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Christian philosophers often use moral agents to explain the existence of evil. The fall of human beings can be used in explanations of moral evil, and some have posited the existence of angels to explain natural evil. The latter proposal, which has been labelled "the Satan hypothesis," has faced substantial criticism. Here, I do not dismiss the Satan hypothesis, but present cosmopsychism, the idea that the universe is conscious, as an alternative way of using moral agents to explain natural evil for those skeptical of the Satan hypothesis. After introducing cosmopsychism into this debate and outlining how it can be used instead of the Satan hypothesis, I consider how it can provide an explanation of natural evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this essay is to reconsider the way scholarship conceives the role of the devil in early Christian approaches to evil and suffering, using as a case study theological reflection on this theme by Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus. Through a close reading of three texts concerned with the origins of evil, suffering, and the continued presence of the devil on earth after Christ's victory, I propose the devil's existence contributes to the mystery of evil for Basil and Gregory. Put simply, the devil does not serve as a strategy to solve problems of evil and suffering. The devil himself is a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chris Bush's Faustus: That Damned Woman (first performed in 2020) is a feminist and contemporary adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. The magus is a woman who travels through time from the seventeenth century to the far distant future. In the process, Johanna Faustus becomes a brilliant scientist who attempts to create digital immortality by uploading the minds of billions of human beings to the Cloud. When a power failure destroys almost all of humanity, it is uncertain whether the universal outage is caused by Mephistopheles (in accordance with the expectations of Faustian fantasy) or is simply an unforeseen but predictable accident (in accordance with the expectations of technophobic versions of science fiction). I argue that Bush's play traces the chronological and generic arc from magic/fantasy to science/science fiction, blending the two so that the age-old monster, the Devil, enabled by Faustian arrogance, is reimagined as an avatar for an unreliable technology that destroys what it is designed to preserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original sin", which represents the loss of the sanctity of Adam and Eve due to eating the forbidden fruit, is one of the main foundations of Christianity and has taken root in the wide dimensions of theological issues. Different readings of this event have left different opinions on the status and rights of women. The dominant theory declared the inferior position of women to men, because according to the Bible woman was created from the left rib of man, Satan first deceived the woman and the woman deceived the man to eat from the forbidden tree. It was through him that sin entered the earth. Therefore, a woman must be submissive to a man and has no right to dominate a man even in education. But some others in different periods tried to prove the equality of men and women through theological proofs and new interpretations of God and the Bible or by distorting the authenticity of the Bible. The results of these efforts in Christian churches have been different; For example, in the Catholic Church, the theory of women's inferiority still prevails, and women are not allowed to be appointed to church positions, but in the Protestant Church, the status of women has been elevated somewhat, and in many churches, women have been allowed to preach and hold church positions. This is a descriptive-analytical research paper in order to investigate the theological and social efforts of the Protestant Church to promote the status and dignity of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Milton was both a great poet and in his own time a well-known political writer. Reading Paradise Lost in the light of his republican political writings, however, presents a serious problem because it is Satan and his confederates who speak and act like republicans in that epic poem, as would have been obvious to his contemporary readers. Rather than try to explain this problem away as others have done, this paper argues that Paradise Lost advances a powerful republican argument continuous with Milton's earlier political views. Specifically, Paradise Lost shows that monarchy and other artificial hierarchies are evil because they contradict the natural and equal right to freedom of all human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Humanities & Educational Sciences Journal is the property of Humanities & Educational Sciences Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Al-Anbar University for Islamic Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay considers Gregory of Nazianzus' allusion to 'divine deceit', a motif related to the so-called 'Christus Victor' theory of atonement. This allusion is curious when we recall that for Gregory, the devil, not God, is the master of deception. When we treat On the Lights (Or. 39) as a literary unit – which commentators have yet to do – we see that Gregory makes several doctrinal affirmations before alluding to what is known as 'divine deceit'. In this doctrinal discussion, Gregory draws upon the Platonic distinction between the orders of being and becoming as described in the Timaeus. He then alludes to 'divine deceit' with respect to the order of 'becoming', which bears the possibility of being misapprehended because it is 'grasped by opinion'. The devil's 