Humans - our part in development

@mark noble,

negating 'Source' and assuming 'Godhood'?

Aren't they the same thing?

@NealNealNeal,

Maybe instead of God you will believe in the laws.
In those laws that you presumably believe you experience them.
But there may be other laws that are hidden from us.
Or rather, we hide them in our inability to discover them.

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@maxdancona,

Does anything change besides us?

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@livinglava,

Totally agree. Not only that, but the same rules as this moment acted on me in a certain way, Work on me differently.
Our lives are very deterministic as a moving film they do not change but it is my attitude to life

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@maxdancona,

I was reading through the thread and noticed this:

Quote:

Satan is mainly a Christian deity (although he has been co-opted by Muslims.

Not to nitpick, but Satan is originally a Jewish creation, copied by Christians and Muslims. As I explained eslewhere, he represents the necessary residue of polytheism within monotheism: the Magic Guy you can't go without if you care to explain why so much **** happens to nice god-fearing people. See the Book of Job.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I was reading through the thread and noticed this:

Quote:
Satan is mainly a Christian deity (although he has been co-opted by Muslims.

Not to nitpick, but Satan is originally a Jewish creation, copied by Christians and Muslims. As I explained eslewhere, he represents the necessary residue of polytheism within monotheism: the Magic Guy you can't go without if you care to explain why so much **** happens to nice god-fearing people. See the Book of Job.

No, not really.

The "Satan" figure in the Jewish religion is very different than the Christian deity. In the book of Job, he is portrayed as somewhat of a drinking buddy for God. In some Jewish writings Satan is seen as working for God.

They aren't the same being.

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@maxdancona,

It's the same character but with a new spin, a different interpretation of the same old myth. In Job, Satan is just one amongst the "sons of gods". This right there proves his polytheist origin. Note that an "assembly of the sons of the gods" is also attested in Ugaritic texts (aka the polytheist matrice of ancient Judaism), presided by El, the most high...

So originally Satan was just another god. Then Judaism progressively rationalized him as God's Chief of Human Testing Operations: an angel specialized in false flag ego-bombings.

Christians opted for a slightly different version: an angel whom God uses as a sparring partner. He fights God because God lets him do it. But I don't see it as a different character altogether: it's still the old polytheist entity, recognisable under the various rationalizations people want to garb him with.

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https://janinewood2012.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/pazuzu-3.jpg

This pic from the Exorcist (?) features the Assyrian deity Pazuzu, one of the possible ancestors of the Satan myth in Abrahamic religions.

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@Olivier5,

I think you have Christianity wrong.

To Christians Satan is God's mortal enemy. He is a fallen angel. He is source of all evil; angry, malevolent, both tormented and tormenter. That is nothing like the any figure in the Jewish scriptures.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I was reading through the thread and noticed this:

Quote:
Satan is mainly a Christian deity (although he has been co-opted by Muslims.

Not to nitpick, but Satan is originally a Jewish creation, copied by Christians and Muslims. As I explained eslewhere, he represents the necessary residue of polytheism within monotheism: the Magic Guy you can't go without if you care to explain why so much **** happens to nice god-fearing people. See the Book of Job.

Fixating on the personification of God and Satan as beings is confusing you.

They are personified in order to explain philosophically how aspects of the universe function, including 'creation,' 'good,' 'evil,' etc.

If you interpret the story of Job properly, you will find a simple moral connundrum, which is that people may only love God/life when they are fortunate, but they curse Him/it when they experience misfortune.

So an atheist could translate the story of Job to being someone who resisted cursing his life when bad fortune befell him, but without the personified challenge from Satan to God, you wouldn't understand why evil was provoking him to curse his life, i.e. because without attributing agency/intent to evil and goodness, you can't say that evil is trying to do anything, and thus you don't have impetus to resist the intent to get you to curse your life due to misfortune, which is the whole point of the story.

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@livinglava,

I think most Christian denominations (at least those in the US) see Satan as a literal being. Satan is as real as Jesus is. In the Bible the apostle Peter writes that Satan is a "hungry lion" looking to devour Christians. In Revelations Satan is a real enemy who will be (or was) defeated and punished.

I was a part of a couple denominations of Evangelical Christianity. They believe that Satan is a real being to be feared.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I think most Christian denominations (at least those in the US) see Satan as a literal being. Satan is as real as Jesus is. In the Bible the apostle Peter writes that Satan is a "hungry lion" looking to devour Christians. In Revelations Satan is a real enemy who will be (or was) defeated and punished.

I was a part of a couple denominations of Evangelical Christianity. They believe that Satan is a real being to be feared.

The distinction between metaphorical and literal existence is overemphasized by a certain material POV.

