User blog:Lover of the Muse/anti-religious themes part 1

Supernatural has had anti-religious overtones since almost the very beginning. I think the first time these themes emerged was in the season 1 episode "Faith". The antagonist of that episode used withcraft to bind a Repaer and take life away from people she seemed immoral in order to heal good obedient Christians (or people who would be faithful Christians after their miraculous healing). One of the people she decided to kill, his only crime was being openly gay. The villain in this episode was a hypocrite who hid behind religion and presented herself as a good Christian but really just wanted to bend the world to her will.

This entire episode can be intepreted as foreshadowing for the twist at the end of season 4. Michael and the other high-ranking angels had an agenda to release Lucifer, bring on the Apocolypse, and allow countless humans to be killed in order to finally defeat Lucifer and Hell and bring about Paradise on Earth. They pursued this evil plan all while pretending to be following the will of God; it's the same concept as in "Faith" but played out on a larger scale.

The season 2 episode "Hunted" is probably worth mentioning because in that episode Gordon Walker reveals he thinks that Sam Winchester is the antichrist and therefore deserves to die. The weird thing is that Gordon is kind of right about Sam being the antichrist. Sam has demonic blood inside of him and is the true destined vessel of Lucifer. Sam is one of at least three characters in the series who could be considered the Antichrist. The second is Jesse Turner, a Cambion, and the third is Jack the Nephilim son of Lucifer. None of thesee three characters are evil.

The season 2 episode "Houses of the Holy" featured simiar themes to "Faith"  but was more nuanced. In that episode the boys investigated the murders of several people by individuals who claimed to have been visited by an angel and told they were carrying out the will of God. This episode is great for a few different reasons. Dean doesn't believe Angels actually exist while Sam does and we learn that Sam prays every day. Sam and Dean's attidues towards their earthly father juxtapose their attidues towards their heavenly father. Sam has faith in God but not in John while Dean has faith in John but not in God. The antagonist isn't really an angel but the ghost of a man named Father Thomas Gregory, after dying Gregory believed he had become an angel. Unlike Sue Ann Le Grande from "Faith" Father Gregory isn't a hypocrite or a liar, he's a true believer. This makes him a much closer parallel to the Archangel Michael.

In season 4 when Sam finally meets Angels he's disappointed by what he sees and says to Dean "I thought they would be rightious" and Dean says "they are, that's kind of the problem". The Angels are rightious in the same way that Father Gregory was righteous.

There's probably other episodes I'm not remembering right now. But in the earlier seasons the existence of God wasn't an established fact in the Supernatural unvierse, and so the moral character of God wasn't questioned. You could say that "all these people have the will of God wrong but if they understood and followed it properly they would be good people". That statement however relies on the presupposition of God's moral perfection.

In season4 however it's revealed that God really does exist. Dean is raised from perdition by an Angel and told that god commanded it ans has work for him to do. Under these circumstances it seems that the faithful Sam should be vindicated and the skeptic Dean proven wrong and converted into a believer. Indeed Dean does agree to work for the Host of Heaven to stop the 66 seals from being broken.

In the Episode "Heaven and Hell" during a conversation between Anna Milton and Dean Winchester, they draw an analogy between God and Joh Winchester. "I was stationed on Earth 2,000 years...just waiting. Silent....invisible...out on the road...sick from Home.....waiting on orders from an unknowable father I can't begin to understand".

John Winchester wasn't a great father and drawing a parallel betwen him and God doesn't redeem John, rather it calls God's character into question. Still Joh Winchester did love his children so at this point were still hoping the same applies to God. At the end of season 4, it's revealed that Dean's initial cynicism and skepticism was justified. The Angels do not really have his or the world's best itnerest at heart.

It's worth noting that the thought process behind the Host of Heaven's evil plan in season4 to bring on the Apocolypse so that afterwards Paradise will reign forever, is the same mentality a lot of Fundementalist Christians have towards the end of the world. The world is thought of as something corrupt and decadant, and several billlion people dying and being cast into the Lake of Fire is seen as something to look forward to.

This mentality among Fundementalist Christians forms the basis of "Christian Zionism", a movement which supports the state of Israel under the belief that it's creation fulfilled a Biblice prophecy and that the restoration of Temple Mount in Jerusulum is necessary to bring about Armegeddon and the Second Coming of Christ. The difference is that in Supernatural the Angels know for a fact that the Apocolypse is a real thing and if they release Lucifer it will come about.