'opinion' of himself and of Christ, therefore, is suspect. Death – or rather, Christ's vanquishment of it – is the moment of reckoning. Since God alone can defeat death, Christ's putting death to death is the only certain way for the devil to recognise that the 'Son of Man' is, after all, the 'Son of God'. The 'devil's delusion', then – not 'divine deceit' – best summarises Gregory's understanding of this moment in the history of salvation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metaphor is a symbolic and indirect language that conveys concealed and supplementary meanings. Interpretive narratives may also exhibit gender metaphors and stereotypes. The work is founded on the interpretive accounts of three Persian interpretations of Rowz alJannan, Jala al-Azhan, and Manhaj al-Sadeghin in this research. This article has selected narratives that have employed gender metaphors or whose content is reminiscent of gender metaphors. Subsequently, the qualitative content analysis method has been employed to investigate the value of these metaphors and their correlation with gender stereotypes. Examples of gender metaphors in these narratives include “bed,” “Boyut,” “Atbah,” and “Denya.” While some of these metaphors have a positive connotation, others have a negative connotation. The most significant findings of this research are that the majority of negative metaphors about women are based on the role of a woman as a wife or sexual companion, which emphasizes her physical appearance. These metaphors are influenced by prevalent gender stereotypes that are detrimental. On the contrary, the majority of positive metaphors are centered on the role of the mother and the qualities of kindness, creation, origin, and commencement that are associated with the mother. In addition, this research demonstrates that the female body is depicted in two distinct ways: the “heavenly body” and the “infernal body.” The female heavenly body is a symbol of complete delight and benefit, while the female infernal body is a symbol of deception, sin, Satan, and adultery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a current of literary criticism that approaches Milton's Paradise Lost from an environmental and ecological perspective. Such criticism has connected images of sulphur and smoke in Hell with the experience of coal smoke in early modern London. However, most of these works have not gone beyond establishing the connection. This paper argues that proceeding further to examine Milton's depiction of Hell and fallen being in the light of the early modern experiences of coal smoke, and the different modes in which these registered in the discourse, both imagery and language, of early modern London reveals that the representation of Hell and the fallen angels richly drew in a variety of ways on these sources, both overtly and implicitly. It also reveals an imagistic subtext that manifests the ways of fallen being and effort, expressing these as simultaneously insubstantial and pernicious, and derivative. Finally, it suggests the implication of Milton's epic in common Royalist narratives of coal smoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to observe, contextualize, and analyze the multifaceted religious fungal foundations of Moscow Conceptualism within the context of Slavic and European esoteric mythological praxis. By unveiling the thematic basis of their transgressive spiritual endeavors, this study seeks to enhance our comprehension of this artistic and literary movement in the Western world. Besides exploring the erotic aesthetics associated with mushrooms, significant attention is devoted to various flies, as the biological vitality of the mukhomor ('fly agaric' or amanita muscaria) is inconceivable without them. Moscow Conceptualist visionaries, including Andrey Monastyrsky, Ilia Kabakov, Elagina and Makarevich, and the Mukhomor Moscow collectives, along with their no less famous colleague from Leningrad, Sergey Kuriokhin, emerge not only as artists but also as literary innovators. They seamlessly integrate advancements from the realm of art, giving rise to a novel form of religiously symbiotic semiosis. Consequently, the traditional boundaries between diverse art forms become blurred, marking a distinctive characteristic that aligns with international contemporary avant-garde aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilising the early modern witchcraft prosecutions as historical evidence, this article proposes a reconfiguration of Norbert Elias' theory of The Civilizing Process to include 'religious de-centralisation' as a necessary 'third pillar' within long-term European development. It is argued that, given the significance of the medieval church and the threat to monarchical power posed by that same institution, decentralising organised religion from the functioning of the state was required in order to allow state formation to proceed. This is evidenced by the early modern recategorization of 'magic' as witchcraft and the resulting extension of state jurisdiction into the prosecution of witches to the disadvantage of the church courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Translocation programs for endangered mammalian carnivores face numerous challenges, including the potential for lethal interactions between releasees and resident conspecifics. Here we evaluate whether familiarizing residents with the scent of releasees might be an effective strategy for reducing aggression following Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) translocation. Tasmanian devils live in loose social networks in which residents have overlapping home ranges and use communal latrines. In a controlled ex situ experiment, we first found that devils readily distinguished between the feces