Re: Taxonomy of supernatural beings

--- Pavel Adamek <pavel.adamek@...> wrote:
> > > and it was the reason why I wonded
> > > how a man believing in jinns could be described
> > > as an atheist.
> >
> > Cos jinns aren't gods.
>
> Some of them aren't, but some of them are.
> (The term "jinn" probably covers both elves and
> Ainur).
As I understand them, Ainur are gods. Elves depends on
what kind you're talking about. If you want to call
them jinns or demons, I suppose that's your
prerogative. This was certainly how the early
Christians dealt with their neighbours Gods.

> Al-Lat, Uzza and Manat are old Arabic goddesses,
> and they are refered in Koran as jinns.
Yep. The times change (as the old Conlang exercise
went), and the Gods are changed with them. Just
because you believe in a god now doesn't mean it
wasn't an angel before, or even a man, or that it
won't be a God for your children and an outmoded
concept of a darkened age for your distant progeny.

> This is terminological matter:
> the monoteism comes with concept of being
> who is on qualitative higher level,
> but uses for it the old word "god",
> so the old gods must be renamed to angels and jinns.
It has more to do with how many Gods you worship.
I.e., one to the exclusion of all others; rather than
levels.
Mind you, I'm not saying that old gods don't hang
around in the guise of angels or saints (consider St.
Brigid, whose feast is around the time of the Feast of
the Goddess of the same name).

> > Now, we come to a possible stumbling block when
> some
> > religionists take a jinn or an angel and worship
> it as
> > a God [e.g., Satanists].
>
> This reminds me the Yezids (or whatever is the name
> spelled) who worship Satan, but they are doing so
> because they want to convert him.
>
> IMCO every true Christian shall love Satan.
Yep. Now _that_ would be an interesting addition to
the litany said at Mass: "For the soul of Fallen
Lucifer, that he may once again turn to you, Lord hear
our prayer." Plus it makes essential sense.

> > I'm not sure why you differentiate between upper
> and
> > lower case gods. It makes very little sense to me.
> > They're the same thing, really.
>
> I definitely dont think so. IMCO,
> there is much greater difference between God and god
> than between god and human.
Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I see
no difference between what you call Gods and what you
call gods. (And to be honest, I don't see much
difference between either of them and humans, either.
They're just like us, only more so.)

> The being who is omnipotent and all-knowing
> cannot feel itself endangered
> and therefore he does not hate.
> Now compare it with those gods
> who are fighting each other.
Like Yahweh struggling against the other Gods of the
region. If he were that omni, he'd have said a word
and all the rest would disappear entirely.

> How could be the being who wrote the software for
> Big Bang
> the same thing as the temporary local ruler of
> Olymp?
Who says the Big Bang was all that big or important an
event? Expand the view such that our universe is one
little dot of light in a matrix of millions of similar
dots. It's winking on or off doesn't much matter.

The most fundamental thing that makes some Olympian
deity and any omniGod you choose the same is their
source: our heads. From that point, it's all a matter
of how big we imagine them and how we pigeonhole them.

> P.A.
Padraic.


=====
beuyont alch geont la ciay la cina
mangeiont alch geont y faues la lima;
     pe' ne m' molestyont
     que faciont
doazque y facyont in rima.

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