That might not even be the Pope. Hell, he might not even be a member of the clergy. We’ve never seen what the LoSRHverse’s Pope looks like before, and nobody ever actually claimed this guy was the Pope (himself included). For all we know this could just be some random old dude in costume shop vestments.
Depends on the country. Here we are talking about USA “trade dress”, because of the distinctive look of GG’s second form. Trade dress is filed with the Trademark office and generally follows the same renewal process. There is no limit on the number of times it can be renewed.
“Religion” is claiming GG is infringing on their Trade Dress (or they should be)… although really in a ‘good faith’ defense they should have started with a cease and desists notice. Then followed on with a civil lawsuit for damages (and applicable federal fines), which could be licencing fees charged by “Religion” to people seeking to use “Religion’s” Trade Dress. Plus an esoteric “damage to the brand” value.
Think of it like GG dressing up as a giant Hereshy’s Chocolate Bar. It’s not about the “ideas” or chemical formal or even process by which Hereshy’s Chocolate is made. But its about the look and appearance of the wrapper.
Or think about what would happen if Banana Man got into a Trade Dress dispute with Chiquita, Dole, or another food company that sells bananas. Of course Banana Man likely already has that covered, and even if he didn’t, just showing up in court would get the case dismissed as frivolous and likely lose the plaintiff their Trademark/Trade Dress, or end up owing Banana Man royalties. Because he’s Banana Man.
(Also in the USA, Copyrights last life of author + 70 years. Which would get interesting if an immortal divine entity was a primary author. For cooperate ownership its 120 years or 95 after publication, whichever is sooner. But again that’s for Copyright, not Trademarks and Trade Dress.)
Additionally, she actually does not resemble any angels as put down in the Bible itself.
The only Angels with actual wings are Saraphims (which have 6 wings), Cherubim (which have 4 and are covered with eyes), and the “The Four Living Creatures” (which have 6 wings, are covered with eyes, and each resemble a different animal).
None of which GG’s Angelic form resemble. Therefore, “Religion” actually doesn’t have a basis for this case at all.
But “Religion” has that covered too, for most sects the Bible is just an inspiration, not to be taken too literally. Definitely that’s the case of Catholics.
That’s…not the right words to invoke papal infallibility.
They can easily argue that he’s only speaking as a man right now. Much like how it’s not Catholic Dogma that Trump is a dick, just because the pope said he was.
Not as described by modern Christians, though. His only unambiguous appearance is in Job, although a lot of Christians like to point to passages that are speaking about the king of Babylon as referring to Satan … despite the fact that those passages are explicitly referring to the king.
The modern concept of Satan comes from Paradise Lost, which is fanfic taken from some non-canonical books and from the mythology of other religions. I think that one of those books is the Revelation/Apocalypse of Peter (not the one in the Bible, which is the Revelation/Apocalypse of John) and a couple of the non-canonical gospels.
Maju and I have already pointed this out in several other comments.
My personal belief—no, not belief. I have to be a believer to have those, don’t I? Uh… headcanon? Sure, let’s go with that.
My personal headcanon is that the Serpent in Genesis is the real Big Bad of the series (yeah, completely abandoning all pretext of this being a theological discussion). The Bible never specifies what the Serpent is or where he comes from. All I know is that in a single deliberately act, this unassuming creature single-handedly engineered the Original Sin, the First Temptation, from which all evil and suffering on earth derive, and that’s a mighty big accomplishment in pure evil for a simple garden variety garden snake. And after this magnificent first act of villainy, the Serpent receives a token slap on the (purely metaphorical) wrist from God and crawls off into the shadows, apparently disappearing from the narrative forever, as if we’re just supposed to forget about something like that.
Speaking of which, a common thread people love to pull at is why God created the Tree in the Center of the Garden Which Bore the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil™ in the first place, if He knew it was harmful and was only going to forbid the Garden’s only two residents from eating from it. The Tree’s only purpose for existing seems to be as an object of temptation, which kinda runs counter-purpose to what God was trying to do. But it occurs to me that the Bible never actually says He was the one who created it.
Satan is weak because he’s a patsy. True to the name of Azazel, he was just angel set up to take the fall. A nice, juicy red herring pushed from the heavens with all the brilliance of a falling star, all the better to draw everyone’s attention away as the real Author of Evil slithers away right under our noses.
