I guess “he’s a symbol of the capacity for evil in all people” is too lame. Maybe it’s the tendency among elementary age kids toward, “I’m in trouble, so I’m gonna get you in trouble too.”
God and Satan both reportedly have powers to alter reality to their own choosing. With such a power over their surroundings, how can you feel any sense of accomplishment? If you can create a billion worlds and make yourself emperor of all of them by just snapping your finger, what’s the point?
But according to Christian belief, people have free will. So God or Satan can’t take control of a person’s soul without that person’s agreement. Collecting a soul is something that both God and Satan have to work for, so it’s something that holds meaning to them.
That would explain a lot about LoL’s public chat actually.
Personally I’ve always liked the theory according to which Satan never rebelled at all. He’s just doing his job on behalf of the sky beard ; and always was - tempting people or angels to question, doubt and stray from the one true path ; just so God can get all retributive in reaction. Or all benevolent and forgiving about it anyway (depending on the exact level of ineffability built into the Plan). God’s own devil’s advocate, if you will.
A deeper con-game theology has god creating Satan with such and such personality kinks *specifically *so he would rebel, and thus unbeknownst to him fulfilling the same role of assessor of people’s moral standing.
More prosaically, the devil’s included in the theology because a) “if god loves us and can do miracles, why the Black Plague ?” has always been a bit of a stumper for the clergy and b) getting into eternal paradise is nice and all, but knowing your asshole of a neighbour’s going straight to eternal torment instead ? Now that’s bliss you can’t buy.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
I have a pet theory that Satan won the big fight, and sits around in heaven having those who kissed his ass in life kiss his ass in death, while God as much as possible encourages freedom of thought and deed.
[/QUOTE]
Interesting ! Hadn’t come across that one yet. Me likey.
In a lot of games one has to accumulate a certain number of chips each time before moving to the next level.
That would suggest that things are not as they seem, that we have indeed been hoodwinked.
Maybe the Cathars were right. God is indeed pure and love, and after death our souls return to his realm. However, it can only do so if still pure.
Satan’s deception is the Bible, which tells us God created the world.
In reality, it is Satan that has created the world, God is not in this realm, and everything on earth is impure.
With every interaction we have with this world, our souls get tainted more and more, until it becomes so aflicted that a reunion with God’s spirit world becomes impossible.
Because having a few successes being well publicized would simply encourage more people to take their chances. If one person who beats the devil encourages ten thousand to try and fail, that’s a decent strategy.
And you gave away all your money to the very self-sacrificing *bonhommes *who volunteered to take on all the evils of this base, material world…
Incidentally, Cathars also considered reproduction sinful and discouraged it. Which follows logically from the premise that the material world is intrinsically evil and a trap set by a black antigod, of course. Not sure why they also held all killing abhorrent - seems to me like rescuing another from the big evil prison and hurrying them back to the purely spiritual goodness realm would have been a good deed.
Are you sure? I thought it was the bonhommes or pefecti that gave away their money to begin a life of purity.
I might have gotten it the wrong way 'round, yeah. But either way, the Cathar strongholds didn’t become immensely, crusade-motivatingly wealthy by accident.
Tis your right, ask and you shall receive. It’s called reincarnation - a cycle of dieing over and over again. The effects of karma are however cumulative (after you die, the judgement) and things get harder each time you die. Eventually you will want out, but till then enjoy, it can be fun. For those who make the deal with the devil, you can have even more fun here, living off the misery of others which is added to your joy (you are given a higher place in the pyramid with people under you)
Satan lost the war, it is no win for him, it never was:
[QUOTE=John 16:11]
and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
[/QUOTE]
Defeated by a small hybrid child.
Satan can now only rule over his own children (those in a worldly power structure)
[QUOTE=John 8:44]
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
[/QUOTE]
and
[QUOTE=1 John 3:10]
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
[/QUOTE]
Satan has no hold over God’s children. And since we are all ultimately children of God we will all eventually leave the pyramid scheme of Satan, bottom first, as each successive layer leaves the higher layers become the new bottom and will leave and the refining fire of hell grows hot enough to eventually refine Satan.
This is also why I believe the sayings like, blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth, because they are the ones at the bottom, the first to leave and get their reward, the new earth God will create as written in scripture (Is 65:17 & 66:22, 2 Peter 3:13, Rev 21:1)
Yes God encourages free thought and a relationship (as shown by Jesus’s relationship with the Father), Satan encourages group think and religion (we are not designed for this group think, it is unacceptable long term)
Because it’s fun.
“It’s not religion when I do it.”
