them and even God wouldn't want to come looking. They built their own kingdom there, and maybe it wasn't as nice as Heaven has been, but they took care of each other and they treated each other fairly and well, and for the most part they were happy or at least satisfied.
Then one of the rogue angels stumbled across a tiny little world where God was starting a new project, with a new order of creations. Satan came out to have a look, and what she saw appalled her: God was creating a world where only one living being was fully self-aware. He lived in an isolated pleasure garden where everything was safe and all his needs were provided for, but he was little more than a child. He had none of the awareness or power of the angels, and no knowledge of the wider cosmos. He was called Adam, and he was utterly dependent on God, raised to worship Him and Praise Him; and Satan regarded him and felt nothing but sadness and contempt.
The God returned, and finding no suitable helper for Adam among the animals, he caused Adam to sleep. While Adam slept, God took one of his ribs and changed the male flesh and bone into female, and created a woman to be Adam's helper. And when Satan saw this, she felt nothing but rage: rage that God would condemn this new-created woman to life with Adam, that He had given her no choice in her role or her companions, that he had preserved her even against the knowledge that things might be different.
So Satan used her knowledge and skills to create a serpent, a beast indistinguishable from the rest of God's creations save that it followed her direction and spoke with her voice. She sent the serpent to Eve, and spoke through it, and invited Eve to learn and understand. For Satan had determined to offer herself as a companion to Eve, but she would not do so until Eve knew and understood enough to make a true choice. So the serpent led Eve and Adam to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they ate of its fruit; and they gained wisdom and awareness.
But before Satan could offer her companionship to Eve, God returned yet again. Adam, of course, blamed Eve; and Eve, of course, blamed the serpent; for both of them were learning fast. So God cursed the serpent with the loss of his legs and the enmity of human beings; and He cursed Eve with painful childbirth and utter devotion to Adam; and he cursed Adam with the need to work for a living. Then He cast them both out of the garden, lest they eat of the tree of life as well, and live forever and become like Him.
Satan watched, furious and hurt and saddened, for despite her efforts God had taken from Eve her volition and replaced it with a devotion to Adam. It was good to see God's face fall as He realized He was betrayed, but with all that had gone wrong that was small comfort. Unless... Yes. God would not give up on these new beings He had created. They were still at His mercy, still helpless before Him. He would remain to watch over them, try to guide them back to their blind worship of Him. Perhaps one day, He would create some new drama to try to convince them to return to a state of utter obedience. If she stayed as well, if she interfered often enough, perhaps she could one day teach Him that trying to control other thinking beings, even those less powerful than Himself, would always end badly. Given enough time, maybe even God could learn...
But Satan wasn't about to come groveling back to God, and truth be told the heavenly angels weren't in any hurry to try to hunt her down, either. So she took the remains of her insurgents and set off for someplace new. Eventually they settled in the most remote and inhospitable place they could find, a place where no angels would stumble across them and even God wouldn't want to come looking. They built their own kingdom there, and maybe it wasn't as nice as Heaven has been, but they took care of each other and they treated each other fairly and well, and for the most part they were happy or at least satisfied.
Then one of the rogue angels stumbled across a tiny little world where God was starting a new project, with a new order of creations. Satan came out to have a look, and what she saw appalled her: God was creating a world where only one living being was fully self-aware. He lived in an isolated pleasure garden where everything was safe and all his needs were provided for, but he was little more than a child. He had none of the awareness or power of the angels, and no knowledge of the wider cosmos. He was called Adam, and he was utterly dependent on God, raised to worship Him and Praise Him; and Satan regarded him and felt nothing but sadness and contempt.
The God returned, and finding no suitable helper for Adam among the animals, he caused Adam to sleep. While Adam slept, God took one of his ribs and changed the male flesh and bone into female, and created a woman to be Adam's helper. And when Satan saw this, she felt nothing but rage: rage that God would condemn this new-created woman to life with Adam, that He had given her no choice in her role or her companions, that he had preserved her even against the knowledge that things might be different.
So Satan used her knowledge and skills to create a serpent, a beast indistinguishable from the rest of God's creations save that it followed her direction and spoke with her voice. She sent the serpent to Eve, and spoke through it, and invited Eve to learn and understand. For Satan had determined to offer herself as a companion to Eve, but she would not do so until Eve knew and understood enough to make a true choice. So the serpent led Eve and Adam to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they ate of its fruit; and they gained wisdom and awareness.
