There is a God and angels

>"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
To sum it up, being good is hard, being evil or apathetic is easy, and we are very good at coming up with excuses for why we are good and right and why others, even God, is wrong.

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>The premise is a bit bad, there is a reason why angels are generally not entirely good in that kind of conflicts,
Because it's written by wannabe Gnostics who think it's a cool subversion that TOTALLY explains all the crazy shit YHVH got up to in the Old Testament.

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The basic concept of universal good kind of goes against humanity. The only mortals who could embrace it are basically raving lunatics - they're saints and gurus that sacrifice anything resembling normal human culture and life in order to serve their great power. Same goes for those who embrace the dark side, but they tend to be a bit more visible 'cuz of all the violence, murder and rape.

>your setting has angels and demons
>they are alien races that come in 8 sub races
>one for every sin/virtue and then unaligned
>each can be evil or good
>a demon of greed makes for a good businessdemon because of their desire to horde wealth but they sometimes share it like a philanthropist would because they want to see others also horde wealth
>An angel of Charity might steal from others to give to others, force others into donating to help others, or see any form of collecting something as greed and try to "fix" the problem
>humans seem to prefer the demons because they don't come off as self-righteous assholes, just pricks who want to have a good time

>they're saints and gurus that sacrifice anything resembling normal human culture and life in order to serve their great power
Nobody said following God would be easy. Besides, one does not need to be perfect to be good, you only need to pick yourself back up and keep on trying and repenting when you do fail.

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If a race of lovecraftian aliens lands, spouts some lines about greater purpose and Good, and tries to hand you a laser rifle (or a cross, whatever) to shoot at equally disturbing aliens, you'd be crazy to agree. It's not your conflict, you were doing fine before all of these flying-wheels-with-a-million-eyes freaks showed up and you're going to be just fine afterward.

>Lawful Good angels/gods/etc., are the epitome of their alignment
>literally no wiggle room - good/lawful all the time or you're not good enough.
>will never help anyone who isn't perfectly Good or Lawful with a capital letter.
>Gods don't care for nuance - they are hard-set in their archetypes and alignments
Meanwhile
>Demons/Devils are generally evil but mostly self-centred
>Will actively aid those whose aims and goals align with theirs
>care for the nuance, revel in it, know that this nuance is how they can get in with the people
>appeals to self-interests, desires, etc.
>shows the ease of ignoring the Good/Lawful gods in service of oneself.

tl;dr - Evil has better PR.

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why not do the SMT thing and have angels represent order and demons represent chaos

Thank you user, I don't agree with you at all but I could definitely see the vast majority of humanity thinking that way, so it would make sense that they would choose to be neutral and not side with God.

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Do it like SMT does it. The side of God is extremely elitist and hard to follow.

Monotheism is a heck of a lot less believable than any given version of polytheism.

Lots of powerful dudes and ladies suddenly appearing and fucking around, and if you promise to work for them in exchange for various boons? Sign me up!

A weird culty ideology that tries to turn the entire world into some kind of a battleground between Good and Evil? That's just bad writing.

This is one of those common misconceptions though. People don't realize that those who do embrace it and become saintly lives with their humanity full and vibrant. If people studied the saint's lives more they'd know this. It's far easier to say this world is lunatic than them.

No man carrying his vices can have total fullness of heart.

God and the angels are Chaotic Good, and the people in power would rather run smear campaigns against God and use propaganda to encourage the common man to side with Satan than risk the their power base by allowing angelic ideas to flow freely.

>Lots of powerful dudes and ladies suddenly appearing and fucking around, and if you promise to work for them in exchange for various boons? Sign me up!
That does give me a nice idea about having the demons sway people to their cause through special perks and powers that they grant to them.

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That's exactly what someone recruiting you for some weird cult would say, and next they own your house, your wife and you live in some compound in the middle of nowhere.

It's poison to human spirit and free will in general. At least a lot of depictions of demons tempt people with things people would actually want.

Well that'd be an incredibly narrow view of monotheism.

/thread
You're over thinking this one, OP.

