Because that lore isn't from The Bible, it's from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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It's been a while since the Divina Commedia was inflicted on me, but as far as I recall, Lucifer doesn't really rule hell, he's called its emperor but he's just its foremost prisoner. The only people he's punishing are the three great sinners he's chewing on, but that's more of a fluke.
This perfectly explains where we got retail management hierarchy from.
Inferno has the Devil frozen at the heart of hell, struggling in vain to break free, his beating wings producing the freezing wind that keeps him trapped. Not my idea of a ruler, to be honest.
The number of people that think things from Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost are from the Bible is shockingly large.
Just goes to show how few actually read anything from the various flavors of Bible. So much effort to bring those words to a form the average person could read, instead of relying on Clergy to interpret for them... and no one does it.
i mean, they're fanfiction based off contemporary understandings of the bible, so i get it.
I’m pretty sure Dante Alighieri was not writing fanfiction, but was in fact creating a satirical work, as he wrote this during his years of being Excommunicated. Which is also part of The reason it’s referred to as The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia). He was excommunicated for false political crimes.
Also Dante’s Inferno was also a proof of concept for what became the modern Italian language.
( though if you’re saying fan fiction sarcastically I do agree)
Look man if someone comes to found a new language based on Harry Potter smut it won't change what it was.
So much effort?
Isn't it the second most mass produced book in the world?
After a certain point, the automation makes making more of them effortless.
Also, it's an attention economy. If you want me to read your self-help/alt-history book, you need to give me an actual reason.
So much effort?
You do realize the movable type printing press was invented by Gutenberg and initially used to reproduce the bible right?
So yeah... a lot of effort was most definitely put into bringing the Bible to the general masses.
Isn’t it the second most mass produced book in the world?
After a certain point, the automation makes making more of them effortless.
That's kind of the point of the invention... to reproduce it at scale so it would be cheaper and everyone could read it instead of relying on the clergy to interpret for them.
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I liked the jacaobs ladder view on demons.
A soul trying to cling to its old life will feel haunted but one that is at peace Will see them as angels.
Quoting top comment from youtube:
14th-century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart:
"Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: 'The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you', he said. 'They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and ... you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."
You don't have to have a literal hell to know for yourself the truth of Eckhart's insight! Tremendously deep movie.
Satan doesn't do the punishing, God does.
The exponential scale is killing me.
Just as god intended.
2,391,422
2,391,423
polish tv scale XD
God cast the souls He created but deemed "bad" out into nothingness, Satan created a refuge for them so they could at least exist, if in the cold uncaring shadow of a vengeful, loveless God.
christian hell is just fire island and satan makes a mean skinny marg
One interpretation is that the denizens of hell actually punish themselves. They know their actions were evil and sent them there, and that they deserve the punishment, so they receive the punishment they think they deserve.
Jason Lee's character in Dogma brings this up. He said that initially Hell was just the absence of God (which in itself is said to be painful), but once humans got there they were so unable to forgive themselves and live without the divine presence that they turned it into a place of unimaginable pain and suffering.
I don't think that's supported by the Bible and I'm not sure if that's a position that was even put forth by later Christian thinkers, but it's all mythology to me anyway and I find the different interpretations interesting.
I'm fairly sure it's the interpretation Dante runs with in Inferno. I have no clue if it was the popular belief at the time, but it does show the idea has been around for at least 700 years or so.
So psychopaths get off scot-free
No, but you see, the Christian God is merciful. Oh, wait.
Who ever said Satan is punishing evil doers?
It's some weird misconception that, like heaven, hell needs to have some sort of ruler. Naturally, the intuitive thing is to pick the mightiest entity in there and declare it the king, because that's kinda how we perceive kingship. Aside from the fact that literally all the entities in there are convicts imprisoned by the final judgement, at which point there's only one eternal king left:
It's a fucking sea of fire, what the fuck are they gonna rule?
Oh I see. I was thinking BEFORE death.
I mean, if Satan is portrayed as the Lord of Hell, him punishing people that haven't died yet makes even less sense.
Besides, the cases of people being punished for sin in life (like drowning damn near everyone, smiting Sodom and Gomorrah or striking down Ananias for a stupid lie) I'm aware of are still all God. If anything, the Serpent would be the tempter leading people to sin.
In some places (notably Rev. 12), Satan is the accuser. That would make him part of the sinners' punishment in the afterlife (unless Jesus intercedes on behalf of his faithful). However, I don't think I've seen that framing used much in popular depictions, and it still wouldn't make him a lord of anything.
So I don't know of any biblical source that would make any of the entities typically conflated with the Devil the Lord of Hell and the punisher of sinners
Yes. This is what I was thinking. Thank you.
My favorite part of this post is people from different flavors of Christianity arguing completely different things using the same source.
Satan just wants you to be yourself and be cool to everyone else.
I One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
V Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
VI People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
I wore a shirt with the 7 tenets on the front, and my mother threw a massive fit when she saw it one day.
I sent her plain text of the tenets, and said if she can point to a single thing wrong with anything it says, I'll consider it. I got no response.
If a masochist goes to hell he's in heaven
There is a book called Waiting for the Intergalactic bus where god and satan turn out to be 2 energy based life forms who are students and were accidentally left behind on a class trip. Satan decides to ignore the prime directive and interfere with life on earth to pass the time. The torture in hell is strictly the humans idea, if I remember correctly.
I like South Park Satan. That is how I choose to see it.
Satan isn't evil, he even turn Buu good. He's the greatest.
It's pretty metal to make the "most condemned" of all of them into the jailer.
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