Paradise Lost

[Chad32]

I ran across this in TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Li...radiseLost

Has anyone read this book? What do you think of it? I never read it myself. Apparently it's about Satan's fall from heaven. It's told from his perspective at first, and I think he's meant to be sympathetic until you get the other side of the story with Yahweh and the angels. Then you're meant to lose sympathy for him. Apparently a lot of viewers still sympathize with him to the end.

I don't know if I'll read it or not.

[Minimalist]

I had to read it in high school.


It's taken 50 years to forget.

[Chad32]

They didn't make me read it, though I definitely read stuff in literature class. Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, and other stuff. It's always interesting when people read R&J, and come out with "that's true love", when the original intent was "teenagers can be stupid".

[Minimalist]

And now they have cell phones to help!

[Captain Colostomy]

True love is better evinced in O. Henry's Gift of the Magi. Plus it's blissfully shorter.

Reading Paradise Lost seems to me one step below a bikini wax with superglue. Pass.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The only read reason to read Paradise Lost' is so you can truthfully say, 'I've read "Paradise Lost" '.

It was required reading when I was at school, and I found it to be tedious. To be fair, I was already an atheist, so a book whose avowed purpose was to 'justify the ways of God to man' wasn't likely to hold my interest anyroad.

Boru

[Chad32]

I wonder what the teacher would say if a student said s/he still sympathized with the devil after all of that. Maybe that they just didn't understand, and need to reread the book.

I have always believed that the best lies have some truth to them. I can tell someone that a dragon flew over my house, but no one will believe it. I could say a rare bird flew over my house, and some may believe it. In order for Satan to convince anyone to rebel against Yahweh, he would have to say something believable to convince people to feel discontent. In other words, it is possible to feel less than completely happy in heaven. In the book, he talks about democracy and egalitarianism, which are good points.

Yahweh's version of morality has always been "I created everything and am more powerful than everything, so you should worship me on that alone". Nevermind that he sometimes likes to hurt his friends on a whim, and labels everything someone does that he doesn't approve of "sin". Then tells people that one sin is as bad as another, and thoughts are the equivalent of actions.

Now would Satan be any better? We'll never know, since the bible is obviously biased. It's said that he rules over the earth, and in some places the world has gotten better over time. Studies show that less religious countries are better, in terms of equality and education. A lot of this is due to science. Not any inspired truths in the bible that takes so long to figure out that they may as well not be there.

[EgoRaptor]

I intend to read this book, as its depiction of Satan was one of Anton LaVey's main influences.