Satan: Humanity's Hero

DazDaKing
reply to post by QueenofSpades

 

Samjaza, feeling sickened by the apparent betrayal (believing the Jinn were his greatest creation) and consumed by his own pride - refuses to bow to the human.

Since you refered to Islam as a source for the above story, wouldn't it be right to use the Arabic name Iblis, the jinn who refused to bow down to Adam in Islam, and the name of the Shaytan? Semjaza is the fallen angel who taught man the Name of God, and who was the leader of the 18 "chiefs of ten" or the 200 fallen angels who made the pact at mount Hermon in the Book of Enoch (Chapter VI). The Gospel of Bartholomew has a similar story to that of Islam and the fall of Satan (then again, Satan seems to rise and fall on a regular basis):

But the devil said: [...] when I came from the ends of the earth Michael said: Worship thou the image of God, which he hath made according to his likeness. But I said: I am fire of fire, I was the first angel formed, and shall worship clay and matter? And Michael saith to me: Worship, lest God be wroth with thee. But I said to him: God will not be wroth with me; but I will set my throne over against his throne, and I will be as he is. Then was God wroth with me and cast me down, having commanded the windows of heaven to be opened.(Gospel of Bartholomew IV 52ff)

reply to post by QueenofSpades


Definitely. If you were to read the OT without any sort of input or influence from the church or proponents of the OT god, you would come to the very clear conclusion that the good guy definitely wasn't the one they focus on.

rickymouse
Satan is the tester, he tests our worthiness. I don't think this being is actually evil. If we take the bait we suffer the consequences. We are the ones who take the bait, Satan is just the fisherman. So is the fisherman evil, collecting souls to consume. I don't think so. If we do not desire more wealth than we need or more respect than we really deserve, we shouldn't have a problem.

With Job, he also tested the OT god's cruelty. Christians read Job thinking it was to test Job's faith but I think it was to illustrate how far the OT god will go to protect his pride.

It would be like a father tearing apart all of his child's toys, friends, and kittens in front of him and then poison him just to prove to the neighbor that his kid will still love him afterwards. Pretty evil in my book.

QueenofSpades


In the Garden of Eden, Lord God is upset when God, later cosidered a Serpent (aka: a traitor) decides to enlighten humanity with knowledge by advancing their intelligence. Why upset? Because you don't need your slaves being too smart.

I see it differently. I do see it as a free will issue, though.

I see this event as our downfall. We gained an illusion of free will, and in doing so, lost sight of what is really in control.

Harmony is when everything happens at the right time. To be aware of it, you have to be aware of that which is in control of it all. Its not you, so thinking you're in control prevents you from having this awareness.

To think you are in control, to me, seems like a fallacy. After all, you didn't choose to be born. You didn't choose to be a human. That includes all the predispositions that a human has in the ways it behaves. So you are already limited in these aspects. But it doesn't stop there. You are limited by your genetics. You are limited by your size and shape. There are many limitations put in place to make you a unique person. But you're going to do what you were made to do. You're going to do human stuff to survive. You're going to get a job. You're going to go to school. You're going to eat. You're going to crap. You're going to drive a car. You're going to sleep. You're going to do all this stuff. Is it because you want to? I don't want to.

So I dont believe Im in control, but am more like, "doing the will of God through me". And so the way I see it, the rebellion through Satan was our downfall. Although, I dont hold it against Satan. I dont hate Satan. It is what it is. Thats my motto.

reply to post by smithjustinb


I beg to differ. For I certainly believe I decided to be a human and entered this body I am currently borrowing from the good lord's genesis. I believe I am here for a reason, a reason I myself dictated and decided upon. Time can be warped easily and thoughts have no mass, so Einstein doesn't apply here, or rather the dark side of relativity-- does, and apparently, so does quantum mechanics. Reality and time is somewhat fluid and 'polymorph' for lack of a better word-- in it's dimentions, not as fixed and straight forward as most people will like it to be. We can change the past, and move between neighbouring realities. I call them 'timespaces'-- bubbles of time containing various dimentional continuums. If I die here, I will live on somewhere else, I may not even have noticed I died. We can visit the future by changing nous with our future selves, a process I call dancing, we can preach to the dead and travel to distant star systems. Instantly. And we can make the world around us be exactly as we believe or understand it to be. It would be compared to dancing with the gods. Every shape in the body can be replicated by flames, we are flames taken out of the fire. And one day we will return to that fire just to repeat the process with a different soul, but with the same nous.

