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Author | Topic: Poor Satan, so misunderstood. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Heinrik writes: Do you think this concept could make a difference if the majority accepted it? If people stopped passing the buck and took responsibility for their own actions... it might improve their behaviour somewhat. It wouldn't change our natural tendency to screw up, but it might make us more willing/eager to fix our screwups. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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pelican Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 781 From: australia Joined: |
Ringo writes: If people stopped passing the buck and took responsibility for their own actions... it might improve their behaviour somewhat. It wouldn't change our natural tendency to screw up, but it might make us more willing/eager to fix our screwups. I believe our potential to change is much greater than that. Once 'satan' is exposed and becomes transparent, the fear will dissolve. Whilst the 'evil' within us is denied, it has power. If it is not judged and accepted as a choice, and not as an evil command, the choices will will change the world. Big dreams but possible. My advice is for everyone to voice all their evil little thoughts and have a good laugh. Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed quote
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Heinrik writes: Once 'satan' is exposed and becomes transparent, the fear will dissolve. Whilst the 'evil' within us is denied, it has power. And yet, as we've seen in this thread, some people cling to the fear as if they enjoyed it. There's a certain comfort in being able to blame everything on "the Devil". There's also a certain self-satisfaction in "defeating" him. I think we've seen that in this thread too. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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pelican Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 781 From: australia Joined: |
I certainly relate to the feelings of victory and satisfaction of fighting and overcoming 'evil'. The only problem with that is you don't always win. You get the crap beaten out of you. Then you go back for more and try to beat the crap out of them. Who's evil here?
I think you are speaking of the 'devil' outside of us. This is where everyone looks. About face! We have to look at the 'devil' within. Has anyone been able to do this? I'll throw a fly in the ointment here and suggest that, "Even Jesus did not do it" He denied his own potential for 'evil' and therefore it had power over him that he could not see. He was a victim of 'satan,' just as surely are we.
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Raphael Member (Idle past 462 days) Posts: 173 From: Southern California, United States Joined: |
Oi...
Ringo said: If I talked about a chair as if it was a person, that would be personification. If I talk about a person, that is not personification. Exactly. And nowhere in the bible does it talk of Satan as an inanimate object. You can assume it's personification,as you can with any other work of literature.You can take any statement that says "so and so did this" or "so and so did that" and say it's personification. But that doesn't MAKE it personification. It's just delusion.
And that's what personification is - talking about a non-person as if it was a person, describing a non-entity as if it was an entity. Exactly. And nowhere is Satan's name used in such a way.
Why wouldn't you? As I already said, you can't love your neighbour as yourself unless you do love yourself - and you can't love yourself unless you sympathize with yourself. You don't need to sympathize with it to understand it. You struggle with it every day. The Allies did not need to "Sympathize" with the Axis in order to understand them.
It has nothing to do with whether or not something is "bad". It's about understanding our potential to do bad things. If you don't understand that you're capable of doing bad things, you can't prevent yourself from doing them. If you blame all the bad things that you do on the boogey man, you can't stop yourself from doing them. Yes. We all understand our potential to do evil. And I'm not blaming some "boogy man" for my decisions. There is no cloven-hoofed red-horned character. There IS an enemy who prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
You can't understand without sympathy and/or empathy. Sympathy: feeling of loyalty : tendency to favor or support. Empathy:the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Sympathy, no. empathy, sure. there is a difference. Once again, sympathy isn't needed to understand things. I do not need to sympathize with my homework to understand it.
You're taking the affirmative side - that there's some spooky entity named "Satan" who causes all the evil in the world. The onus is on you to provide positive evidence. Satan does not cause all the evil in the world. Humans do. Satan just says "why don't you do this?" and the humans give into temptation. Maybe we are talking about a different Satan. The one i know is the Deceiver, the Tempter, not "the one who made me do it".
