Twenty years ago, people would’ve thought you were fucking insane for attributing justice to the forces of Hell. Now, people think you’re fucking insane for attributing justice to the forces of Heaven.
Twenty years ago, people would’ve thought you were fucking insane for attributing justice to the forces of Hell. Now, people think you’re fucking insane for attributing justice to the forces of Heaven.
I thought the entire point of Hell is to give people a (false) sense of justice.
Divine Comedy and all that. (AKA "Life is unfair, but that #@#@ bastard will suffer for their [INSERT CRIMES] one day".)
I thought the entire point of Hell is to give people a (false) sense of justice.
Divine Comedy and all that. (AKA "Life is unfair, but that #@#@ bastard will suffer for their [INSERT CRIMES] one day".)
The entire point of hell (and heaven) is just bait-and-switch, carrot and whip. If you have one place where good people are rewarded, and another place where bad people are punished, people will automatically hate the second place, with their employees included, even if both of the places are ran by same company, which is led by one CEO. Justice being present in Hell and not Heaven (because nobody who gets into heaven needs further judging, really) was the 'whip' part, which made people scared to commit crime and be punished for it.
In the first place, the existance of Hell already raises a God's Paradox: If God was omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, he would know if a person was to sin later and can even punish them at the very second they commited that crime, which can even have massive effect to the humanity as a whole. But God didn't, and shitty things keeps happening in everyday world. We're just sitting ducks in face of another human's crime, which will be tolerated until their eventual judgement in hell.
The entire point of hell (and heaven) is just bait-and-switch, carrot and whip. If you have one place where good people are rewarded, and another place where bad people are punished, people will automatically hate the second place, with their employees included, even if both of the places are ran by same company, which is led by one CEO. Justice being present in Hell and not Heaven (because nobody who gets into heaven needs further judging, really) was the 'whip' part, which made people scared to commit crime and be punished for it.
In the first place, the existance of Hell already raises a God's Paradox: If God was omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, he would know if a person was to sin later and can even punish them at the very second they commited that crime, which can even have massive effect to the humanity as a whole. But God didn't, and shitty things keeps happening in everyday world. We're just sitting ducks in face of another human's crime, which will be tolerated until their eventual judgement in hell.
There were never any canonical 'angels of justice' anyways, so it's fine.
The closest to angelic justice out there are things like the Greek goddess of justice and punishment Themis and Nemesis, whose depictions are often used as the 'Lady Justice' or 'Goddess of Law' (with a name like Nemesis, I could see her being Judgement's mom). There is Zadkiel, the angel of freedom, who is related to justice. There is Raguel or Raquel, an angel of justice responsible for sentencing fallen angels to hell, but he is considered non-canon because he doesn't show up in The Bible. Helltaker's 'High Prosecutor of Hell' title is closer to the Egyptian demoness Ammit as the devourer of hearts or the Divine Comedy's depiction of Minos as the judge of shades. Neither were angelic or holy though, so it's still off-base. Other angels are attributed as being 'just' but that isn't the same either.
I personally like the explanation that Bayonetta came up. Justice as a divine concept is difficult to understand because justice in general is most easily twisted by free will. Angels of justice is always closer to becoming a demon than other angels, and creating a truly powerful sense of divine justice in the face of free will isn't possible without sin.
There are no angels of justice because all of them keep falling.
There were never any canonical 'angels of justice' anyways, so it's fine.
The closest to angelic justice out there are things like the Greek goddess of justice and punishment Themis and Nemesis, whose depictions are often used as the 'Lady Justice' or 'Goddess of Law' (with a name like Nemesis, I could see her being Judgement's mom). There is Zadkiel, the angel of freedom, who is related to justice. There is Raguel or Raquel, an angel of justice responsible for sentencing fallen angels to hell, but he is considered non-canon because he doesn't show up in The Bible. Helltaker's 'High Prosecutor of Hell' title is closer to the Egyptian demoness Ammit as the devourer of hearts or the Divine Comedy's depiction of Minos as the judge of shades. Neither were angelic or holy though, so it's still off-base. Other angels are attributed as being 'just' but that isn't the same either.
I personally like the explanation that Bayonetta came up. Justice as a divine concept is difficult to understand because justice in general is most easily twisted by free will. Angels of justice is always closer to becoming a demon than other angels, and creating a truly powerful sense of divine justice in the face of free will isn't possible without sin.
There are no angels of justice because all of them keep falling.
Wasn't there a Samael or something who was basically the Chief Prosecutor in Tamludic lore? IIRC that's where the word "satan" comes from anyway. "Adversary", or in the case of the definite article ha-satan, "The Accuser", or "The Heavenly Prosecutor". And Samael was IIRC the chief among ha-satans.
Wasn't there a Samael or something who was basically the Chief Prosecutor in Tamludic lore? IIRC that's where the word "satan" comes from anyway. "Adversary", or in the case of the definite article ha-satan, "The Accuser", or "The Heavenly Prosecutor". And Samael was IIRC the chief among ha-satans.
That's true. There is a canonical heavenly prosecutor there, though I'd be willing to wager more people associate Samael with being evil. The Archangel in Azazel's bad end could definitely be a 'Sammi' or a similar 'crack the whip' type now that you mention it.
I think that Samael being told as either being an angel of death who is highly skeptical of the whole business with humans, or becoming a demon lord at some point, puts me 1:1 for the "true justice corrupts" theory though.