Cuervo

rickymouse
Satan is the tester, he tests our worthiness. I don't think this being is actually evil. If we take the bait we suffer the consequences. We are the ones who take the bait, Satan is just the fisherman. So is the fisherman evil, collecting souls to consume. I don't think so. If we do not desire more wealth than we need or more respect than we really deserve, we shouldn't have a problem.

With Job, he also tested the OT god's cruelty. Christians read Job thinking it was to test Job's faith but I think it was to illustrate how far the OT god will go to protect his pride.

It would be like a father tearing apart all of his child's toys, friends, and kittens in front of him and then poison him just to prove to the neighbor that his kid will still love him afterwards. Pretty evil in my book.

I think you are forgetting that humanity is on Earth as a PUNISHMENT . . . .

Most folks here talking about how horrible the Biblical God is because "He" allows pain, suffering, war and all that goes along with it to go on completely ignore this point.

The original sin was disobeying God because he was the true incarnation of the "philosopher king," perfect in wisdom and providing all that is required.

Then mankind goes along and thinks they know better and eat the fruit of good and evil (which is essentially interpreted as ALL KNOWING FRUIT) and God boots them out of Heaven into a "sandbox" environment where they can attempt to rule themselves and learn that they are not suited to rule themselves.

All this boo-hooing about the Biblical God being horrible and evil just further demonstrates how completely ignorant of, or biased against, the text folks really are.

The Satan, adversary, committed the very same sin by attempting to overthrow God just as mankind attempts to do later. His punishment is a result of coaxing the ignorant humans into following him.

LoL at this thread, its the same joke repeated daily on this site.

-FBB

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


Sooo your claiming the garden was actually heaven. So why did god toss out and punish all the other creatures?

Anyway any Mormon can tell you the garden was on earth in the US.

"Latter-day Saints know, through modern revelation, that the Garden of Eden was on the North American continent and that Adam and Eve began their conquest of the earth in the upper part of what is now the state of Missouri. It seems very probable that the children of our first earthly parents moved down along the fertile, pleasant lands of the Mississippi valley.

link

reply to post by QueenofSpades


This strikes me as a very surface-analysis of the role that a satan, or the Satan, plays in Judeo-Christian religion. I'm not a Christian or a Jew by any means, but even I see glaring faults in your review of such an important figure.

Christians refer to the devil as “Satan” and, according to basic Christian doctrine, Satan is the epitome of all that is evil.

Not quite. The Satan is an angel, variously belonging to Seraphim, Cherubim, Powers, and Archangel choirs (in Hebraic lore) before his Fall from Grace. A satan (lowercase) is a being that tests the believer's faith in God. This is, obviously, where you arrived at the definition of Satan as "the adversary," although they're not quite the same thing.

The Devil is another figure entirely, although modern Christians, erroneously, choose to believe that the Devil is Satan. The Devil, in actuality, is a representation of the pagan and heathen elements that Christianity encountered as it spread across Europe. The common image of the Devil borrows very heavily from Pan, the rustic Grecco-Roman satyr-god of the countryside; and Cernunnos,the Gaulish "horned-god," a huntsman and shaman representing the bounty and wisdom of nature.

While modern preachers combine the Devil and Satan together, both figures have their own unique origins: one (Satan) as a construct of the Judeo-Christian mythos; the other (the Devil) as anti-pagan propaganda against rival belief systems. Satan is a part of Judeo-Christian cosmology, while the Devil is a response to non-Christian cosmologies.