I've made my case on a number of Biblical principles. God is all-powerful and can not have a powerful enemy. We are responsible for our own sins and we will be judged according to our behaviour. If you have problems with my position, be specific. Don't just say, "Nuh uh." Yes God is omnipotent, but I'm not suggesting that He has an enemy because of lack of power. I'm suggesting that the enemy He has can be destroyed if chosen, but God doesn't choose to for one reason: He doesn't want anyone to serve Him out of fear. This is off topic so if you want to talk more in depth about this, come to chat or start a thread. Yes we are responsible for our own sins. Once again i think we are talking about two different Satan, mine isn't the "devil made me do it" Satan. He just tempts, and YOU choose weather or not to listen.
I couldn't care less whether or not you agree with me. If you think you can "prove" anything with scripture, such as a spooky satanic entity hiding under your bed, feel free to do so. I'm sorry you feel that way Ringo, was beginning to like you Take any biblical scripture about Satan and ill do so.
I guess you're doomed to a life of "the Devil made me do it". The Devil doesn't make anyone do anything. That's our responsibility, as you stated earlier. Truth is still Truth, Weather One or a Thousand People believe it.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Raphael writes: There is no cloven-hoofed red-horned character. There IS an enemy who prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. What's the difference?
Once again, sympathy isn't needed to understand things. I do not need to sympathize with my homework to understand it. We're not talking about things. We're talking about people, notably ourselves. And we're not talking about understanding in an intellectual sense. We're talking about being aware of our own tendencies to do wrong, about feeling loyal to ourselves and supportive of ourselves when we do wrong - instead of blaming some lion who's seeking to devour us.
Satan just says "why don't you do this?" and the humans give into temptation. That temptation is just a natural human tendency. We don't need an outside agency to tempt us.
I'm suggesting that the enemy He has can be destroyed if chosen, but God doesn't choose to for one reason: He doesn't want anyone to serve Him out of fear. That doesn't make any sense. If God is omnipotent, He doesn't need anybody to "serve" Him in the first place. And in the second place, there would be no reason for fear except from the temptor that He provided. Again, there is no need for a devil entity. Free will gives us all the temptation we need. The Satan of the Bible - as well as all the serpents, dragons, etc. that some mistake for Satan - are completely superfluous except as characters. Their only role is to personify what's inside us. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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pelican Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 781 From: australia Joined: |
RINGO: [Again, there is no need for a devil entity. Free will gives us all the temptation we need. The Satan of the Bible - as well as all the serpents, dragons, etc. that some mistake for Satan - are completely superfluous except as characters. Their only role is to personify what's inside us.]
Interesting. If there is no need for a devil entity, then is there no need for a god entity? If all the 'evil' in the bible is to personify what's inside us, then does the same rule apply to 'godly' personalities, including god?
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Heinrik writes: If there is no need for a devil entity, then is there no need for a god entity? Philosophically and practically, there's no "need" for a god entity. (And if there is a god or gods, He/She/It/They would have no need to be needed.) But this topic deals with the Biblical concept of good/evil, God/devil. According to the Bible, it's pretty clear that God is an entity. My contention has been that Satan as an entity doesn't work with the Bible as a whole. God is all-powerful. He can have no powerful enemies. If He delegated some powers to an underling to torment us, He would be unspeakably evil. Thus, we can conclude that the evils that befell Job, for example, were things that "just happened" - not things that were done "to" him with God's approval. Therefore, the character Satan in the story - though portrayed as an employee - was really only a plot device to represent (personify) the natural evils. An all-powerful good entity is inconsistent/incompatable with a powerful evil entity. Biblically, it's more reasonable to eliminate the evil entity. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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pelican Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 781 From: australia Joined: |
RINGO: [According to the Bible, it's pretty clear that God is an entity. My contention has been that Satan as an entity doesn't work with the Bible as a whole.]
This seems to be a different concept than the one I thought you were putting forward. Are you disputing the existence of Satan although he was portrayed as a physical entity, or are you accepting a god entity that appeared only in the minds of men, or are you just crtiquing the book as a book. RINGO:[God is all-powerful. He can have no powerful enemies.] How do you know this?
