I am an atheist from a deist background, none of my family are strongly religious, but i am interested to hear the christian viewpoint on some things:
what exactly are fallen angels?angels can they be evil, do they have free will, or are they just apart of god?
and could someone explain some things about revelations to me? who or what are the beasts from the land and the earth, the 24 elders and the four living creatures?
i know i cant stop you, but for my sake could people please not dispute these points until they have been answered
Anyway, I can't give any big information pieces right now because quite honestly I'll make it another Atheism vs Religion debate, possibly accidentally. lol
I'll try to explain, though this won't be a complete explanation.
Who are fallen angels - well, Church teaches that when God first created angels from spirit only, they had one choice, whether they will follow God or not. Either the first or the second of them said "No" first and started tempting others, and convinced some, and that temptor became Satan, and those who were convinced to not follow God became dark angels.
What about Revelation and beasts - hmmm *takes Bible* well, the four living creatures that are full of eyes represent God's all-knowing and omnipresence, maybe something else. The given comment says that these represent nobility, strength, wisdom and foreseeing. Irenaeus told also that they represent the four gospel writers, Matthew a human since his Gospel starts with Jesus's ancestry, Mark a lion since he started with John the Baptist, Luke a lamb since he started with Zechari'ah and then Annunciation, and John an eagle since he started with divine.
24 elders represent 12 sons of Jacob of the Old Testament, and 12 Apostles of the New Testament. They are the leaders of the Church, united in Heaven.
About beasts of land and earth - I'd like to have the verses where these beasts are mentioned, there are more than two of them.
Who are fallen angels - well, Church teaches that when God first created angels from spirit only, they had one choice, whether they will follow God or not. Either the first or the second of them said "No" first and started tempting others, and convinced some, and that temptor became Satan, and those who were convinced to not follow God became dark angels.
From what I've heard/read, Satan was in fact an angel following God, and was called Lucifer (light-bearer). He and God disagreed about humans, though, as he considered humans nothing more than animals, and thought it gave them the right to treat them badly. Compare this to how some humans think humans' superior intellect give them the right to treat animals badly, and you'll see that this attitude is present in both angels and humans alike. Guess God didn't learn from his mistakes.
Who are fallen angels - well, Church teaches that when God first created angels from spirit only, they had one choice, whether they will follow God or not. Either the first or the second of them said "No" first and started tempting others, and convinced some, and that temptor became Satan, and those who were convinced to not follow God became dark angels.
No lucifer was proud and thought he would be a better god and he got angels to fight god but god won and banished him to hell. The angels he tempted turned to demons and he tries to tempt angels to become demons.
Fallen angels are angels that fell away from God. The first was Lucifer, aka Satan. He was God's "right hand man" and had the highest job of an angel. Watching over God's throne. Lucifer, like the other angels, had freewill and he wanted to be God himself. God then cast Lucifer from Heavan and said that any angel that wanted to go, could. This story can be found in Isaiah 14:12-15. So yes, angels have free will. As for the parts of Revalation, I can't explain much as it is a confusing and hard to understand book for those who haven't studied it. I am glad to know you are looking into Christianity though as God is the only redeeming and living God. I am a Christian and for those who don't agree, I am sorry if you feel offended.
what exactly are fallen angels?angels can they be evil, do they have free will, or are they just apart of god?
Fallen angels are angels that disobey God and are banished from Heaven. If I remember correctly, the Devil is the first. I think that angels have free will, but have nothing outside of Heaven that they could possibly want, so only the stupid ones would disobey God. About the being part of God part; I think that God does not exist in a physical sense. I think that God is the collective best of all humanity (love, kindness, etc.) and the devil, likewise, is the collective worst of humanity (hate, lust, etc.). The reason why I think the devil is still around is because we keep him alive with all our hate. If we were perfect (which we're not, otherwise we wouldn't have free will) the Devil would be nothing and we would all be taken to Heaven.
I think that God is the collective best of all humanity (love, kindness, etc.)
Then who was he before he created humanity...
I am glad to know you are looking into Christianity though as God is the only redeeming and living God.
How do you know this? There are far more religions than just Christianity, and Christianity itself is split into many differing groups. All religions make the same claim, how is yours different?
Did anyone ever think that perhaps Satan is God, and vis versa? :O
"God" killed far more people than "Satan" ever did, and the devil is supposed to be a liar, but what if it's all a giant conspiracy and Satan has "framed" "God" with all the anti devil propoganda in the bible! Finally, a reason Satanism makes sense!
sorry im not actualkly looking into christianity to follow, sorry if the post was misleading, anyways so angels were created at the same time as humans? because then why arent they in genisis chapter one but they are in the later ones, and actually someone said they dont want anything outside of heaven, well it says in chpater six i think that angels took the most beautiful women from earth and had children with them
Sproo, there are two answers to any question relating to any religious text that fit every situation.
1. The "insert holy text" was written by man, despite it being god's word.
2. You aren't looking at it the right way.
In other words, it doesn't make sense because it's a collection of dreams/myths/fairytales from thousands of different people with changing morals/outlooks over time and has been subjected to many translations and edits.
yes kasic although i mainly share this view i am still interested to know their justification and explanation for much of the old testment which toi me seems as horrible stupid and ridiculous as any fairytale