Or...the explanation of why bad things happen is FAAAR simpler... ...bad things dont happen, nor do good things...good and bad are just flaws in human perception. God doesnt have any concept of good or bad except when its ascociated with us. How can God punish those it loves? Simple and strikingly obvious explanation: He neither punishes nor loves. Love is a human emotion, God has no emotions or even a personality. What percieve as terrible things arent punishments, what we percieve as good arent miracles. Thats just our limited point of view.
I took a course in basic Judaism through a local synagogue a couple of years ago. What they had to say about Satan was that the word "Satan" is not a name, it's a job description. the Satan's job is to test people-to provide tests of faith. The rabbis also said that if you read Job, you'll notice it's not Satan that takes everything away from Job, it's God. Satan just suggests what might work as Job's test of faith. Now: personal belief- I believe that the JOB of Satan is something to be honored-we can all use tests of faith-"whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger" *I* can find no references to any ultimate evil (the devil) in the Old Testament- I believe the legend of the devil came about when Christianity met Zoroastrianism (which from the VERY little I have read on the subject is dualistic: One good god and one bad god), so they created the myth that the tester decided to not only test man, but test God as well. This evolved into the story of Lucifer's rebellion(which is not in the Bible anywhere) A faith not examined is a faith not worth having. One of the reasons I like having people challenge me. if my faith survives the challenge intact, then I become stronger for it. If my faith does not survive the challenge, it was flawed to begin with and needs to be replaced/modified in order for me to grow.
I agree PopeCoyote. Only that "Satan" spelt with a capital letter that we assume that it's name of a "person", which it is. satanic, which is a characteristic of Satan. There's satanism, satanist, satanize But from what I understand, since we are all living in a chaotic world, we can't see Satan, nor know if Satan is actually here, or if she or he just a fictional character. He or she in our mind, trying to drag us down, as plain wicked and evil. In the real world, we are faced with many challenges, God challenges us to make us the best of the best with ourselves, and truly I do believe that this is a test, and no easy test. Satan in our minds do try to somehow alter our faith and consciousness. We have to come up with a way to deal with it, and stresses that occurs. We could easily give ourselves up, but the goodness always previals. Etc and more etc..
I dont believe in the "were being tested" thing. Doesnt make any sense. Testing is a means to aquire a piece of knowledge...yet God is apparently all knowing, so any testing it does is null. I think the "testing" arguement is an over complicated one as are most religious arguements. It always comes back to a totally arbitrary "faith" based arguement. if you have faith in something being true...that doesnt mean its true nor does it form any basis for arguement that its true. In fact, if it was true then it wouldnt be faith.
Speaking as a licensed teacher, I can tell you that testing is NOT a means to acquire knowledge, it is a means to see if you have learned the lessons you were supposed to. I am a great believer in the fact that life is a constant learning process, and once you stop learning, you die. Therefore, testing in this context means that God is testing you to see if you have learned the lessons you were supposed to so far in life. God being omniscient is a different argument altogether, but I'll say at this point that if you believe that he is omniscient, you could say the test is his way of showing you whether or not you've learned it. Your last point however, I'll agree with. Having faith in something may not make it universally true for everyone, but it does make it true and a basis for one person's particular life.
You missed part of my point there. According to Judaic (and my own) thought, the Satan is not evil or wicked. He's a man just doing his job. He's doing a job that no one else wants to do and no one respects him for. Much like a janitor- no one wants to be the person who cleans up after everyone and very few people respect them for it, thinking it's one of the lowest jobs on the totem pole. So I suppose in a way, you could say Satan is the janitor of the human race, assisting us in cleaning up our messes because his tests show us where in our lives/psyches the messes are.
