# 'is God more intelligent or Satan'
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 4, 2006, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385 "2006-09-04T09:52:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mustafiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mustafiz)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/1 "2006-09-04T09:52:07Z")
This question has always baffled me ‘is God more intelligent or Satan’? I hope you guys can hepl me out…
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### Author:  [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/2 "2006-09-04T10:05:14Z")
Pfft, on so many levels.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/3 "2006-09-04T11:06:47Z")
> [@Mustafiz](#):
>
> This question has always baffled me ‘is God more intelligent or Satan’? I hope you guys can hepl me out…
Sure, I can help. It should be “Is God more intelligent _than_ Satan?”
No need to thank me.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/4 "2006-09-04T11:19:56Z")
Since this question has no possible factual answer, and I’m not sure that even a Great Debate is possible, let’s move it to MPSIMS.
**samclem** GQ moderator
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### Author:  [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/5 "2006-09-04T11:25:07Z")
Any help appreciated.
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### Author:  [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/6 "2006-09-04T11:51:36Z")
I’m going to put my money on Satan because the whole thing doesn’t work without him apparently. Plus his peeps don’t seem to be out there doing the hard sell like Gods peeps do. Yeah, definitely Satan.
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/7 "2006-09-04T12:34:34Z")
As an atheist, I assure you that neither exist.
However if you take the Christian Bible it appears that God was not clever in first bringing, then allowing evil into the World.
So Satan wins that ‘contest’.
I am puzzled why this interests you. (In the Middle Ages, believers argued about the number of angels that could dance on a pin head.)
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### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/8 "2006-09-04T13:04:17Z")
Difficult question to answer.
God has created the universe and all the beings in it. But I’m not really sure if that means that he understand how it all works. If he has knowledgably created all the functions of all animals down to the molecular level, he surely must be the most intelligent. However, it is possible that they were all just created by “magic”, and he doesn’t really understand it at all.
As for Satan, I’m not really aware of what he has actually done. I can only think of the bet with God in the book of Job, the tempting of Jesus. He also manages hell, I guess. All this doesn’t say much of his intelligence.
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### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/9 "2006-09-04T13:10:29Z")
Also a relevant question:
Can god create a logic puzzle so difficult, that he himself is not intelligent enough to solve it?
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/10 "2006-09-04T13:21:11Z")
> [@mr. jp](#):
>
> Difficult question to answer.
>
> God has created the universe and all the beings in it. But I’m not really sure if that means that he understand how it all works. If he has knowledgably created all the functions of all animals down to the molecular level, he surely must be the most intelligent. However, it is possible that they were all just created by “magic”, and he doesn’t really understand it at all.
>
> As for Satan, I’m not really aware of what he has actually done. I can only think of the bet with God in the book of Job, the tempting of Jesus. He also manages hell, I guess. All this doesn’t say much of his intelligence.
However, Satan has managed to tempt mankind into evil for a long time in the presence of an all powerful God who presumeably loves mankind.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/11 "2006-09-04T13:28:49Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> In the Middle Ages, believers argued about the number of angels that could dance on a pin head.
Actually, if anyone did at all, it was just one guy (Thomas Aquinas, that cheery old libertine), and it was the _point_ of the pin, bot the head.
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### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/12 "2006-09-04T13:30:25Z")
> [@David Simmons](#):
>
> However, Satan has managed to tempt mankind into evil for a long time in the presence of an all powerful God who presumeably loves mankind.
Does he actually do this? How does he do it then. Wouldn’t people have seen him, if he attempted?
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/13 "2006-09-04T14:23:55Z")
[Satan is God’s HR “go to” guy.](http://www.physorg.com/news75128924.html)
> [@](#):
>
> “He’s not so much the proud and angry figure who turns away from God as [he is] a Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. Satan’s basic intention is to uncover wrongdoing and treachery, however overzealous and unscrupulous the means. But he’s still part of God’s administration.”
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/14 "2006-09-04T15:09:38Z")
> [@mr. jp](#):
>
> Does he actually do this? How does he do it then. Wouldn’t people have seen him, if he attempted?
I can’t answer these questions. You’ll have to go to someone who believes in all the extraneous mythology surrounding Satan. Here is Isaac Asimov’s version from _Asimov’s Guide To The Bible._
> [@](#):
>
> ```
> Sometime after the Babylonian captivity ... the notion arose that there was a supernatural Adversary; a being whose official duty it was to work for man’s evil as God worked for man’s good. This capital-S Satan was without power to force men to do evil, but he could tempt men to sin and turn against God, and it was by succumbing to such temptation that man brought evil into the world.
>
> Such a concept was useful in that it helped explain the source of evil, for it is always difficult to explain the existence of evil and misery in the world and the frequent apparent triumph of bad over good in the face of the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God. Even if one explained that evil came as a punishment to sinning mankind, where came the evil within man that caused him to sin in the first place? Thus, the notion of a supernatural Satan pushing man toward sin was convenient.
>
> ```
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/15 "2006-09-04T15:23:14Z")
In the book \*\* I.Lucifer\*\* he, the Devil, has done away with all the fire, torture, endless agony of hell and instead it’s just a jolly old place with free beer/women/tobacco etc.
Y’see, the reasoning behind this is simple…If God sees and hears all the screams of agony coming from hell then He’s satisfied that sinners are suffering.
OTOH hearing shrieks of joy coming from hell the God is mightily pissed off and Old Nick knows it.
Yep Beelzebub sure got God by the goolies on that one 😃
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### Author:  [@Joe\_Mahma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Mahma)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/16 "2006-09-04T15:25:39Z")
> [@glee](#):
>
> As an atheist, I assure you that neither exist.
Thank you for your assurance. What a load off my mind.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/17 "2006-09-04T19:19:51Z")
"God isn’t interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
Slugs! HE created slugs! They can’t hear. They can’t speak. They can’t operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic? "
God loses. 😉
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/18 "2006-09-04T19:49:36Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> "God isn’t interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
This reminds me of the remark of biologist J.B.S. Haldane when asked what was God’s most prominent characteristic.
“An inordinate fondness for beetles.”
As to the nipples. Either God or His recorders didn’t even get the order right for who comes first, man or woman. Fetuses start out as female. If there is a sneaky y chromosome in there somewhere, after a certain time testosterone is released and further fetal development is as a male. Every now and then there is a mistake.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2006, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/19 "2006-09-04T22:35:11Z")
> [@](#):
>
> In the book I.Lucifer he, the Devil, has done away with all the fire, torture, endless agony of hell and instead it’s just a jolly old place with free beer/women/tobacco etc.
>
> Y’see, the reasoning behind this is simple…If God sees and hears all the screams of agony coming from hell then He’s satisfied that sinners are suffering.
>
> OTOH hearing shrieks of joy coming from hell the God is mightily pissed off and Old Nick knows it.
>
> Yep Beelzebub sure got God by the goolies on that one
What makes anyone say that Satan has any say in the running of Hell? That’s like supposing that Al Capone administered Alcatraz. Satan is Hell’s prisoner number one.
> [@](#):
>
> Fetuses start out as female.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “Fetuses start out as fetuses”? What is there about a pre-sexual-differentiation fetus that would make it any more “female” than “male”?
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-more-intelligent-or-satan/371385/20 "2006-09-05T14:58:30Z")
That’s like asking if Daffy Duck is smarter than the Easter Bunny…
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