AHC: Traditionally evil being worshiped by a major religion

Your challenge if you choose to accept it is for a major and mainstream religious group to worship a being that is considered to be traditionally evil (Think a religion worshiping Angra Mainyu, or one worshiping Ahriman, or one worshiping Loki or Fenris, or a group that worships Satan.)

This group needs not to be morally evil and they can/most likely will add things that modern people would consider morally correct into their religion. For example a form of Gnostism that worships Satan as the true god and a rebel against the evil Demiurge would count as fulfilling this challenge.

Bonus points if the religion can coexist peacefully alongside their opposite religion. For example the Gnostic Satanist coexisting alongside a group of Christians.
 
Don't the Thugee worshipers of Kali at least fit the initial challenge?

I'm not sure if Kali is actually considered evil by Hindus. IIRC she was in the earliest stories considered a force in the annihilation of evil. Someone more familiar with the various ways Hinduism is practiced in India should chime in.
 
There is an argument that Zoroastrianism's (or pre-Zoroastrian Iranic) reversal of Devas and Asuras (Daevas and Ahuras in Old Persian I think) relative to Indian religion could fit this description, although at that point, a real moral axis is hard to find in that religious context.
Even worse, the originis of Zoroastrianism and its relationships with pre-existing cults are quite murky.
 
Most Hindus considered the Thugee cult an abomination. Kali is goddess of Death, but also goddess of rebirth, goddess of destruction, particularly of demons, and goddess of various other things I can't recall off-hand.
 
Your challenge if you choose to accept it is for a major and mainstream religious group to worship a being that is considered to be traditionally evil (Think a religion worshiping Angra Mainyu, or one worshiping Ahriman, or one worshiping Loki or Fenris, or a group that worships Satan.)

This group needs not to be morally evil and they can/most likely will add things that modern people would consider morally correct into their religion. For example a form of Gnostism that worships Satan as the true god and a rebel against the evil Demiurge would count as fulfilling this challenge.

Bonus points if the religion can coexist peacefully alongside their opposite religion. For example the Gnostic Satanist coexisting alongside a group of Christians.

I like the Loki idea.
 
Yazidis have a "good" version of "Satan" who refused to bow to mankind. Don't know so much about the worship though.
 
Yazidis have a "good" version of "Satan" who refused to bow to mankind. Don't know so much about the worship though.

No, Muslims and Christians often interpret Melek Taus as Satan, but the Yazidi themselves do not make this association, nor is Melek Taus influenced by the idea of Satan (seeing as the Yazidi religion is older than the idea of Satan itself).
 
How about some sort of flood (Or some other element traditionally associated with Angra Mainyu) prevents the Arab armies from siezing the Eastern part of Persia. A radical preacher begins to teach that Mazda is the God worshiped by the Arabs (Assuming the surviving Zoroastrian remnants have little information on Arab religious practice.) and Mazda has abandoned them but Angra Mainyu intervened against the Arab armies to save the Persian people. Over time Angra Mainyu becomes the dominate god throughout Eastern Persia and Ahura Mazda is seen as an evil deity bent on the destruction of the Persian people.

Zanzibar Zoroastrians, the last remnants of classical Zoroastrianism, consider this group an embarrassment at least and heretical scum at worst.
 
According to Mandaeans, the Christian worship of the Holy Spirit is in reality worship of Ruha, which is an evil something allied with the Christian God.

According to some people, the premise of this thread is already a reality.
 

Redhand

Banned
Well, Laveyan Satanism could somehow reach a larger group of people and get enough people to follow it until it becomes Mainstream. The premise that a religion can't develop in the early modern or modern era and gain acceptance and mainstream institutional power has been disproved by the Mormons, who are growing really fast and are, without trying to flame bait, only loosely Christian.
 
Most Hindus considered the Thugee cult an abomination. Kali is goddess of Death, but also goddess of rebirth, goddess of destruction, particularly of demons, and goddess of various other things I can't recall off-hand.
Exactly. Kali has many facets. She's not just a one-dimensional "Goddess of Evil".
 
Don't the Thugee worshipers of Kali at least fit the initial challenge?

I'm not sure if Kali is actually considered evil by Hindus. IIRC she was in the earliest stories considered a force in the annihilation of evil. Someone more familiar with the various ways Hinduism is practiced in India should chime in.

Most Hindus considered the Thugee cult an abomination. Kali is goddess of Death, but also goddess of rebirth, goddess of destruction, particularly of demons, and goddess of various other things I can't recall off-hand.

Kali isn't evil. She's a facet of the female principle in an incarnation of terror for the purpose of defeating evil. She's just one aspect of the female principle along with Durga, Parvati, Shakti etc. and all these facets overlap- when someone worships Kali, they're also paying devotion to the other aspects. When my wife conceived, our friend (who's a pretty devout Hindu) asked us to come with her to the temple because she had vowed to Kaliamman (Mother Kali) that she would donate a sari for the idol of the goddess to thank her for protecting the baby.

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And the Thuggee most likely didn't exist in the way the British thought it did. There definitely was a problem with murder and lawlessness along the Gangetic Valley but the perpetrators were most likely simply networks of bandits and murderers, who worshipped Kali just like the people around them did, rather than an organised death cult dedicated to her.
 
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The loa of Haitian Voudou are considered to be evil by many, especially the strictly Catholic upper class. However, Voudou predates colonialism, and in West Africa it certainly didn't have any social stigma, so I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.
 
The problem I see is that older religions don't have "evil" deity which opposes "good" deity as God/Satan do. even deities like Loki, Kali and Hades aren't evil the way Satan is, they just represent certain aspect(s) that people shy away from.
 
In that interpretation, Set probably wouldn't be portrayed as evil.

I thought the OP meant that the group is traditional viewed as evil IOTL, and the challenge was to change that. Otherwise, I don't see how the worship of anything people in a particular timeline consider evil would catch on in large numbers.
 
This is similar to the Twins of the Haudenosaunee. Their names are often translated as Good Twin and Bad Twin in English, but those are really misrepresentations of how they're viewed. One is the incarnation of more positive things and other is more negative aspects life, but both are necessary for existence to function. Both aspects can be found in all living things that connect us back to the Creator.
 
I thought the OP meant that the group is traditional viewed as evil IOTL, and the challenge was to change that. Otherwise, I don't see how the worship of anything people in a particular timeline consider evil would catch on in large numbers.

It would be possible if one society sees positive deity as somebody who brings order and negative deity as somebody who brings chaos. Another society sees former as tyrant and latter as liberator. Toss in animosity between these societies (former conquered latter) and voila!

It's more theoretical though I suppose Christian Satan could fill that role, provided you explain and keep Jesus-as-Son-of-God thing. Maybe this alternative considers that when satan tempted Jesus with power he explained to him what God really was about. Jesus took his offer and something something while Christians as we know them lied and faked whole crucifixion and resurection thing.
 
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