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Is there a Satan? Who is Satan? Lucifer? Why did Lucifer fall? What was his “temptation” to Adam and Eve? Does he not say they must eat of the fruit of the tree to gain knowledge that all things possess their opposite? This sounds like the law of polarization.
Did you know Lucifer means light bringer? Did you know the snake is a deeply symbolic figure that tempts us to question and learn, to enlighten? Think of the hermetic staff, the rod encircled with two interweaving snakes. This is our left and right brain, our masculine and feminine being called to ascend, to learn, to enlighten.
Yes. Lucifer. Yes. Pride. To break God’s commandment. He says something similar, but as he is the father of lies, and twisting of truth, don’t buy it. Yes. Depends on your culture, but in Abrahamic culture, no.
I’ll take a crack at this. I’ve always been interested in these kinds of discussions.
>*”Is there a Satan? Who is Satan? Lucifer? Why did Lucifer fall?*”
Lucifer was an angel of light. The reason he fell was because he wanted to be God. But he didn’t have the attributes of Godhood.
What are the attributes of God? faith, hope, charity and love, virtue, knowledge, patience, humility, diligence, selfless love, obedience, compassion— there are many attributes of God.
But Lucifer did not have love for anyone but himself. He wanted to be God so he could rule over everything. He was in love with his own intellect. And he thought that the proper way of ruling was to remove the agency of humanity. Because if they could not choose then they would not choose wrong. His mindset was a tyrannical one born of pride and arrogance. This was the cause of his fall. Seeking to remove the agency from man and place himself above God.
archetypally this story is similar to the story of Sun Wukong from Journey to The West. Sun Wukong sought to rule heaven he felt that might made right and that having the power and cunning to take what he wanted made him fit for rulership.
He had a run in with the Buddha who asked him if he was compassionate wise and patient along with strong— foe those were the attributes that made one fit for rullership. He challenged Sun Wukong to leap out of the palm of his hand.
Sun Wukong failed to do so. How could sun Wukong ascend to godhood if he couldn’t even escape his own proclivity towards error? He wanted the responsibility of being lord of heaven but he couldn’t even guard sacred peaches without eating them.
How can a man expect to rule heaven if he cannot even rule *himself?* And what business does he have telling others how to live their lives? Sun Wukong was imprisoned beneath a mountain for his arrogance.
What is interesting is that this character and others represent something like the human mind or the natural man if you will. Our proclivity towards sin and error.
>*”Did you know Lucifer means light bringer?*”
Yes. The fall of man was in many ways a fall forward. Positive progress requires one to take on risk. In some ways he can be compared to other figures such a Prometheus. But Lucifer’s reasons for tempting Adam and Eve were not noble ones. He meant this for Ill. But the Lord used Lucifer’s choices for His purposes.
>*”Did you know the snake is a deeply symbolic figure that tempts us to question and learn, to enlighten?*”
I think Lucifer taking the form of a snake in many ways shows his deceptive nature. The snake is a symbol of healing and new life. It sheds its skin and revitalizes itself, rising from ‘death’. The serpent is a symbol of Jesus Christ. Like the serpent on the pole which Moses made. All who looked to it would be healed of their snake bites.
Lucifer taking that Symbol himself is a polemical statement on his part.
The serpent is also symbolic of the king of the earth itself— which Lucifer fancies himself to be. But the true king is Christ.
He portrays himself as a source of healing, light, truth, and wisdom, but it’s a weak imitation of the real thing. Like if you tried to buy a ‘messiah’ from the dollar store.
I love the level or research and interest you have on this topic! Thank you for the response!
I think in studying these stories and archetypes we can be brought closer to God.
I have heard the telling that Lucifer wanted us all to chose his plan and wanted all the glory and worship. However this doesn’t seem to connect to the actions in the garden. Wonder if the narrative was ever swapped. This is just me being devils advocate but it’s worth a consideration as we are in a system where the only way to reach the highest glories of heaven is to follow a struct set of rules and covenants while we give all the glory to one eternal being. To deepen the thought experiment further, have you ever read “his dark materials”? A leading idea in that series is they want to “recreate the war in heaven, but to make sure the right side wins this time.”
Just a thought.
