Satan: Seducer not Trickster I would like to point out another instance of Protestantism’s moral inversion, that is, how they cling to Evil while supposing all Goodness and Light is a trick of Satan sent to fool them. Not that they can be blamed for being frightened to listen to any True Divine Revelation, for, you see, Paul has placed a Curse upon them. If you consult Galatians 1:8 you will see that Paul pretends to call down the Curse of God upon even “Angels from Heaven” who would contradict his peculiar message. So, ‘Christians’ who have made Paul their God are quite in a bind. They must believe in Paul or be Damned if they don’t. However, it would do Protestants well to consider that Christ already discussed this issue of what to believe and why to believe it. Refer to Luke 6:44 and Christ tells us that we can discern between Good and Evil by examining results and effects – that we would know the Tree by its Fruits. Paul, not being a disciple of Christ or even familiar with His Teachings, offers no Criteria for Truth, but only a blanket assertion that if it does not agree with what Paul had told them, then the Curse of God would be upon them for even considering it. You would think that if anybody wanted to raise Curses to protect the Truth then it would have been Christ, but He tells us only to reject Evil and appreciate the Good. He assumed, however wrong subsequent events have proved Him to be, that we would be able to distinguish the difference. Also, we have a story from out of Christ’s Ministry which shows that Christ was most emphatic about His insistence that People be able to recognize the Things of the Spirit by their evident Good Merits. It is in Mathew Chapter 12. He heals a man by casting out his demons. The Pharisees then accused Christ of working wonders with the power of Satan, just as modern Protestants accuse the Saints today. This is where Christ issues the Warning concerning the “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” – the Sin that cannot be forgiven. It is Christ telling us in almost absolute terms that Satan cannot counterfeit Good. If we see Good, then it is Good. When Christ tells us it is a Sin to say that Satan can even seem to do Good, it makes it clear that Satan is capable only of Evil. A bad tree cannot force out Good Fruits. Darkness and Light do not mix. Goodness and Evil have chosen their Sides and they do not cross the line. So, what is it exactly that Paul was committing in Galatians Chapter 1 when he was veritably placing the Curse of God on even the “Angels of Heaven” who would contradict him, except that very Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? And then what of 2 Corintheans 11:13 and 14 where Paul claims that Satan is an Angel of Light and accuses all of the True Apostles appointed by Christ Himself of being false and deceitful. Is this not a moral inversion? Spewing such insanity, why would anybody believe this crazy Paul, except that he gives everybody an excuse for throwing out The Law and living in continuous ‘forgiven’ Sin. Besides, even if Paul were correct, then why would Satan try to sell himself by communicating Goodness and Righteousness and by doing acts of Goodness and Righteousness? Would this not be the same as criminals giving all of their money away to fool the police. Yes, that would be a clever trick and would fool anybody, but to what end? Satan becoming Righteous would lose his War by that very Righteousness. Christ expressed this same logic in Mathew 12, that Satan has no interest in betraying or dividing his Evil. Isn’t it more likely that Satan would not so much wish to trick us, but rather that he would attempt to seduce us with the wiles of Sin and Greed, just as he tried to Tempt Christ in the Wilderness. Satan did not pretend to be Good, Noble, or Righteous but only to be able to provide Christ with every worldly desire. Certainly that is what Satan trades in. And it works. Have not the Conservatives of the Religious Right gained a majority by appealing to Greed and the Power of World Conquest. Their Campaign Manager might as well been Satan straight from the Wilderness. So what have we learned? We now know that when we see Goodness and obvious manifestations of Holy Grace, we are to take them at face value rather than risk the Blasphemy to the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin. How can we apply this knowledge? Well, we can consider that the Catholic Church has set in place institutions which encourage Righteousness and attempt to curtail Sin, and that it still receives, documents, verifies and disseminates Revelations from Heaven, given through Angels, Seers ( the modern equivalent to the Ancient Prophets) and the Apparitions of Our Lady the Blessed Virgin Mother of Christ. Opposed to the Catholic Church is its enemy, the Protestant Churches that teach the Rejection of the Law, and that all sins are automatically forgiven for believing that Christ did not come to be Messiah but came only to be murdered – a Doctrine given to them by Paul whom they deify as having written the Word of God. And it is this same Protestant Church that claims that God has effectively died – that there has been absolutely no Divine Revelation since last their God Paul put pen to paper. Let’s look at the Fruits. Catholicism gave us our Civilization and all of our spiritual and moral values. Protestantism brought us the wave of barbarism that is destroying that Civilization, having reveled in the murders of hundreds of millions of Catholics, and which still appeals to demons of War, Sin and Greed, and provides a Religion that in its rejection of all Spiritual Practices and Mystical Ways is rather better described as Nihilistic Materialism. So the next time we hear a Protestant accusing all and sundry “Angels of Light” of being Satanic, maybe we should wonder who is trying to fool whom.