Everything is made of atoms/molecules and the energy patterns that occur through their configurations, so when a spirit operates by animating living flesh in a certain way, you can't say that the spirit is a material entity in the way an organism's body is. It is a pattern of thought/behavior that occurs because information has spread and influenced various bodies in certain ways. So 'spirit' is a literal thing, an energy-pattern, like a wave moving through a medium; but it is a very complex pattern of information and not just a pressure-wave that is propagating linearly through water or air or whatever.

'God' and 'Satan,' are thus indeed literal 'kings' of spirit-regimes, i.e. good spirits and bad spirits. Everything is ultimately created/manifested by and through spirit, even material forms. Every living body, for example, is produced as a manifestation of a relationship that occurred between the parents. The spiritual interaction of the parents led to physical interaction and ultimately the transfer of genetic material that led to pregnancy and beyond.

How could you recognize spirits as real things without recognizing God and Satan as real? If you just claimed that all the spirits acting throughout the universe are random and unorganized, then how would you identify them as being part of a larger regime of good and/or evil? It's a question of seeing how different spirits converge to act together in various ways. We are fragmented beings in one sense but unified in another, just as the larger universe and all its sub-regions are.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

To Christians Satan is God's mortal enemy. He is a fallen angel. He is source of all evil; angry, malevolent, both tormented and tormenter. That is nothing like the any figure in the Jewish scriptures.

I don't claim to know all the Christian denominations and their mythologies, but this seems more Protestant than Catholic to me. I tried to refresh my distant Sunday school memories by reading the Catholic Encyclopedia entry but the only thing that's clear from that (appart from the widely diverging opinions expressed within the Church across the ages on the topic) is that Satan is a fallen angel, the boss of them all who rebelled against God. But obviously God let him go away with it, otherwise He wouldn't be all powerful and forgiving, right?

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm

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@Olivier5,

Yes,

In an earlier life I trained for the ministry in a Protestant denomination, and I have experience with several other denominations. I can speak with some authority on American Protestantism.

I have very little knowledge of Catholicism.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

maxdancona wrote:
To Christians Satan is God's mortal enemy. He is a fallen angel. He is source of all evil; angry, malevolent, both tormented and tormenter. That is nothing like the any figure in the Jewish scriptures.

I don't claim to know all the Christian denominations and their mythologies, but this seems more Protestant than Catholic to me. I tried to refresh my distant Sunday school memories by reading the Catholic Encyclopedia entry but the only thing that's clear from that (appart from the widely diverging opinions expressed within the Church across the ages on the topic) is that Satan is a fallen angel, the boss of them all who rebelled against God. But obviously God let him go away with it, otherwise He wouldn't be all powerful and forgiving, right?

The points is that good turns to evil through pride. Angels do good as servants of God, but if they become prideful and seek to take credit for the good they do, they are not longer just doing it in humble service to God - and that puts them into a conflict of interest with God.

If you look at all the evil that goes on and attribute it to the same regime and thus the same ultimate lord (satan), then Satan can be as bad as any of the bad that happens anywhere at any time. To say that God and satan are 'like drinking buddies' in the story of Job implies that they like or dislike each other, but those are emotional qualities. What the story means is that evil tests the goodness of attitude in people who endure it, and that when you fall into a negative attitude toward life/God generally, that just shows that the only reason you loved life/God before is because things were going well for you.

The point is that you have to accept the bad of life with the good, and trust that ultimately things will work out for the best. I.e. you shouldn't blame/curse life/God for the fact that bad things happen; and you should trust that eventually you will get through hard times by keeping a good attitude/spirit.

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@maxdancona,

In Judaism also there are various schools. In practice, people's faith is always at some variance with their scriptures.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

In Judaism also there are various schools. In practice, people's faith is always at some variance with their scriptures.

Having studied the Bible, I see a huge contrast the Satan in the new Testament with the equivalent figure in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament Satan is the enemy. Satan is a key figure and the source of all evil.

In the Old Testament he is barely mentioned, and one of his few mentions has him portrayed as God's drinking buddy.,

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@livinglava,

Yada yada yada. The key thing about Satan is his power to seduce. Satan is erotic.

Between two evils, I always chose the one I haven't tried yet.
-- Mae West

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Yada yada yada. The key thing about Satan is his power to seduce. Satan is erotic.

Between two evils, I always chose the one I haven't tried yet.
-- Mae West

Not in the Old Testament. There is no place in the Old Testament where Satan is portrayed as being seductive.

This is a Christian point of view.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Olivier5 wrote:

Yada yada yada. The key thing about Satan is his power to seduce. Satan is erotic.

Between two evils, I always chose the one I haven't tried yet.
-- Mae West

Not in the Old Testament. There is no place in the Old Testament where Satan is portrayed as being seductive.

This is a Christian point of view.

The serpent seduced Eve into taking the fruit by lying to her and tricking her. He didn't threaten to hurt her if she refused.

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Humans - our part in development

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