Ok. I've done some ritual and my original topic probably came off as a bit... zealous. I think I'll explain a couple of things now.
I do worship satan. I ritual, and i have pentagrams all over my house. I do not have a pet goat. They creep the **** out of me.
Satan, to me, does not represent every evil ever enacted, but instead, indulgence and pleasure. Let's take a look at christianity. Not allowed to have intercourse before marriage, no homosexual marriage, rest on the sabbath day, don't eat meat on Fridays, and fast for forty days in the spring.
Satan doesn't believe in limitations, he says that everyone should indulge themselves in their wants and desires. Quite the positive character, no? and remember, we are talking about Satan. Beezlebub. Lucifer. That guy.
Okay all you good Christian boys and girls I'm going to teach you something about your bible. Namely, to do with a character called Lucifer. Now, as you SHOULD, know the bible has two testaments. The OLD and the NEW. In the Old Testament Lucifer is viewed as more of a neutral character, in fact, someone says that the RESPECT Satan AKA Lucifer, and wouldn't wish harm on him. Now, we go through and entire Testament with people either A) Respecting Lucifer or B) Not really paying much attention to him. Why? Well it's because he actually isn't the bad guy. Nope we have good ol'God who kills roughly 22million people.
Now it isn't until the New Testament that we see Lucifer in a negative light. Some people (most christians in fact) really don't question this, and simply accept it at face value. However, we need to ask "Why now?" Well it has to do with when the testaments were written. The Old is basically the jewish holy book, while the New was written centuries AFTER the Old. The New was also written in a time where Christians were persecuted and influenced by outside religions and secular beliefs. Many of these beliefs often had a central Good Guy and a central Bad Guy. Up until this point Christianity had neither, everyone was more or less neutral. In order to survive the Christians launched a smear campaign against Lucifer, and then related him toward Paganism, to allow their religion to seem better and "right". So you see Lucifer isn't a bad guy, you just think he is because you didn't read the bible carefully. But now I have given you a history lesson.
I'm not understanding why everyone thinks Satan is shown as a bad person until the NT; ever read Job? Where he (With God's Permission) destroys all the Job has and plagues him with sickness? Or perhaps a more familiar story- Where Satan, in the likeness of a snake, tempted Eve to eat the Fruit of the forbidden tree, thus causing Sin throughout the world for the rest of time, until Jesus's return? And there are other examples too.
The Trinity in the bible. The 5th verse, I suppose, actually applies to the topic of the thread.
That doesn't seem to suggest anything of this father, son, spirit thing. If "light of men" is 1/3 of this God then that would make us God (or at least part of us, not just Jesus. So we have God, Word of God, light of men?
Oh and Trinity fail, septupity for the win.
Revelation 4:5 (NIV) From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.
'Satan exists because the Bible says so, I know the Bible is correct because the Bible says so'.
I'm saying that the Bible is how we know about Satan. Unless there is some early known account of Satan, which I doubt. Similar types of beings for greek and roman mythos wouldn't count because they are only similar and not Satan himself. You have to take Satan as what the Bible says because that's where He is from and known about (and known about originally).
Well, yes, I seem to have forgotten "The Word Became Flesh", meaning Jesus. "The Word was with God"- Jesus is with God BEFORE he comes to earth. "The Word was God"- Jesus is God (It's hard to grasp, but Christianity is based on faith alone) "The Word Became Flesh"-Jesus came down to Earth.
And yes, those are the seven spirits of God.
1. the spirit of the LORD 2. the spirit of wisdom 3. and understanding 4. the spirit of counsel (purpose driven) - midst 5. and might 6. the spirit of knowledge 7. and of the fear of the LORD
Key words there are "WITH GOD'S PERMISSION". Glad you brought this up, because I would like to point out that at first Lucifer said "Um, no thanks God" So God said, "Well you have to, and I'm going to make you." so Lucifer was strong armed into the position. And basically it was God's doing because it was his idea and he FORCED Lucifer to participate.
Where Satan, in the likeness of a snake
No. It never says the snake was Lucifer, it doesn't even IMPLY it was lucifer it simply says it was a serpent.
I'm saying that the Bible is how we know about Satan. Unless there is some early known account of Satan, which I doubt. Similar types of beings for greek and roman mythos wouldn't count because they are only similar and not Satan himself. You have to take Satan as what the Bible says because that's where He is from and known about (and known about originally).
Good for the friggen Bible! That doesn't make Satan evil! That makes him a borrowed concept in the New Testament.
I'm afraid not - looking at all the religions that Christianity 'borrows' from, it's safe to assume that satan is a borrowed conceptual character.