of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics. Next, we swapped feces between devils slated for release and wild resident devils, seeding a random half of communal latrines in the wild with the feces of releasee prior to their release, and used motion-activated video cameras to record devil visits. Wild resident devil visitation frequency and olfactory communication behaviors initially increased at experimental latrine sites where feces were deposited but not at control sites. After release, the translocated devils used both types of latrine sites and spent more time investigating experimental sites, but investigatory and scent-marking behaviors of the wild resident devils decreased, suggesting that they had become familiar with the releasees through scent. We further show that Tasmanian devil latrine sites are strongly associated with ecotones and the presence of shrubs. These findings contribute to our understanding of Tasmanian devil scent ecology and suggest that devil translocations conducted into existing populations would benefit from familiarization through latrine scent manipulation. More broadly, our results suggest an important role for scent ecology in carnivore translocation programs. Significance statement: A conservation management action that is being trialed for endangered Tasmanian devils is to breed devils in human care and reinforce dwindling small resident populations through translocation. However, with limited social interactions, unfamiliar devils may interact aggressively, increasing injury and reducing translocation success. Scent communication is nearly ubiquitous in mammals and may be a prerequisite for management of social aggression. Almost nothing is known about devil scent ecology. Our discovery that devils become familiarized with conspecifics through feces, combined with findings that wild devils that are exposed to translocated devil scent in advance of release show reduced interest in scent-seeded latrines, even after new devils are released, suggests that devils familiarized through scent in advance of relocation may exhibit reduced aggression. These results provide an avenue for improving the success of translocations for devils and other at-risk solitary mammalian carnivores.

This article delves into the persona of the German reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) as portrayed in the eponymous German-US production of 2003. The creators, including director Eric Till and screenwriters Camille Thomasson and Bart Gavigan, alongside the stellar cast, aimed to present Luther in his most humanistic light. However, in pursuit of attempting to craft a “man-centric film,” they compromised historical accuracy. Nonetheless, even in this watered-down version, two issues surface: a political struggle (both against Papal Rome and among his peers) and a psychological one, centered on Luther’s autonomous manifestation of auratic evil within his psyche. While a degree of historical authenticity resonates concerning the political power play (between German religious-political Protestantism led by Luther and the Roman Catholic Church under the Pope), the psychological dimension extends to the religious-state realm. Luther, though, is depicted one-dimensionally: as an entirely positive and progressive figure concerned solely with the moral and ideological renewal of the church institution (despite actually acting in the interests of Elector Frederick the Wise); also, there is a complete absence of critical scrutiny regarding certain chauvinistic aspects of Luther’s beliefs in the film. The article authors endeavor to elucidate the validity of the cinematic concept, prompting a critical appraisal of critiques on the film Luther and scholarly works on Luther the reformer’s historical import. This scrutiny exposes the incongruity between the cinematic personalities and their historical counterparts, necessitating an in-depth analysis of the film’s dramaturgy. In conclusion, the authors articulate the presence of evil as a concept in the actions of Luther and his milieu. Статья посвящена личности немецкого реформатора Мартина Лютера (1483–1546), воссозданного в одноименном фильме производства Германии–США (2003). Его авторы (режиссер Э. Тилль и сценаристы К. Томассон и Б. Гэвиган), как и «звездный» актерский коллектив, стремились показать Лютера с наилучшей — гуманистической стороны. Но под предлогом сделать «фильм о человеке» снизили планку исторической достоверности, в облегченном варианте все же наметив две проблемы: политическую борьбу (как с Папским Римом, так и со своими соратниками) и психологическую, связанную с самостоятельным образом ауратического зла, существовавшего в сознании Лютера. Определенная историческая достоверность, связанная с политической борьбой (между немецким религиозно-политическим протестантизмом под руководством Лютера и Римской католической церковью во главе с Папой Римским), здесь имеется, а психологическая составляющая экстраполируется на религиозно-государственный уровень. Лютер, однако, показан однобоко: как исключительно положительный герой и прогрессивный исторический деятель, озабоченный лишь проблемой морально-идеологического обновления института церкви (в реальности же действовал в интересах курфюрста Фридриха Мудрого); критическая рецепция шовинистического потенциала ряда идей Лютера отсутствует. Авторы статьи предприняли попытку прояснить степень верифицированности созданного в фильме концепта, в связи с чем провели критический обзор отзывов о фильме «Мартин Лютер» и научной литературы об историческом значении Лютера-реформатора. В результате откристаллизовалась проблема несоответствия киноперсонажей историческим прототипам. Доказательство ее потребовало развернутого анализа кинодраматургии. В итоге авторы статьи артикулировали явление концепта зла в действиях Лютера и его окружения.