you claim 'darkness and light do not mix'. Well, in my experience they do. Have you experienced TWIlight and Dusk? What are those pneomena if not the mixing of dark and light. the idea one can have ONLY light and only dark is a figment of the whitelight-religion brigade. Absurd. The most beautiful times ae exatly when the times of the day emphaszie this ambiguity between light and dark. Then you demonize Protestanism. You scapegoat it, presenting your 'Marian Catholism' as what all good fruitful people must aspire to. is that so? You see what you fail to see in your religious fervour is the dodgy underlying premise you cling to. Of an 'evil Satan' who wants to seduce the unwary traveller away from the grRRReAT Catholic conversion but wait. Your bugbear Paul didn't write the OLD T. and yet in their Satan is not THe evil one. he is working WITH your 'God'. only later in the N.T. does he become the utter ENEMY of 'God'. so you seem to have yer stans mixed up for a kick off. not knowing the narrative of the myth you claim to adhere to is what i mean. So basically what i am saying is this. it is not 'proper' Catholicism versus 'wrong' protestanism which is the key to our liberation, BUT the understanding of your religions false premise of a battle between light and dark, which oth you and the proddys share as do all patriarchal religions, and ideologies
Leo, could you kindly not make threads which are simply justifications for disliking some other sect or religion? You're a Catholic. We get it. If you'd like to post it in the form of a question to Protestants, or if it was in response to some other thread and was on-topic, I suppose that would be ok. But to just post a thread which just consists of why some other religious belief is wrong is contrary to the spirit of the forums, in my view.
Yes, exactly! You prove my point! Satan is not trying to fool anybody. Satan is simply helping God to sort the Good from the Evil. Satan is there to provide people with Evil Choices. Satan does not want to fool good people into being bad... that would not serve God's purpose at all! Satan is there only to seduce the seducable, and to tempt those who would succomb to Temptation. I wonder that you have so little understanding of my argument that by proving my point you think you are refuting it. duh.
You don't seem get it. If I am right then Protestantism is Satanic, and Protestants would be in need of converting or being damned. Therefore, to ease their uneasy consciences, they must answer my accusations. I don't need to ask any questions. They can answer accusations as well as questions, no? Also, consider that I am referring to actual scripture, which Protestants are purported to consider infallible. So when I can prove through scripture that paul was the antichrist, they must be compelled to answer such an accusation, or admit that the source of their Doctrines is effectively bankrupt.
Actually Satan goes all the way back to Zoroastrianism. The Christians picked it up from the Jews who picked it up from their stay in Babylon during their Captivity (some scholars think that the entire Pentateuch was acquired in Babylon -- that the Hebrews of Moses and all of the Patriarchs had not been Jews at all but had been some forgotten Sumerian Tribes. Jews in Babylon simply borrowed the Stories just like any modern Jewish Screenwriter now borrows any and everything to write Movies 'based on the truth' without actually being the truth). But simply because the Satan Myths predate Christianity and even Judaism is not cause to suppose they are not substantially true, in the spiritual sense.
Yes, but not so much as sometimes thought. The Catholic Church is divided between the Paulist Factions and the Marian Factions. The Religious Orders which are essentially Marian could almost not be any more Perfect. The problem is with the Secular Bishops who have traditionally rallied around Paulist Doctrines to justify their own Corruptions. If the Catholic Church could ever be made to examine Paulist Doctrine to the extent where they would renounce it and totally irradicate its influences, then the Catholic Church would be largely purified, and then a true Ecumenicalism could be achieved with the other Higher Religions of the World. Now, Paulist Doctrine is the greatest stumbling block to Ecumenicalism and Religious Unity. The Catholic Church since Vatican II has become more Paulist, not less, in hopes of forging an Ecumenical Unity with the Protestants -- I suppose some Catholic Bishops had wanted to be able to join the same Country Clubs as their Protestant counterparts. But it largely backfired on them -- no Protestant was convinced to become Catholic, but when the Bishops seemed to concede that Protestantism was a form of Valid Christianity, many Catholics decided to simply switch over because it was so much easier.
