just commenting on the part about humans doing deals with satan and the analogy of the temptation of jesus. i forget exactly what were the terms and
conditions applied to Jesus in order for him to be granted the kingdoms of the world by Satan, but the fact remains that Jesus had to do something
first before Satan would give him the world. Just that alone symbolizes that man is the one who controls the good/evil connotations of their actions,
and not Satan. I think Satan is just a concept for the animal instinct in humans, which is all about self preservation and survival of the fittest.
The 7 deadly sins almost outline the emotional method of self preservation
all animals are gluttonous, they eat as much as possible because the next meal is not guaranteed
all are greedy, because more is better in the purely materialistic sense(why have less when you can have more?), and greed is a method of self
preservation (i have more, means you have less, means i am better).
all lust because it is a natural animal instinct to mate and reproduce, and unless you draw a line or give a stronger significance to that instinct,
its just plain raunchy sex.
with envy i think that this pertains more to humans, because envy is typically based off of superficial or materialistc desires, though its not to say
an elephant aint envious of another elephants lady (lust lol)
of course wrath or hate is just another form of anger resultant of envy
and pride is something every individual organism has, or else if not, we'd all be living in a perfect world, because every one of these other 6 'sins'
are expressions of pride, the wanting to insert "I" or "Me" in everything, to be or feel lke you are the top, you are the fittest.
if you look at the concept of demons and angels through a naturalist or evolutionist perspective, the idea of god and satan become compensatory
symbols created by humans because of their lack of understanding pr primitive understanding of the human nature, just as any other ancient or even
modern religion is example of. if you take into consideration the evolution of primitive religion to modern religion, you see that the philosophy and
the ideas of these ancient beliefs had been refined to what are the now monotheistic religions, and no even furthermore there are the scientific
religions.
anyways im getting off topic. what i wanted to point out, is that satan has no more influence over human action than god does. humans contain divine
and satanic motives within them. Human's are that special organism that are aware of the good and bad in them. of course the definition of good and
bad has developed and evolved along with the understanding of the self and the universe almost synchronously. but my point is that satan or god is
only in as much of anything as you allow it to be, and i think if you blame satan or god for something, you are only trying to point the finger
somewhere else.
edit on 20-11-2010 by asperetty because: (no reason given)