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Comment by bhaak | Hacker News Reader

Some people are greedy and don't know when to stop when they have enough. The fisherman is notably not one of those people.

Older generations might have been most offended by the "becoming like God" part. The enchanted fish was willing to grant any wish that is in principle achievable by a human being, even the most ridiculous wish of becoming Pope.

But the moment the wish transcends that human realm it is turned down and punished.

I guess the theme of "becoming like God" resonates with the story from Adam and Eve's fall.

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My interpretation is that the fish didn't actually turn down and punish, but fulfilled the wish. It's just that the fish thought: to be like God means to be humble. She asks to be like God, true godliness is humility. So she did get what she wanted, but not in the way she thought. (BTW I'm not religious in the sense I go to church a lot, and don't even necessarily believe in God, but I do share many of the values of religion.)

> It's just that the fish thought: to be like God means to be humble.

In which religion is the God humble? It wont be Christianity for sure.

Being born to a human, growing up and living as one of them, and letting himself be tortured and killed by his own creation isn't humble?

You don't have to believe it, of course, but God humbling himself is pretty much the defining aspect of Christianity.

> Being born to a human, growing up and living as one of them, and letting himself be tortured and killed by his own creation isn't humble?

That is self sacrifice.

But surely humility is only one attribute of God, and not the most relevant one. Omnipotence and omniscience are typically listed as more important aspects of the divine.

It depends on the religion. In Christianity, Islam, and some "the universe is a simulation" theories: yes. In other religions, god is not all that powerful.

Interesting, you read it as if the fish said "You want to be like God? No, that's too far. Game over!"

But another reading is: God would have chosen the shack (grace to the humble, etc.) So she got her wish.

I was hoping for a "go home, she is as God", then he goes home and sees that she doesn't exist

Yes, I think...

> And they are sitting there even today.

... hints strongly that once that wish was granted, she stopped wanting something different.

I don’t think of it as punishment. She gets her wish granted, she just did not understand that God does not care about the kind of shallow riches the fisherman’s wife is aiming for.

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