Did they choose that? Each and every one of those people murdered in the full knowledge that Satan existed, God existed, and that they were choosing one over the other by their actions?
If so, I imagine i’d be slightly concerned about how it is murderers somehow are more likely to understand the nature of the universe than the rest of us.
Balls, missed the edit window. Anyway, I’ve thought a bit more and remembered that kanicbird believes you can’t understand God fully without believing in him first. If you can’t understand God, you can’t understand Satan, either; thus since a murderer cannot also be a Christian (again under his views), then logically no murderers can have accepted Satan, because they aren’t believers and thus do not understand what they’d accept.
I never said that a Christian can’t be a murderer, just that he was not following the leading of the Holy Spirit at the time (One possible exception - the Beast in Revelation). That sin can be forgiven however.
One does not need to know Satan to follow him, Satan is a master at deception ‘he deceives the whole world’ Satan is totally fine to have you believe that you are doing it entirely on your own, or that you are doing it because the god of Baal told you too, or even to make you beleive that God Himself told you to do it “when He did not”
I’m afraid this doesn’t really help. In order to accept Satan’s path, they need to know Satan, which requires that they know God, since Satan is pretty much always defined in terms of opposition as well as in his own right. Your adjustment means one of two options; either you are right when you say murderers must have accepted Satan, which requires that all murderers were or continue to be Christian (even I think that’s silly); or you are wrong when you say they must have accepted Satan (pretty much the option i’m pushing).
Follow him, sure, makes sense. Mistakenly. But you didn’t say follow Satan, you said accept; there’s a big difference between being tricked into thinking you’re not doing something and actually accepting it. Deception doesn’t require you know what’s decieving you; acceptance, OTOH, does require you know what it is you’re accepting.
Yes, it seems so.
Perhaps. Here are some definitions of faith:
Compact Oxford English Dictionary
1 complete trust or confidence. 2 strong belief in a religion. 3 a system of religious belief.
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions 2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust 3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
Not quite.
Proof
Compact Oxford English Dictionary
1 evidence establishing a fact or the truth of a statement. 2 the proving of the truth of a statement.
3 a series of stages in the resolution of a mathematical or philosophical problem.
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
1 a: the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact b: the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning
something that induces certainty or establishes validity.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language
This seems to be consistent with religious faith: Lots of people have had faith in a religion which (they feel) has turned out to be misplaced, and they’ve changed their religious beliefs.
As for the OP, I agree with Slypork’s disagreement with Der Trihs’ characterization of faith, especially this:
Nothing could be more arrogant, except perhaps Der Trihs …
Yes, you can be following Satan without knowingly accepting Satan as your god. Many people don’t accept they are following anything but their own desires, or own moral code, which is deception, they are following a path put down by Satan.
Satan rebelled against God and chose his own path, basically God allowed Satan to be his own god. We also have such a choice, but if we chose to follow our own paths this becomes the path that Satan himself has chosen, and will lead to the same place.
Also many people claim to be lead by a ‘angel of light’ they think of that as God, they think they know what love of God is, are caught up in the deception and some lead others astray:
It just leads themselves and others to destruction - which would be a example of some accepting Satan as their god.
To those of you simply throwing definitions down and expecting others to dig your argument out of them, please try a bit harder. What specifically are you trying to say? If you want to make the claim that religious faith is the same as trust, then I’m going to have to ask for the evidence that produces the trust. The sun has risen every day I’ve been alive, and so I have a reason to trust it will rise again. What possible reason is there to trust that even exists, much less that he will do any of the things claimed of him?
So how do you know the difference? And please don’t try the ‘you just know’ answer we always seem to get. You’ve clearly said that satan is very good at deception. How do you know he can’t make you feel what you think you’re feeling about god?
Except for the evidence of course.
You’re going to have to work a little harder to make the accusation of No True Scotsmanry stick there, Soph (it’s ironic that your post itself is a splendid example of Poisoning The Well) :dubious: . If a mathematician makes an error in a formal proof, he is not No True Mathematician, but he is certainly not following the laws of mathematics, any more than a witch-burner obeys Christ’s command that “whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them”.
No, the implication of his post was that those who do evil have chosen to follow Satan, implying (further) that no evil-doer is a follower of God. That is just false, and is furthermore a no true Scotsman argument: “Well, if the person is doing evil, then that means they must not really be a follower of God.” So try that one out on your pianola.