O pacto do violeiro com o diabo é um tema recorrente no universo dos tocadores de viola em diferentes regiões do Brasil. Este artigo tem como objetivo realizar uma revisão bibliográfica acerca deste tema, através de pesquisas de violeiros, antropólogos e etnomusicólogos realizadas no norte do estado de Minas Gerais. Buscar um entendimento sobre o diabo no Brasil estabelecido e criado através dos colonizadores portugueses, populações indígenas e populações pretas, e como este se relaciona com as histórias narradas sobre os pactos dos violeiros. Proponho neste trabalho uma compreensão sobre como as histórias de pacto contribuem para a construção do mítico diabo no mundo da viola no Brasil.

Yazidis/Ezidis are the members of a batini religious structure which intense debates occur around their names, origins and beliefs. Their belief that the angel (Malak Tawus) who did not prostrate to Adam was God's active and executive deputy, caused Yazidis to be known as "devil worshipers" around them. This situation lay behind the Yazidis to be declared as a disbelieving community and to be in constant tension with their environment. In the 19th century, Ottoman modernization period, the transition from traditional military methods to compulsory military service also affected the Yazidis. On the other hand, at the beginning of the same century, they cooperated with the Russians against the Ottoman Empire from the time when the Russians took Eastern Anatolia under their control. They supported the Armenians during World War I and right after. For this reason, they had to migrate from the regions under Ottoman rule. In the study, the information will be given about the reasons for Yazidis' migration to Transcaucasia, where they migrated from, the places they settled and their population in that period. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and their situations in the period after its dissolution will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1980 a book appeared which caused a considerable stir across the globe: Michelle Remembers by Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith. This book helped set in train what was later referred to by scholars as the "Satanic Panic" or the "Satanism Scare". While the book became infamous, little analysis by scholars has been given to the authors' Roman Catholicism, or more importantly to the wider way in which Catholicism contributed to this moral panic. While the influence of Christians more generally has been noted, sparse attention has been given to the ways in which a variety of distinctly Catholic vernacular beliefs and subcultures fed and spread this panic. This article seeks to map some of the contours of the specifically Catholic contribution to the wider Satanic Panic mythology, contextualising this against the backdrop of a wider ecclesial shift in a conservative direction during this period and the Church's longer history of demonology. The paper concludes by suggesting that this Satanic Panic mythology persists and forms one important reservoir of ideas drawn on in contemporary demonology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenneth Burke's ideas about god terms and devil terms are important to artifacts because they help audiences determine opposing meaning found through the identification of opposing terms. Identifying god terms and devil terms within artifacts gives insight into rhetor motive and message intention. In order to build upon audience comprehension of god terms and devil terms, anti-hero characteristics will be used to suggest an additional labeling of the "Deadpool Term." The Deadpool Term is an entry point for understanding that a term in an artifact, at the point it is used, can include both god term and devil term dichotomy, which would then mean that opposing meaning can actually--and quite purposefully--be found within the term. Identifying a Deadpool Term can additionally help the audience discover an important rhetorical strategy; the rhetor intends to show extremes of meaning, as well as conflicted feelings, by way of intentionally chosen symbolic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Çukurova Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (CUIFD) is the property of Cukurova Universitesi Ilahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (CUIFD) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Satan is a title given to worst enemy of Bani Adam. As it is mentioned in Quran: "Indeed, Satan is ever, to mankind, a clear enemy.1" When Allah created Adam and asked angles to prostrate him. All of them obeyed except Iblees. He became proud and denied. When Allah asked him the reason, he replied that he would never prostrate to a human created out of black mud. Then Allah ordered him to expel. This was unbearable for him and made him furious. So' he decided to take revenge from Adam because he thought it all happened because of him. This is the starting point of conflict between them. In this article I will try to show that what strategies he uses to misguide human from the right path and leads us to swamp of sins and how Allah exposed him and