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Agreed that ghosts being uniquely Christian isn’t a strong claim, but I think it makes sense in the context of considering possible pre-Christian origins of fai
by smogcutter 7y ago
Agreed that ghosts being uniquely Christian isn’t a strong claim, but I think it makes sense in the context of considering possible pre-Christian origins of fairy stories. It could have been stated better, but I read it less as a claim that only Christians have ghost stories but rather exploring why fairy stories fit uneasily in Christian cosmology.
- krapp 7y ago>exploring why fairy stories fit uneasily in Christian cosmology Possibly because fairy stories come from primarily animist and polytheistic cultures. In Christian cosmology, everything not human either explicitly serves God or Satan - outside the material world, as either angel or demon, black or white. But faeries can be good and evil, like humans, and they suggest a third "grey" order of supernatural domain (that of nature itself.) They can inhabit a world which is not our world, but also neither Heaven, nor Hell. Christianity cosmology doesn't really have room for that kind of ambiguity.