The snake, serpent or dragon embodies the male aspect of the primeval Divinity. This ancient religion, probably of Neolithic roots, is preserved in various ways in the following traditions (at least):
1. Basque mythology: Sugar (Sugoi, Maju) is the male partner of the more popular female Goddess Mari.
2. Greek pre-IE and pre-Halaf mythological layer as told by Hesiod: from the primeval Chaos originated Gaia (probably a Vasconic substrate word meaning “matter” but also “potential”) and Eros. Also appears as snake in the Apollo myth, the quintessential “dragon-slayer” myth. The snake is not obvious in the Hesiod version but it’s very apparent in archaeology and other legends.
3. Sakhti and some Shaivite variants of Hinduism: Sakhti is the Goddess, Shiva the God. The snake is also associated to these Gods.
4. Taoism: Yin and Yang, more abstract but the same thing in essence.
The Snake/Dragon aspect is best known in European traditions, full of dragon-slayers (first Indoeuropean hero gods like Apollo or Thor), then Christian saints, be it George or Michael, probably because it was here where it survived for longer.
While there was definitely a very significant exchange of mythological images, tropes and ideas between man’s various cultures in those days, I think it’s a fallacy to assume the symbolism it was so neatly and universally unified, with a single root and single, overarching theme.
Snakes exist in nearly every land where humans make their homes. Most early peoples were familiar with them. It’s inevitable that more than one such people would independently assign symbolic meaning to them, just as it is with any image that’s common and recognizable enough in the world. But symbolism is always rooted in free associations that caught on, and such associations are often different things to different people, because every image has multiple traits that people can latch onto, so not every independently developed meaning for the same symbol will necessarily be the same.
Just look at the eye. In modern western culture, many associate the image of a single human eye with being watched, snooping, spying, stalking, malevolent and intrusive, creepy and authoritarian. But just as recently as a few centuries ago, it was associated with a different sort of watching entirely, not watching you but watching over you, benevolent and protective, vigilantly standing guard against danger, safe and comforting. To some, the eye signifies awareness, and by extension awareness of the unseen, the spiritual, the transcendent. In the ancient Akkadian culture, it instead represented attentiveness and acknowledgement, and therefore respect. In ancient Egypt, the eye represented the sun, because they look similar. These all tie into what an eye is, but not in the same way. It is the same image, but not the same symbol.
Consider please that the Neolithic culture (in Europe, much of Africa and India) expanded from West Asia (Middle East). Later also we see the Domenic (trilithon tomb) phenomenon expanding from Europe to West Asia and from there to India and Korea in what must have been a religious and not demographic nor military endeavor. So there are definitely links. I can think of others but I don’t want to overextend.
I am persuaded that there was once a very widespread binary monotheism, with female-male complementary duality at its core. A fertility cult in its essence, if you wish. Basque mythology: Mari and Sugar meet every friday night at a mountain, producing the life-bringing storms (sometimes personalized as their son Odei, “hodei” meaning storm cloud). Friday night: the witches’ sabbat, allegedly orgiastic. Sakhtism also emphasizes mystical (tantric) sex as way to reach higher levels of conscience.
That’s what the disciplinary Yavism goes against, expelling Adam and Eve from Eden. And that’s what Indoeuropean religion, also patriarchal, goes against, slaying the dragon/serpent and enslaving (not liberating at all) the Goddess that way, to become secondary goddess like Demeter/Ceres (or later Mary mother of Jesus) or to retain her original domain of the Netherworld but with strong negative meaning as happens with Hel in Nordic mythology.
It’s the original takeover of Hades, of the Underworld where those ancient binary Gods dwelt and for whom the sky (heaven) was just an empty stage for their activities. That’s why I dislike Satanism: because it does not grasp the gravity of the matter at hand at all, being just a reverse Christianity.
My personal headcanon is that the Serpent in Genesis is the real Big Bad of the series (yeah, completely abandoning all pretext of this being a theological discussion). The Bible never specifies what the Serpent is or where he comes from. All I know is that in a single deliberately act, this unassuming creature single-handedly engineered the Original Sin, the First Temptation, from which all evil and suffering on earth derive, and that’s a mighty big accomplishment in pure evil for a simple garden variety garden snake.