This is very hard to answer as God is so big and works in so many ways, but I’ll try to give you a subset of an answer that works for at least a few of us. The ways of Satan and his demons, once you venture into that area of the supernatural seems to lay a path for you that seems ‘forced’ like things around you are really bent to produce a certain outcome. Many will accept that as divine guidance, and Satan is not above using some natural pathways to his advantage either, but must ‘force changes’ to the time line, that is noticeable.
The leading of God is far bigger however, it’s like the whole universe just was in tuned to set your path, nothing seems forced, like it was planned like that from before the universe was created for that path to be established for you. Only the one who created the universe could have done that.
No, of course it’s not a No True Scotsman argument. An instance of that would be to say “By doing this they show themselves not to be a Christian”, whereas what the previous poster said was more like “By doing this they show themselves not to be following Christ”.
How long you can refrain from following Christ, and still be considered in some measure a Christian, is a matter for discussion in itself; but I presume that you wouldn’t for one instant dispute that I may say that a man is breaking the laws of football, and still not be accused of calling him “no true footballer”.
My pianola went sproing! and punched a pattern in the roll that read remarkably like “People who don’t understand about logical fallacies shouldn’t appeal to them”. I suppose I’d better get it fixed.
Whatever. The point is that a substantial portion of the murder and evil performed over the last couple of millinia has been performed by very religious people in the name of God. It is very misleading to say that such people have “chosen” to follow Satan.
What, you mean by pointing out the very obvious ways in which they’ve done the exact opposite of what the object of their belief has told them to do? Yes, that must be really misleading.
(“Whatever”, indeed. Are you fifteen?)
Right. That was my argument - you suggested that people who choose to go around murdering each other have accepted Satan. But that just doesn’t work, since as you now agree, they could easily just have been deceived into it.
There’s no such thing as unknowingly accepting something. Acceptance requires knowledge of that which is accepted. Since knowledge of Satan requires knowledge of God, your suggestion that murderers accept Satan’s path is only true for current or former Christian murderers. By the same reasoning, zero non-Christian murderers must have accepted Satan.
Nope, it wouldn’t. Because there’s deception; those people aren’t accepting Satan because they don’t know what it is they’re agreeing to. Acceptance of Satan would require they know have precise knowledge of him, and hence requires precise knowledge of God, which may only be arrived at under your belief system (IIRC) through belief (and hence they are Christian) or through the temporary bestowal of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus, Mal, you’re not usually this bitchy. What crawled up your ass today?
If you think that the crusaders, the reformationists, etc., etc., were doing the exact opposite of what their belief told them to do, then you need to go read some history books. I am saying that many tens of thousands of people have done great evil fully believing they were doing what God wanted them to do, and it is misleading to say that in all of these cases these people had *chosen * to follow Satan. No; they had *chosen * to follow God, and either they badly misunderstood what God wanted, or they understood what God wanted but God is an asshole.
I think what is meant is that every group, tribe, and society of people, both ancient and modern living here on this earth have believed in some kind of God and some kind of afterlife. One could conclude this belief was part of evolution to help in the survival of the individual when faced with seeming hopeless circumstances. It gave the individual hope of survival afterdeath which allowed heroic deeds to win the day. However, there is now a group of people who say this belief is no longer needed. To be replaced by something called “scientific method.” It might be said to be a fork in the path of evolution. Only time will tell if this “fork” is viable or not.
The thing that you’re both neglecting here is that the Bible consists of far more than one statement by Jesus. Is putting someone in jail a violation of the teachings of Jesus? Perhaps witch burners would have wished themselves to be purified by fire if they were satanically dominated. That the Bible is both logically and morally inconsistent means that you can’t accuse those who do evil based on Biblical instructions of not following Jesus.
No, I completely agree with you; that is why I have been arguing (without success, apparently) that it is very misleading to say that those who do evil have chosen to forsake Jesus in favor of Satan.
And how do you know this?
This doesn’t make any sense. How do you know if something is forced or if it’s the way it’s established just for you? This is just another ‘oh I just know’ thing isn’t it?
Sorry. Someone, I can’t remember who, told me to stick something in my pianola. Sometimes I snarl when poked with a stick. I know that’s unusual round here.
Not the opposite of what their belief told them to; the opposite of the object of their belief - Christ. I’ve cited an instance of what Christ said and to which they should have paid attention. If they’d built some shell of belief around that which permitted or even encouraged them to go warmongering or witch-burning, then they weren’t following Christ; and I believe kanicbird may agree with me when I say that following Satan isn’t something you choose to do by waking up one morning and saying “You know what, I think I’m tired of Jesus; I’ll give the other guy a try today” but simply by doing what Satan would have you do. (Rhetorical “you”, naturally; I’m certainly not calling you a pawn of Satan.)