All these fucking answers that change the premise. Anyways, it's easy.
Being good is unrewarding. You have to work with the heavens for little reward. Even good inclined individuals are better off practically by staying out of the divine conflict, leading to only people willing to sacrifice for ungrateful strangers to with with heaven.
Everyone knows and accepts that the demons are bad news but they offer more benefits to the individual that works with them. Even genuinely good souls might be inclined to fall because heaven won't dig them out of their problems but hell might save them if they give up on their virtues.

the main reason nobody wants to sign up with demons is because nobody wants to end up in a boiling cauldron being stabbed by pitchforks for eternity, so maybe there are ways to avoid that
either by doing enough for your patron that they cover for you in hell, or by getting into the soul trading business yourself
meanwhile, as long as you're not beyond redemption or didn't openly consort with demons, you'll get into heaven sooner or later, and angels don't give out boons except to the most pious and worthy, so people are a lot less motivated to outright work for them

There's a reason YHVH didn't want people to follow other gods. They had something of worth to offer too, and he was jealous of them.

Then Catholics became a thing and invented saints, which was cool and good.

I'm not the user you're arguing with (I'm the OP) but keep in mind that the user you are arguing with represents the vast majority of humanity in this case. Yes, his opinion is wrong and ignorant, but it is one that many people would likely have (and already do have if like me you believe God is real) and thus the replies that the user is giving you is actually a great reference for how to frame humanity's viewpoint in the setting.

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Except we actually have a long history of saints to point to and nobody is asking you to live in a compound: we just want you to become the best person you can be and to remember where and who you come from user.

And what good is free will to a man who spends it by being a slave to his vices?

You never said heaven or a heavenly afterlife was real, or that humans had eternal souls, or that hell/purgatory/whatever as an eternal punishment existed.
The absence of an eternal soul and/or an afterlife could easily mean people choose to be evil but rich and comfortable in their lives rather than side with God.
Or at least, they believe that there's no afterlife. The demons say it doesn't exist, and God is silent on the issue.

Alternatively: Forgiveness is real, and a LOT of people are betting on being able to say "Please forgive my life of sin, God" on their deathbed, trying to live a sinful life and still get into heaven at the last minute.

The idea of eternal soul is pretty scary. Imagine being trapped for eternity instead of just doing your time and *poof*.

>Alternatively: Forgiveness is real, and a LOT of people are betting on being able to say "Please forgive my life of sin, God" on their deathbed, trying to live a sinful life and still get into heaven at the last minute.
"Razzumfrazzum parable of the vineyards..this is why nothing ever gets done."

This has to be it, the arbitrary Good shooting itself in the foot.

That and earning your way into heaven is very, very hard.

Perhaps make it a cultural thing where everyone recalls their first Sin. The first time they acted out of wrath or greed in some minor or major way. The act, while it does not give them a one-way ticket to hell, does make their chances of making into heaven without dedicating their life to good deeds dubious at best.

Or just have good deeds made with the motivation of heavenly reward never fucking work, and then don't tell them that's why. That will net humanity some serious apathy.

The God doesn't want people to become involved, it's not their fight.
Being neutral is exactly what it wants from humans. Do your human things, abstain from evil, be good to each other, but generally there's no reason for you to get involved.

>Implying ANYONE is going to tell me what to do.
Anarchy it is.

Evil pays, user

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God is demanding and the rewards are abstract and nothing you don't already have.
Demons give tangible rewards and benefits.
Not too difficult to see why even relatively good people would choose demons.

Siding with the demon ls has to be in some way unintentional. People may not be perfectly good but they're smart enough to mostly stay away from creatures that are the embodiment of evil. This means that demons have to be tricky to get worship and to influence people, passing themselves off as angels for example. This would probably require the good side to be silent enough for the demons to get away with it which kind of contradicts everyone having knowledge about demons and angels though

Not entirely what you're asking, but best "light vs dark" I've seen was just that the light side are just people who'll put others above themselves. They act more like peta does with animals than any gods/angels.
Meanwhile the darkside just puts themselves above others. It doesn't mean they're complete assholes all the time, they just do things to help themselves. And if someone wrongs them then they'll fuck around with them to punish them.

So most people are naturally dark even if they want to be light because fairy tale.s

demons do mean things to humans who don't agree with them. humans work with demons to avoid punishment.
angels don't punish humans even if they did side with demons. no incentive to work with angels.

God is an egomaniac who’s idea of paradise is being in his presence and singing praises to him none stop for eternity.

Look at the world we live in. God is good, Satan is bad, and most people either explicitly or implicitly choose evil. Mankind is weak and we often take the easy road, short term gain over long term prosperity or fall for pride.

Make it like real life, good makes you the slave of evil men.

There is no "relative good" you absolute retar. If there is a God and he is the Good, that's Good.

Easy. The demons offered humans a deal they simply couldn’t refuse.

