Lucifer, the nature and purpose of evil, and...

who says imperfections are evil?
heheh.. im just throwing something in this thread because i like the title and I would like to see what comes of it.

Hope you guess my name?

Lucifer - O.E. Lucifer "Satan," also "morning star," from L. Lucifer "morning star," lit. "light-bringing," from lux (gen. lucis) + ferre "carry." Belief that it was the proper name of Satan began with its used in Bible to translate Gk. Phosphoros, which translates Heb. Helel ben Shahar in Isaiah xiv.12 -- "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" [K.J.V.] The verse was interpreted by Christians as a reference to "Satan," because of the mention of a fall from Heaven, even though it is literally a reference to the King of Babylon (cf. Isaiah xiv.4).

Nuff said. There is no Satan. It's a mistranslation.

Cool

not true, i heard satan lives in canada, toronto i believe. wears a clown suit and caters for a living :wink:

Check it out, I can even quote myself. Note how I slipped that subtle 'eve' into 'even'.

You mean I've been spending all this time and effort worshipping a mistranslation? Oh great! And what am I supposed to say to all those sacrificial victims I have tied up in the cellar? That I'm sorry? That it was all a mistake?

Whoo boy, I have a feeling this is gonna' be extremely awkward.

Regarding the sacrificial victims and what to do with them, I understand Slappy has a birthday coming up.

The closest thing to satan may be the Babylonian Brotherhood so vividly described by David Icke in his book "the biggest secret"

Did you just read this book? When things are fresh on my mind, bookwise, sometimes I restate them over and over again.

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Actually there is a Satan but it's a very late reference. It's found at the very least in the book of Job -- I'm not a bible person so someone else might find another reference.

In the Hebrew satan is a word like any other and has been translated as challenger/adversary/accuser. It occurs much earlier. But the idea of a celestial being is indicated by the word HaSatan meaning The Challenger/Adversary/Accuser.

Jewish Tradition holds that this character is completely bound to the will of God -- like all angels -- and his job is to find people and test their faith. I may be a little off on this and maybe Moishe can speak on this a little better. I've always held it to be a later idea, possibly of Zoroastrian influence after the Babylonian Exile, and never thought about it much. And I do believe he was actually demonized in some parts of the world much later on. I've been studying the origins of hasidism and actually read fire and brimstone sermons given by Jewish preachers in Europe. This was not the norm. And then there's sitra achra which I know nothing about.

Christian Tradition someone who is Christian can speak for.

Hopefully someone Muslim can speak for Shaitan(sp?).

Dauer

It's just hard to contemplate how there could actually be a true celestial being like satan

I agree with you. I don't hold on to that idea. I flounder on the idea of angels at all. There is, however, textual basis for the character of Satan. That's what I was establishing.

yeah i agree with you dauer, the text that you presented seems to hold a good basis for how "Satan" may have been established in the christian world/

Satan...hmm....I had totally forgotten about this thread. Best Satan ever, and I already said so in a literature thread, Milton's "Paradise Lost." Jews really don't believe in hell. I can see the line, symbolically, how the Jewish 'Satan', an angel beholden by god to test people's faith became a 'fallen angel' cast out of heaven because he challenged god's power. Same story, different twist. However (and maybe someone can source this), I always thought that the testing of Job's faith was done by god directly, not an 'angel'.

So, the LORD said to the Adversary: "See, he is in your power: only spare his life. The Adversary departed from the presense of the LORD and inflicted a sever inflammation on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. He took a potsherd to scratch himself as he sat in ashes. His wife said to him, "You still keep your integrity! Blaspheme God and die!" But he said to her, "You talk as any shameless woman might talk! Should we accept only good from God and not accept evil?" For all that, Job said nothing sinful.

Job 2:6-10

So God had The Adversary carry it out, he was in his power, and it was still considered as coming from God.

The issue is whether Job will curse God, not Satan.

There are big devils and little devils. Lumping all devils together is asking for trouble.

Listen trophy boy, lumping devils at all is a dangerous business, so you can take your lumpy devils and go to hell (they like it better there lol)

Speaking of which, who believes in hell of any shape or form? Is there truly punishment for sins, do we need it?