The story goes Lucifer was a powerful angel who became jealous of his creator and craved to replace God so that he could enjoy God’s power and people’s veneration. Lucifer’s choice to rebel triggered his fall, demonization and “redenomination” as Satan.
Wikipedia teaches that “for most Christians, Satan is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God. His goal is to lead people away from the love of God; i.e., to lead them to evil.”
In Christianity, God is the supreme authority in creation and unique source of divine force (with angels and saints deriving their powers and strength from God). If Satan were a source of divine force in himself, it would make him a divinity in his own right and Christianity would turn from a monotheistic religion into a dualist one.
Yet, Satan is known to possess great supernatural strength. And we know from what Christians preach that Satan uses his powers to oppose God as the unique authority in creation and to win adherents among human beings.
When talking to educated Christians, I am told Satan’s tremendous strength ultimately stems in God’s divine force. Satan’s powers are limited by God, who only uses Satan for separating the wheat from the chaff, morally speaking. Those who resist Satan will dwell the heavens whereas those who make a pact with the devil will go to hell. It’s that simple.
Really?
Either God does play dice after all or he doesn’t.
Either God does play dice, because Lucifer might not have chosen to rebel and the Grand Plan of the Ages could have gone down the drain, or he doesn’t and Lucifer was originally endowed with the God-like jealousy that triggered his primordial fall and his current crave for human souls.
God didn’t want humans to know about good and evil, He forbade eating the fruit of the tree of such knowledge. So if no one minds the allusion to Azimov’s Foundation series, God’s been writing His plan in blue ever since. Give the Old Guy a break …
I think most everyone over the age of 5 years old has some sense of what is right and what is wrong, and that most of the fighting over what that should be is over minor details. Just about everyone agrees that [insert heinous act] is wrong and that [insert act of beauty] is right. Considering the great wealth of human literature on this subject, I’d say don’t expect a final answer anytime soon.
Melkor didn’t create orcs, he had to corrupt elves … just saying …
The idea I’m familiar with is that Satan’s entire goal is to rule, to be in charge. By corrupting humans, he gets to rule over them.
The idea that God has already won the battle is not really what I get out of the Bible. It reads more like God will inevitably win, but Satan is going to try his hardest anyways.
And, yes, if we go by the Old Testament characterization of Satan, he is doing so as part of his job. The New Testament seems to make him more an adversary that God allows because it serves his purpose. But it also makes a big deal of saying that it’s wrong to blame God for what Satan does, so I can understand getting a mixed message out of the deal.
And, for anyone new: kanicbird does not in any way speak for anyone but himself and his own version of Christianity. He had a near death experience that informs his spirituality. Unfortunately, so have a lot of other people, who get different ideas from it.
Satan wants human souls because they taste like chicken, and he basically lives in the world’s largest grill.
(I was tricked by the evil one into capitalizing his name, because it began a sentence.)
Oh wow, what a demotion. From almighty God to a slick MacGyver.
By forging his creation, the “Old Guy” hoped to get the best place to retire, equipped with a perfect garden, a great assortment of animals and two human specimens. But then - out of the blue, unforeseen and unaticipated - there came Satan in the form of a snake who tempted Eve and the Old Guy’s retirement plans went down the tubes. The snake was condemned to crawl forever, Adam (and his male descendants) to toil hard to make ends meet, and Eve (and her female descendants) to give birth painfully from then on. Mankind ensued. And that’s how the Old Guy’s cosmic opportunism led to the earthly selection for the choir ensemble of heaven.
Funny but incongruous. The incident in the garden of Eden includes Satan, whose form as a talking intelligent serpent presuposes possession of God-given powers, whose sole purpose, according to the dogma, are to select the wheat from the chaff. It was a trap: with Satan’s assistance, God had Adam and Eve punk’d.
My point? Whatever Satan’s angle was in this, God must have been aware of and comfortable with it.
God ?, Satan?, no one has mentioned Smaug the Magnificent. My favourite fictional baddie.
Actually, there are very few stories about Satan double crossing anyone in a deal. He’s usually very scrupulous about delivering what he promised. It’s just that the human in the deal usually belatedly realizes that whatever he got from Satan isn’t worth the cost.
I don’t think it’s surprising that Satan keeps up his end of the deal. As I noted above, Satan is powerful and delivering most of the things a person would ask for are trivial to Satan’s resources. So Satan’s biggest problem is going to be having his contracts declared void - and failure to deliver would be an easy grounds for that.
Your atheism is so edgy.
The OP asked people to work within a traditional Christian context.