As for the epitome and author of evil, the Bible very clearly spells that one out for us:

2 Kings 6:33
And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the LORD; what should I wait for the LORD any longer?

Isiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Job 2:10
But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Lamentations 3:38
Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?

Amos 3:6
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Satan's crime was pride, not evil. Satan refused to acknowledge Man as God's most beautiful and precious creatures, and for his pride he was cast out of Heaven, alongside one-third of the Angels, who, like Satan, believed themselves to be superior to Man, and therefore considered men unworthy of praise.

However, much of this, even, is from extra-Biblical sources that are not considered proper canon. Works like Milton's Paradise Lost, or Dante's The Divine Comedy are often the origin of much of Satan's humanization, as well as the proverbial "War in Heaven" that romantics fawn over.

All of them were 'gods'. By them, I refer to any being that was extraterrestrial in nature. If the being was not of Earth origin, ancient civilizations referred to them as 'gods (today we call them aliens)... ...The title 'Lord' distinguishes the highest ranking god. Satan to was a 'god'; just later deemed A SATAN, which means "adversary" when he rebelled and decided to side with humanity.

The actual reason for the use of terms like elohim and eloah has more to do with where Yhvh, the God of the Hebrews, originated, instead of a clash between warring divinities over who would rule man. Yhvh is a Canaanite war-god, often equated with Ēl, the supreme-god mentioned in a number of Ugaritic texts. The "gods" referred to by the term elohim are the family of divinities worshiped by the Semitic tribes, including Ēl, Asherah, Ba'al-Hadad, Mot, Yamm, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and so on.

Many of these figures (Ba'al-Hadad and Ashtoreth being the most prevalent) have cognates in nearly every culture from the Ancient Near East, and over time they developed wide-spread agricultural, royal, and religious cults. When the Judahtes and Israelites were vying for dominion of their supposed Holy Land (as well as trying to unify themselves) it was these rival cults, like the Baalites and adorers of Ashtoreth, whom they had to wrestle power away from.

As the Israelites and Judahites unified into a cohesive Hebrew tribe they began to use propaganda as a method of discouraging worship of the "false gods" found throughout the Levant. By creating tales where Yhvh overcomes Ba'al-Hadad, or where the adorers of Ashtoreth are punished for their sinful ways, it served to incite a more zealous and fervent devotion to Yhvh, whose overwhelming strength and goodness (according to the tales of the Hebrews) was unmatched by any other god. This, in turn, created a kind of cultural identity (often passed off in the modern day as an ethnicity, although it isn't) among the Hebrews.

There never was a "war" between two rival divine factions. Nor was there a group of deities who "chose man," as you say. Every deity, from Yhvh to Enki, has moments of goodness and harshness to their character. To say that the Judeo-Christian god doesn't love man, but that Satan does, would be as erroneous as claiming that the Judeo-Christian god only loves man. The reason for the split, and cultural bias against "false gods," was because of nationalism and nothing else.

Satan was not evil at all. Just wrongfully slandered by the winner.

More or less. Although it is really Evangelicals, and other "fire-and-brimstone" preachers, who attempt to convert out of fear, instead of letting their faith stand by its merits alone, who have done so much harm to the image of the angel Satan and the satans.


~ Wandering Scribe

Krazysh0t
All one has to do is look at the story of Job to see God's evilness. Here is a story where the "good guy" tortures and destroys an innocent man's life all on a BET! Either God is truly evil or just got divinely trolled by Satan by getting God to do his evil work for him. Many apologists will claim that Job gets a new family and life as a reward for his devotion, but what about the other people? You may remember there are a few other people that were affected by this bet. Namely Job's family and servants. Do they not count? They end up as collateral damage in this stupid bet, almost like the poor police officers driving a patrol car during an action movie chase that gets blown up or t-boned due to some crazy driving by the villain while the hero swerves around the danger. Sure Job gets to go on happy that he has a new life, but these people are dead. And they remain dead when the story is over. We all know that God is supposed to be able to do anything, so why couldn't he bring these people back from the dead? But who cares about them right? Job our hero, turns out fine in the end.

edit on 12-3-2014 by Krazysh0t because: (no reason given)

Derp derp de derp argument as usual Krazysh0t . . .