There's a concord in space that humanity cannot be touched by these beings only influenced.

Causes people to not believe

irl most people are kinda bad, but most people are also trying to hide that fact and sometimes they have to go to such lengths that they act like saints.
People abhor racism, unless it's against those they think deserve it or if it's against that group of people that live close to you and threaten you.

Original Sin.
Free Will just stipulates a person can choose between Good and Evil; you gotta have some sort of taint to tilt what started as a flat plain into a slippery slope.
It doesn't have to be an Adam and Eve mistake; maybe the demons tossed some Chemical Evil into the base recipe of mankind, or some lingering evolutionary impulses not fitting in with the idealized society the angels are trying to get people to build.

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The good guys are soft
>God: join the demons and I will fight them and I will rehabilitate you
>demons: if you join the angels we will torture you for as long as possible

I can recommend Kirby's New Gods to you.

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This.

It's not enough to support the god and angels, they expect you to devote your life to them now and forever. You have to pray daily, give massive amounts of money and your time/products of your labor to the church and live in very modest means.

The demons just want your help, they say that siding with them grants then and their families immunity to their actions when they win. Is this true? who knows but the demons don't ask as much. Angels take prisoners after battles demons don't. Worst that will happen if siding with the demons is dying in a battle or being captured by angels then really pray for forgiveness.

that's only 5 more good posts until you get a head pat, user. keep up the good work

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>there is also demons
Me am speaky good english

Would you trust something like this? I wouldn't, even the demons look friendlier.

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How long have they had this knowledge? Are you including Original Sin here? I need more details.

If this is a new revelation in a world where things weren't so cut and dry, some feel vindicated, but the vast majority will feel cheated. Nobody likes being a pawn in a game bigger than they can understand.

They're convinced of their own insignificance by the vastness of Creation, and convinced that the demons have already won. Any fight would be pointless, as far as they can tell. They've gone and been told they're ALL sinners, haven't they? How there's no escaping that? Eventually you just sort of give up. Who in their right mind would REALLY sacrifice themselves on your behalf? There's nothing in it for them. Who cares if you slip through the cracks? Why should they be bothered if you go to Hell? It's not like you're important. This whole world's gone to Hell anyway. Why fight it? All that strength, all that will and drive, spent for a pittance. "You get to keep doing what I already require of you." If that's all you get if you follow, surely you can't REALLY be important enough to save?

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You forgot the part were said aliens created (or helped to create) you.

You mean they claim to, without any proof. If they wanted a race of expendable soldiers, they shouldn't have let us loose in the first place.

Then it's up to you to believe or not, but knowing that there is the possibility of they being right.

"Eye-Ringed Tribal Tat-Fetus"

If god is good then he won't require you to worship him or take part in a divine conflict of angels and demons.
If god requires you to do these things then he's obviously the abrahamic god and therefore evil.

Have you considered that perhaps the universe isn't a loving and caring place for humanity? That there's no greater goal, no godly purpose - we're just evolved apes on the third rock from the sun.

Pretty much any religion that has a text shows their deities to be gigantic assholes who, if they were human, would be labeled as genocidal murderers, rapists and worse. You appease to the likes of Zeus and Thor because you'd rather not get hit by lightning, for a time, sure. But ultimately any god aside from far out gnostic concepts is a supernatural dictator, nothing else, nothing more.

Stop cowering before dictators, if all you've got is your life, live it well and live it free.

Or if you like a more buddhist spin on it, existence is suffering and even the gods and other supernatural beings are affected by it, trapped by the material world. Only through enlightenment can you stop it and exit the cycle - become free, become nothing.

The demons offer comfort and pleasure.
They offer an easy life.
God's angels aren't beings of kindness and love, they're harbinger of His wrath.
They aren't sent to comfort and protect, but to mow down those who refuse to repent. The skies open and they descend, smiting down those who would stand against Him and his faithful.
They are judgement and Heaven is nigh.
yes that's from that Joan song sue me

So basically, reality?

You pull it off the same way the devil actually pulls it off.

Make people think God is the one to blame for everything evil they experience, and trick them into believing some horrible delusion that isn't true, like every person is secretly a God.

>or a cross, whatever
Those are very different things user. One is a tool for bringing death, the other a tool for conquering it. That said I can see most people not realizing this difference because it is complicated and grounded in an understanding that isn't immediate and sensory.

