Eric Boyd wrote:
> Hi,
>
> re our domain name, lucifer.com, Josh Aaron Bradley <jab13@cornell.edu>
> writes:
> > I realize that it's supposed to be figurative and symbolic and
> > all and that it represents a challenge to traditional Xian thought,
> > but why fight back with "their" terminology?
>
> I would contend that it is OUR terminology. If you go and read about
> lucifer, you discover that he is what we want to be. A challenger of blind
> obedience, an angel who would not submit. What better symbol to personify
> that which we stand for?
>
> Sodom says that lucifer "is not referenced in the Bible at all", but I
> disagree. He is not referenced in the NIV, but he *IS* referenced in the
> KJV. Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12-16. The translators of the NIV staff
> have been cursed and cursed again by the fundamentalists for their
> translation of "the light bringer" as "Morning Star" rather than
> "lucifer". Because, you see, *Jesus* is referred to as the "Morning Star"
> in Revelations, and so the verses where The Lord condemns The Bringer of
> Light now apply, properly, to the man who said "I am the light of the
> world" (John 8:12). I would give much to know how the translators of the
> NIV got away with such an outright slap in the face to all Christians.
> Could it have been on purpose?!?
>
> As a aside, you should check out the Apocrypha, especially the Book of Adam
> and Eve, which gives much more insight into lucifer, and his motivations.
> It's not what I expected to find, and it doesn't really mesh with the rest
> of what I know of lucifer, but hey...
>
> You should be able to find it here:
> http://wesley.nnc.edu/noncanon.htm
>
> > and why name your domain such that every time you tell it to
> > someone you have to explain that we're not really satanists
>
> Check your premises. Are we satanists? Why should we not be? I have
> certainly found nothing in the posts on satanism yet to disagree with. It's
> only the Christians who think that being a satanist is a bad thing.
>
> > what do a bunch of atheists/agnostics want with the name
> > lucifer anyway?
>
> We want to show the world that we are willing to stand our ground, to draw
> the line and say: there are things that even a god cannot make one do.
>
> The story of lucifer makes it clear that the power of man is "that
> everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
> freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
> choose one’s own way." -- Man’s Search for Meaning: an introduction to
> logotherapy by Viktor E. Frankl (pg. 65)
>
> "God" may have been able to cast lucifer out of heaven for his "sins", but
> God was *not* able to take away lucifer's last freedom -- the freedom to
> say "better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven!"
>
> (and for those who haven't read it, I highly recommend Frankl's book, as
> well as Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which I am just reading now)
>
> > we should give people a chance to see what we're about
> > rather than scaring them away before giving us a chance.
>
> If we are *not* about The Bringer of Light, then what *are* we about? If
> we are unwilling to challenge the dominant paradigm, then what is our
> purpose? I, for one, think that those who are scared away by the domain
> name would not have been valuable members anyway.
>
> ERiC