I view huge chunks of Genesis as a collection of fables. The snake was just a snake, who was the antagonist who inspired the events. Personification of animals is a common thing in fables, Aesop’s and otherwise. Other elements and meanings obviously got added later, but the core of the story seems pretty obvious.
“Why do we live in a world that sucks so much and has such suffering, if gods are supposedly watching over us?”
*tell Garden of Eden fable*
“Why do humans speak so many different languages, making it hard for us to communicate with each other?”
*tell Tower of Babel fable*
There are other bits of Genesis that also bear the marks of fables, but those are the two most blatant ones that come to mind right now. I could take a quick re-read through Genesis to pick out the others, but it’s almost 1:00 AM, and I don’t feel like it.
Considering that everything in the OT before David and Solomon is pure manufacture and myth, those bits were probably cobbled together from stories that were passed around all over the place. For that matter, the vast majority of modern archaeologists think that David and Solomon were mythologized to the point of unrecognizability. There were real Judean kings/tribal leaders named David and Solomon, apparently, but the reality was nothing like what is presented in the OT.
You mean the real historical King Solomon didn’t have a magical ring personally presented to him by God that let him summon demons and bind them to his will? And he didn’t have magical worms that could eat any substance that he commanded to carve all his temples out of solid stone with their teeth?
Shit, I’ma have to reevaluate my entire worldview.
Well sure, those parts were probably real. ^.^ He probably just did those things as a smaller tribal leader of a backwoods kingdom in Judea, since it doesn’t seem that the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah likely existed.
I’d link you to the specific Wikipedia page that refers to some of Israel Finkelstein’s and Neil Silberman’s work on the subject, but this blog seems to kick those into moderation. I’ll try a partial link which you can paste into a web browser, if you care enough about the subject.
Basically, everything before about 700 or 800 BCE (David and Solomon would have lived around 1100 or 1050 BCE) is so riddled with anachronisms that anything before that point had to have been cobbled together from pieces of vaguely remembered history into something that probably didn’t resemble real history much at all. Finkelstein thinks that it might have been a construction of King Josiah, as a justification in his attempt to supposedly reunite the two kingdoms as they were in the mythical past (ie. conquer his northern neighbors).
Well, meh. That flowed over the right side. Still, if you highlight from the beginning of the “en” to the beginning of the “Basically” on the line below, you’ll end up with a paste-able link.
Oh, hey, it turned the one from this last message into a click-able link, but it didn’t throw it into moderation, for some reason. Weird. I was sure that would happen, and I would have to re-post it.
There’s no “Devil” in the Bible: it’s a medieval construct based mostly on European aboriginal beliefs, for example the black he-goat is one of the manifestations of Mari the Basque Goddess.
Guessing defence will have to play the infallible card, cornering the pope into saying god is truly infallible and can do no wrong, then spring the argument of if that’s the case then it was not a mistake that GG got her Halo through accident or trickery, but actually all part of the big G’s long term plan and therefore is not infringement.
“Profiting from”? Pretty sure she doesn´t charge for any of her deeds.
But would assume that they end up using her halo in some fashion to help them out in the end, like on the lawyer.
If it was really ‘God’ wouldn’t he be phoning in his vote via the number displayed on his big screen tv? (and shouldn’t he be upgrading his tv again sometime soon?)
It’s a plaintiff or the plaintiff’s attorney, in a civil trial. They don’t have prosecutors, even if this judge would like to sentence GG to a few decades in prison.
Technically, given the universe, he could easily counter by claiming he had a mutation that made him look demonic and that saying that he’s “clearly the devil” was an offensive remark fueled by anti-mutant prejudice.
I mean, yes, he legitimately is the Devil, but if I can come up with a plausible way to weasel one’s way out of such an accusation, surely the Prince of Lies would’ve thought of it ages ago.
Also, ad hominem arguments don’t hold up in court, even when they are perfectly valid.
“The cardinal rushes up to the Pope and says, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’
“The Pope says, ‘Tell me the good news first.’
“The cardinal says ‘We’ve just heard that the Second Coming is here, Jesus has come back!’
“The Pope says, ‘That is good news. What’s the bad news?’
“‘The bad news,” the cardinal says, ‘is that the news comes out of Salt Lake City.'”