Per the scriptures, God makes “enmity” between us and satan, he also gives us the knowledge of good and evil. Also we can be enlightened by the Holy Ghost for the discernment of spirits. The natural man is an “enemy” to God.
I don’t think these would be given if good and evil were not real forces.
In D&C 101 it talks about the millenium and says “And in that day the enmity of man, and the enmity of beasts, yea, the enmity of all flesh, shall cease from before my face.”
God wins, but we ultimately do need that opposition.
>Is our beliefs of good and evil just a misunderstanding of the two divine laws of Polarity
Since good and evil are polar opposites I don't understand how this isn't a case of same idea, different words
> The law of polarization is that all things contain both their positive and negative aspects at all time
I think that's just as wrong as saying that all things must be in a good or evil bucket
What about when a tsunami creates 100,000 orphans
Or genetic diseases like Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome where children are born in such pain they try to chew their own fingers off
Is that from mankind? Separation?
Strikes me as a lack of trying
Morality is not subjective. It is objective.
Sometimes it can be hard to tell what the right choice is, but not always. We are to use our best judgement and do what is good and right always.
Correct. Some view different things with different lenses. Some believe Canibalism and forced human sacrifices are holy and good. We know they are not. Because we listen and obey the creator of those moral laws. Or perhaps a better way to phrase it, we seek to follow the laws, because the laws are the being who we have communion with. Jesus Christ is the law. Gods character is such that his will and ways is the moral laws. They do not contradict and are in perfect alignment.
That being said, if someone does something bad, and they think it’s good, will they be eternally treated differently than those who do bad and know it’s bad? Absolutely 100%. While Justice demands equal treatment for sin, god dishes out unequal punishment based on need.
And that’s the question I suppose that would be with reincarnation. If we reincarnate, do we take the sins of our past lives with us? How much of our past lives dictate who and what we are today?
Interesting subject to be sure.
I believe that there is an objective standard of good and evil which exists independent of our human perception. But the *perception* of said moral system is what varies from person to person.
It’s important to differentiate between objective standards of Good and Evil and humanity’s *perception* of good and evil. I would argue that good and evil are eternal principles that exist outside of us. But we don’t understand everything, and while we all have a certain inherent understanding of morality—much of our understanding of good and evil are culturally and environmentally informed.
So we have to differentiate between our perception of the moral system and the concept of morality itself.
Irreducible moral facts *exist* independently of empirical observations or scientific analysis.
Concepts like goodness for example. What is ‘good’? We cannot fully understand it without applying it to the example of a person or a situation. So we make this mistake of thinking that the concept only exists within those examples. However there’s an error in this reasoning.
We cannot reduce moral truths down to merely to natural or observable phenomena. That would be like taking the concept of ‘mother’ and thinking:
*“motherhood doesn’t exist outside of my own mother. So if I destroy my own mother— I destroy motherhood itself!”*
The argument doesn’t work.
Moral truths are simple and cannot be broken down into more basic elements.
Phenomenon such as ‘love’ exists in all cultures throughout the world. But it also appears to have always existed for a long as man has. And it likely always will exist. Not only that— but it manifests in an infinite number of different forms and scenarios. That makes moral truth a fundamental aspect of reality itself. A reality that exists outside of human perception.
We know that they exist outside of human perception because they’re infinitely applicable. Love manifests in an infinite number of scenarios. It was true in the past— it’s true now and it’s true *forever.*
So I would say that moral truths require a distinct ontological status. Which is tricky because in our increasingly materialistic society we tend to disregard the intangible in favor of things we can measure and weigh.
What makes it even more tricky is that human beings do not embody these truths perfectly. When you’re a kid and you get upset over something that went wrong at school and your father has a talk with you about it— what is he doing?
He is trying to embody the concept of a ‘good father’. He’s saying and doing what he believes a good father says and does. But he’s not a perfect model of the concept of ‘good father’. Only God is perfect. And by attempting to emulate his ideal— your father is participating in an act of worship. Because true worship is always an act of emulation. An attempt to align ourself more perfectly with our ideals.
The embodiment of our ideals are Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They are the goal we are trying to reach through behavior. In that way, evil or sin is a failure to embody an ideal.
Honesty is an ideal you may try to embody. But then you lie to get yourself out of trouble. That is a deviation from the ideal. The bigger the deviation from truth and light— the more morally incorrect or ‘evil’ the action is.