I think that Samael being told as either being an angel of death who is highly skeptical of the whole business with humans, or becoming a demon lord at some point, puts me 1:1 for the "true justice corrupts" theory though.
There's no 'true justice corrupts' theory; the correct one is 'justice cannot be enacted without performing evil'. To enact justice means to hand out punishment or penalties, which downright limits, trample or robs another human being's rights and/or subject them to pain, which is very definition of evil. There's a reason why Samael's nickname was 'Poison/Venom of God' and 'Blindness/Left Arm of God', which directly relates to its task of being a necessary evil. Poison/Venom nickname relates to 'subjecting human to pain (for their sins)', but the second one, 'Blindness of God/Left Arm of God' translation are more interesting: it implies that God will turn a blind eye to punishment done to humans, as there's implication of 'left arm of God' being the same left arm that creates and hands out divine punishments, unlike the right arm that creates.
There's no 'true justice corrupts' theory; the correct one is 'justice cannot be enacted without performing evil'. To enact justice means to hand out punishment or penalties, which downright limits, trample or robs another human being's rights and/or subject them to pain, which is very definition of evil.
So what do you command God to do from this moment on? Do you command Him to smile upon and to bless those who do evil when it is committed because "to punish evil is the epitome of all evil?"
Not gonna happen. If even us mortal humans - with our evil natures - have a desire to punish evil when it is done (if only to ourselves and our loved ones), then, how can we so arrogantly demand of our Creator to not possess it Himself?
There's a reason why Samael's nickname was 'Poison/Venom of God' and 'Blindness/Left Arm of God', which directly relates to its task of being a necessary evil.
Punishing the wicked for their wickedness is not an evil, it is good. Mercy and compassion are attributes of the Heavenly; however, true angels of the Light also possess los pantalones to take out the trash when it is necessary (and God can and will issue the command for them to take out the trash once His patience comes to an end). In stark contrast, goodness which forever refuses to punish evil no matter how frequent and destructive and depraved is not goodness at all. It is weakness, it is cowardice, and worst of all, it is WORSE than evil itself.
1: I'd personally ask him to wipe out any kind of sentient being living on earth. There can't be evil if there's no humans to enact evil, right? If to punish evil is the epitome of all evil, then getting rid of root of all evil, which is free will/sentience will remove the ability to do evil purposedly.
Also let me to correct that 'humans have a desire to punish evil' = 'human evidently have an internal sense of justice' mindset. No, human does not have 'a desire to punish evil'. Human has 'a desire to enact revenge'. Human internalizes the pain, the suffering, and the feelings of the victim and turn it into a desire to enact revenge to the agressor; that's why you'd see people mobbing a robber first before reporting them to the authorities. But most of the time, they're not present on the time and place where the crime was happening; and thus they cannot enact judgement to the offender; hence, the 'law' was made. It's NOT made to prevent an evil from happening, but it details what punishment will be made when the evil happened: otherwise all nations will put their code of law openly in their education facilities to make people know what they should avoid to do.
Now that you know what humans really have, let's look at God, but let's downsize it to make the perspective matters.
Suppose God was a kid with an ant farm, of which he mixed the red ants and black ants. He tosses few breadcrumbs to the farm, and watches. After a while, the ants started fighting to get the crumbs. They killed each other savagely.
But will God intervene? After all, killing is bad and all.
But no. God just watched while smiling. After all, why should he care? They're just ants. There's a lot of them out there. They won't live long enough for him to care. Heck, by tommorow he'll be forgetting all about it while tossing another handful of crumbs.
Now upscale that ant farm to our whole world. Now, should God care about few humans killing each others? Should God care that we're stashing nuclear weaponry all over the world? Should God care that we polluted the whole world just to gain money?
After all, God can just make another Earth. In fact, it makes more sense if God already abandoned this one long ago.
That also brings to the second point: There's a rather questionable point in the Bible where God made an error: If God was all-knowing, all-seeing and all-capable, then why didn't he has the foresight of knowing that the Devil, in form of the snake, will attempt to lure Eve to take the Forbidden Fruit, and thus commiting the first ever sin? Why didn't he intervene at that point, instead of handing punishment after the incident happened? If 'punishing the wicked for their wickedness' thing stays true even back then, then the one who should be punished is GOD for lack of foresight, and not other three parties involved. After all, God MADE the devil, and know what it would done. God made humans, with all imperfections and their curious mind. But somehow it's their fault?
If punishing evil is not evil, but good, then why people cannot take justice by their own hands? Why must we wait for the court, or the police to determine if evil is truly evil, and hand out appropriate punishments? Because, duh, we'd be breaking on laws (that can be readily made to protect the evil rich?). The law cannot EVER be just without any tipping scales, because they're made by human hands, and such people cannot readily accept laws, even the really good ones, unbiased ones as truely just. Same thing will happen if god somehow enact divine evil: they will never be accepted by the mortals as 'just' and will only be viewed as unilateral, unfair 'punishment'.
"-goodness which forever refuses to punish evil no matter how frequent and destructive and depraved is not goodness at all. It is weakness, it is cowardice, and worst of all, it is WORSE than evil itself."
So basically, our current (absent) God.
Or to put it in mortal's perspective, "Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.” - , John Stuart Mill, 1867.
By above logic, 100% of the current humanity is a sinner.
