280: The Devil Went Down to Nippon

[hem dazon 90]

They're should be games based on Islamic myth

The 1001 nights would make a great game

 

[silentrob77]

The ABC in Australia actually did an interesting story on Christianity in Japan, how they have to hide their faith and pretend to be Buddhist, even today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkw7UeX_p74

Why was there a church like down the street when I lived there then?

 

[jrcillian]

A good theologian would state that Christian theology is not in NEED of a devil to be powerful or to be at all. Christian theology is about redemption which includes sin but isn't dependent on it.

 

[jrcillian]

I hate to do back to back posts...but in regard to your talking about the Book of Revelations. Revelations is Apocalyptic literature which is in itself a Biblical genre. The events and stories of that book though have already happened for the most part with the exception of the Second Coming. Many Christians believe that Revelations is an echo of the Olivet discourse in Matthew and Luke and point mostly to events that happened in 70AD.

 

[Vortigar]

This discussion is as interesting as the article preceding it.

Bravo all.

I've read the Bible but never really investigated its themes to this extent.

I wanted to give the author of the article kudos for describing his point while not condemning any side. The last time something like this was put up on the Escapist the author caught a load of backlash.

 

[Tminusfun]

It's debatable whether or not there really is a singular "devil" in Christianity. The word "Satan" is derived from the Hebrew ha-Satan ("the accuser"), and is used in the book of Job to refer to an Angel that God allow's into his presence to play, for lack of a better term, Devil's Advocate.

Jesus uses the term figuratively in the New Testament, and refers to "many anti-christs" as opposed to just the one (1 John 2:18).

As a Christian, I believe that there exists evil in opposition to good, but that there is no one entity called "The Devil" who exists in opposition to God, but rather several parasitic entities (and evil is parasitic, it cannot exist without the good that it perverts). Saying there is one devil is like picking one mosquito out of a swarm and saying "kill that one, and it's minions will fall). Evil is chaos after all, it would be silly for it to be organized in a natural hierarchy.

I didn't the article itsef was all that great, a brief glance over Japanese history with some pretty insulting brush strokes, especially the "technological advances = more complex stories" which I thought was a poor example of cherry-picking.

 

[Cudcat]

It's funny because the "battle" between God and Satan isn't really all that "epic."

The sort of God VS Satan! battle that they tend to suggest is actually a heresy similar to the dualism of Manichaeism and other such splinter groups.

christians need the devil to be powerful tho or else they have to realize that their god is a massive dick but he cant be too powerful or else the concept could undermine their god. I think its called the problem of evil or something.

a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems, whose tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world ? he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- Book of Revelations, The War in Heaven
The Church accepts the Book of Revelations as canonical to the New Testament, obviously canonical as well.

now, I don't know about you, but I think that's some unstoppable power that really requires divine intervention or the most impressive hero the world has ever seen. the battle didn't take up many words because the books weren't made to be an adventure for the readers.

really though, I've got nothing to actually add to the main topic that hasn't already been said...

wow, if you go literal with that story then its very silly "swept down the stars of heaven" really you just need one star to wipe out this little planet, so half of them would just be over kill, and anything with a tail big enough to do that would already have wiped out everything just by its gravitational pull. Altho lets say its not the size of stupid, Ill bet things like this were much scarier before we had shape charges

If it is to be taken as fact, then the swept down stars would most likely be what we call shooting stars, ie space junk burning up whilst decending through the atmosphere. I think the main point with Lotet's post was to show that there supposedly was an epic battle, though the outcome may have been foreordained.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Funny the article wouldn't mention Persona 4, as the entire game comes down to Izanagi and Izanami.


Also, Lucifer is the main antagonist of SMTIII, and plays a bit role in almost every main game in the series, including Raidou 2.

 

[FinalGamer]

That....is...pretty damn interesting. Huh, thanks for that.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

Insightful! Thanks for the article Robert.

 

[mr_rubino]

Pfft. Then how come priests and nuns are so badass and usually packing heat in Japanese media?

a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems, whose tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

I think the Mother Harlot rode that in SMT III.

 

[Cheesepower5]

But Christianity/Judaism is an eastern religion. The only western thing about the church is the Roman Catholic organisation. Even the Protestant set-up is way more similar to any eastern religion than any western one.

Because you know, the whole damn bible is set in the middle east or Egypt until poor ol' Jesus goes to Rome to get crucified.

 

[Eikoandmog]

Funny the article wouldn't mention Persona 4, as the entire game comes down to Izanagi and Izanami.


Also, Lucifer is the main antagonist of SMTIII, and plays a bit role in almost every main game in the series, including Raidou 2.

In fact, if you take a look at the Shin Megami Tensei main series as a whole, it is in fact, judeo-christian mythology as a basis of the whole series. As far as I know in Shin Megami Tensei 2, you will in fact, fight the big man himself depending on your playthrough. Louis Cypher in Nocturne reappears in Strange Journey as Louisa Ferre, offering an alternative to the Angel's solution to the problem presented and it's hard to ignore the themes present in Devil Survivor in which the lockdown is God's trial for humanity. I'm actually surprised that Shin Megami Tensei was overlooked for this article, there's a lot to draw from in it.