Does Satan think God's predictions are wrong?

Great Debates
81

They do have a version of it (or more accurately several versions) - but it’s quite dissimilar to the biblical story.

One version states, in summation, that the Goddess of destruction and battle, Sekhmet (the goddess can differ, but it’s usually a female), went on a rampage. Some versions say this was her own decision, others say she was put up to it by Seth, or even Ra, and others say it was a result of a battle between Upper and Lower Egypt that woke the Gods. Either way, she began killing hordes of people, eating them, and drinking their blood. It got so severe that the blood began to wash away houses - other versions say the Nile got filled with bodies, and the water ran over the banks. The flood, whatever fluid it was composed of, washed away the houses and farms along the river, and those hiding began to starve. Eventually, Ra convinced humanity to brew a massive lake of beer (or wine), and dye it red to look like blood. Sekhmet came along, and drank it all - eventually falling asleep, or getting drunk and groggy. While she was drunk (or after she awoke), she comes across the god Ptah, and falls in love, thus forgetting her rampage.

Like I said, not terribly similar, but early religion scholars usually consider it a flood myth.

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And I’ve actually heard theories about how it’s a giant challenge between God and the Devil about who can collect the most souls using two different methods, so to speak. Interesting way of looking at things, at least.

Well, I just find it hard to reconcile it, is what I mean - I understand the literary and theological argument for introducing the idea that you have to stay true to your beliefs in God even in hard times, and that he will reward your trust in him eventually, but it ends up being hard for me to rationalize it the way it happened, and reconcile God allowing everything to fall apart as part of a challenge from Satan. I’m sure there are theologians out there who can, I just haven’t read anything about it yet.

82

I was referring more to the individual religious system one might subscribe to, not specifically the Bible itself. I think that the Bible is more akin to musical theory, whereas the different judeo-christian religions are like the composers who twist it around to make it say what they want.

And that’s a super loose analogy, because I realize that the Bible’s got a lot of things in it which intelligent people take exception to, and rightly so.

I haven’t got the time this morning to reply to this in detail, but I will later tonight.

83

Anything short of what was laid out in Job wouldn’t have been a true test worthy of establishing the incredibly important points that were made. When you get to the point where you understand there’s a universal sovereignty issue at hand, the severity of the plight of one man becomes far less significant but his response to that plight becomes exponentially more important.

If everything’s not on the line, from a human perspective, then there’s always that nagging doubt of “well maybe if (this), then he would have broken his integrity”. Job literally went as far as any human could have gone - stopping only at losing his life (he even begged for death at one point), since a dead man can’t hold integrity.

85

The person who wrote it could say anything that he wanted, one can claim anything they wish…but, proving it is another thing. You believe the writer, not necessarily the truth!IfGod didn’t want evil to exist he could well have stopped it, so God must want evil, and doesn’t care about all of his children.

86

I wonder why God would find it necessary to try to explain anything to Satan,it doesn’t make sense that an all powerful, all knowing ,loving being would need to prove anything to a renagade being( he created) and who is considered all evil, then wait for centuries to have himself become man, and have a war with him when he could have just killed the evil being and put it out of existence, why would an all loving being want evil to exist? Why God would kill Job’s innocent family etc. to make a point with a being he could have zapped out of existence if he chose,doesn’t make God of the Bible to be a loving ,all knowing being that he is said to be. Nor is his judgement fair!

87

I didn’t know they had rugby in ancient Palestine.

88

Woosh…

Most of the points you are taking exception to were established earlier in the thread. Just go page-by-page and do a search on the word “uber” to find the relevant posts.

God doesn’t need to prove anything to Satan, the entire exercise was for the benefit of mankind and for the benefit of the faithful angels who were looking on.

I don’t have time to rehash all those points, but if you’re truly curious, pm me. Short of that, I’ll assume you don’t really want to know, but would rather ask the questions with the goal of having me stammer about with no answer. You can trust that won’t happen.

89

I believe in the God of the Bible.
Psalms 83:18* That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth.
*
Revelation 4:11 * “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.”*

Ephesians 3:14,15 On account of this I bend my knees to the Father, 15 to whom every family in heaven and on earth owes its name

The part of the Bible that describes the future? That’s a bit tougher…because it’s more of an ongoing theme throughout. I’ll try.
Revelation 21:3, 4 * With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. 4And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”*

Isaiah 35:4-6 * Say to those who are anxious at heart: “Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! YOUR own God will come with vengeance itself, God even with a repayment. He himself will come and save YOU people.” 5 At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. 6 At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain.
*

John 5:28, 29 Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice 29and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.

Psalms 37:11 * But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth,
And they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace*

Psalms 37:27-29 Turn away from what is bad and do what is good,
And so reside to time indefinite. 28For Jehovah is a lover of justice, And he will not leave his loyal ones. To time indefinite they will certainly be guarded; But as for the offspring of the wicked ones, they will indeed be cut off. 29The righteous themselves will possess the earth, And they will reside forever upon it.

Daniel 2:44 *“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite; *

A united world, in peace, with endless life and abundant health, and with a righteous heavenly government capable of maintaining this peace forever. Basically, what God said he wanted Adam and Eve to do in the beginning; expand the Garden of Eden earth-wide.