... Satan is no cleaning boy, or Mr. Nice Guy. Satan doesn't clean up after us, he wants us to be in our own mess. You seem to think that Satan is a nice guy that points us in the right direction. No, he wants us to be down with him, Satan doesn't even care, he laughs at how stupid we are. 1. "He's doing a job that no one else wants to do and no one respects him for." That just defeated the purpose right there. If no one respects for what Satan does, then we clearly know that Satan is evil and wicked. 2. "Satan is not evil or wicked. He's a man just doing his job." That's irrelevant to the above quote that you said, "He's doing a job that no one else wants to do and no one respects him for." 3. "Much like a janitor- no one wants to be the person who cleans up after everyone and very few people respect them for it." I would respect the janitor very much for keeping the place nice and tidy and clean, and give many thanks. I would care very much actually, for a cleaner environment than a dirty one thankyou very much. There's really no good in Satan. It's all bad, and he's a cold blooded beast. Most of us, couldn't avoid thinking of doing bad things, when we're upset, to get back at each other or to retaliate, nor to show any love or any sign of peace and mercy. He wants bloodshed, fire, terror, and unimaginable horror. All of us should be afraid of that, but there's ways to knowing how to change that to not feel fear, or pain. Answer, we need to be able to tolerate it, and perceive it in a positive way to change, and know how to deal with it. We got to do this ourselves, Satan will try to trick us in any way that he could to not let us get our way. There's no way that i'm gonna worship Satan, even so i'm not going to let it happen to myself. People have to look into the light, we're easily seduced to look into the darkness, that overwhelms us, as being blinded. We have to realize Satan is not a friend he's really an enemy to us. Even though I find the quote, "love your enemy" to be awkward. I mean if were like talking about Satan, goodluck. But as for another person here on Earth that is your enemy I can understand. If you love a person, they'll love you back. You'll get treated the same way as you treat them. For Satan that's another issue, he's not affected by love or peace. In fact Satan would be disgusted. But love and peace will affect other people that are living.
I would disagree that God does not have a concept of good and evil (bad). I also believe that God has emotions, albeit hopefully is in far better control of them than we humans are. The answer to how a loving God can punish the ones he loves is much simpler than attempting to explain God's nature; he punishes us for the same reason I punish my 4 year old when he doesn't clean his room. Just because I punish him, doesnt' mean I don't love him. I punish him BECAUSE I love him and I want him to grow up knowing right from wrong and how to be responsible for his actions. That said, I don't believe that God interjects into our lives in the way we typically view bad things. The Tsunami did not happen because God was angry; God has (hopefully) more important things to do. However, God will judge us on how we deal with what fate throws at us.
A) I didn't ask you or anyone else to worship him. This is a Philosophy forum, I was under the impression that we could calmly and rationally discuss various points of view here, without either person's beliefs being attacked directly. I am not trying to attack the beliefs of Christianity, but provide an alternative idea to provoke discussion. I personally do not believe in beings that are solely evil OR solely good. B) As Buddhist thought says, yin and yang- Light and Darkness are two sides of the same coin, and each has within it the seed of the other. Good is meaningless without evil, evil is meaningless without good. If there was no evil in the world, there would be no good either. Which also brings up another philosophical question: If you do Good, are you doing it because you want to do good, or to avoid doing evil? When I'm being honest with myself, it's a question I constantly need to ask myself.
From my studies, you're pretty much on point as to the historical development of the Satan concept. Zoroastrianism was one of many dualist philosophies at the time Paul was defining Christianity and he and St. Augustine incorporated many dualist ideas into early Christian thought. Judaism does not have a dualist outlook, therefore the 'adversary' could not be a force opposed to God. That's why in Job, he is presented as a tool of God. I often hear people attempt to disprove the idea of God's existence by asking why if he's all powerful do evil things happen? Doesn't God already know whether I'll be good or bad, afterall he's omnipotent isn't he? or some other flawed logic notion of why God can't exist. The answers are so simple that even children comprehend. Does God know what you're going to do? No I don't think so. Not because he can't, but because much like an expectant couple who during the ultrasound turn down the opportunity to learn the sex of the child, he doesn't want to. That's one of the reasons we were given free will. Another is that God wants us to choose him. Could the all powerful God force us to love him? Probably so, but what would be the point? There are still places on Earth where if I wanted to, I could buy a female slave and force her to be my wife. Because of my power, I could force her to do everything a wife does, and basically command her love. But how real would that love be compared to the love of a woman who comes to a man of her own free will? As a man, I want my wife to love me and stay with me of her own accord, not because she has to, but because she wants to. God wants us to come to him in the same way; of our own free will. He wants us to choose him, but it's only really a choice if there is a real alternative to reject him, which he has given us. In classical Judaism, it is the adversary's job to tempt us to not choose God. Why would a loving God create something like the adversary in the first place? Not being God, I don't proclaim to know his intent; however, let me ask this question: do you feel your country is evil? Not just the current gov't, but the existence of your nation, is it evil? I don't think many people would say yes to that question, yet their country maintains a military who's primary purpose is to kill people and break things. What could be more evil than the creation of something who's sole purpose is to kill and destroy? Yet most people view their military with respect and admiration, not as the spawn of evil incarnate. Perhaps Satan the adversary fills a role God requires? In no way am I advocating that we should respect Satan, nor am I suggesting Satan is not evil; all I'm saying is that perhaps Satan or the role of the adversary was something God created out of necessity to fulfill his vision of what Man should become.