If you actually read the text humankind was meant to reside in Heaven, NOT Earth. People were exiled to Earth as punishment and so taking their life means absolutely nothing as Biblically the pleasures of the Earth are nothing compared to those of Heaven.

Also, you don't seem to understand the dichotomy made in the Bible between physical death and spiritual death. The Bible basically says that the physical things (those of the flesh) are fleeting, but the spirit lives forever.

Essentially your issues all stem from not accepting the concept of spirits existing and only viewing the "worldly" events and "worldly" outcomes of said events.

You should probably stick to bashing Catholics, you are MUCH better at that to be honest.

-FBB

Grimpachi
reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

 

Sooo your claiming the garden was actually heaven. So why did god toss out and punish all the other creatures?

Anyway any Mormon can tell you the garden was on earth in the US.

"Latter-day Saints know, through modern revelation, that the Garden of Eden was on the North American continent and that Adam and Eve began their conquest of the earth in the upper part of what is now the state of Missouri. It seems very probable that the children of our first earthly parents moved down along the fertile, pleasant lands of the Mississippi valley.

link

LoL

Are you trying to say the Bible says that mankind was not "cast out of Heaven?"

Please do try, I have GOT to see this.

-FBB

QueenofSpades
reply to post by rickymouse

 

Just a poster stated, think about the story of Job. I think that this proves that Satan was not so much a "tester" but a "do my dirty work". Lord god forced Satan to murder Job's family out of a bet, all because he wanted to prove that his subjects loved him.

Satan opposed and pretty much said, 'No, they FEAR you."

Well like Jesus said...."Don't fear him that can kill the body because after that there is nothing more he can do. No, fear Him that can kill the body and then cast the soul into hell".

Just sayin. Don't be hatin.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


Thanks for the input Wandering Scribe.

I must admit I am surprised you didn't point out the glaring logical fallacy the OP agrees with of "Satan gave mankind free will."

How can mankind not have free will and then be coerced into eating of the forbidden fruit? If mankind had no free will then they would not have been able to commit such an action without God willing it.

So many holes in this theory.

-FBB

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


I just asked you what sin did all the animals commit to get cast out? Besides I am not a Mormon if you disagree that Eden was actually in the state of Missouri your issue is with them.

reply to post by QueenofSpades


maybe satan is a state when god is 'crazy' .....like dr jekyll and mr hyde... but they are actually one.

peace

Utnapisjtim
reply to post by smithjustinb

 

I beg to differ. For I certainly believe I decided to be a human and entered this body I am currently borrowing from the good lord's genesis. I believe I am here for a reason, a reason I myself dictated and decided upon. Time can be warped easily and thoughts have no mass, so Einstein doesn't apply here, or rather the dark side of relativity-- does, and apparently, so does quantum mechanics. Reality and time is somewhat fluid and 'polymorph' for lack of a better word-- in it's dimentions, not as fixed and straight forward as most people will like it to be. We can change the past, and move between neighbouring realities. I call them 'timespaces'-- bubbles of time containing various dimentional continuums. If I die here, I will live on somewhere else, I may not even have noticed I died. We can visit the future by changing nous with our future selves, a process I call dancing, we can preach to the dead and travel to distant star systems. Instantly. And we can make the world around us be exactly as we believe or understand it to be. It would be compared to dancing with the gods. Every shape in the body can be replicated by flames, we are flames taken out of the fire. And one day we will return to that fire just to repeat the process with a different soul, but with the same nous.

edit on 12-3-2014 by Utnapisjtim because: Added fire to fire

So you created an imaginary idea of "I chose to be human before I was born", so that your beliefs can be validated to yourself?