90

Most of these are either vengeance for the destruction of Judah, or promises that by and by things will be great, or failed predictions of imminent glory on earth. Or just things will be better someday verses. I know Revelations is more specific - Elaine Pagels’ book gives the background. I haven’t read it yet, just heard her on Fresh Air. But I liked this one.

How do you get peace out of crush? This is part of the actual Messianic prophecy, where a king, the descendant of David, will unite the entire world (not very big back then) under his rulership. I don’t where you get peace out of this - they are clearly talking about military conquest. And you can easily see how far away Jesus was from fulfilling this. Don’t see heavenly in here either.
We Jews are a bit more critical than you Christians. When a Messiah announces himself, and screws up, we dump him like a rotten piece of gefilte fish. You back a Messiah who didn’t fulfill prophecy, did not bring unity, and didn’t even return when advertized - and you keep reading stuff into the Bible to justify it, or say he will surely return sometime, just be patient. 80 generations have been patient without much to show for it - what happens in the nonexistent heaven is unclear.
In college it is common to wait 20 minutes for the professor and then leave on the assumption he ain’t going to show. You guys are stuck in your seats for 2,000 years and counting. I hope you have good games on your phones to pass the time.

91

Sorry, but virtually all the boasts and “impossible” questions that God makes to Job have been answered, if we assume that we are talking about “all knowing” beings, they would had given the god of that book an “F”.

And I do say that the theology in that book does stick like a sore thumb, compared to other books of the bible; do you really think that satan still goes up to [del]Olympus[/del] heaven to enjoy the parties and the latest gossip of the gods?

92

Yes too bad they destroyed the Library at Alexandria I think they had microfilm of those games

93

What would be the point of God revealing Him/Her self to those who are perishing, what would be the point of God saying yes, here is the rapture and you missed it, too bad you missed your chance. God may as well let you life out the rest of your life in error and not know you missed the chance for eternal life, then let you know you blew it, have to live knowing only to have to do it all over again

94

You’re ignoring the fact that merely because “… it’s a belief held by a whole mess of folks…” counts for nought: the planet is populated with misguided people with fantasy ‘opinions’. Religion and belief in an extra-terrestrial deity (with all its attendant coterie of nonsense) being just one of them.

95

Not everyone.

If you remove the element of punishment from the equation, the Biblical creation story is very inspiring. Even knowing the pain and struggle it would entail, humans opted for the pursuit of knowledge instead of pleasant ignorance.

I like to conflate the serpent with Lucifer - the Light Bearer bringing knowledge to humanity, and humanity accepting the burden.

96

That might actually well be the true origin of the snake in the story.
In surrounding cultures the snake was indeed a creature of knowledge.

We have the Minoan priestess figurines, with snakes and the snake on the staff of Asklepios to remind us of that.

Maybe the early Israelites/Canaanites also had a version, and a vestige of it has remained in the genesis story.

97

I always thought Satan had his own prophecies, and both sides’ prophecies say they’ll be victorious. It’s like propaganda. I think, like war, both sides think they’re the good guys and the enemies are the bad guys. Or maybe Satan IS trying to drag everyone with him, but his followers think he’s the good guy.

Hmm maybe if he has enough followers, he can bargain with God? Since God likes people so much?

98

I’ve actually had that thought myself - we know the Aegean civilization was quite active on the ocean at the time given its extensive settlment, there’s evidence to correlate the Mycenaeans and Minoans with the Sea Peoples of Egypt, and we know from the similarities of the Greek and Phoenician alphabets that they had cultural contact, so it’s certainly likely that the ancient Aegeans exported the idea of the serpent being something of a good guy to Phoenicia, who then exported it to Judea.

And then there’s obvious parallels to Prometheus, but it could be simple coincidence, since the finer details differ.

99

There’s even evidence that the Philistines are Myceneans. They being the Peleset from Egyptian sources.

So, yes, the early Israelites were in direct contact.

100

Satan does have prophecies, in scriptures the only 3 that are assured to be sent to the lake of fire are Satan, the beast and the false prophet - these are the only 3 who scriptures state will suffer night and day for ages of ages (sometimes translated forever and ever). The goal if these false prophecies is to lead people away from God.

Satan is ‘bargaining’ with God, you can read about that in Job, but there are other places as well though less explicitly revealed. Though Satan’s bargaining power is that of a snot nosed boy trying to bargain against a very wise man.

My understanding of how the Satanic kingdom works is that Satan feels off of the misplaced love and devotion of God’s children worshiping him in error. Satan is cut off from the flow of God’s Love from above by Satan’s free will actions, but God’s Love is also in His children. If Satan can trick those children into loving him Satan received Love (and it’s power) from below. The trouble is that those children will be depleted and eventually die and replacements will be needed, so Satan’s kingdom is a pyramid scheme. This was Satan’s plan, to have us reproduce ourselves so he has a never ending supply of worshipers.

101

Your own argument contradicts what you state,yes, an all knowing all powerful Being who created a monster (that he should have known ahead of time )would rebel and later on destroy so many of his children and let the monster do just that, plus even bothering to debate the monster over a Good man’s faith and even kill off his innocent family just to prove a point to the monster( that he is supposed to be more powerful and created in the first place) makes no sense. I don’t pretned to know it all and I doubt that you do either, but you can differ with me…that is your right. It still doesn’t add up to me. A human father would be put in jail for mistreating some of his children just to pacify his chosen ones.I would not have a monster harm my children and I am not all knowing, powerful etc. I just expect more of a being who could.