(snip)

> -eric "Oh, and Satan does not rule over Hell, despite what every single depiction of it in the various media over the past five hundred years may have told you." sleator
> Thu 21 Jun A.D. 2001

This is part of the dualistic "Good vs. Evil as equal opposites" POV I was talking with gabby about. If God rules Heaven, then the Devil, who's God's opposite, rules Hell, right?

(Except that the Devil is not God's diametric opposite (there can be no such thing; anything that lacks *all* the attributes of God simply is nonexistent), Hell is not the diametric opposite of Heaven (any *place* that lacks all the attributes of Heaven, the place where God is, likewise simply is nonexistent) and evil is not the opposite of good (I think you get the basic idea of what I think).)

I don't think the Bible supports it, and I don't think it makes sense. (Even the original dualistic religion, Zoroastrianism, in the long view said that Ahura Mazda's Good was one step in the neverending pattern of creation while Ahriman's Evil was an aberration or mistake in that step; hence Good will win over Evil in the end and Evil will eventually vanish. That was in the long view, though.)

Ar"of course, I have no doubt that Satan might *think* of himself as ruling Hell, just as some humans think of themselves are ruling Earth"thur