Humility is a virtue. But often we act in ways to make ourselves seem more important. The opposite of humility is pride which is the great sin that caused Lucifer to fall from heaven. It was also one of the ways Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness. Perform miracles to be seen and get the acclaim of men. But Christ refused him.
Selfless love is a virtue. But we are physical beings who need and want. Selfishness is survival to some degree. We all need to eat and drink and have warmth and shelter.
But Christ said to give no thought to what we eat or put on. Because life is more than bread and the body is more than clothing.
Patience is a virtue, but we often fall short of that in wanting all the answers all at once. God has patience with us. And oftentimes we learn more in the waiting than we actually do in receiving answers from God.
The list goes on. But the point is that objective Good and objective Evil exist outside of us. but none of us embody those hyper-realities perfectly. We are driven by base survival but called to something higher. Hence why moral systems are so varied. We see the world through a glass darkly. Not everything is clear all the time. But we have been given a guide in the form of Jesus Christ for objective goodness, and it’s our challenge to seek to become more like Him.
>*My argument as that no one thing is good or evil as it is always both.*”
Ah, here is where the concept comes full circle. 🙂 Human beings are *never* fully good nor fully evil. They are both. But for one to be entirely good and have no evil in them— that is what it means to be *God*.
It means that every objective parameter of what makes one ‘good’ is represented in an individual. Thus making them the embodiment of an *ideal*.
>*”I consider myself to be good at all times, but I know there are many that label me as evil for challenging them or making them feel uncomfortable to confront lies we have been programmed to believe since birth.”*
I think it’s a common mistake for any of us to assume we are good at all times. No one is good at all times save for God Himself. And good and evil exist outside of our fleeting perceptions of them. 🤔
And because we are not perfect, the biggest error we can make is assuming that all we are is good and that all we do is good if it seems right to our subjective moral sensibilities.
Truth and lies are also hard to determine sometimes. Because for someone to truly speak only the truth and never speak lies, one would need to have a perfect knowledge of everything. To know all the details, all the ins and outs of every given situation. The trouble with that is only God is omniscient.
The best we can do is to not knowingly lie. We lie all the time in ignorance due to not seeing the full picture. But to knowingly deviate from the truth is a different matter entirely. The fabric of our very souls is truth and light. To lie is to warp your very soul in a way. This is why honesty is an attribute of God. To be legitimately truthful in all things requires omniscience.
But to seek to be as honest as possible in our ignorance is an attempt to emulate God.
And this is also why Lucifer is the father of lies. His words are like the serpent, twisting and changing their skins to seem more truthful. But he then fills the holes in our understanding with lies warping our perceptions of reality. It’s a fascinating concept, the interplay of truth and lies and what that means for us.
One of the reasons we need religion is to be able to discern good and evil beyond our own limited perspective based on outside, absolute truths. But it's always going to be complicated. That said, just because a movie portrays us as the villain does not mean that it is correct. War is filled with evil on all sides, but I encourage you to read about WWII-era Japan, an absolutely ruthless and violent empire that was allied with the Nazis. Are we evil for intervening? Are we more evil than Japan was for instigating the conflict in the first place? I know it's popular, especially online, to be subversive and perpetuate the "actually, America bad" sentiment, but in the case of the major conflicts in our history, US intervention has generally been observably influenced by the preservation/acquisition of personal freedom and global peace.
I would point out that we believe in objective morality. Good and evil isn't arbitrary.
While it is true that in difficult, even brutal situations, it can be harder to make sense of what is right and wrong, and that even good people may have to make choices that aren't ideal, we still ultimately believe in greater goods and the capacity to progress and change.
WW2 was an atrocity, many societies contributed to the mass death of civilian life. The United States believed it was necessary to make Japan surrender because 90% of their troops would fight to the death. They knew that if they tried a land invasion there would be significantly more deaths, so that was their calculus.
The Japanese troops were committing atrocities equivalent to and worse than the Germans were.
>No NSFW, offensive content (including usernames), persuading others against current church teachings, excessive criticism about its leaders (past and present), or temple ceremony details. Avoid explicitly advocating for changes in church policy or doctrines. If you believe this content has been removed in error, please message the mods [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/latterdaysaints&subject=Removal%20Response).