The three highest tier of angels are odd balls and most others are just depicted as winged people with halos. And the ophanim are the strangest of the lot. Cherubim just have 4 heads of various creatures and 4 wings, and seraphim just cover themselves completely with their 6 wings because they're so close to God that they shine too bright for our eyes or something. Only the ophanim are shaped like a strange object covered in eyes.

Chances are they won't be the ones bringing you any messages.

Freedom dries up every time you do something: your potential is always shrinking. Every time you give into vice, or uphold virtue, you've made a choice you no longer have. Freedom runs out and eventually you run out with it. But until then freedom also renews itself continually in that at any moment you can pick the other. If God was a dictator you wouldn't have a choice at all but you do, ergo he's not.

People hating goodness because it's restrictive is a boring cliche anyways. Chaotic good is fun.

>everyone on Earth knows that God, the angels, and the demons exist

The answer to your question depends highly on what you mean by "know".

I mean, do they "know" because a compilation of stories written hundreds if not thousands of years apart with clear inconsistencies and remarkable similarities to other stories both younger and older tells them so, or are there Angels and Demons flying around killing each other in plain view while you can talk to God and get a clear, vocal response pretty much anytime?

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OP just wants to troll Veeky Forums or maybe has a weird crisis of faith or something.

The whole idea of a glorious fight of demons and angels is antithetical to core christian beliefs. Devil is subservient to God, he is the stick to Heaven's carrot. There's no great battle of Good and Evil, there's only the battle for human souls that get tested by the darkness.

The world is a horrible place, you struggle, fast, restrain yourself just to meet some autistic and rigid rules, and for what? An eternity of singing hymns and prancing on clouds with your harp and halo? One mistake and you go the way of all sinners which most likely will happen. So if that's the end result, why not get the most of that? Why not have fun earning your place in hell? Why not get in on your conditions? Why not make partners with whom you'll spend eternity with?
Angels want you to be slaves like them. Step out of the line and you are punished. And of course they won't help, sometimes even hamper you in fulfilling their expectations. While with the infernal you know what you are getting, you can even make your own deals. You get to decide the course of your life, and whatever happens after it ends wouldn't be much better anyway.
>every person is secretly a God.
user, you were made in his likeness. If only you seize control of your fate and put your mind to it, what can't you do? And if you want something extra, something more tangible to help you accomplish it, you know where to ask - it sure won't come from above.

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This post is impressively full of twisting truth to suit the thing OPs going for. If there was actually a way to detect evil, everything in this post would light up like a Christmas tree. It skillfully plays off a lot of men's desires, his despair, lust, and rebellious nature, and gives one of those half truth filled limited view of their opponents you just know devils would present. It hides the fine print of things, that the whole path is one of self-destruction, and that vice is like a ball and chain. It neglects to mention that self-interested sinners make poor partners in business, and that hell is lonely and miserable. This is one of the best effort to really sell damnation I've seen.

If I wanted to write evil I'd look to something like this for the PR side, and behind the scenes keep things actually working more like the screwtape letters.

Just please stop trying to corrupt your fellow user's.

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All worlds begin in Darkness, and all so end. The heart is no different. Darkness sprouts within it, it grows, consumes it. Such is its nature. In the end, every heart returns to the Darkness whence it came. You see, Darkness is the heart's true essence.

>t. Azazoth

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Forgive me, father, but God has made the devil so much T H I C C E R than a man

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Being good IS hard. Actually being good is hard. Looking out for other people, even the people who arnt in your "tribe" is tough. Not being selfish is tough but not being apathetic to the worlds problems is a herculean challenge.

Are these beings often physical? or is it a more spiritual thing? Pulling it off well depends on balancing that stuff well.

i've never left Veeky Forums with a boner before but it is a strange feeling

More than that, what defines "Good?" What to DO, as opposed to "Evil," which is "what NOT to do." If the instincts of men and beasts are Evil, if selfishness is Evil, if focusing on problems closer before those far away is Evil, then is not Nature itself Evil? And if it is so, is it even possible to be Good at all?

Truthfully those concepts are relative. Putting some kind of a divine dictator and saying that his definition is correct doesn't fix the problem, because his definition would be relative as well. You're just bowing to his superior strength.

Except that he made the category. It's more just respecting that he has authority over what he makes.

But if that's the case, then why are people naturally just as reluctant to go out of their way to do Evil as they are to intentionally do Good? Most people hate going out of their way to do ANYTHING. It's why so few people know much beyond what little they need to know to do their jobs and survive in their particular environment. Like water, people take the path of least resistance. Many say that Evil is that precise path - but things like genocide take a very great deal of effort indeed. Surely, then, it cannot be the path of least resistance?

