Some ask how Satan ever came into existence. Here is the Bible answer. God created multitudes of angels, including at least three archangels: Lucifer, Michael and Gabriel. Angels are spirit beings which may or may not manifest themselves in a visible form (usually not). All angels were created good and holy but Lucifer, the chief worship angel decided to exalt himself and led a rebellion in heaven against God (Ezek. 28:13-15; Is 14:12-14). Lucifer and his angels were cast out of heaven and became Satan and his evil spirits (2 Peter 2:4). Satan is active today in the air (Eph 2:2), in the earth (Job 1:7) and also under the earth, in hell. Not being everywhere at once, as God is, he works through his forces, including fallen angels and demons. These spirits seek to live in and work through people, usually in a hidden way - usually not openly. The results of Satan’s work are still evident in our world today. Jesus came to destroy these works. (1 John 3:8). http://www.christian-faith.com/bible-studies/satan-devil.html It is asserted that the entity, Satan, does in fact exist, but does not manifest himself in a visible form (how convenient). It is also asserted that he works through his "forces" to live and "work" through people, usually in a hidden way. How is it theists know of such an entity if he does not take on a visible form? Did John, Job, Peter, et al. actually witness Satan in a visible form or is Satan another manifest of faith? By what mechanism does Satan interact with people if he does not take on a visible form? He must take on some physical form if he were to interact with the physical world. Further, by what mechanism exists in humans which Satan has control over? Does he control a certain part of the brain or nervous system? Why cannot this phenomenon be detected by any means? How is it theists know exactly what are "the results of Satans work?" Do they all agree on what can be considered such? A lot of discussion has been centered around faith in gods, but what of faith in Satan? Does one have equivalent faith in Satan as they do in their god? Do theists give Satan any thought at all?
Since Michael (Hebrew Mika-el) and Gabriel (H. Gavri-el) include God's name in their own (Micheal means "who is like god" and Gabriel means "the might of god"), maybe it was God's fault that Lucifer (which was the Babylonian term for the morning star Venus -perhaps Medicine Woman will have more to say about this) started his own business. But, with regard to faith, since faith means blind trust without evidence, Christians have to have just as much faith in Lucifer as they do God. Ironic.
Further to which, why does it all make god look all the more incompetent? Seemingly not even his angels want to be his friend Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There's no magic to satan/lucipher. He is not some being. Would you believe in mystical beings if the bible said that mystical beings existed back in the day? Lucipher is the giver of free will. The tester. To even hate lucipher is a sin, but to come to that, you got to realize how he's doing good by doing seemingly bad. Without him, we would be doing God's will without even thinking about it, no free will to not do as God wants, just animals. Animals do what God wants just by being them, they know no good or bad. Without him, even something as small as tying your shoe can be thought about and done an 'evil' way. You could say, 'nah, i'll just wait and tie my shoe later, too tired now'. Even though you could trip and hurt yourself, you have a choice to make a wrong decision that could supposedly hurt you. He gives us that choice to gamble with our lives. Everyone who is intelligent enough to think if what they're doing is wrong or right has lucipher in them. He needs to be. He is the extreme, and chaos. God is peace. Lucipher's job is to take a good deed and stretch it across that fine line to the extreme. That's where he tricks you. He often manifests himself through curiousity. By not knowing what will happen, if the outcome will be good or bad, we do it anyway. I feel silly talking of lucipher as a being though. Lucipher is just what God gave us to make a wrong choice so when we make a good choice, we will be rewarded for it. Lucipher only manifests himself in the intelligent, that's what lucipher is, is intelligence/free will. Those that are intelligent enough to know right from wrong and have the mischief in them to do the wrong thing sometimes, which we all have mischief, have lucipher in them. This baby talk of satanic beings, serpents, mystical beings and such is one thing that kept me away from religion, just too foolish for an intelligent person to believe. Of course, man believed it in those times and that's why the bible spoke of it. A lot easier to do that then go into details for which man wasn't scientifically ready or knowledgeable enough to know at the time. Would you want the bible to speak of lucipher as doing a job of God? Just think of all the questions that would bring up then and how it could make people see God then when they weren't ready to understand other concepts that we know now. You have to stop somewhere and that's what the bible did. Otherwise, you can go on and on with infinite why's.
Just a lot of human myth applied to human fallibility. Obviously there's no "lucifer" or "satan," but humanity has a hard time blaming itself for being stupid or wrong, so it comes up with a scapegoat. We invent gods to explain the actions of others that aren't in line with what we perceive as appropriate human action. And for actions of the natural world that we can't seem to come to grips with as being random or coincidental such as hurricanes, tsunamis and volcanos. In other words, humanity is innately superstitious and needs to blame "gods" for the rest of the universe's actions.
Interestingly, Hell and the Devil are not at all prominent in the Old Testament. There are no hellfire speeches in Judaism and their appearance round about the time of Jesus speaks to a Zoroasterian influence, which was the first middle eastern religion to define such things with great emphasis. Hell is neccessary in a way to provide a negative incentive toward 'righteousness'. Promises of heavenly bliss are not enough - threats of eternal torture are also required. And as the previous poster commented, the devil makes a conveniant scapegoat when the faithful stray from the path... "The Devil made me do it!"