told us his tricks and traps through verses of Quran. I hope this piece of research will clearly show animosity of Satan and love of Allah for us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jesus'temptations narrative constitutes a foundational tenet within the Christian doctrines, elucidating Jesus' ordeal in the wilderness, where the devil gravely enticed him to exploit his divine status as the son of God in fulfilling the messianic expectations of his people for self-serving purposes. From earliest Christianity, this narrative has been a subject of theological interpretations, whose lessons still hold relevance to today's Christianity in the light of the excessive and unruly passion for wealth, fame and power that characterized contemporary society. Using a narrative-descriptive and analytical method, the study critically examines the temptation narrative in the context of its existential demands and implications for today's Christianity. It highlights the humans' daily moral trials and presents Jesus' disposition in the trials as a model for resolutions of ethical challenges and obedience to God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of MATRIZes is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Programa de Pos Graduacao em Ciencias da Comunicacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Most Pentecostals, at least in the global South, believe that Satan and his demonic forces are responsible for much of the carnage and suffering that characterise life on earth. The broader context of the discourse is the challenge theodicy poses to Christian believers: if God is almighty and good, why do believers, just like unbelievers, suffer while living on earth? This paper aims to discuss Pentecostals' response: they blame evil as Satan's strategy to oppose God. They reason that his main goal is to handicap and double-cross creation because God threw him and his followers from heaven following his rebellion against the divine order. Thus, Satan is portrayed as the instigator of the first human couple, tempting them to sin, with all future generations implied by their choice and cursing human beings with a sinful nature at birth. Demonic forces employ human sinful nature to realise their ultimate goal, to separate humankind from the Creator by tempting them to sin while also threatening the rest of creation. This article investigates the Pentecostal theology of demonic forces in explaining the challenges posed by theodicy by comparing it to biblical data, using grammatical-historical exegesis and a comparative literature survey to evaluate their biblical grounding. It concludes that Pentecostals' belief in such forces are justified if the the New Testament narratives are accepted as divine revelation. However, some Pentecostal speculations about demons' origins, scope and reach are not biblically justified and complicates the response to theodicy, such as the origin of evil and its relation to human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evil both is and is not a central part of the Christian theological vision. There is no equal and opposite to God, and no necessary or appropriate place for evil in God’s good creation. Nevertheless, creation is afflicted by evil: the divine response to evil is a central part of Christian faith and hope, and the human response to evil is a central part of Christian life and love. In modern thought, the ‘why’ of evil has come to particular prominence, with widespread attention to ‘the’ problem of evil and the question of theodicy. In the context of Christian theology, however, it is more helpful to think not of a single problem of evil but of a number of interlinking problems and questions. This article will first consider questions around the ‘what’ of evil: what kind of things count as evil, and what evil fundamentally is, i.e. the ontology of evil. It will then turn to a ‘how’ question: how God is understood to defeat evil, which from a theological point of view is the most significant question about evil, before finally taking up the more familiar ‘why’ question.

Chris Bush’s Faustus: That Damned Woman (first performed in 2020) is a feminist and contemporary adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. The magus is a woman who travels through time from the seventeenth century to the far distant future. In the process, Johanna Faustus becomes a brilliant scientist who attempts to create digital immortality by uploading the minds of billions of human beings to the Cloud. When a power failure destroys almost all of humanity, it is uncertain whether the universal outage is caused by Mephistopheles (in accordance with the expectations of Faustian fantasy) or is simply an unforeseen but predictable accident (in accordance with the expectations of technophobic versions of science fiction). I argue that Bush’s play traces the chronological and generic arc from magic/fantasy to science/science fiction, blending the two so that the age-old monster, the Devil, enabled by Faustian arrogance, is reimagined as an avatar for an unreliable technology that destroys what it is designed to preserve.