I think you know what good is. you dont do it because you should do it, you do it because its the right thing to do. You do it because not doing it is letting yourself down. You do it because at the end of the day you know what good is and you know why its important, even when it hurts, even when your cold scared and alone.

>will never help anyone who isn't perfectly Good or Lawful with a capital letter.
So not Lawful Good, gotcha.

Very flattering, but how can there be free will, how can there be choice when one side has no chance to even present their case? When the only source they get is the vague fearmongering of the opposition, you have people like OP wondering why there would even be a choice or fight. It hurts not only people's agency but your own credibility too when what they see doesn't add up with what you say. Not that you rally have anything to say beyond flinging mud at any alternatives to your narrative. You don't have anything to offer beyond struggle and suffering and some vague, unspecified end to it. You don't have arguments for your stance, only against opposing ones. You don't promise anything, only damnation to those who don't obey your ridiculous bloat of laws and rules, while trying to hide and paint as horrible any and all tangible pleasures and ambitions that are clearly seen by all, denying them even knowing about the option that would enable them to be less miserable.

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That's, like, your opinion man.

He allegedly makes claims to having made the category and created everything, but he doesn't prove it.

And once the creation has free will, the creator has absolutely no authority over it.

Azathoth is such great god. An almighty idiot! there is a supreme being, and its a blind retarded mess.

What you are describing is Sloth, which is one of the 7 deadly sins.

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>tips crucifix

>demons are disorganized and believe humans will "damn themselves on their own" while angels think they need guidance, so humans pick the side that lets them do their own shit without meddling
There you go

Ha, you fucked up now, Uru poster, for I can see the tiny man that she holds in her fingers! You have been exposed!

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If everyone knows what it is and why it's important, then why do so many let themselves down? Unless you assume some kind of Original Sin, an innate inclination towards Pure Evil, it makes no sense. And wouldn't that be a blood curse? Wouldn't that be unfair, to be the only species saddled with such an inclination? Can we really live in an unfair universe - one where the imbalance is inherent to every atom, as opposed to being a construct of our particular society or material situation? And if so, why do we bother living? Are you telling me I should kill myself? Would that act remove some tangible amount of evil from the world?

Then is not any creature which decides it cannot be bothered to commit genocide guilty? Why do consequences only exist for humans, if corvids and dolphins are just as intelligent?

The struggle, and suffering towards goodness that's rewarded with eternal life and reuinification with God in paradise as opposed to temporary pleasure for long term suffering and death, well that's a great deal, Satan and you can't twist that.

if you think genocide is the be all and end all of evil then you need to check back in with your heart. Evil isnt often something huge and grand, its a death by a thousand cuts. Its being to proud to ask for help, its being to proud to forgive, its being to proud to let someone else be encouraged . Evil is someone "just doing their job". Evil is banal. Evil is the path of least resistance because its harder to admit we made a mistake then to say "those people" are responsible for our problems, not us never us.

Is eternal life something to seek out?

when did you start thinking that eternal life is more desirable then eternal good?

That lack of authority is just wrong. Children ideally should honor their parents, and he's a lot more than a parent to us.

Is the alternative to hold myself responsible for the annihilation of the nonavian dinosaurs, or the wars that are beyond my individual power to stop? Am I meant to blame myself for everything that has ever gone wrong? Was my mere being born an unfathomable sin? Am I to despise myself infinitely? Was that always the point?

i will always vote for turbo catholicism

>religious tenants need to be followed to extreme degrees
>physical penance required when sin is committed
>church promises felicity in the afterlife, but brutal dedication to worship and self-betterment (become renaissance man etc.)
>daemons promise felicity in the afterlife if you are worthy, and allow you any short-term happiness in the mortal world (lust, greed, etc.)
>papal state rip off expects kings and emperors to be their vassal, and will ruthlessly tax/ levy forces on a whim, excommunicating a king/emperor who doesn't obey them
>heresies keep sprouting up with an angel supporting them, maybe the angel is forced to trade immortality to directly interfere with mortals or some shit
>heresies keep turning out to be daemon psyops

if you need inspiration I would read Pope Innocent III's call to Crusade, he made europe his bitch briefly.

" Moreover we excommunicate and anathematize those false and impious Christians who, against Christ Himself and the Christian people, carry arms, iron, and wood for ships to the Saracens."

sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/inn3-cdesummons.asp