The nature of God according to Dostoyevsky

The other side of Dostoyevsky: the sinner has a chance to be saved(himself). God allows no evils; man does evil things (sin). Father Zossima exits this part of reality , not through his frail body , but through his faith, his soul. That's why he decays; the body itself is the coffin separating Zossima from God. The paralyzed Locke had faith; MIB choose him for his faith. MIB needed faith. He had none himself. That's why I have maintained that Ben could have destroyed MIB at any time. The danger was Locke's blind determination. ( Remember MIB said of all of the losties, Locke alone had faith). As for Hugo, the very opposite of Alexy: he was born with the power over death. He did not have faith until the last season. He was running from his gift; It is he who walks among us, but is not like us.
Ah! The grand inquisitor: the devil explains the temptation of Christ in most unique manner. You need to know of the influence Spain had over Portugal, the legends of St. James living and dying in Spain, the importance of 1492: genocide in the New World and mass expulsion of the Muslims and the Jews from Iberia. Read it yourself -- the case against God. He is real but worthy alone of a second executiom. Would you burn Him?
In this passage, the reader is asked to make a choice. Dostoyevsky makes a first argument that all things (the way things are now) depend on what Christ did when he was tempted. If you care about religion, it really does not matter. What matters is if you want freedom and knowledge. the author's case is simple: freedom and the ability to learn depend on God's choices, the choices He made in those 40 days in the desert.

the devil according to dostoyevsky

My former employer gave Faraday my appearance; the music of the spheres that was even worse: Book 5, chapter Smerdyakov with guitar. Three times Dmitri (Sawyer) threatened to kill me (Ben) says Smerdyakov. But I must congratulate my enemy for selecting Chopin, the first of the moderns. Usually it is no one born after the deaf German with his to Ode to Joy, that the Lord of heaven picks. Chopin was a surprise 1 hour ago by Past recaptured
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That's better. No, the other demon, that Lord of the Flies: pig heads and children: those are his calling cards. Me, no, I would give up my craft if I could only do what he does. Mass murder, inquisitions, generations corrupted. Jack, like Ivan, was special. And I lost him in his last few days. Faraday and his puppet Hume, they had lots of help from my "old boss". Then Faraday turned Ben against me. And finally, that Latino lardo, Hugo. My former master made sure I never saw Ben because I am the one who turned him; he would have known far sooner that the unitary spirit who tossed me down to hell was behind it. Reyes, now he would smell me a mile away and laugh at me. That greasy Mexican knew how it would end. I could never get near enough to Jack except when he had escaped. We flew over the Pacific almost a hundred times to convince him that none of what happenned was real. I was close. Then Hume shows up that one day on our last flight together. What they showed you was out of order. Hume got to Jack before 316 (that cursed number). Enough, I have said too much. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
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I have no demons. I am one of two spirits left. The other one gets involved in those silly parties and clownish activities. But I do not. I brought the disease to the island through my clients (that's my term). Read Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus or Camus' The Plague. I used Ivan's tactics for those people. The tactics worked.
Dostoyevsky is right. My nemeis does not permit evil. His human creations do that. They have choice. I give them the dignity of selecting their fates. That merits respect. Jacob never gave anybody any choices. There is no attempt, on my part to hold people, against their will. As the Rolling Stones sang of me: I am a man (sic) of grace and style. Just as Christ is the seldom seen protagonist of Paradise Lost, I am the spirit behind this novel.I have to stop; I typed the holy name and am not well at this moment. It happens too often. I ought to know better. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
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He just forgot about Dmitri. And I can live with neglect. The neglect of parents drives their children to me. If these progeny get too difficult , I can make them sick . Doctors call it mental illnesses , infections, exposure to radiation. It is all me. I can make this difficult group infertile. If they want to know too much, if they trick me, if they do not live up to their contracts: to paraphrase some old poet -- those I wish to destroy, I first make mad (as in crazy). 5 days ago by Past recaptured
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Now you know I am an honest spirit. I am not so demanding as that other Spirit. Begin with the very first chapter. I tolerate both virtue and vice. Read how honestly I describe how old papa K forgot about his 1st son. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
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Wait a minute here. This is Alyosha and like Richard (until the End), I never aged. Unlike Richard I never killed any doctors, I was a slave only to GOD. I hardly ever left my little circle of land. But like Richard, I saw everything. When you meet me in this book, I am the same age as Walt. Let me tell you, I do not want to be God or a demon or a person blessed by God with special powers. My ambition is to serve God and die. Let my body rot, Let my soul raise itself by its lightness to heaven. Now I will tell you MiB was right: we are all sinners. Jacob was a fool to believe in redemption without God. Faraday was God's agent, but such a strange choice. He looked like a younger version of a man I saw Ivan with before his fatal illness. I pray for Ivan, for them all. You know your Gospels. You know that thousands of children died because of Herod's decree in the two yearsafter Christ's birth. Walt was the chosen one. Michael had to kill those people, so Walt could take possession of his little circle of the world. You would not believe who told me this story. The incidents of those thousands of years were recounted by the fattest monk I have ever met. He told me he can to settle my doubts. He promised me that God wanted me to be exactly as I am. Brother Hugo told the whole story over days, but only to me. And he brought food. Everyday crates, huge and many: we feed ourselves and the needy for two years. He would appear at dawn standing beside the crates. It was as if they (both Hugo and the food) had fallen from the sky. But that would have been impossible. 6 days ago by Past recaptured
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Why? Book 11 : Ivan chapter 8 page 573. If there is no God, all is permitted. Ivan taught Smerdyyakov well. Straight from St. Augustine, this truth justifies the devil's latest strategy. This chapter contains a version is a lie that identifies the true killers, yet everything else is fiction. The truth is Book 12: A Judicial Error in chapters 10, 11,&12. While all of it is important, (and true), chapter 13 speculates on the question of why a mother would murder her children (are you listening Claire, Eli Widmore Hawking Faraday?). Now I, being the the devil, always tell the truth. I know it well. It's my former "employer" that keeps slandering me. This idiot Stephen King, that faker Jack Lewis, all the others: they are liars. I am as described in Book 11, chapter 9, I am a well-dressed spirit of business. The moderator asks for respect for all points of views. Well, let me say, that I deserve respect. I am a self-made entity, tossed out of paradise over some trivial disagreement. I started with nothing (just like Sawyer, Kate, Locke, Ben, Jacob) and imposed my will upon the world. Now just because I killed this Ivan off and took his ideas as my own, you all think I am some kind of monster. (Ben did not lose any fans when he hung Locke; Ben did the honest thing. He could have allowed a fruitless immoral suicide. Instead he made Locke a great martyr to Faith.) My former "employer" keeps painting me as some goated headed creature with a tail. No, I tell you I am an honest being of business. You cannot fault me anymore than you can fault Ben or Charlie Widmore for eliminating the competition. Ivan had to go; I honor his memory by following his plans. Before I go, I have to tell you who really let me down. Ben cheated me. He was as smart they come. He played me like a violin. That last bit with Widmore, I really thought he had come to his senses. No, he goes off and helps this overpraised Deity. Just when you can trust somebody... 6 days ago by Past recaptured
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The Y in Fyodor. Here's the Y 6 days ago by Past recaptured
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COWBOYS