Muslims have a thing about Jesus returning, as well, although he’s only a prophet, in their mythology. According to the Koran, Jesus was taken up into heaven, and a substitute died in his place. There’s been some speculation amongst Koranic scholars, about who the substitute was: Judas, Pontius Pilate, or someone else. Although, most modern scholars don’t seem to be as concerned about it.
In some future scenario, Jesus will come back and get to have a few wives and kids, then live out the rest of his mortal life. I can’t remember if that’s supposed to be tied to some end-times scenario or what. There’s something about bringing the whole world under Islamic rule, somewhere in the Koran, and perhaps Jesus is supposed to come back and live out the rest of his life then.
I’m blanking on the details, and my Google searches are coming up with nothing useful. I just keep finding fundamentalist Christian articles about how Islamic conquest and terrorism are going to bring about the events in Revelation, and I can’t exactly trust them give a fair analysis of the contents of the Koran. One particularly hilarious article condemned all of the bloodshed and conquest in the Koran, which the reader discovered when she read bits of it. She has apparently never read her own holy book to find the same. ^.^
I’ve gotten the impression that it was supposed to be some sort of magical illusion or shape change or something. I remember something about some bad guy from the Gospels being scared into the street when Jesus was passing by, colliding with Jesus, and then their appearances were magically switched.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m remembering that from someone’s description of stuff in the Koran or if it’s from some other source. A podcast that I listen to is going through the Koran surah by surah, but they haven’t gotten to the parts that deal with Jesus in detail. It could be another few months until they get to that part.
I’ve read the Bible, cover to cover, and while chunks of it are mind-numbingly dull (Numbers, Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom …), it doesn’t approach the bits of the Koran that I’ve read, which were so scattered and all over the place that it’s difficult to enjoy. At least Genesis, the first part of Exodus, Judges, the histories books of the Old Testament, and the Gospels are more narrative in character. I’m not sure I could make it through the entire Koran, even if I had the desire to do so.
It is the end of times per the Koran (or Muslim tradition, not too sure). First there will be a false prophet call Madhi (Messiah), then the return of Issa (Jesus). They are just Christians by another name…
I’m actually starting to believe this testimony. I mean, look at every example of the devil being involved in the bible. He only ever actually killed Job’s family, and every example of him getting involved is because god has wanted him to.
That’s one of my favorite points that Christians usually miss. The portrayal of Satan/Lucifer in modern media doesn’t come from the Bible. The guy barely makes an appearance. They’re treating the stories in Paradise Lost as if they were biblical canon.
One of the chapters that are claimed to refer to Satan is Isaiah 14, where modern Christianity gets the casting down from heaven into hell narrative … which is actually referring to the king of Babylon. The passage expressly states that it’s referring to that king, at the beginning.
The other big reference is the second half or so of Ezekiel 28, which is referring to the king of Tyre. I don’t know how anyone can read those two passages and get any reference to Satan, but they do.
The only actual presence of Satan is in the book of Job, and he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy in that book. He made some good points. He smacked around Job a lot, but that was at Yahweh’s instigation.
I wonder how Job’s children and servants felt about being murdered as part of the test.
At this point I’m expecting God to show up and say he’s cool with Good Girl just to stick it to the Pope.
Especially since this pope is siding with the devil.
That might not even be the Pope. Hell, he might not even be a member of the clergy. We’ve never seen what the LoSRHverse’s Pope looks like before, and nobody ever actually claimed this guy was the Pope (himself included). For all we know this could just be some random old dude in costume shop vestments.
Looks like a pope and cuaks like a pope…
Intellectual properties only last about 80 years, after that they become fair use. Others can’t claim ownership, but they can use it.
Depends on the country. Here we are talking about USA “trade dress”, because of the distinctive look of GG’s second form. Trade dress is filed with the Trademark office and generally follows the same renewal process. There is no limit on the number of times it can be renewed.
“Religion” is claiming GG is infringing on their Trade Dress (or they should be)… although really in a ‘good faith’ defense they should have started with a cease and desists notice. Then followed on with a civil lawsuit for damages (and applicable federal fines), which could be licencing fees charged by “Religion” to people seeking to use “Religion’s” Trade Dress. Plus an esoteric “damage to the brand” value.
