My username has nothing to do with this post. Just a coincidence as I thought my avatar image looked really cool and decided a username based off of it. On the contrary; I don't even believe that Satan exists.

I'm an atheist (actually just strongly agnostic) so this really means nothing to me other than it being an interesting thought which I wanted to hear opinions on. I would especially love to hear opinions from Christians. So, if you're Christian, it'd also be interesting if you'd post your denomination and how seriously take your faith along with your post.

That way, I'll be able to see the differences in responses between near polar opposites like say basically a recreational Catholic versus a strong fundamentalist.

Since I have no real bias towards anyone or anything in the Bible, the events described in it really lead me to believe that if Christianity is true then Satan must be the actual good guy. Accordingly, 'God' seems to be what the scriptures accuse Satan of being: a tricky, manipulative source of evil.

Consider: Satan gave mankind knowledge and an enhanced ability to think. The Bible somehow spins educating humans or giving them enhanced powers of thought as an 'evil' thing.

Compare: God basically killed the entire human race in a flood for having sex too loudly. Genocide. Actually, genocide is just the destruction of one people; God destroyed all peoples except one guy and his family. So, this is genocide on another level.

Then there's the trickery of Job and killing his family, telling people to kill their families and letting them follow through, etc.

Yet, all this terrible stuff, some of it worse than the worse actions of a Hitler on genocidal steroids, gets rationalized as 'good'.

What I'm seeing here is 'Genocide of Entire Human Race = Good' and 'Educating = Bad'. This sounds insane to me. I really have to question the moral integrity, and if that's not lacking then the intelligence (because the person must have been deceived by the Bible in this case), of anyone who shares this opinion that a good Christian should theoretically hold.

If you read the entire Bible and compare the actual actions (so, objectively) of Satan and God, Satan really doesn't do anything evil except maybe kill some of Job's family along with God while God is murdering babies, committing flood-apocalypses, also killing Job's family, etc.

Revelations describes someone who will trick people into believing a false God and thus lead them to eternal damnation in the end times.

Well, doesn't God kind of sound a little bit in character like this anti-Christ given this context due to tricking people into thinking that genocide is good and knowledge is bad?

I'm not saying that God is the anti-Christ because that's obviously not the case but they really do seem to share similar (all the evil ones I mean) personality traits.

[edit on 3/12/10 by RedDragon]

[edit on 3/12/10 by RedDragon]

You are under the misguided knowledge that the shell you are wondering around in is your life. Nothing further from the truth. Think about the word life. Life itself is free to come and go at gods word. It's kind of like you are the car and God is the driver. You don't want to stay on the road that God wants to go so you control yourself instead. Just a little analogy. Since mankind was vain enough to even take the wheel from God he says,"Fine. Go where you will. I will tell you where to go and you can drive." Some people will listen to him and some want to go where ever they feel like going. God knows where to go and how to get there. Some would rather be on the highway of life with no driver behind the wheel. It's your choice. But it's just a car you are driving.

To the OP if you are an agnostic you are not an atheist i believe. If you were an atheist you would believe in no higher power at all. A divine nihilist.

I'm technically an agnostic. Technically because I can't prove a negative (negative = god doesn't exist). I mean I can't prove Zeus doesn't exist either.

However, I can deduce arguments showing that both have a very low probability of existing. Such a low probability, I mean less than 1 in a billion, that it might as well converge to 0. However, since the probability doesn't actually converge to 0, I have to say that I'm technically agnostic.

But really, just as 1/billion might as = 0, I might as well be an atheist. I'm speaking of a concrete number here that calculated based on DNA analysis and claims about human history made the Bible by the way, not just a random low probability.

The probability comes from how DNA forms and how the DNA should have formed if what the Bible describes is true.

[edit on 3/12/10 by RedDragon]

This is actually quite interesting. I myself believe in a higher power, but definately not in the god of christianity.

I allways wondered about the christian god and how cruel his actions seem to be sometimes. I have read a bit in the bible, mainly because it is such an influential book that I thought I should at least know whats in there.

