No you did great....how would you think He could create lucifer and angels and not the universe?
Well... I believe the mythology and stories behind them like I do with any mythology and stories behind a god.
Believe in this case is more like 'This is how they are seen and conceived in
their respective religion and/or pantheon/This is what
mythologically makes sense in their respective religion and/or pantheon."
But the universe is vast and I don't think we seen it all, so how could it be a one man's job and not a group effort in some way? I find that more believable than anything. Also, I've been polytheistic for the last eight years, so that also impacts my view on creation and have ended up viewing God as another god among many and sure, he may be a powerful god, probably more powerful than the other gods if you're looking at a slightly Christian-influenced view, but he's still not powerful enough to me to be the sole creator of the universe and if he is, I'm more inclined to believe he had a little help. Either from events like the Big Bang, as mentioned earlier, or from the angels.
And what who is Lucifer? a being?
Yes! I'm theistic, so that means I do believe that Lucifer is an actual entity and since I also sort of subscribe to the idea that he rebelled and fell, I also believe he is a fallen angel but don't believe he is
the Satan but probably
a Satan. See,
ha-Satan is a title which is kind of translates to '
the accuser' or '
the adversary', and it's notably so in the Old Testament was Satan there (as ha-Satan)
works for God rather than
against him since he
challenges man. In the New Testament, however, he starts becoming more malevolent and is said to bring evil and temptation and deceive humanity. I think this sort of speaks of a change in
how Satan was viewed within Judaism, as he didn't start out being viewed as terribly malevolent but
was in the New Testament.
However, being that I view Lucifer as someone whom brought enlightenment and was the snake in the garden, I can't deny that he is a Satan himself, a being that challenges man, that is an adversary against them. So, I guess I believe some part of the 'Satan is Lucifer' is true but not in the way it's commonly said. He's A Satan, but not The Satan.
So to sum that up, I believe Lucifer is a being (and also sort of believe he was created by God) and one of God's angels, but also believe he rebelled against God and fell and also believe he is, in some way, man's challenger but not
the sole challenger, nor
the sole Satan and that he brought enlightenment, knowledge and even the potential to become like gods to humanity.
I suppose I would ask why worship a 'fallen angel' as opposed to 'God'?
Because it's fun!
JK, because I feel more of a pull towards the fallen angel rather than God. I was never all that drawn to God to begin with and never felt a huge desire to worship him, but when I decided to learn more about Lucifer and whether he was truly evil or not, I came to admire and love him, and with that came the feeling of being drawn to him and the desire to worship him. Lucifer stood for freedom and enlightenment to me, while God didn't... stand for much to me. He didn't really feel like he offered much freedom or enlightenment, and I didn't believe Sin was a bad thing and didn't believe humanity needed Salvation, so that pulled me further away from God and closer to Lucifer.
It took years for me to actually worship Lucifer, though but I already was showing devotion and stuff through poetry about him and writing stuff on him (and being deeply passionate in talking about him
), it just took me a while to try to go with the motions and actually do it.
Lucifer in the Hebrew Scriptures was a reference to the king of Babylon. The term is helel if I recall, and means 'day star'. The king set himself up as a god, but the point the prophet was making is that he is not a god, any more than Venus (the Day Star) is the Sun.
In the Patristic tradition, the Fathers identified not the man, but the tendency. Lucifer, as an Archangel, fell through pride, deeming to know better than God.
Helel is the correct term, but Lucifer itself never shown up until
after Jerome's Latin Vulgate and somewhere down the road, the term became another name for Satan. However, Lucifer was the name of a minor Roman God whom was the personification of the morning star, and Helel was a minor deity whom was connected to the morning star as well. There's some theories popping around now that the author of Isaiah was using some of the imagery/referencing some ancient Canaanite myths, where there were Attar, another Canaanite deity that tried to occupy the throne of Ba'al and, again, Helel, whom tried to dethrone El.
Both of which does link to the point the prophet was making: The king was setting himself up as a god, but wasn't a god. Like how Helel and/or Attar were setting themselves up as above their High Gods but weren't above them and the point the prophet was making probably is what started the Lucifer-fell-due-to-pride thing when people start seeing the verse as referencing Satan, but I don't think knowledge of where the original reference may have came from was known by that time.
That also sort of reinforces the Patristic tradition's views on it being the tendency. Attar and Helel fell from their own pride, trying to set themselves above the high gods, like I said before, and Lucifer's current myth reflects that as well, possibly linking him to Attar and/or Helel, whom I sort of equate him with a bit due the similar stories (more so Attar, but it's for personal reasons and associations).
Having fallen, he seeks to drag man down with him, so tempts Adam and Eve in the Garden, but he is, as Christ says, 'the Father of Lies' — his was the first lie: eating the fruit did not made Adam and Eve the equal of God, as he told them it would.
Here I would have to disagree with their view. The way I see it, Lucifer
didn't lie to Adam and Eve as they
did become capable of becoming equal of God. Along with that, they became enlightened, developed knowledge and a sense of right and wrong, all of which they didn't have in the beginning. They were blissfully ignorant in the beginning, but eating the fruit gave them the same knowledge God would have and they begun to know. Know the world and themselves.
It sure as hell hurt, yeah, but enlightenment and knowing isn't always rainbows and butterflies. It
will hurt at times but it's usually for the better, even if it changes you in a bad or good way.
The Moslem Tradition explains his fall in greater detail. God created man and declared in him the completion of creation. Lucifer refused to accept that, and refused to honour man as God required. In defying God, he excluded himself from a place at God's table.
I've seen other Luciferians interpret this as Lucifer loving God too much to honor man as God required, because I believe God also told the angels before to honor
Him, so honoring man went against that commandment that Lucifer was told to follow previously. However, I'm not too well versed in that interpretation.
There is no reference anywhere in the Abrahamic Traditions that Lucifer is worthy of our praise. Quite the reverse. His fall led to our fall, not our enlightenment.
No there isn't, but it also doesn't change how a person will look at the story themselves and begin to question if Lucifer is as bad as people say he is, like how I did. It's a manner how someone interprets the story in that case: Is he the one that led to our fall or led to our enlightenment? One person will see it as the first and the other will see it as the second. The person who sees it as the first, that he led to our fall, will interpret Lucifer as a liar and interpret God saying that Adam and Eve would die if they ate the fruit as a spiritual death, while the other who thinks he led to our enlightenment, would see Lucifer as telling the truth and God as the liar, as Adam and Eve didn't die but became spiritually awakened via enlightenment.
And like I said earlier, enlightenment isn't rainbows and butterflies and can and will hurt.
Luciferianism's view on Lucifer enlightening mankind is kind of inspired by Gnosticism a bit, in the sense that he's commonly seen as the serpent in the Garden that tempted Adam and Eve into eating the fruit, which gained them
gnosis. Luciferians kind of associate enlightenment with Lucifer due to what Lucifer means --
light bringer. Light can sometimes be associated with knowledge, and hence Lucifer becomes associated with knowledge and then associated with bringing gnosis to humanity.
So all of that
does make him worthy of praise, at least in my, and a few other theistic Luciferian's, eyes.
