Thinking...

[skull_bearer]

For a while, I've been thinking of the whole good vs evil thing, and what people nowdays term 'bad' or 'satanic' (please note that I was a satanist for a time, and am well place to know what is demonicly influenced or not). And I've decided that the person who can sum up my beliefs on the whole topic isn't a religious author at all, he's a comic fantasy writer, and his name is Terry Pratchett.

There are two books in particular which sum my thoughts up nicely, the first is from his book 'Johnny and the Dead'. I don't have the book with me so I'm writing this from memory, the main character, Johnny, is thinking about all the things people term satanic- Oija boards and so on.

Cards and boards, Johnny thought, and games. That's not dark forces. Going on about heavy metal and Dungeons and Dragons because it had demon gods in it, is like barricading the door when "It" is coming up through the floorboards. Real dark forces... Aren't dark, They're sort of grey, like Mr Grim. They'll take a town like Blackbury and turn it into frightened streets where no one wants to live and no one really does live. The Dead seem more alive than us. And everyone goes grey, and turns into number, and somewhere, someone starts to do arithmatic.
The demon god Yoth-Ziggurat may want to chop your souls into a thousand pieces, but at least he doesn't tell you you don't have one.

The second book (which I do have with me), is the Discworld novel 'The Light Fantastic', unlike Johnny and the dead, it's a fantasy novel.

Rincewind stared, and knew there were far worse things than evil. All the demons in hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls so highly; evil would always try and steal the universe, but at least it considerted the universe worth stealing. But the grey world behind those eyes would trample and destroy without even according it's victims the dignity of hatred. It wouldn't even notice them.

I know it's rather stupid to look for meaning in a comic fantasy series, but if I look at the world going on around me, it seems as though I'd be better off trusting my moral compass to Terry Practhett, rather than all the holy books in the world put together.

Comments

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Maybe so, none of my friends or acquaintances ever tried, but when my granpa was in hospital and suffering from cancer, that made me think on it. I don't think I would want to die that way. I would want to decide.

I think your opinion on suicide always depends on what you consider a sensible reason and that's probably different for everyone. Keeping people from killing themselves if they have a good reason for it (whether you agree it's good, or not), just because you love and don't want to lose them, is understandable, but I also think it's a good deal selfish. (Which doesn't mean I'd not try and prevent such a thing if faced with them, I'd sure try to talk them out of it.) Guess I understand both sides, really.

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

The problem was that this person (who I'll call A) didn't have what I considered to be a good reason, there were a lot of people who were reliant on A. A was depressed and refused to see a specialist, which I think is a pretty poor reason.

I understand your position (hell, my grandfather died of cancer too), but as I said, it does matter on the situation.