Think of it like GG dressing up as a giant Hereshy’s Chocolate Bar. It’s not about the “ideas” or chemical formal or even process by which Hereshy’s Chocolate is made. But its about the look and appearance of the wrapper.
Or think about what would happen if Banana Man got into a Trade Dress dispute with Chiquita, Dole, or another food company that sells bananas. Of course Banana Man likely already has that covered, and even if he didn’t, just showing up in court would get the case dismissed as frivolous and likely lose the plaintiff their Trademark/Trade Dress, or end up owing Banana Man royalties. Because he’s Banana Man.
(Also in the USA, Copyrights last life of author + 70 years. Which would get interesting if an immortal divine entity was a primary author. For cooperate ownership its 120 years or 95 after publication, whichever is sooner. But again that’s for Copyright, not Trademarks and Trade Dress.)
Additionally, she actually does not resemble any angels as put down in the Bible itself.
The only Angels with actual wings are Saraphims (which have 6 wings), Cherubim (which have 4 and are covered with eyes), and the “The Four Living Creatures” (which have 6 wings, are covered with eyes, and each resemble a different animal).
None of which GG’s Angelic form resemble. Therefore, “Religion” actually doesn’t have a basis for this case at all.
But “Religion” has that covered too, for most sects the Bible is just an inspiration, not to be taken too literally. Definitely that’s the case of Catholics.
That’s…not the right words to invoke papal infallibility.
They can easily argue that he’s only speaking as a man right now. Much like how it’s not Catholic Dogma that Trump is a dick, just because the pope said he was.
What happens to papal infallibility when the pope agrees with the devil?
The Devil is not in the Bible.
He’s in the King James version.
Not as described by modern Christians, though. His only unambiguous appearance is in Job, although a lot of Christians like to point to passages that are speaking about the king of Babylon as referring to Satan … despite the fact that those passages are explicitly referring to the king.
The modern concept of Satan comes from Paradise Lost, which is fanfic taken from some non-canonical books and from the mythology of other religions. I think that one of those books is the Revelation/Apocalypse of Peter (not the one in the Bible, which is the Revelation/Apocalypse of John) and a couple of the non-canonical gospels.
Maju and I have already pointed this out in several other comments.
My personal belief—no, not belief. I have to be a believer to have those, don’t I? Uh… headcanon? Sure, let’s go with that.
My personal headcanon is that the Serpent in Genesis is the real Big Bad of the series (yeah, completely abandoning all pretext of this being a theological discussion). The Bible never specifies what the Serpent is or where he comes from. All I know is that in a single deliberately act, this unassuming creature single-handedly engineered the Original Sin, the First Temptation, from which all evil and suffering on earth derive, and that’s a mighty big accomplishment in pure evil for a simple garden variety garden snake. And after this magnificent first act of villainy, the Serpent receives a token slap on the (purely metaphorical) wrist from God and crawls off into the shadows, apparently disappearing from the narrative forever, as if we’re just supposed to forget about something like that.
Speaking of which, a common thread people love to pull at is why God created the Tree in the Center of the Garden Which Bore the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil™ in the first place, if He knew it was harmful and was only going to forbid the Garden’s only two residents from eating from it. The Tree’s only purpose for existing seems to be as an object of temptation, which kinda runs counter-purpose to what God was trying to do. But it occurs to me that the Bible never actually says He was the one who created it.
Satan is weak because he’s a patsy. True to the name of Azazel, he was just angel set up to take the fall. A nice, juicy red herring pushed from the heavens with all the brilliance of a falling star, all the better to draw everyone’s attention away as the real Author of Evil slithers away right under our noses.
PS: Dibs on that concept
The snake, serpent or dragon embodies the male aspect of the primeval Divinity. This ancient religion, probably of Neolithic roots, is preserved in various ways in the following traditions (at least):
1. Basque mythology: Sugar (Sugoi, Maju) is the male partner of the more popular female Goddess Mari.
2. Greek pre-IE and pre-Halaf mythological layer as told by Hesiod: from the primeval Chaos originated Gaia (probably a Vasconic substrate word meaning “matter” but also “potential”) and Eros. Also appears as snake in the Apollo myth, the quintessential “dragon-slayer” myth. The snake is not obvious in the Hesiod version but it’s very apparent in archaeology and other legends.
