That ole devil called Lucifer

[Gibbon]

When I did Latin at school all the men, plus all the women, whether they were real or fictional had first names.

Please no accusations of mansplaining as you admit being confused.

There were very few first names for males available, Gaius, Marcus, Lucius, etc. That's why most were known by their nickname.
So Caesars formal name was Gaius Julius, but his cognomen was Caesar which may or may not have been the way he was born. Cicero, means chickpea, but his formal name was Marcus Tullius. Caligula means little boots, but his formal name was Gaius Julius.

The first name was given at birth, the second was the tribal name, which makes women's first names interesting as they took the feminine of the tribal names, hence Julia, Cornelia, Aurelia etc. This mainly worked as few families brought up more than one girl, and if they did they would acquire the Major (older) and Minor (younger) epithet.

[d000hg]

God botherers only care about works of fiction detailing their magical sky friends and the people they duped into writing them?

Oh dear your teenage son got into your account again.

[xoggoth]

God botherers only care about works of fiction detailing their magical sky friends and the people they duped into writing them

Pretty accurate description of religion in my view. Would a real almighty god make such an awful job of informing mankind about his laws? Sticking odd prophets and messiahs here and there throughout history, all telling us different things and allowing lots of alterations to the "truth" to suit the powerful? Which one of these umpteen different version of his will is the correct one? More likely that none are.

If there is a god, more likely that his laws are contained in our natures. We don't need commandments to know that violence, theft etc. are wrong, our feelings tell us that.

[d000hg]

We don't need commandments to know that violence, theft etc. are wrong, our feelings tell us that.

Bit of a circular argument there, the obvious retort being that your sense of right and wrong (your feelings) come from somewhere.

The arguments on both side are pretty well established over the centuries, if you want an informed answer from the theists, athiests, philosphers or whoever about how they think their point of view is not inconsistent with the world then there's plenty of interesting material out there, at whatever level of academic-ness you prefer.

[Gibbon]

We don't need commandments to know that violence, theft etc. are wrong, our feelings tell us that.

Yes and No, we are social animals and to live together and help each other we need ways of resolving conflict, however these feelings only really extend to our tribe as history shows us. We (as humans) have no problems violating other peoples to gain advantage in the evolutionary race.

[vetran]

A lot of them are reclaiming the word from Canaanite myth. Lucifer is Latin for bringer of light, Lucis, an inflected form of Lux and fero - to carry. There were very few male first names in the Roman word, one of them being Lucius which was given to those born at dawn. The goddess Juno Lucina (meaning she who brings into the light) was the main female fertility deity who also helped at birth and had a shrine on the Esquiline Hill. It was here that they held the Matronalia in early March, yep you guessed it, it became the Church sanctioned Mothers Day. After the goths had destroyed the temple the Church built their major shrine to Mary near the spot and even reused some of the columns inside - Santa Maria Maggiore.

To be cynical I doubt it they are probably named after the series hoping their boys will be as handsome as Tom Ellis. (Lucifer - Morningstar in the series).

But thanks I learnt something new!

https://www.history.com/topics/folkl...y-of-the-devil

[vetran]

Sounds like the Tory and Bxxxxt manifesto to me

And most 'stories' in the Wail

ah didn't learn anything new.

[vetran]

Oh dear your teenage son got into your account again.

Ah you believing in fantasies again? I have no son. Though as you probably think I am godlike I will make one up just for you.

You are welcome to believe in whatever invisible gods you like, even steal stories from earlier religions if you want.

I'm free to not believe in Gods because the facts prove to ME they don't exist or have a very sick sense of humour (at least the Greeks were right about that).

[vetran]

Pretty accurate description of religion in my view. Would a real almighty god make such an awful job of informing mankind about his laws? Sticking odd prophets and messiahs here and there throughout history, all telling us different things and allowing lots of alterations to the "truth" to suit the powerful? Which one of these umpteen different version of his will is the correct one? More likely that none are.

If there is a god, more likely that his laws are contained in our natures. We don't need commandments to know that violence, theft etc. are wrong, our feelings tell us that.

Actually I am happy to credit Religion (especially Abrahamic ones) with being a civilising force for millennia (most religions look for order & prosperity after they gave up human sacrifice) the Commandments wrote down what sensible people were thinking. If you look to pagans they were quite happy killing, raping and stealing (Genghis Khan, Romans, Greeks, Mayans) at least the Christians / Muslims tried to dress up their Murder, rape & pillage as they were ashamed of it.

The commandments are the base of the laws of many successful countries because they make sense, just as 1984 & Animal Farm do, now people are free to believe they are God given if they want. Moses may have written them himself to manage his people for all we know.

[d000hg]

blah

You are most welcome to reject or ridicule any religion you wish to, but talking about "magical sky friends" really just makes you come across like a 12-year-old who has discovered internet forums for the first time and thinks it's a clever put-down. On the level of me saying you think your great-grandad was a monkey...