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Decameron again
Feb. 19th, 2007 05:42 pmAn underlying theological attitude throughout the Decameron, but particularily in the first three tales:
God is kind. Humanity is fucking stupid, and yet God is kind.
Dante seemed to think that God loved him and wanted him to be happy, but sucks to be an unrepentant sinner. Hell, sucks to be a repentant sinner too, but at least they get to be absorbed into the selfless, desireless, free will-less soul collective that is Heaven once they're done with the identity-destroying pain of Purgatory. So basically the guys in Limbo were the only ones doing well on the whole individuality-after-death thing, but they were sad because God didn't love them.
Augustine, of course, thought that God loves us and wants us to suffer. Badly. This to me is about as repugnant a religious belief as you can get, because it corrupts the very definition of love. Fuck that.
But the Decameron is about the common man, the dumbshit masses who were tricked into thinking an asshole was a saint. They pray to the saint, ask for miracles- and God grants the miracles, because God is kind, and loves them. Even if they are being total fuckwits and asking God to listen to them in the name of this utter douchebag, it doesn't matter. God loves them anyway.
Boccaccio's God was alright.
God is kind. Humanity is fucking stupid, and yet God is kind.
Dante seemed to think that God loved him and wanted him to be happy, but sucks to be an unrepentant sinner. Hell, sucks to be a repentant sinner too, but at least they get to be absorbed into the selfless, desireless, free will-less soul collective that is Heaven once they're done with the identity-destroying pain of Purgatory. So basically the guys in Limbo were the only ones doing well on the whole individuality-after-death thing, but they were sad because God didn't love them.
Augustine, of course, thought that God loves us and wants us to suffer. Badly. This to me is about as repugnant a religious belief as you can get, because it corrupts the very definition of love. Fuck that.
But the Decameron is about the common man, the dumbshit masses who were tricked into thinking an asshole was a saint. They pray to the saint, ask for miracles- and God grants the miracles, because God is kind, and loves them. Even if they are being total fuckwits and asking God to listen to them in the name of this utter douchebag, it doesn't matter. God loves them anyway.
Boccaccio's God was alright.