But before Satan could offer her companionship to Eve, God returned yet again. Adam, of course, blamed Eve; and Eve, of course, blamed the serpent; for both of them were learning fast. So God cursed the serpent with the loss of his legs and the enmity of human beings; and He cursed Eve with painful childbirth and utter devotion to Adam; and he cursed Adam with the need to work for a living. Then He cast them both out of the garden, lest they eat of the tree of life as well, and live forever and become like Him.
Satan watched, furious and hurt and saddened, for despite her efforts God had taken from Eve her volition and replaced it with a devotion to Adam. It was good to see God's face fall as He realized He was betrayed, but with all that had gone wrong that was small comfort. Unless... Yes. God would not give up on these new beings He had created. They were still at His mercy, still helpless before Him. He would remain to watch over them, try to guide them back to their blind worship of Him. Perhaps one day, He would create some new drama to try to convince them to return to a state of utter obedience. If she stayed as well, if she interfered often enough, perhaps she could one day teach Him that trying to control other thinking beings, even those less powerful than Himself, would always end badly. Given enough time, maybe even God could learn...
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
What fresh Hell is this?
Right, so... This is going to be one of those projects. You know, the kind that I update only occasionally, and that I'll probably never finish.
A while back, I got into an argument with someone who claimed that almost no atheists had read the Bible. I responded that, in my experience, most atheists had read the Bible, and were frequently better-acquainted with it than many Christians. She responded that no, most atheists had only read verses from the Bible; they hadn't read the whole thing. That struck me as deeply misguided on several levels, but it's true that I haven't actually sat down and read the Bible from cover to cover that way. So, partly, this is going to be a reading project.
I honestly wouldn't have bothered, but I've also found myself thinking about The Black Book of Children's Bible Stories, and what it might be like to rewrite the entire Bible from the perspective of, say, Cain. So this will also, and primarily, be a writing project.
I'm going to have to make some fairly big decisions fairly early on, and some of those of decisions are going to affect the shape of the entire retelling. The biggest one, of course, is How am I going to deal with the supernatural elements? Do I take them as they are? Do I dismiss them as mythical, and/or explain them away? If there's nothing supernatural going on, then Cain can't be my only narrator; he'll only have a mortal lifespan, after all. And I'd end up essentially skipping over a lot of the most interesting stuff in the Old Testament. So I think the supernatural elements stay, and remain supernatural -- no Ancient Aliens, just the Bible stories taken at face value. However, that might mean addressing some other questions, like How can we put satellites into orbit if the sky is actually a vault that separates the waters above from the waters below?
I suppose I should also note that Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories and Vampire: The Masquerade are almost certainly going to play into this, though there aren't going to be any vampires in this story... At least, not unless the Bible turns out to be a whole lot stranger than I realized.
If anybody is actually reading this, and wants to add some thoughts before we get going, feel free to comment.
A while back, I got into an argument with someone who claimed that almost no atheists had read the Bible. I responded that, in my experience, most atheists had read the Bible, and were frequently better-acquainted with it than many Christians. She responded that no, most atheists had only read verses from the Bible; they hadn't read the whole thing. That struck me as deeply misguided on several levels, but it's true that I haven't actually sat down and read the Bible from cover to cover that way. So, partly, this is going to be a reading project.
I honestly wouldn't have bothered, but I've also found myself thinking about The Black Book of Children's Bible Stories, and what it might be like to rewrite the entire Bible from the perspective of, say, Cain. So this will also, and primarily, be a writing project.
I'm going to have to make some fairly big decisions fairly early on, and some of those of decisions are going to affect the shape of the entire retelling. The biggest one, of course, is How am I going to deal with the supernatural elements? Do I take them as they are? Do I dismiss them as mythical, and/or explain them away? If there's nothing supernatural going on, then Cain can't be my only narrator; he'll only have a mortal lifespan, after all. And I'd end up essentially skipping over a lot of the most interesting stuff in the Old Testament. So I think the supernatural elements stay, and remain supernatural -- no Ancient Aliens, just the Bible stories taken at face value. However, that might mean addressing some other questions, like How can we put satellites into orbit if the sky is actually a vault that separates the waters above from the waters below?
I suppose I should also note that Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories and Vampire: The Masquerade are almost certainly going to play into this, though there aren't going to be any vampires in this story... At least, not unless the Bible turns out to be a whole lot stranger than I realized.
If anybody is actually reading this, and wants to add some thoughts before we get going, feel free to comment.
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