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    Good and bad deities

    I have always wondered that are there any deities that are just good or just bad? Yahweh is praised but some religions portray him as bad greedy and lies a lot. If I'm not mistaken in the Gnostic tradition Jesus was basically telling everyone to not listen to Yahweh's lies. I have heard Set is portrayed as evil for fighting Osiris and Horus but he has been portrayed as good as well. Satan is usually portrayed as evil but has also been seen as a liberator while Yahweh is an oppressor. Samael the angel of death has been portrayed as good and evil though.

    It's kind of difficult to figure out which deity is actually good or evil. Some religions and denominations will praise one deity while another will demonize that deity. I think there are some that are considered good like Jesus and beings that are always bad like Asmodeus or some demon like that. I wonder, how can you tell if any of them are actually good or bad?
    Last edited by Alienist; 27 Nov 2013, 08:27.

    #2
    Re: Good and bad deities

    Well, since people are rarely all good or all bad, our deities would naturally reflect that. But then again, I think we made the gods, not the other way around.

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      #3
      Re: Good and bad deities

      Even if there was a deity who was pure, unadulterated evil, people would adopt their worship out of pure contrariness and the desire to be grimdark, unique, edgy, etc. and then transplant some more humane characteristics onto them to justify it and to feel more comfortable. If you want a perfect example of this, look at the various Chaote groups who work with Lovecraftian deities - entities of pure madness so complete that even peripheral interaction with them can drive one insane, so destructive that they exist beyond the moral spectrum of good and evil, are none the less turned into something which there would actually be some justification for wanting to work with.

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        #4
        Re: Good and bad deities

        I haven't come across a positive spin on Ahriman yet and there may be one or two others floating about but I also tend to agree with Aeran that people will generally try to humanize Powers so the fact that I've yet to see a positive Ahriman may just be that very few people (comparatively) actually take interest in the Zoroastrian belief system.
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          #5
          Re: Good and bad deities

          Originally posted by Rowanwood View Post
          Well, since people are rarely all good or all bad, our deities would naturally reflect that. But then again, I think we made the gods, not the other way around.
          Rowanwood said it for me.

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            #6
            Re: Good and bad deities

            In my belief a diety is a spirit or entity whos lived many lives and finally has the ability to hold that much power. They often fleet between realms and as humans we constantly attempt to define them good, bad, ect. I think many are neutral, some are good, some are bad. But even a bad spirit can help you acheive positive things depending how you request its help.

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              #7
              Re: Good and bad deities

              There are some that I think are neutral but a lot of deities are usually portrayed both good and bad. There's very few deities that universally accepted as good or universally accepted as evil though.

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                #8
                Re: Good and bad deities

                Ahriman/ Angra Mainu is pretty much defined by the fact he is not the good guy. Not even in ways that can be called subtle. Being that Zoroastrianism (when it is dualistic) could be treated as a big cosmic war between good and evil, chaos and order... Well in order to make him the good guy you'd pretty much have to change everything about him,
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                  #9
                  Re: Good and bad deities

                  That's the only one I know that's universally accepted to be bad, unless there's some other branch of Zoroastrianism that praises Ahriman and demonizes Ahura Mazda that I don't know about. Most deities are both praised and demonized and very few of them are universally accepted to be good or bad. I have hear Kali in Hinduism is bad but some have said Kali is good as well.

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                    #10
                    Re: Good and bad deities

                    "Good" and "bad" are extremely relative terms and vary from person to person. I don't think you're going to get a solid answer to your question...
                    My .02 cents.
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                      #11
                      Re: Good and bad deities

                      Originally posted by Alienist View Post
                      That's the only one I know that's universally accepted to be bad, unless there's some other branch of Zoroastrianism that praises Ahriman and demonizes Ahura Mazda that I don't know about. Most deities are both praised and demonized and very few of them are universally accepted to be good or bad. I have hear Kali in Hinduism is bad but some have said Kali is good as well.
                      Kali is complicated. She's the goddess of vengeance and death and birth, which as a Hindu concept is totally logical.

                      But I think the same could even be said of Ahriman from a mythological standpoint. Good, as a concept is meaningless without evil, since it needs the vs. aspect. Beneficial vs. destructive also doesn't equal good vs. evil, since both fire and water are destructive, yet we couldn't survive without either one.

                      So, I just said the same thing again.

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                        #12
                        Re: Good and bad deities

                        Hmm... Baldr comes to mind as a deity seen as wholly 'good,' but that may be due to very little mention of him in the Lore, i.e. nothing negative survived.

                        As to any that might be 'bad'... meh, what's Batman without Joker?
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                          #13
                          Re: Good and bad deities

                          Good and bad are simple terms - what's good for me and those I care about is good, what's bad for me and those I care about is bad.

                          It's that easy.

                          The gods that help me are good, those who help me are bad.

                          Don't make it harder than it is...

                          Seriously - if you try to think in universals, you are thinking in empty sets.
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                            #14
                            Re: Good and bad deities

                            Originally posted by Alienist View Post
                            I have always wondered that are there any deities that are just good or just bad?
                            Putting aside the fact that 'good' and 'bad' are purely subjective human descriptors, I don't believe that there are any deities who are THAT simplistic. Deities are complex creatures, and I think that pigeon-holing them into neat little human moralistic boxes is counterproductive and disrespectful.

                            Deities like Ahriman, Apophis and Fenris may be unbridled destruction, chaos and devastation, but those things all have their place in the grand scheme of things. Destruction and decay are very powerful and very important parts of natural cycles and without them, our ability to create and grow is limited. So even if they do naught but destroy the 'good' work of other deities, can they really be considered to be wholly 'bad'. I don't think so.

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                              #15
                              Re: Good and bad deities

                              Originally posted by Alienist View Post
                              I have always wondered that are there any deities that are just good or just bad?
                              "Good" and "bad" are relative terms. Beneficial and non-beneficial are qualities that depend on who or what is being affected by an action.
                              When you ascribe the terms to questions of morality, it jumps clear over 'subjective' and straight into 'silly'. Morality is something crafted by man. The gods are above it; beyond it. Their concerns, interaction, and faculties are so different from our own that human codes of conduct have little to no applicability to them.

                              It's kind of difficult to figure out which deity is actually good or evil.
                              See the above bit about ascribing moral weight to 'good' and 'bad'.

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