I cannot really say anything about the devil, but I too think that God pretty much doesn´t care about the individual. Maybe he focusses more on humanity as a hole, like we would look at an ant farm. If we had to kill a couple of ants to save the whole farm we would do it wouldn´t we?

Maybe our subjective perspective ruins the picture a little. But anyway, I am getting of topic. Definately interested in the answers from the christians in here.

S+F from me.

Hey guys,

No Christian, but belever in the unimaginable, unprenouncable and uncomrehendable. But I think I can contribute maybe, by refering to Genisys.

God is the one who gave us free will.
He presented us with the tree of life, basically containing all the wisdom God posesses right?

He forbid us to eat from it's fruits, and left the damn thing in paradise for us to stare at. We had everything we want and owned more then we could consume, but we wanted more, and that bugger Satan knew that.

So we made a choice: wake up in the screwed up world we call home now like Neo, to know what we know now.

God forgave us right? And he presents us with another choice:
Commit, or perrish.

Well... scew the damn woman for being curious, and cursed dude who fel for here charms...

It is Satan who brought us here in the first place. So yes he is a bad bad man.

(sorry double post, please delete this one?)

[edit on 12-3-2010 by Sover3igN]

[edit on 12-3-2010 by Sover3igN]

I think in most organized religions, Satan, the devil, or whathaveyou, usually represents those aspects of humanity most oppressed by that particular religion. Hence in christianity the devil represents sexuality and the quest for knowledge. He is the necessary part of any ideology that completes the human whole. As such, he/she provides the balance to gods order with chaos, of discipline with creativity, and yin to yang. Part of the same being in my mind, as all that exists IS god.

well, Im a pretty devout Christian of the Southern Baptist denomination. The first quesiton you have to ask is who's "good" is the goal here. what you consider to be your or humanities personal good OR God's ultimate good. Was not Job twice as wealthy both in material wealth and character because of the "bad" he experienced. Satan gives what is precieved as good. However, it is temporary. God is after eternal good. Think about living a party life. Does it not feel good to have sex, drink, party, etc. How fleeting are these "good times" In the end you end up burned out, worn down, or dead. Satan wants you to be as "happy" as possible while living this temporary existence so he can laugh while you burn in torment forever. God does the exact opposite, he would rather you experience temporary pain and eternal rest.

But, besides all this, it isn't about our good anyway. God only does what is good for Him. Which fortunately is also what is good for us. Satan plays on the pride to make people think that personal "good" is more important and better then God's good.

So I pose a question, even though you don't believe, BUT....assuming Heaven and Hell exist which is the greater good... To see temporary pleasure and face eternal torment and pain...or to trust God even in the midst of pain and have eternal rest... Any honest person would chose the latter.

Also, with great knowledge comes great resposibility. There are some burdons that man was never meant to bear. I don't care how smart, intelligent, and prideful you think you are, but the knowledge that Satan offered was disturbing, not enlightening. I know that it is human nature to be curious, but there are things better left unknown. When Adam and Eve found their "knowledge" they were ashamed and grieved not thankful and fulfilled. I mean think about learning about unspeakable things that go on and feeling a burdon and wanting to weep. Feeling weighed down and not being able to sleep. Knowledge is not always "good" Sometimes it will wreak your world.

It's simple really: without night you'd have no concept of day. It would just be bright all the time and those words would have no meaning. Without darkness light has no meaning. Without evil good has no meaning.

In Genesis God is creator of both darkness and light. By the time you get to Revelations God is all light and the Devil is pure darkness. Somewhere in between the two books there was a significant change in thinking.

Originally posted by trueperspective
Also, with great knowledge comes great resposibility. There are some burdons that man was never meant to bear. I don't care how smart, intelligent, and prideful you think you are, but the knowledge that Satan offered was disturbing, not enlightening. I know that it is human nature to be curious, but there are things better left unknown. When Adam and Eve found their "knowledge" they were ashamed and grieved not thankful and fulfilled. I mean think about learning about unspeakable things that go on and feeling a burdon and wanting to weep. Feeling weighed down and not being able to sleep. Knowledge is not always "good" Sometimes it will wreak your world.

