If you spent any time in church growing up, then like me, you might have come to think of these religions as cute ancient superstitions. They had small 'g' gods who fought and did silly things. Legends, no better than fairy tails.
As Christians (or insert your monotheistic flavor), we followed the one true God (capital G). This is a point of pride, a differentiator. We were the more mature, the more logical religion. Simple.
So based on the title, you know where I'm going with this. It's amazing how Christians can ignore such a blatant contradiction.
What is an angel? In the back of my bible, in the compendium, it is defined as: "human or superhuman agent or messenger of God".
Superhuman? But not a god? Right there in my bible. with not so much as a 'by your leave' or nudge nudge, wink wink.
Similarly dictionary.com has:
an·gel [eyn-juh l]
noun
1. one of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God. In medieval angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities or princedoms, archangels, and angels).
2. a conventional representation of such a being, in human form, with wings, usually in white robes.
Churches are filled with images of angels, they are played by children in the manger scene at the Christmas pageant, and many talk about their guardian angel. I remember it being said many times in sermons that there is a celestial battle being waged constantly between angels and demons for each soul. So cool! Who doesn't love a good supernatural battle. I wonder if it's like Gandalf and Saruman in lord of the rings, or more like the Avengers movie? No, it couldn't be avengers, because that had Thor and Loki, and they're from one of the silly polytheistic religions.
So we have these beings, these living creatures, who reside in heaven with God, they live forever, can visit earth in various forms, fly, be invisibly, fight, an oh yes... Most importantly of all, they have free will. Wait!?! Isn't that a special gift to humanity? Why God created men? Maybe, maybe not. We'll leave that be for now.
But how do we know they have free will? Easy. There are four named Angels in the bible. The rest are simply referred to generically or as messengers, and of course many of the 227 references to angels in the bible (http://www.raphael.net/scripture/angels.htm) could just be to people who perform angelic acts. The other definitions:
"3. a messenger, especially of God.
4. a person who performs a mission of God or acts as if sent by God: an angel of mercy.
5. a person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness."
...the named angels are:
1. Michael-(Daniel 10:13,21 & 12:1, also Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7)
2. Gabriel-(Luke 1:19,26)
3. Satan or Lucifer-(Isaiah 14:12, and Ezekiel 28:11-19)
4. Abaddon-(Revelation 9:11)
So Satan and the demons (fallen angels) who followed him either rebelled against god of their own free will or act as the agents of god, meaning the creation of temptation, evil, etc... Suits Gods purpose.
We could also go into detail on the trinity (which is never explained in the new testament and is wholly -not holy- the creation of bishops to sell the faith. And the half human son of the chief god, like Hercules...
This has all been a matter of theological debate for 2 millennia now, and doesn't matter one fig, because if you are paying attention, you will see the nut of the problem... A cast of supernatural (godlike) characters with their own personalities and purposes.
Polytheism. So why do we think of it as any different from Zeus, Athena, Aries, Hades, and Apollo? A great marketing strategy devised by early church leaders, and 1800 years of branding, whereby not buying the brand often meant at best being shunned socially, at worst a gruesome death.
Moderate and fundamental Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike, just assume their god is the only god. And even when they talk about the archangel Gabriel at the gates of heaven, it is without the slightest sense of irony.
I could have titled this bog 'the elephant in the room'. Because it is so patently obvious. Yet if you show this to a believer, they will likely just roll there eyes and maybe offer a derisive comment about unfair attacks on Christianity.
Conditioned to accept without thinking, they follow an ancient superstition every bit as silly as the halls of valhalla and the flying Valkyries.
Fairy tales full of fairies.
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