Cowboy in Siberia. so what's a landowner's son doing in this place? The police arrested him for subversion. He was facing a firing squad when the Tsar pardoned Fodor. People will tell you that his doctor father (Christian) murdered one of his serfs among other excesses of emotional behavior. After Siberia, there was the army for four years Fodor (perhaps like Desmond) Fodor was unhappy). Freud would say he had a reaction formation. Fodor became a champion of the Tsar and the Orthodox Church ( just as Sayid followed Saddam when it fed his passions). But there were other passion- whores, drinking, gambling (remember Charlie, there are more vices than heroin). There was a conversion reaction. Fodor began to have those seizures (the divine disease of epilepsy) soon after his father died. You know about those. It is like somebody who loses the ability to walk, is locked in wheelchair. The trigger was the father. Fodor had a son; the gossip is that his son died of a seizure disorder. Some people think that the little boy (in this book) who dies is a representation of Fodor's son. Some people do not believe the boy in the novel has anything to do with Fodor's son. He dies at twice the age of Fodor's son. The boy in the book is about Ben's age. Do you remember? Sayid shot Ben. Some people that think Dostoyevsky thought his illness killed his son. ( Of course, the syntax is twisted. Can you draw a straight line?) You could say ( if you were poetic ) that evil within the father killed the son. Or you could think Fodor's father molded the man who was everyman. Yes, Fodor was also a man of many twists. But he had no kingdom, but he confronted many more perils than Odysseus. And they were inside himself. That reminds me of a story about two brothers. One thought that all men were evil. Fodor knew that. The other thought that he would find good persons somewhere if he tested enough people. These good people would redeem themselves. Fodor tried to believe this. However, there were too many temptations, too many memories of the few months when he was playing the nihilist, the rebel, playing He who denies (Goethe's term for the devil). Power, having the power to erase God, there's the only real pleasure. Ask Ben Linus or Charles Widmore or MiB or Jacob. They will tell you. 16 minutes ago by Past recaptured
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