Your defense of God's actions and condemnation of Satan's actions is that ignorance is bliss? That God is then a proactive agent of ignorance which is against the stated goal here at Abovetopsecret.com.. What are you doing here then if you support ignorance?

Usually, beings that thrive from another being's ignorance due so due to deception. Trying to convince people that ignorance is in their own best interest.. Do you see how this sounds if you try to reason it out and not just accept the written rationale?

Also, see my previous post on the implications of accepting the written rationale. By accepting ignorance and thus the limited ability to understand right and wrong, a conclusion on whether God is good and Satan is bad is impossible to reach.

There are then only 2 possible conclusions: we can't know or God is bad. Based on the context, the former seems absurd.

I don't believe in an NWO but assume it exists; this sounds exactly like them saying 'we committed genocide, etc. but trust us - we are good and the old powers are bad because we have a higher understanding of good and evil that you can't reach. So, the smartest thing to do is trust us and live in ignorance."


[edit on 3/12/10 by RedDragon]

A quote from one of my favorite authors of all time seems apropos to this discussion. Here we see Lord Vetinari (the ruler of the fictional Ankh-Morpork) meditating on the nature of good and evil in the universe:

"One day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald (note: the Discworld version of Eastern Europe) I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to its day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children.

And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."
-- Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

In relationship to the morality evidenced by the god of Christianity, I can not express my feelings better than Terry has here. It may not be easy to define exactly why I am an agnostic/atheist, but it is quite easy to explain why I am not a Christian.

To Trueperspective: The question you ask is known as Pascal's Wager. Of course, Pascal's wager only works when there are 2 options (no god verses the Christian one). There is equally no proof that your god, or Zeus, or the god of the Mormons or Allah or a hundred others are real. So if one chooses simply on the "just in case" reason to worship some deity least he punish you forever if you don't, how on earth do you decide which one?

One last side note on this way of thinking. As a child I was quite religious in a general Christian kind of way (far more than my parents), until the day two missionaries came knocking on my door. I was horrified to discover that no matter how well you lived your life, what good you bring to the world or whether you were just following what your dominant culture told you, that you would be damned to eternal hell and punishment for not "loving" the Christian god in exactly the right way. Even a 10 year old could tell that this is fundamentally and morally wrong, and such a being (assuming for the moment that they existed) is not actually worthy of the love and admiration it demands at eternal knife point.

Christianity lost a member that day, never to return.

Satan was created so men could claim to be working on the side of good and their opponents on the side of evil. Clearly Abraham did not believe in a lord of darkness or he would have blamed him for what happened to Isaac. If there's only one true God then the Devil can't exist.

I was raised in a Missionary Baptist church, my Grandfather was the Preacher there until I was 12. After that , I tried to be a member of various Southern Baptist churches until I was in my late twenties. The problem is that there is no truth being preached in organized religion. That is why myself and my family, all of them, had to come out of the churches. The damage that "religion" has done to mens souls is horrific. The truth of Yahweh and Yeshua has not been spoken of in many years. I cannot convince you of why my faith in my Father is so strong, only that it was not until He told me "Come out from among them" that He began to teach me the truth, to remove the scales from my eyes that I could see that the deception that has been brought on the world is so strong that I am helpless against it. I only know and believe what He has promised, that those who belong to Him will see and know the truth of this world. I cannot help but believe that places like ATS are full of those that will be His, but those are the ones who fight hardest against it.


This world has taught us that the things that Yahweh does are mean, bad and evil. That will continue to be what we hear for as long as Satan has reign on the earth. Nothing that I or anyone else says can change your mind about what is true and what is deception. All that I can do is ask that mercy be shown to those that are to be saved. If I sound like a crackpot, so be it. What do you suppose that they thought about John the Baptist or any of Yeshua's disciples? They taught the most radical form of religion that had ever been heard. So, if I am called "nutty", or "zealous", I can count it for glory!