What if Satan wins?

Which, presumably, is far worse than the system under God, wherein we only have to worship him or be destroyed. :wink:

But don’t you see… in winter he gets to enjoy the suffering of people in the cold. He’ll probably winter in NYC.

I haven’t thought about this stuff since I was a kid.

As a kid, I always thought that Satan hated mankind because God showed so much interest in mankind. I imagine that he got really pissed off that God was placing mankind on an equal or greater footing than him when mankind seemed so weak. As a kid, I took it that Satan threw a temper tantrum because he was jealous of the attention his ‘younger sibling’ was getting.

So, if Satan won, I imagine he would just eliminate everyone, even souls in hell, since he doesn’t want us around.

BlinkingDuck wrote:

You and John Milton, both.

It means Biblical prophecy cannot be trusted. It means God lied. It means God is no better, no more good, than Satan.

(Not that I believe any of this.)

If it did turn out that the most powerful being in the universe had the mentality of a boy who burns ants with a magnifying glass, there’s nothing we could do about it anyway.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this all turned out a bit like Star Wars? We used to think that it was all about Han, Luke and Leia, but once we got the rest of the story, it’s quite obviously about the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin.

What if the universe is not really about humanity at all? What if it’s really about the rise, fall and redemption of Satan, and we’re just missing the big picture?

If that’s the case, do we all get listed in the Final Credits? I mean, by Hollywood rules, speaking characters get credited no matter how minor their role is…

(Not that I believe in any of this stuff, but if I must, I imagine God is just staging an elaborate game of Solitaire for his own amusement and we’re all just playing cards to be shuffled around)

I don’t know… depends on the audience. I mean, what if we’re just the Ewoks? One funny little primitive world that only existed to set the stage for Jesus to offer himself up on a cross to Satan (obviously to pierce through the grip of the Dark Side and bring him back to the light)…

Were the Ewoks listed in the credits?

(Of course, if we’re the Ewoks, that means we get to have the blow-out millenial bash at the end!)

**meara wrote:

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this all turned out a bit like Star Wars? We used to think that it was all about Han, Luke and Leia, but once we got the rest of the story, it’s quite obviously about the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin.

What if the universe is not really about humanity at all? What if it’s really about the rise, fall and redemption of Satan, and we’re just missing the big picture?**

Sorta like the plot of Rosencrazen and Guildernstern are Dead? I suppose so, it makes as much sense as any other theology. :smiley:

Taking a cue from Robert Heinlein’s Job, A Comedy of Justice (and Mark Twain), I’ve a feeling Satan isn’t at all like his classic portrayal. After all, everything we’ve been told about him has been by his sworn enemy. Would you believe it?

What if we’re…

JAR JAR BINKS!!!

[sub]The horror… The horror… [/sub]

I was just gonna say, sounds like my “Paradise Lost” class…

The endless discussion we had on “If God knew that it was GOING to happen, why didn’t he just stop it? If he knew Satan was FATED to revolt, why didn’t he just stop him, unless he WANTED him to be evil? And why didn’t he just throw him down into hell instead of having a war?”

Ah, the wonderful paradoxes of religion.

Pratchett? Gaiman!

Ok, ok, Pratchett AND Gaiman.

I was going to ask if anybody here had read “Good Omens”. At one point I was considering starting a “Book that Might Change Your Life” thread about it :smiley: .

Actually I’m serious, as I would much rather live in a world full of people who’s lives were changed by Neil and Terry than by Timothy LaHaye. And their version is far more plausible.

This is not a bad thought just not accurate as in point of time and why Satan was forced to leave Heaven. You see at the time man and woman were created the devil was already cast out of heaven. Remember the snake in the Garden of Eden?

The reason the Devil was asked to leave is because he was prideful and he wanted to be God.

I believe if he won(which he can’t), he would destroy us all because unlike God he doesn’t love us.

There is a terrific pair of books by James Blish,* Black Easter*, in which a sorcerer, at the behest of an amoral industrialist, sets off Armageddon in a conjuration gone horribly wrong; and The Day After Judgement, in which God is dead and the rebel angels have defeated the Hosts of Heaven and have set up Hell on Earth, literally. The novel ends with Satan having been forced to become God, because the structure of the universe demands it. So because Satan is forced to become the epitome of goodness, He finds Himself stuck in a new version of Hell.

[quote]

You see at the time man and woman were created the devil was already cast out of heaven. Remember the snake in the Garden of Eden? The reason the Devil was asked to leave is because he was prideful and he wanted to be God. I believe if he won(which he can’t), he would destroy us all because, unlike God, (Satan) doesn’t love us.
[/quote
OK, the End Times are upon us because WB has not only been right twice in a row, he actually wrote a legible paragraph.

One minor quibble: according to Christian mythology ,Satan wasn’t asked to leave, he was hurled out of Heaven by St. Michael after a fierce battle.

I concur he was thrown out. But I don’t remember the fierce battle could you reference that for me. I would like to read it. Thanks.

BTW Goboy I saw a movie about the End Times the other day that you might find interesting. It was called “Tribulation” by Cloud Ten pictures. It starred Gary Busey and Howie Mandell. Although it had the substandared production value that Christian movies have for some reason, it had some interesting theories on how the Satan/AntiChrist would use technology to carry out his plans.

You know that only God is omnipresent and the devil can be at only one place at once. He used a vitual reality headset to decieve people into taking his mark. I thought it was a pretty interesting and possible concept.

“And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” – Revelation 12:7-9

Wildest Bill wrote:

Oh, Bill, I think you can figure out why Christian movies tend to have low production values. :wink:

If that were true, it means Satan can only “tempt” one person into doing evil at a time. That means that whenever two Christians in different parts of the world claim that Satan was trying to tempt them at the same time, at most one of them can be right.

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books make more sense than the Bible does, IMO. And they’re a lot funnier to boot.

(Despite being an avowed atheist, I harbor a secret wish that I will be greeted by Pratchett’s Death when I finally kick the bucket. It’d make it all worthwhile… :))

Because the Devil runs Hollyweird right? :wink:

[/quote]
If that were true, it means Satan can only “tempt” one person into doing evil at a time. That means that whenever two Christians in different parts of the world claim that Satan was trying to tempt them at the same time, at most one of them can be right. **
[/QUOTE]

This is the right train of thought tracer except you forget that the devil took a 1/3 of the angels with him. And in one place in the Bible I can think of it mentions their is a 100 million angels. So there is 33 & 1/3 real Hell’s so to speak tempting people all the time. Also man has a sinful nature so he can sin even without being tempted.

MEBuckner thanks for the verse.