From a Theists' position, I don't believe in a hell, I believe in the Eastern religion's idea of reincarnation. Reincarnation is much more believable and is much more painful for a person than eternal suffering. Because in the end, someone like Josef Stalin or Adolf Hitler has so much karmic debt to repay, it doesn't matter how many good lives they live, they are stuck on earth forever, untill there is not one living thing left alive, then they're going to exist somewhere else in some other form. Which is better: Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin rotting in hell for eternity, or the two of them being constantly reincarnated for the next billion or so years?
Actually, "Lucifer" comes from Latin which means "Carrier of Light" or "light-bearer". Anyway, I think the whole thing's rubbish. Christians created lucifer, the antichrist, etc. in order to have an allegory to Nero-era Rome. The whole thing's more or less just an indictment of Roman abuse of power, albeit hidden so that the Romans wouldn't directly see it. Oh, that'd be ironic...Hitler reincarnated as a Jewish guy and Stalin reincarnated as Bill Gates. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Not bad, and it makes sense in that theists appear to reject intelligence, the stronger their belief, the more they reject. But I wonder about your assertion of free will, does not your god dole out free will or is the the job of satan? Does god request it from satan or is he against it?
For those interested in Devil lore, I suggest checking out Roman Polanski's excellent film - The Ninth gate, starring Johnny Depp. Its all about a book detective's (Depp) quest for a text written several centuries ago known as The Nine Gates to the Kingdom of Shadows, reputed to have been written by Satan himself as a kind of riddle, which would enable those knowledgable enough to solve it, to summon its diabolical author. To travel in silence By a long and circuitous route To brave the arrows of misfortune And fear neither noose nor fire To play the greatest of all games, and win Forgoing no expense is to mock the vicissitudes of fate And gain at last the key that will unlock The ninth gate
If there was no satan, there would be no free will, we would do as God wants all the time. If there was just satan, I'm sure we would be doing what he wants all the time. Free will is when you have those two combined, good and evil. Just think, if you could only do good, you wouldn't have to think about this or that, it would only be one choice, the good/best/moral/healthy/right choice, that's it. Therefore, no free will, which is in one of many words, choice. Good and evil, the law of opposites again, as I've stated before. I believe God allows satan for the purpose of testing us. Not many people like to be tested, just as we don't/didn't like tests in school and lots of times, the teachers. But how else could our soul grow? Even in the afterlife there is ranks, a chance to do better, grow more, etc. Christians say he was banished from heaven because of his pride but I think he's just a story to explain the chemicals in our brains, neuroscience, and how it all dictates choices. How are you going to teach that to man in his infancy when we were pretty clueless about such things? A child or infant is clueless on lots of things but often times parents wind up telling a metaphorical story to them to explain it all until they grow old enough to understand. Really nothing wrong with the system. A child needs to know as he grows. Not just know the whole truth all at once or have it all hid from him. The best way is to know how much truth the child needs and when, hence different religions for different times. Otherwise the child has information for which he/she can't handle responsibly for the time or is ignorant of the fact if not told and could also be harmful.
So it looks like god created satan. With that in mind, god explains that evil/sin is because of satan(the snake). So doesn't that mean god that christians so much revere is the cause of sin/evil that we're being punished for? And the good question is, why do you still worship such god?
We're not being punished for anything, it's a chance to test yourself for reward, to grow. The only time you will know is to die, and we don't want that, so take my word for it, without God, we would be nothing. He can make us existent or nonexistent so all of us alive today finally have a chance to make it, to grow past what we were before or what we weren't. And it's satan, if you want to call it, another word for pessimism that makes you think that God's being mean. Is a teacher mean for testing? Is your mother/father mean for telling you when you done wrong, harm to others or yourself? Do they not spat your hand if you begin to touch fire to prepare you for the test, so you know what not to do? Does God himself not send messengers to tell us what not to do? The answers are right there in the holy books and in your head if you just look. It's that simple.
The snake??? There is no mention of the snake being anything other than a snake in the old testament.
God intentionally made an evil angel or did He screw up? Just how many evil angels did He make? More mistakes? Sorry. I couldn't help myself. Those quoted scriptures didn't sound right when I read them. It looks like Satan's got a lot of help. The only thing is...did God screw up or did He intentionally create these bad boys. Either way it sounds goofy. I think if you have faith in God then you must have faith that there is a devil, and vice versa. Funny how God is always so strong but still unable to put down a rebellion of sour angels. Better to unleash them on us.
Yes, and good and evil will always remain religious concepts but have no real meaning in reality as they are subjective and only relative to the observer. Hence it makes little sense in that if god wants everyone to worship him, why bother with the subjective? Religion is certainly not required to teach children anything, as most 'metaphorical' stories can be gleaned form Aesop or Grimms. In fact, teaching children about Noah or Job only serves to show children how utterly cruel and immoral gods can be.
And how, from your cynical perspective, is that worse than teaching children that goblins and dragons can be cruel and immoral? Atheists really have a hard time being consistent. They complain it's too bright, and when you tell them you like brightness they complain it's too dark. Oh well, what can one do but ignore them? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You would first have to show that goblins and dragons existed before offering any assumptions on their characteristics, as you would have to show gods existed before doing the same. Hence, we have as many variations of characteristics for gods as there are fingerprints.