That's what I'm getting at, even if he is a "borrowed conceptual character" it doesn't matter. Satan is Satan from the Bible. It's called Satanism because it the worship of that Satan. Any prior character would be a separate form of worship under the name of that character.
What Job are you reading? God points out to Satan: "Hey, look at my servant Job. He stays faithful, other nice things, he's great." Satan's like: "Yeah, but he has your protection and blessing. It's easy to stay faithful when life is good." So God says: "Alright, you can test, and you will see that Job will remain faithful no matter what." (Obviously paraphrased version)
So Satan goes and does bad things to him.
Also, by use of logic, Satan HAS to be the serpent. That is, of course, you know of OTHER fallen angels? No. Or perhaps evil talking snakes?
I'm not understanding why everyone thinks Satan is shown as a bad person until the NT; ever read Job? Where he (With God's Permission) destroys all the Job has and plagues him with sickness?
We are comparing him to what God has done. Considering this was done with God's stamp of approval doesn't that make God just as responsible, if not more so?
more familiar story- Where Satan, in the likeness of a snake, tempted Eve to eat the Fruit of the forbidden tree, thus causing Sin throughout the world for the rest of time, until Jesus's return?
Actually it never states the snake is Satan. This character was it's own and had it's own punishments that don't seem to match at all with those of Satan. The only time it seems to hint of a connection between the two characters is in the NT. But that would again have the bad stuff being mention in the NT. Also even if we are to say Satan was the snake why Did God wait 4000 years before forgiving everyone for this sin? Also why would God require a human sacrifice of himself to himself to just say "I forgive you"? Seems to me like a pretty sick way of saying your forgiven. Also considering Jesus only spent a few days dead it was a rather half assed gesture on top of it being sick and late.
Also if you think about it we are being forgiven for gaining knowledge when we weren't suppose to. Oh wait, it was for disobeying God. But we didn't have knowledge of good and evil so Adam and Eve wouldn't have know that disobeying God was a bad thing until after the fact. Also given human nature we are curious creatures. So it would seem putting a tree offering knowledge in the middle of everything where it couldn't be missed then placing a being who would do all he could to get them to eat it was just asking for trouble.
Another thing about this How the hell is it that we are being forgiven for something we didn't even do? I mean the Bible contradicts itself on whether punishing ones descendants is okay or not. Personally being punished for something my father did let alone something my great great great great...etc... grandfather did sound ridiculous.
That doesn't even get into how non of the story in genesis matches an evidence and many suggest it's just a metaphor meaning it didn't really happen. So if you argue that the Genesis story is metaphor but the Jesus story is true, the Jesus died for nothing.
Also if you think about it we are being forgiven for gaining knowledge when we weren't suppose to. Oh wait, it was for disobeying God. But we didn't have knowledge of good and evil so Adam and Eve wouldn't have know that disobeying God was a bad thing until after the fact.
God told them directly not to eat from that tree.
Genesis 2:16-17
The LORD God gave man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."
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I was just trying to say that Satan is from the Bible so when you call it Satanism you have to be talking about that Satan. Hedonism, Paganism, they are different things. Just like a similarly named character would be called similarly named characterism.
The one in the bible. But, regardless of who's version you take on the truth Satan still needed God to okay the situation, which makes God responsible, not satan.
Imagine this senario:
Timmy: Can I have the knife mommy? Mom: Why Timmy? Timmy: I want to stab Bobby. Mom: Okay, well just stab him once or twice. Timmy: Thanks Mommy. (Timmy goes and stabs Bobby).
Also, by use of logic, Satan HAS to be the serpent
Or it could be a snake. If it was actually Satan why punish the snake as well? The snake didn't do anything, satan did, pretending to be the snake. And who put the apple there to begin with? No satan.
A man has a gun. He is walking down the street. Across the road, he sees another man pull out a gun and point it at a woman, clearly about to shoot her. The first man clearly has the ability to stop the murder, but he doesn't. The woman is shot and killed.
Who gets put in jail, the murderer or the man who had the ability-ALLOWED, you might say- the murder to happen? The murderer, of course.
Now, you may ask WHY God allowed Satan to tempt Job to forsake God (Because thats what the story is really about). And the obvious answer is to prove that Job is his faithful servant.
And everything you said about Genesis... lets see...
- By use of common sense, the snake is satan. You that the snake is its own character because the bible doesn't say it is, but as you certainly know, the bible isn't taken literally. The snake HAS to be satan. Who else could it be? Certainly not a random talking snake with the intent to hurt God.
Also, Jesus didn't just die so you could forgiven, he died to wash away all sin with acceptance and faith in him. Same thing, you say? No. I can forgive you for killing my mom, but you're still going jail for it. Jesus died so you don't have to go to jail.