The Life of Adam and Eve contains an episode in which Satan describes the protoplast Adam receiving worship from the angels of heaven, worship commanded by God himself. This tradition has played a role in recent debates over the nature of Second Temple religious devotion to the God of Israel. In particular, it has been put forward as an example that undermines arguments that Israel's God alone was the exclusive recipient of Jewish cultic worship. Within this debate, the reliability of Satan as a narrator within the Life of Adam and Eve has yet to be considered. Demonstrating Satan to be an unreliable narrator would have significant implications for the role of the Life of Adam and Eve in the debate regarding the nature of Jewish religious devotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jung's view of God as a unity of Christ and Antichrist was rejected by Western theological circles, but a convergence can be found in Chinese Buddhist thought. Both Jungian psychology and Tiantai Buddhism believe that evil is intrinsic to the nature of God/Buddha, which is actually a manifestation of human nature. Only a God/Buddha with a paradoxical and antinomial character could provide a logical explanation for the paradox of the existence of evil and a Supreme Being. And both suggest that for the well-being of the human psyche, people should recognize evil and integrate it into a pursuit of good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the Gothic comedy Satanic Panic, this article examines how the film uses satire as a liberal reaction to the patriarchal, theocratic agenda of Trumpism, following a notable tradition of Satan adopted as a symbol of countercultural, individualist revolution. I argue that the text's youth-focus, as well as its representation of gender, national identity and economic class, negotiates feminism and competing ideologies of satanism to suitably reflect the opposing strands of the contemporary culture wars. Indeed, the post-truth, paranoiac United States under Trump has seen apocalyptic rhetoric and occult conspiracy-thinking flourish alongside left-wing satanic activism. A sociopolitical climate that draws distinct parallels with the 1980s and 1990s 'Satanic Panic' era and Y2K premillennialism. This work conceptualizes, through close analysis, how the film effectively articulates such postmodern retroactivity – at both a thematic and narrative level – to reflect the gendered, generational divide and troubling legacy of Reaganite neo-liberalism at the heart of the Trump era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The denial of religion is considered one of the major themes of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (1604). Doctor Faustus, Marlowe's protagonist, realizes that all of the knowledge he has acquired, including theology, is no more satisfying. Therefore, he decides to learn magic since he believes that magic will bring him absolute knowledge and power. Despite the warnings he receives from the Good Angel, Faustus' excessive pride leads him to sell his soul to the devil and harden his heart toward God--a decision that leads him to hell. Pharaoh in the Qur'an denies and repudiates the invitation of Moses to submit to God and have mercy over his people. Pharaoh arrogantly claims that he needs no God since he himself is the great god of his people. This article is an interdisciplinary study between theology and literature to demonstrate how the archetypal villain in literature mirrors the one introduced in the holy texts. It also argues that Marlowe's Faustus is, in many ways, a replica of Pharaoh mentioned in the Qur'an. They both share diabolical traits, including but not limited to pride, arrogance, and blasphemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning of his Creole opus The Grandissimes, George Washington Cable refers to Louisiana as "A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay". This anti-pastoral view of Louisiana as an ecosystem of horrific nature and the very human melancholy it breeds is one that has persisted in popular American culture to the present day. However, the literature of Louisiana itself is marked by its creativity in blending elements of folktales, fairy tales, and local color. This paper proposes to examine the transhuman, or the transcendence of the natural by means of supernatural transformation, in folk horror tales of Louisiana. As the locus where the fairy tale meets the burgeoning Southern Gothic, these tales revolve around a reworking of what Vladimir Propp refers to as transfiguration, the physical and metaphysical alteration of the human into something beyond the human. The focus of this paper will be on three recurring figures in Louisiana folk horror: yellow fever, voodoo, and the Devil. Drawing upon works including Alcée Fortier's collection of Creole folktales Louisiana Folktales (1895), Dr. Alfred Mercier's "1878", and various newspaper tales of voodoo ceremonies from the ante- and post-bellum periods, this article brings together theorizations about the fairy tale from Vladimir Propp and Jack Zipes and historiological approaches to the Southern Gothic genre to demonstrate that Louisiana, in its multilingual literary traditions, serves as a nexus where both genres blend uncannily together to create tales that are both geographically specific and yet exist outside of the historical time of non-fantastic