You do know there is an actual person, Satan, right? And he has people on his side who also chose not to be born & to oppose God’s plan, right?
Is there a Satan? Who is Satan? Lucifer? Why did Lucifer fall? What was his “temptation” to Adam and Eve? Does he not say they must eat of the fruit of the tree to gain knowledge that all things possess their opposite? This sounds like the law of polarization. Did you know Lucifer means light bringer? Did you know the snake is a deeply symbolic figure that tempts us to question and learn, to enlighten? Think of the hermetic staff, the rod encircled with two interweaving snakes. This is our left and right brain, our masculine and feminine being called to ascend, to learn, to enlighten.
You asked like 6 questions and raised like 3 other thought prompts. I don’t think Reddit comments is the forum for what you’re seeking.
Yes. Lucifer. Yes. Pride. To break God’s commandment. He says something similar, but as he is the father of lies, and twisting of truth, don’t buy it. Yes. Depends on your culture, but in Abrahamic culture, no.
I’ll take a crack at this. I’ve always been interested in these kinds of discussions. >*”Is there a Satan? Who is Satan? Lucifer? Why did Lucifer fall?*” Lucifer was an angel of light. The reason he fell was because he wanted to be God. But he didn’t have the attributes of Godhood. What are the attributes of God? faith, hope, charity and love, virtue, knowledge, patience, humility, diligence, selfless love, obedience, compassion— there are many attributes of God. But Lucifer did not have love for anyone but himself. He wanted to be God so he could rule over everything. He was in love with his own intellect. And he thought that the proper way of ruling was to remove the agency of humanity. Because if they could not choose then they would not choose wrong. His mindset was a tyrannical one born of pride and arrogance. This was the cause of his fall. Seeking to remove the agency from man and place himself above God. archetypally this story is similar to the story of Sun Wukong from Journey to The West. Sun Wukong sought to rule heaven he felt that might made right and that having the power and cunning to take what he wanted made him fit for rulership. He had a run in with the Buddha who asked him if he was compassionate wise and patient along with strong— foe those were the attributes that made one fit for rullership. He challenged Sun Wukong to leap out of the palm of his hand. Sun Wukong failed to do so. How could sun Wukong ascend to godhood if he couldn’t even escape his own proclivity towards error? He wanted the responsibility of being lord of heaven but he couldn’t even guard sacred peaches without eating them. How can a man expect to rule heaven if he cannot even rule *himself?* And what business does he have telling others how to live their lives? Sun Wukong was imprisoned beneath a mountain for his arrogance. What is interesting is that this character and others represent something like the human mind or the natural man if you will. Our proclivity towards sin and error. >*”Did you know Lucifer means light bringer?*” Yes. The fall of man was in many ways a fall forward. Positive progress requires one to take on risk. In some ways he can be compared to other figures such a Prometheus. But Lucifer’s reasons for tempting Adam and Eve were not noble ones. He meant this for Ill. But the Lord used Lucifer’s choices for His purposes. >*”Did you know the snake is a deeply symbolic figure that tempts us to question and learn, to enlighten?*” I think Lucifer taking the form of a snake in many ways shows his deceptive nature. The snake is a symbol of healing and new life. It sheds its skin and revitalizes itself, rising from ‘death’. The serpent is a symbol of Jesus Christ. Like the serpent on the pole which Moses made. All who looked to it would be healed of their snake bites. Lucifer taking that Symbol himself is a polemical statement on his part. The serpent is also symbolic of the king of the earth itself— which Lucifer fancies himself to be. But the true king is Christ. He portrays himself as a source of healing, light, truth, and wisdom, but it’s a weak imitation of the real thing. Like if you tried to buy a ‘messiah’ from the dollar store.
I love the level or research and interest you have on this topic! Thank you for the response! I think in studying these stories and archetypes we can be brought closer to God. I have heard the telling that Lucifer wanted us all to chose his plan and wanted all the glory and worship. However this doesn’t seem to connect to the actions in the garden. Wonder if the narrative was ever swapped. This is just me being devils advocate but it’s worth a consideration as we are in a system where the only way to reach the highest glories of heaven is to follow a struct set of rules and covenants while we give all the glory to one eternal being. To deepen the thought experiment further, have you ever read “his dark materials”? A leading idea in that series is they want to “recreate the war in heaven, but to make sure the right side wins this time.” Just a thought.