That metaphor has two versions. One version involves a child being punished for something that the adult knows is wrong but the child doesnt. But thats not what i see here... What i see is the child believing the adult is punishing them for something that the child thinks is wrong because it doesnt know better. I dont thing god does any punishing or testing at all. The child sits in a playpen and a spider runs across the floor, the kids is terrorfied and thinks the world is coming to an end and that the adult is punishing it...the parent knows its just a spider. I think this is closer to the truth. But i dont think were sitting in the playpen accidentally, nor are we in it to learn something that God intends. I think were in it to experience something of our choosing.
"much like an expectant couple who during the ultrasound turn down the opportunity to learn the sex of the child, he doesn't want to." This is fundamentally flawed because it requires a body of knowledge thats outside of God. Who would perform this ultrasound on God? Even if theres no ultrasound, the baby would know its sex (or at least have knowledge that could be used to work out the baby's sex). God knows everything...yet there are still more things to learn, more knowledge beyond what God knows... Plus your using an arguement that only works through our perception of time, to which God isnt stuck...God doesnt know now but will in the future...there is no future...if God knows at any time then God knows. The only way for humans to have freewill is for God to not exist. You cant use tricks of reasoning to make God omnipotent while not being omnipotent...and God cant trick himself into being less than omnipotent unless he chose to sease to exist...which is altogether possible.
HA! no, for the sake of argument lets say "god and the devil actually exist" you'd have to respect the crap out of satan for having the testicular fortitude to stand up and ask for equality from a homicidal racist phsyco. that my friend would take some gaul. and you could flip that statement either way, like this "No, he wants us to be up there with him, god doesn't eve care, he laughs at how stupid we are"
do any of you realize that god and the devil are two characters created by a human mind??? and do you know what type of characters are devised by human minds? THATS RIGHT... FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. Get a grip, if you need religion as a crutch because you can deal wit life on your own then fine, but dont bother other people with this logically ignorant nonsense
Doesn't matter, I still dislike him, for his actions, not him as a person, but just the personality. I could respect him if i wanted too, is that the likely option that I would choose? Probably not. I am the kind of person that I guess I look forward to believe in good things. And let's say if God were Satan, and only Satan, and that I didn't know. Worshipping him may have been the best option, and I would probably end up in trouble by Satan by now. Heh but we would share all the same experience sooner or later. But all I want is a good life, and a good afterlife, if there is a afterlife. I would like good things to happen, no baaaad things. Well kungfoolery, I hope that tis true on your comment. Many people believe that they do exist spiritually. From people seeing images, or seeing them with their spiritual selves, from Astrial Projection, Telepathy, etc. Different methods. But for the most part I think it's what you want to believe to make you see of what you believe.
Historically Lucifer was not Satan From http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-ibel2.htm Also
And Lucifer is the result of a mistranslation of Isiah anyway. It's a Hebrew word for "morning star" which refered to a king of somewhere. An early Roman translator mistook it for a name and was used as the source for most Bibles up until the 20th Century when scholars started looking further back at the oldest most original texts they could find and started correcting translation errors. Some Churches completely rejected the new translations because they'd gotten attached to some of the theology implied by the mistranslations! lol!
satan was origionally the highest of high angels but he wanted to become more powerfull than God. So God cast him down from heaven...the question should not be why satan? but why humans? Simply put. got created us..much lower than a Arch angel..but yet.. even a lowly human being can choose to serve God. so its basically a if humans can do it then a arch angel definitely could have sort of thing. and satan is contantly in a battle for our souls to prove God wrong no matter how relentless it may be.