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli


I was responding, more, to the personality of Satan, over the supposed actions. My goal wasn't to tear down the OP's thread, but instead to open them up to the historical, mythological, and canonical elements of Satan that I felt their post was lacking.

I myself am not a Christian or a Jew, nor do I accept any kind of Determinism or Fatalism, so I don't put any credence in the whole "free will" conundrum.

If you felt my input was helpful though, then I'm glad at least one reader out there took it to heart.


~ Wandering Scribe

Grimpachi
reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

 

I just asked you what sin did all the animals commit to get cast out? Besides I am not a Mormon if you disagree that Eden was actually in the state of Missouri your issue is with them.

Biblically speaking mankind is the ruler of all the animals and plants, as it says in genesis that Adam named all the beasts and it was given unto ruler ship.

It seems like the point is that with poor rulers (ie not philosopher kings like the God) all things suffer. I don't know if animals committed sins or not as I am no all knowing Biblical scholar. Who is to say animals have souls? Who is to say they don't? It seems like they were in the same unsavory position of the angels who fell with the adversary.

It could be that being given dominion over the animals imparted a connection between the animals and mankind which would extend the sins, or originally the perfection, of mankind to them. Similar concepts are played out in Revelation where the people take the mark of the beast and are given unto the adversary and share in "his" fate.

As for Mormonism, they were founded by a man who practiced most all of the "arts" the Bible says not to (ie Divining, reading omens and such, etc) so that individual is likely not the best person to be trusting for interpreting a text.



My point is that the actual Biblical narrative is completely ignored just to rabble rouse and be oh soooooo "edgy."

-FBB

reply to post by AfterInfinity


interesting

now i want to file a lawsuit against god for what he did in OT: slaughtering, slavery, etc.

ohh wait.... it's just a fiction, isn't it.... nvm

peace

Cuervo


With Job, he also tested the OT god's cruelty. Christians read Job thinking it was to test Job's faith but I think it was to illustrate how far the OT god will go to protect his pride.

It would be like a father tearing apart all of his child's toys, friends, and kittens in front of him and then poison him just to prove to the neighbor that his kid will still love him afterwards. Pretty evil in my book.

Well now as the story goes, it was the hater that made the claim that Job only loves God because God protected and blessed him. So even satan confessed that God treated His people very well. Satans goal was to torment Job to the point that he would turn on God, in effect saying "you let me at him and I will show you". Satan was clearly jealous and hateful toward Job, couldn't get at Job because he was protected.

smithjustinb

Utnapisjtim
reply to post by smithjustinb

 

I beg to differ. For I certainly believe I decided to be a human and entered this body I am currently borrowing from the good lord's genesis. I believe I am here for a reason, a reason I myself dictated and decided upon. Time can be warped easily and thoughts have no mass, so Einstein doesn't apply here, or rather the dark side of relativity-- does, and apparently, so does quantum mechanics. Reality and time is somewhat fluid and 'polymorph' for lack of a better word-- in it's dimentions, not as fixed and straight forward as most people will like it to be. We can change the past, and move between neighbouring realities. I call them 'timespaces'-- bubbles of time containing various dimentional continuums. If I die here, I will live on somewhere else, I may not even have noticed I died. We can visit the future by changing nous with our future selves, a process I call dancing, we can preach to the dead and travel to distant star systems. Instantly. And we can make the world around us be exactly as we believe or understand it to be. It would be compared to dancing with the gods. Every shape in the body can be replicated by flames, we are flames taken out of the fire. And one day we will return to that fire just to repeat the process with a different soul, but with the same nous.

edit on 12-3-2014 by Utnapisjtim because: Added fire to fire

So you created an imaginary idea of "I chose to be human before I was born", so that your beliefs can be validated to yourself?

Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.


The shadow on the wall is completely arbitrary to the reality out there outside the cave. What this world conciders time, is mere observations of perpetual motion, time is so much more, it's like jellyfish.