Unsupported? Surely you jest. The idea that Christian beliefs are stupid, as evidenced by the most stupid examples of Christian belief, is one of the most common kinds of posts on this board. Right up there with the mysteriousness of women and stuff only engineers would be interested in.
No, I am not going to make a case using cites.
I often pipe up with my nuances. Doesn’t make a dent.
Do even literalists take Job as being literally true? It is unconnected from the main flow of the Bible, and seems to be clearly a moral fable.
Satan in Job is not at all like his other appearances - that would be a problem. But I can’t see even the most avid of Fundamentalists having much of a problem of seeing the story as kind of a parable, and not an accurate recording of something that happened.
I can’t recall anyone here ever saying that all Christians are literalists, benighted or otherwise. I do recall Christians downplaying the number of Christians who are literalists, just because they are rare in their particular churches.
Go ask them. Many MANY people claim to believe that the Bible is 100% true and to be taken 100% literally. They are lying as to what they actually believe, certainly, but it’s a claim they continue to make nonetheless.
How many of them lie about what they actually believe, and what specifically is it that they lie about?
Please provide cites.
Well, I know for sure it isn’t me. I looked in a mirror and that birthmark definitely reads 999.
I think “entity” is a far better word for the Devil than person."
How many people do the Hajj each year? 2 Milionish? A small percentage of whom have done it before, or will repeat the experience, but as I understand it, most of them have saved for decades to get there.
And isn’t there a stage of the process where they all “throw rocks at the Devil?” I don’t see how you pick up a rock on your holy pilgrimage and throw it something you don’t really believe in. I mean, I suppose if your very religious Grandpa who paid for the trip is watching, one might be forgiven for doing it anyway. But I’m betting at least 90% truly believe they are throwing a rock at an actual entity.
I don’t believe it’s a literal story.
But to answer your question, I have heard it argued that the story occurs before “The Fall” of Satan. He was initially one of God’s greatest angels (Lucifer, the brightest one) but questioned God’s authority and so was thrown from the firmament and became Satan.
I don’t think many of them believe that The Prodigal Son story actually happened.
I thought about this point, but since Satan had clearly fallen before God created Adam and Eve, I don’t know how he could not have fallen years afterward when the Job story happened.
In Christian lore, that is. In Jewish lore, the snake was only a snake.
I have hardly seen a better example of the Spiderman fallacy.
We’re off to see the wizard
The wonderful wizard of Uz.
But I wonder if this is the mainstream view. This clown probably thinks the parables are literally true also, and is unaware of people finding moral lessons in fiction.
That was no ordinary snake.
Bible literalists believe that Jesus was born in two different places that are three hours’ walk from each other. Bible literalists believe that Quirinius was governor of Syria at the same time that Herod was in power, when in fact Herod had been dead for ten years by the beginning of Quirinius’s governorship.
There are Bible literalists; that was never in dispute. QED.
I am Jewish. Some rabbis believe Devil exists, others do not.
To many people, addictive drugs are the Devil.
I understand the idea that drugs/alcohol can be “the Devil.” But what I am talking about is an actual creature, an entity that may or may not have a physical body but definitely has motivation behind it, like a malevolent troll who basically wants to fuck up humanity as much as possible. Do a lot of Rabbis actually believe in this concept of the Devil?
Rambam – a great medieval Rabbi thought that Devil is a metaphor. Other rabbis believe that there are many many demons.
Opium overdose costs tens of thousands of lives each year in USA. Maybe it is Devil’s Brew.
Perhaps this isn’t that relevant to the conversation, but to clean things . . .
If you were to literally follow the Bible there’s a few things that might be surprising to you
Satan is not Lucifer.
Lucifer isn’t even Lucifer, that is the fallen angel is not named.
For most of the biblical story Satan only acts when instructed by god, not independently. God literally tells Satan to go torture ppl.
Lucifer just means light bringer and is used in many different contexts, Jesus is even called Lucifer.
Satan isn’t just God’s personal torturer, he is the district attorney for heavens court.
Satan is kicked out for prosecutorial misconduct 
The snake in the Adam creation account is not Satan, or Lucifer, or the devil. He’s just a snake. Dirty sneks
Both Satan and Lucifer are words in ancient Hebrew, not personal nouns. (Satan means adversary,accuser). A great problem with modern interpretations is that ancient Hebrew didn’t have the concept of uppercase letters. So you’ll see the word Satan pop up all over the Torah. But wait there is a Satan. Yep. Early on in the chronology of the stories god sends unspecified angels down to earth to fuck with humans, they are often described as satan as they acting as someone’s adversary, this happens a lot. Later on In the story telling god starts using the same angel each time to do gods dirty work. The authors turn satan into a personal pronoun by preceding it with Ha-, so Ha-satan. This translates closest to English as calling the angel “The Satan”, kinda like a comic book villain, “The Adversary”.
Lucifer is basically a big fat literary allusion. In the cultural literacy of the time the term Lucifer could refer to a bevy of meanings depending on the context.
Free will can’t exist unless more than one choice is possible. For some reason that’s obvious to me and official doctrine to the RCC, but you’re certainly not the only person who seems to confuse God being omnipotent with him being a control freak.
You have shown inconsistencies in the Bible.
You have not shown that Biblical literalists lie about their beliefs.
Care to try again?
Lucifer is Latin, not Hebrew.