3. Sakhti and some Shaivite variants of Hinduism: Sakhti is the Goddess, Shiva the God. The snake is also associated to these Gods.
4. Taoism: Yin and Yang, more abstract but the same thing in essence.
The Snake/Dragon aspect is best known in European traditions, full of dragon-slayers (first Indoeuropean hero gods like Apollo or Thor), then Christian saints, be it George or Michael, probably because it was here where it survived for longer.
While there was definitely a very significant exchange of mythological images, tropes and ideas between man’s various cultures in those days, I think it’s a fallacy to assume the symbolism it was so neatly and universally unified, with a single root and single, overarching theme.
Snakes exist in nearly every land where humans make their homes. Most early peoples were familiar with them. It’s inevitable that more than one such people would independently assign symbolic meaning to them, just as it is with any image that’s common and recognizable enough in the world. But symbolism is always rooted in free associations that caught on, and such associations are often different things to different people, because every image has multiple traits that people can latch onto, so not every independently developed meaning for the same symbol will necessarily be the same.
Just look at the eye. In modern western culture, many associate the image of a single human eye with being watched, snooping, spying, stalking, malevolent and intrusive, creepy and authoritarian. But just as recently as a few centuries ago, it was associated with a different sort of watching entirely, not watching you but watching over you, benevolent and protective, vigilantly standing guard against danger, safe and comforting. To some, the eye signifies awareness, and by extension awareness of the unseen, the spiritual, the transcendent. In the ancient Akkadian culture, it instead represented attentiveness and acknowledgement, and therefore respect. In ancient Egypt, the eye represented the sun, because they look similar. These all tie into what an eye is, but not in the same way. It is the same image, but not the same symbol.
Consider please that the Neolithic culture (in Europe, much of Africa and India) expanded from West Asia (Middle East). Later also we see the Domenic (trilithon tomb) phenomenon expanding from Europe to West Asia and from there to India and Korea in what must have been a religious and not demographic nor military endeavor. So there are definitely links. I can think of others but I don’t want to overextend.
I am persuaded that there was once a very widespread binary monotheism, with female-male complementary duality at its core. A fertility cult in its essence, if you wish. Basque mythology: Mari and Sugar meet every friday night at a mountain, producing the life-bringing storms (sometimes personalized as their son Odei, “hodei” meaning storm cloud). Friday night: the witches’ sabbat, allegedly orgiastic. Sakhtism also emphasizes mystical (tantric) sex as way to reach higher levels of conscience.
That’s what the disciplinary Yavism goes against, expelling Adam and Eve from Eden. And that’s what Indoeuropean religion, also patriarchal, goes against, slaying the dragon/serpent and enslaving (not liberating at all) the Goddess that way, to become secondary goddess like Demeter/Ceres (or later Mary mother of Jesus) or to retain her original domain of the Netherworld but with strong negative meaning as happens with Hel in Nordic mythology.
It’s the original takeover of Hades, of the Underworld where those ancient binary Gods dwelt and for whom the sky (heaven) was just an empty stage for their activities. That’s why I dislike Satanism: because it does not grasp the gravity of the matter at hand at all, being just a reverse Christianity.
I view huge chunks of Genesis as a collection of fables. The snake was just a snake, who was the antagonist who inspired the events. Personification of animals is a common thing in fables, Aesop’s and otherwise. Other elements and meanings obviously got added later, but the core of the story seems pretty obvious.
“Why do we live in a world that sucks so much and has such suffering, if gods are supposedly watching over us?”
*tell Garden of Eden fable*
“Why do humans speak so many different languages, making it hard for us to communicate with each other?”
*tell Tower of Babel fable*
There are other bits of Genesis that also bear the marks of fables, but those are the two most blatant ones that come to mind right now. I could take a quick re-read through Genesis to pick out the others, but it’s almost 1:00 AM, and I don’t feel like it.
Considering that everything in the OT before David and Solomon is pure manufacture and myth, those bits were probably cobbled together from stories that were passed around all over the place. For that matter, the vast majority of modern archaeologists think that David and Solomon were mythologized to the point of unrecognizability. There were real Judean kings/tribal leaders named David and Solomon, apparently, but the reality was nothing like what is presented in the OT.