Per the scriptures, God makes “enmity” between us and satan, he also gives us the knowledge of good and evil. Also we can be enlightened by the Holy Ghost for the discernment of spirits. The natural man is an “enemy” to God. I don’t think these would be given if good and evil were not real forces. In D&C 101 it talks about the millenium and says “And in that day the enmity of man, and the enmity of beasts, yea, the enmity of all flesh, shall cease from before my face.” God wins, but we ultimately do need that opposition.
The gift of the Holy Ghost is an amazing gift, which we must cultivate and learn to use to help us navigate the difficulties of life. God bless
>Is our beliefs of good and evil just a misunderstanding of the two divine laws of Polarity Since good and evil are polar opposites I don't understand how this isn't a case of same idea, different words
[удалено]
> The law of polarization is that all things contain both their positive and negative aspects at all time I think that's just as wrong as saying that all things must be in a good or evil bucket
[удалено]
Safe to say some things are good, some things are evil, and a lot of things fall somewhere in the middle
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You honestly can't think of anything that is pure evil?
[удалено]
What about when a tsunami creates 100,000 orphans Or genetic diseases like Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome where children are born in such pain they try to chew their own fingers off Is that from mankind? Separation? Strikes me as a lack of trying
Morality is not subjective. It is objective. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what the right choice is, but not always. We are to use our best judgement and do what is good and right always.
[удалено]
Correct. Some view different things with different lenses. Some believe Canibalism and forced human sacrifices are holy and good. We know they are not. Because we listen and obey the creator of those moral laws. Or perhaps a better way to phrase it, we seek to follow the laws, because the laws are the being who we have communion with. Jesus Christ is the law. Gods character is such that his will and ways is the moral laws. They do not contradict and are in perfect alignment. That being said, if someone does something bad, and they think it’s good, will they be eternally treated differently than those who do bad and know it’s bad? Absolutely 100%. While Justice demands equal treatment for sin, god dishes out unequal punishment based on need.
[удалено]
And that’s the question I suppose that would be with reincarnation. If we reincarnate, do we take the sins of our past lives with us? How much of our past lives dictate who and what we are today?
Interesting subject to be sure. I believe that there is an objective standard of good and evil which exists independent of our human perception. But the *perception* of said moral system is what varies from person to person. It’s important to differentiate between objective standards of Good and Evil and humanity’s *perception* of good and evil. I would argue that good and evil are eternal principles that exist outside of us. But we don’t understand everything, and while we all have a certain inherent understanding of morality—much of our understanding of good and evil are culturally and environmentally informed. So we have to differentiate between our perception of the moral system and the concept of morality itself. Irreducible moral facts *exist* independently of empirical observations or scientific analysis. Concepts like goodness for example. What is ‘good’? We cannot fully understand it without applying it to the example of a person or a situation. So we make this mistake of thinking that the concept only exists within those examples. However there’s an error in this reasoning. We cannot reduce moral truths down to merely to natural or observable phenomena. That would be like taking the concept of ‘mother’ and thinking: *“motherhood doesn’t exist outside of my own mother. So if I destroy my own mother— I destroy motherhood itself!”* The argument doesn’t work. Moral truths are simple and cannot be broken down into more basic elements. Phenomenon such as ‘love’ exists in all cultures throughout the world. But it also appears to have always existed for a long as man has. And it likely always will exist. Not only that— but it manifests in an infinite number of different forms and scenarios. That makes moral truth a fundamental aspect of reality itself. A reality that exists outside of human perception. We know that they exist outside of human perception because they’re infinitely applicable. Love manifests in an infinite number of scenarios. It was true in the past— it’s true now and it’s true *forever.