fiction. Each of these figures, yellow fever, voodoo, and the Devil, challenges the expectations of what limits the human. Thus, this paper seeks to examine what will be termed the "Louisiana gothic", a particular blend of fairy-tale timelessness, local color, and the transfiguration of the human. Ultimately, the Louisiana gothic, as expressed in French, English, and Creole, tends toward a view of society in decay, mobilizing these elements of horror and of fairy tales to comment on a society that, after the revolution in Saint-Domingue, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Civil War, was seen as falling into inevitable decline. This commentary on societal decay, expressed through elements of folk horror, sets apart Louisiana gothic as a distinct subgenre that challenges conventions about the structures and functions of the fairy tale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Devil's Toy Box: Exposing and Defusing Promethean Terrorists" by Andrew Fox explores the potential use of emerging technologies as weapons of mass destruction by terrorists. The book argues that homeland security decision-makers must anticipate and develop countermeasures against these threats. It features imagined scenarios, interspersed with information on terrorist motivations, technologies, and forecasting methods. While the book provides a comprehensive process for analyzing future threats, it fails to identify which agency or decision-maker would implement its recommendations. The author suggests using science fiction writers to help anticipate and understand emerging technologies, but the book's fictional scenarios may not effectively persuade decision-makers. Overall, the book raises important concerns about vulnerabilities in current defense systems and the need for proactive measures to address future threats. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Myasthenia gravis (MG) and the experimental autoimmune MG (EAMG) animal model are characterized by T-cell-induced and B-cell-dominated autoimmune diseases that affect the neuromuscular junction. Several subtypes of CD4+ T cells, including T helper (Th) 17 cells, follicular Th cells, and regulatory T cells (Tregs), contribute to the pathogenesis of MG. However, increasing evidence suggests that CD8+ T cells also play a critical role in the pathogenesis and treatment of MG. Main body: Herein, we review the literature on CD8+ T cells in MG, focusing on their potential effector and regulatory roles, as well as on relevant evidence (peripheral, in situ, cerebrospinal fluid, and under different treatments), T-cell receptor usage, cytokine and chemokine expression, cell marker expression, and Treg, Tc17, CD3+CD8+CD20+ T, and CXCR5+ CD8+ T cells. Conclusions: Further studies on CD8+ T cells in MG are necessary to determine, among others, the real pattern of the Vβ gene usage of autoantigen-specific CD8+ cells in patients with MG, real images of the physiology and function of autoantigen-specific CD8+ cells from MG/EAMG, and the subset of autoantigen-specific CD8+ cells (Tc1, Tc17, and IL-17+IFN-γ+CD8+ T cells). There are many reports of CD20-expressing T (or CD20 + T) and CXCR5+ CD8 T cells on autoimmune diseases, especially on multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. Unfortunately, up to now, there has been no report on these T cells on MG, which might be a good direction for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biblical eschatology is a coin where two inextricable sides concur and interact: the circumstances contemporaneous to the prophet and those envisioned for the future while proleptically mirrored in the former. Ethical relevance and an implicit stewardship of power shine in both as a seamless flux linking past, present and future, and stressing the inescapable option either for good or for evil within the all-encompassing historical scenario of the controversy between God and Satan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "Kantian Perfectionists, Muslim Perfectionists, and Intelligent Devils," discusses the book "Kant, Liberalism, and the Meaning of Life" by Jeffrey Church. The article explores the idea that progressive politics can be seen as a kind of religion, providing meaning to people's lives by fighting against ignorance and oppression. Church argues that Kant's philosophy offers a way to inspire progressive politics and counteract nationalist and right-wing populist movements. He suggests that Kant's philosophy, when understood in its entirety, provides a naturalistic and substantive vision of the meaning of life that is compatible with liberalism and cosmopolitanism. The article also examines how Kantian political liberalism can engage with different religious perspectives, such as Muslim perfectionists, and the challenges and potential strategies involved in doing so. [Extracted from the article]

