Pride goeth before a Fall

I still have not read all of Paradise Lost, let alone Paradise Regained, but at this point the feature that impresses me is that Satan was jealous, and was jealous because God preferred another creature to him. In PL it's Jesus whom Gd prefers; in the Muslim version it's Adam-- the latter makes slightly better sense of Satan's wish to trash humankind.

But either way we are required to assume in that God is right and Satan is wrong in his self-estimation. --See Will McCormick, who killed the teacher who punished him for not submitting homework.

A story that impresses me is Laura Ingalls Wilder's narrative of her father's response when she got into trouble at school resulting from a feud with a snobbish rival, Nellie Olesen. Laura's Dad asks Laura what she had said and what her rival had said. What Laura's rival had said was not true, but it was not baseless. Laura's Dad asked Laura what basis Nellie had for believing what she said. This Middle Way lets Laura learns from the trouble she got into. But it needed a wise Dad to find the way through. So let's imagine a supportive God who says to Satan, "You have the place you always had in my estimation. I delight in my light bearer. Do you really think you need to try to forbid me to create anything, anyone else, to keep your place secure?"

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Responsible Religion

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