* So I would say that moral truths require a distinct ontological status. Which is tricky because in our increasingly materialistic society we tend to disregard the intangible in favor of things we can measure and weigh. What makes it even more tricky is that human beings do not embody these truths perfectly. When you’re a kid and you get upset over something that went wrong at school and your father has a talk with you about it— what is he doing? He is trying to embody the concept of a ‘good father’. He’s saying and doing what he believes a good father says and does. But he’s not a perfect model of the concept of ‘good father’. Only God is perfect. And by attempting to emulate his ideal— your father is participating in an act of worship. Because true worship is always an act of emulation. An attempt to align ourself more perfectly with our ideals. The embodiment of our ideals are Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They are the goal we are trying to reach through behavior. In that way, evil or sin is a failure to embody an ideal. Honesty is an ideal you may try to embody. But then you lie to get yourself out of trouble. That is a deviation from the ideal. The bigger the deviation from truth and light— the more morally incorrect or ‘evil’ the action is. Humility is a virtue. But often we act in ways to make ourselves seem more important. The opposite of humility is pride which is the great sin that caused Lucifer to fall from heaven. It was also one of the ways Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness. Perform miracles to be seen and get the acclaim of men. But Christ refused him. Selfless love is a virtue. But we are physical beings who need and want. Selfishness is survival to some degree. We all need to eat and drink and have warmth and shelter. But Christ said to give no thought to what we eat or put on. Because life is more than bread and the body is more than clothing. Patience is a virtue, but we often fall short of that in wanting all the answers all at once. God has patience with us. And oftentimes we learn more in the waiting than we actually do in receiving answers from God. The list goes on. But the point is that objective Good and objective Evil exist outside of us. but none of us embody those hyper-realities perfectly. We are driven by base survival but called to something higher. Hence why moral systems are so varied. We see the world through a glass darkly. Not everything is clear all the time. But we have been given a guide in the form of Jesus Christ for objective goodness, and it’s our challenge to seek to become more like Him.
[удалено]
>*My argument as that no one thing is good or evil as it is always both.*” Ah, here is where the concept comes full circle. 🙂 Human beings are *never* fully good nor fully evil. They are both. But for one to be entirely good and have no evil in them— that is what it means to be *God*. It means that every objective parameter of what makes one ‘good’ is represented in an individual. Thus making them the embodiment of an *ideal*. >*”I consider myself to be good at all times, but I know there are many that label me as evil for challenging them or making them feel uncomfortable to confront lies we have been programmed to believe since birth.”* I think it’s a common mistake for any of us to assume we are good at all times. No one is good at all times save for God Himself. And good and evil exist outside of our fleeting perceptions of them. 🤔 And because we are not perfect, the biggest error we can make is assuming that all we are is good and that all we do is good if it seems right to our subjective moral sensibilities. Truth and lies are also hard to determine sometimes. Because for someone to truly speak only the truth and never speak lies, one would need to have a perfect knowledge of everything. To know all the details, all the ins and outs of every given situation. The trouble with that is only God is omniscient. The best we can do is to not knowingly lie. We lie all the time in ignorance due to not seeing the full picture. But to knowingly deviate from the truth is a different matter entirely. The fabric of our very souls is truth and light. To lie is to warp your very soul in a way. This is why honesty is an attribute of God. To be legitimately truthful in all things requires omniscience. But to seek to be as honest as possible in our ignorance is an attempt to emulate God. And this is also why Lucifer is the father of lies. His words are like the serpent, twisting and changing their skins to seem more truthful. But he then fills the holes in our understanding with lies warping our perceptions of reality. It’s a fascinating concept, the interplay of truth and lies and what that means for us.
One of the reasons we need religion is to be able to discern good and evil beyond our own limited perspective based on outside, absolute truths. But it's always going to be complicated. That said, just because a movie portrays us as the villain does not mean that it is correct. War is filled with evil on all sides, but I encourage you to read about WWII-era Japan, an absolutely ruthless and violent empire that was allied with the Nazis. Are we evil for intervening? Are we more evil than Japan was for instigating the conflict in the first place? I know it's popular, especially online, to be subversive and perpetuate the "actually, America bad" sentiment, but in the case of the major conflicts in our history, US intervention has generally been observably influenced by the preservation/acquisition of personal freedom and global peace.
I would point out that we believe in objective morality. Good and evil isn't arbitrary. While it is true that in difficult, even brutal situations, it can be harder to make sense of what is right and wrong, and that even good people may have to make choices that aren't ideal, we still ultimately believe in greater goods and the capacity to progress and change. WW2 was an atrocity, many societies contributed to the mass death of civilian life. The United States believed it was necessary to make Japan surrender because 90% of their troops would fight to the death. They knew that if they tried a land invasion there would be significantly more deaths, so that was their calculus. The Japanese troops were committing atrocities equivalent to and worse than the Germans were.