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Heinrik writes: quote: How do you know this? It's a fairly well-known premise in the Bible, isn't it? Here's one of the most explicit references:
quote: So, whether or not Jesus is God and/or the Son of God, the power is not divided. There can be no powerful "enemy".
Are you disputing the existence of Satan although he was portrayed as a physical entity, or are you accepting a god entity that appeared only in the minds of men, or are you just crtiquing the book as a book. I'm saying that the God portrayed in the Bible is pretty definitely an entity (though I'm getting tired of that word). Since there is no power apart from Him, the Satan character doesn't have to be an entity. He makes more sense as a figure of speech. Edited by Ringo, : Spellling. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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pelican Member (Idle past 4985 days) Posts: 781 From: australia Joined: |
RINGO : [It's a fairly well-known premise in the Bible, isn't it?]
Yes, I agree it does suggest god is all powerful and anything disputing that would have to be wrong in your view. Logically I would agree with that. It doesn't make sense.However, if we can dismiss Satan as not existing then the same criteria can be used with god. If Satan is a part of us then so is god. We exist! They don't! They are figments of all our imaginations. The bible is a story. If we take out the devil, there is no story. If we take out god, we have no saviour. If we have no saviour then we have to save ourselves. God help us!!!!!!! That's a joke, Ringo.
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Raphael Member (Idle past 462 days) Posts: 173 From: Southern California, United States Joined: |
Ringo said: I'm saying that the God portrayed in the Bible is pretty definitely an entity (though I'm getting tired of that word). Since there is no power apart from Him, the Satan character doesn't have to be an entity. He makes more sense as a figure of speech. As is the Satan portrayed in the Bible. Their names are used in the exact same way. You can't just base your acceptance of a God entity on evidence in the bible and look at the exact same evidence for a Satan entity and dismiss it because it makes more sense. I'm not saying Satan is all-powerful, and God could easily destroy him, but for that one reason. your dismissal of that reason was irrevevant. You stated "since God is all powerful, He doesn't need His creations to serve Him". That's contradicting what you said earlier about choice. If there's choice, why would God NOT need anyone to serve Him? We can choose to or not. Truth is still Truth, Weather One or a Thousand People believe it.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Raphael writes: You can't just base your acceptance of a God entity on evidence in the bible and look at the exact same evidence for a Satan entity and dismiss it because it makes more sense. I didn't say I accepted the God entity as described in the Bible. I said that the Satan character can be eliminated more easily than the God character. In a James Bond movie, the henchmen are just nameless, faceless "bad guys". Bond needs somebody to fight. Even the Goldfingers and Blofelds are just personifications of the "evil" that Bond is up against in movie after movie. Eliminate one villain and a gang of henchmen and a whole new crop of them appears in the next movie. The villains represent evil. Evil transcends individual characters that are easily replaced. But you can't replace James Bond. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Hi Ringo,
How's it going?
there would be no reason for fear except from the temptor that He provided. Heh, that reminds me of that T-shirt: Thank God for Satan. On to my point: You've been saying that the Devil is a personification of the evils within us, but what do you make of the person that Jesus spoke with in Luke 4. Just another personification? What does that do to the typical, sin-free, portrayal of Jesus if he has the same "evil-inside" that we do? Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence. Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith. Science has failed our world. Science has failed our Mother Earth. -System of a Down, "Science" He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.-Avenged Sevenfold, "Bat Country"
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes: You've been saying that the Devil is a personification of the evils within us, but what do you make of the person that Jesus spoke with in Luke 4. The "person" who tempted Him? There's a pretty strong clue that the whole story is figurative:
quote: Ain't no such mountain.
What does that do to the typical, sin-free, portrayal of Jesus if he has the same "evil-inside" that we do? It's nonsense, of course. If Jesus was sin-free, He wasn't human. If He didn't have the same evil inside that we all do, He's irrelevant. If He didn't have the capacity to sin, the temptation by the "devil" would have been meaningless. “If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT (see context here) “The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs
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