You mean the real historical King Solomon didn’t have a magical ring personally presented to him by God that let him summon demons and bind them to his will? And he didn’t have magical worms that could eat any substance that he commanded to carve all his temples out of solid stone with their teeth?
Shit, I’ma have to reevaluate my entire worldview.
Well sure, those parts were probably real. ^.^ He probably just did those things as a smaller tribal leader of a backwoods kingdom in Judea, since it doesn’t seem that the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah likely existed.
I’d link you to the specific Wikipedia page that refers to some of Israel Finkelstein’s and Neil Silberman’s work on the subject, but this blog seems to kick those into moderation. I’ll try a partial link which you can paste into a web browser, if you care enough about the subject.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(united_monarchy)#Archaeological_record
Basically, everything before about 700 or 800 BCE (David and Solomon would have lived around 1100 or 1050 BCE) is so riddled with anachronisms that anything before that point had to have been cobbled together from pieces of vaguely remembered history into something that probably didn’t resemble real history much at all. Finkelstein thinks that it might have been a construction of King Josiah, as a justification in his attempt to supposedly reunite the two kingdoms as they were in the mythical past (ie. conquer his northern neighbors).
Well, meh. That flowed over the right side. Still, if you highlight from the beginning of the “en” to the beginning of the “Basically” on the line below, you’ll end up with a paste-able link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(united_monarchy)#Archaeological_record
Oh, hey, it turned the one from this last message into a click-able link, but it didn’t throw it into moderation, for some reason. Weird. I was sure that would happen, and I would have to re-post it.
Just click on the link in this last one.
That’s a mere translation!
Laws of physics (and of any other sort, including religious ones) only apply until it’s funnier otherwise. First law of cartoon physics.
I hope an angel appear and says to the pope “Who are you?” And its not the pope but an actor in disguise!
At this point, I’m really hoping it’s all an elaborate setup.
This arc has been kinda weird if it IS somehow the Pope speaking for All Religions.
I mean, Papal Infallibility isn’t believed by Protestants, let alone non-Christian faiths.
Ditto. If they aren’t setting this up as a con job, I don’t know where the hell they could be going with this.
Odd. The “pope” agreeing with the devil? Hm…
There’s no “Devil” in the Bible: it’s a medieval construct based mostly on European aboriginal beliefs, for example the black he-goat is one of the manifestations of Mari the Basque Goddess.
Guessing defence will have to play the infallible card, cornering the pope into saying god is truly infallible and can do no wrong, then spring the argument of if that’s the case then it was not a mistake that GG got her Halo through accident or trickery, but actually all part of the big G’s long term plan and therefore is not infringement.
That would require competent lawyers.
Guess that you get what you pay for…
I guess I don’t need to mention GG’s income VS “Religion” income.
“Profiting from”? Pretty sure she doesn´t charge for any of her deeds.
But would assume that they end up using her halo in some fashion to help them out in the end, like on the lawyer.
Intellect needs another L.
Oh Irony, you delightful scamp.
Well, at least her friends are not in the courtroom. I’m sure they would only make things worse.
If it was really ‘God’ wouldn’t he be phoning in his vote via the number displayed on his big screen tv? (and shouldn’t he be upgrading his tv again sometime soon?)
If it was relly “God” it would be ever present, and not be too busy for a trial. :)
We could probably come up with some derivation of the Euthyphro Dilemma based upon omnipresence, right?
Well, he has only got the one tv (or so we’ve been shown!).
“Your honour the prosecutor is clearly the devil.”
“The devil wouldn’t be that obvious you ninny!”
Or would he?
It’s a plaintiff or the plaintiff’s attorney, in a civil trial. They don’t have prosecutors, even if this judge would like to sentence GG to a few decades in prison.
Technically, given the universe, he could easily counter by claiming he had a mutation that made him look demonic and that saying that he’s “clearly the devil” was an offensive remark fueled by anti-mutant prejudice.
I mean, yes, he legitimately is the Devil, but if I can come up with a plausible way to weasel one’s way out of such an accusation, surely the Prince of Lies would’ve thought of it ages ago.
Also, ad hominem arguments don’t hold up in court, even when they are perfectly valid.
Come on ! Just kill all those douches. After all “God will recognize his own”.