In the Qurʾan, the sense of hearing and its agent the ear are both linked to the heart whereas sight and its organ the eye are associated with the head. The sense of hearing, which is a channel to spiritual knowledge, is privileged to the sense of sight, the gateway to the realm of carnal knowledge. The ear and the heart are channels to the sphere of absence while the eye and the head are associated with the realm of presence. Knowledge of the world of absence is twofold: The first incarnates in the type of knowledge obtained from God and his angels and the other is that which is acquired from Satan and Jinn. The primacy of the ear over the eye is further substantiated by the Qurʾanic repudiation of the charges that the origin of the Prophet Muhammad's words is fables breathed into his ears from the underworld of absence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although rare, cancer of the vulva and penis have significant morbidity, mortality, and potentially psychologically distressing treatments. At both sites, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common tumor type. Transitioning from classification systems reliant on histomorphology, two pathways of carcinogenesis are recognized in genital SCC based on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection status: HPV-associated and HPV-independent. Each pathway has unique etiology, pathology, molecular findings, and prognostic differences with clinically relevant outcomes. As more research comes to light, especially in vulvar pathology, a third potential pathway is emerging of HPV-independent, p53-wild type precursors and SCC. To familiarize pathologists with this group of diseases, we present an overview of HPV-associated and HPV-independent precursor lesions, as well as SCC, in both the vulva and penis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present a theoretical and historical reading, in dialogue with the propositions of ethnopsychiatry/ethnopsychoanalysis, on the uses of the ritual of exorcism and possession as possible languages to manage human suffering, particularly in contemporary Italian society. We will first analyze what motivations incite people to seek an exorcist and verify the conflicts and similarities between the cultural and medical languages used to deal with the subjective suffering of those who seek help through exorcistic rituals. This data will be verified and discussed based on the investigations made during our doctoral research, especially through some case studies conducted by researchers in sociology, anthropology and psychiatry. In this way, we will present how the ritual of exorcism is constructed based on the participation of all those involved, promoting a cultural language to deal with subjective pain different from the paths proposed in psychiatric manuals such as the DSM. We are not interested in the veracity of the ritual and the effectiveness of its therapeutic functions but in the manner they are handled and conveyed as a solution to many social and subjective problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Night Pieces (Nachtstücke) by E.T.A. Hoffmann have been read under many, different interpretative lenses. The most relevant is probably the freudian-psychoanalytic interpretation, but other readers, such as Luca Crescenzi, insist on the historical and political undertext of the tales: according to Crescenzi, the Pieces deal with the crisis of the relationship between man and technology in modern age, a man haunted by demiurgical ambitions. Neither of the two interpretations, however, reaches the deep meanings at the roots of the literary text, which are indeed of mythological nature: Crescenzi is right about the crisis of the demiurge, represented by the antagonist characters of the Pieces, but his anti-technicist critic doesn't show the myths that seem to be Hoffmann's obsession in the writing process of the Nachtstücke. The following article therefore means to investigate the myth of the 'bad demiurge' - the devil as a smith, a well known mytheme that often occurs in fairytales and legends - upon which the Night Pieces are apparently based on. More importantly, the devil depicted by Hoffmann doesn't correspond to the 'titanist' (as in Titanism, the aesthetics of the romantic hero) characterization of Satan, but is 'titanic' (as in Titan, like Prometheus, trickster of the Olympian Gods)and therefore faithful to the original mythology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The main purpose of this chapter is to establish how far the major villains in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis such as, for instance, the dark Vala Morgoth and the White Witch Jadis might be viewed as satanic figures, in varying degrees inspired by the Christian tradition of the devil. In doing so, this chapter will highlight the similarities and differences between Tolkien's and Lewis's devilish archvillains, while investigating the different diabolical aspects of the characters in question. Examining in what manner Tolkien and Lewis have these evildoers influence their fictional worlds of Arda and Narnia might shed more light on this topic of investigation. The archvillains in those worlds do not only seem to pursue typically satanic activities, corrupting lands, nature and peoples alike, but they also appear to inadvertently act as eucatastrophic vehicles which, in contrast to their evil intentions, contribute to the triumph of the side of Good. In this spirit, the chapter at hand is also devoted to analysing how Tolkien's and Lewis's diabolic evildoers might reflect the two authors' respective conceptions of the nature of Evil. Finally, this chapter is concerned with the question of how far such satanic figures reflect Tolkien's and Lewis's distinctive approaches towards sub-creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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