Leo, You must be joking surely - whenever the origination there remains nothing to indicate the myths have any element of truth to them, spiritual (whatever that means) or otherwise.
We have more than myths to consider. We have Demon Possession. There are two types of verifiable Miracles -- the Miracles of God and the Miracles of the Devil. The Catholic Church has offices for verifying both. The Miracles of the Devil usually involve impossible amounts of crap and corruption and impossible instances of violence. There was an Exorcism done in the 1950's in which it became part of the protocol not to allow silverware in the room during an exorcism. It seems a knife took on a life of its own and flew about the room stabbing first one priest and then another. It was remarked that the amount of vomit and feces that came out of this possessed person, every day, exceeded that person's body weight. The Exorcism was conducted in a Convent which afterward had to be burned down as nothing else would rid it of its stench. The Priests soon learned that each person who entered the room should first go and submit to a full Confession, or the Demon would attempt to humiliate that person by accusing him before all of their sins. But the Demon never seemed to know about any confessed Sin. These Demons can be very communicative, though it is often wondered whether these Demons may only be spreading Rumors from Hell that are as reliable as any rumors from anywhere. The Catholic Church has had many Major First Magnitude Saints, and what seems to be a pattern is that these Heavenly Saints seem to attract Demonic Opposition. There have been many battles witnessed between these Saints and the Supernaturally Demonic. Echoing this bifarcation between the Spiritual and the Demonic are some fairly typical Psychotic States which can and do often swing between the euphoric and the megalomanical to the paranoid and miserable. For every nut we have on a Street Corner with a sign placard reading "Repent the End is Near" who thinks he is Jesus, we have a Mass Murderer or some Manson-styled sicko. We believe in Satan because sometimes Evil just seems very very tangible.
your a believer Leo. in a 'satan'. a 'force' that maes the 'damned' do. so...what this means is that instead of looking at one's OWN behaviour, it is so EASY to scapegoat it onto a 'satan', and/or 'devil'...yeah? THAT is what beliefs like yours do. they split the individual from themselves and from Nature. THat is the source of the sorry mess such beliefs as yours incite. a splitting--psychologically--between 'dark' and 'light'. The latter is the very ORIGIN of the patriarchal fear. Fear of the dark!
Your moral education could be filled in on a few low points. Are you familiar with the Story of Faust. He sold his soul to the Devil. You see, that is how it works. I do not blame Satan for anybody's moral transgressions. Satan only offers the Deals. Satan, afterall, tried to Tempt even the Lord Jesus Christ. It is up to each of us to resist these Temptations. Yes, it is a favorite rant among Atheists to accuse Religionists of blaming Satan for everything, and it is sad that many Religionists are not well versed enough in Moral Philosophy to parry the subject well. But you asked me, and now you have your answer. I hope you can admit you've learned something.
All i have learnt Leo is how full of your own opinions you can be. and how flimsy can be your reponses to challenges of your assumptions.
No, Leo, you don't seem to get it. This is not the Reformation. This is not the Inquisition. This is not an Ecclesiastical Court. This is a discussion forum. A science discussion forum. This is where ask questions about stuff we don't understand, or raise topics for debate in a genuine spirit of enquiry, not draw up lists of indictments and demand answers. As I said, it is the way you have brought this up in your posting of a topic that concerns me, not what you are posting. The reason I made my post about the inappropriateness of this topic and your opening post was not because I find your views hateful, divisive and sectarian, although of course I do. Assuming that the "enemy" is all condemned to Hellfire is something I associate with Protestants against Catholics, (as a former Catholic myself), not the other way around. Nontheless, in my view it is wrong in either direction to presume to look down on somebody simply because of the beliefs she or he was brought up in. I had exactly this problem with Woody's posting on just that, from a Protestant's point of view.