Take that halo off of Good Girl’s head, and that’s what will happen.
Might happen.
I have to say this is the first arc in this comic that I really don’t care for.
Yeah, I’m trying to withhold judgement until after the arc is over, so we can see where they’re going with this. So far, though, I’m failing.
Oh there better be an Arachnodude reference in this plotline.
Why? Because Judge Hawthorne kinda looks like Spider-Man’s boss?
I still say he looks more like Thunderbolt Ross. (From Hulk)
“The cardinal rushes up to the Pope and says, ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’
“The Pope says, ‘Tell me the good news first.’
“The cardinal says ‘We’ve just heard that the Second Coming is here, Jesus has come back!’
“The Pope says, ‘That is good news. What’s the bad news?’
“‘The bad news,” the cardinal says, ‘is that the news comes out of Salt Lake City.'”
I don’t get it. Care to explain to a foreigner?
Salt Lake City is in Utah, so Mormons
Muslims have a thing about Jesus returning, as well, although he’s only a prophet, in their mythology. According to the Koran, Jesus was taken up into heaven, and a substitute died in his place. There’s been some speculation amongst Koranic scholars, about who the substitute was: Judas, Pontius Pilate, or someone else. Although, most modern scholars don’t seem to be as concerned about it.
In some future scenario, Jesus will come back and get to have a few wives and kids, then live out the rest of his mortal life. I can’t remember if that’s supposed to be tied to some end-times scenario or what. There’s something about bringing the whole world under Islamic rule, somewhere in the Koran, and perhaps Jesus is supposed to come back and live out the rest of his life then.
I’m blanking on the details, and my Google searches are coming up with nothing useful. I just keep finding fundamentalist Christian articles about how Islamic conquest and terrorism are going to bring about the events in Revelation, and I can’t exactly trust them give a fair analysis of the contents of the Koran. One particularly hilarious article condemned all of the bloodshed and conquest in the Koran, which the reader discovered when she read bits of it. She has apparently never read her own holy book to find the same. ^.^
The original life model decoy?
I’ve gotten the impression that it was supposed to be some sort of magical illusion or shape change or something. I remember something about some bad guy from the Gospels being scared into the street when Jesus was passing by, colliding with Jesus, and then their appearances were magically switched.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m remembering that from someone’s description of stuff in the Koran or if it’s from some other source. A podcast that I listen to is going through the Koran surah by surah, but they haven’t gotten to the parts that deal with Jesus in detail. It could be another few months until they get to that part.
I’ve read the Bible, cover to cover, and while chunks of it are mind-numbingly dull (Numbers, Leviticus, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom …), it doesn’t approach the bits of the Koran that I’ve read, which were so scattered and all over the place that it’s difficult to enjoy. At least Genesis, the first part of Exodus, Judges, the histories books of the Old Testament, and the Gospels are more narrative in character. I’m not sure I could make it through the entire Koran, even if I had the desire to do so.
You know you guys are way overthinking the joke…
OCD, man. It’s what I do.
Overthinking is cool.
It is the end of times per the Koran (or Muslim tradition, not too sure). First there will be a false prophet call Madhi (Messiah), then the return of Issa (Jesus). They are just Christians by another name…
I’m actually starting to believe this testimony. I mean, look at every example of the devil being involved in the bible. He only ever actually killed Job’s family, and every example of him getting involved is because god has wanted him to.
That’s one of my favorite points that Christians usually miss. The portrayal of Satan/Lucifer in modern media doesn’t come from the Bible. The guy barely makes an appearance. They’re treating the stories in Paradise Lost as if they were biblical canon.
One of the chapters that are claimed to refer to Satan is Isaiah 14, where modern Christianity gets the casting down from heaven into hell narrative … which is actually referring to the king of Babylon. The passage expressly states that it’s referring to that king, at the beginning.
The other big reference is the second half or so of Ezekiel 28, which is referring to the king of Tyre. I don’t know how anyone can read those two passages and get any reference to Satan, but they do.
The only actual presence of Satan is in the book of Job, and he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy in that book. He made some good points. He smacked around Job a lot, but that was at Yahweh’s instigation.
I wonder how Job’s children and servants felt about being murdered as part of the test.
Don’t tell me, God himself shows up and tells the judge that the pope is a lying Freud