Religious Curiousity

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I was reading some of the religious topics around the board lately, and it seems that there are some people at least interested in religion on the boards.

For those of you who consider yourselves predominantly Christian, I was wondering what your take on Satan is. I remember many Catholics being surprised to learn that they are supposed to believe in the Devil quite literally(this being after a Papal decree a few years ago reminding people of this). I realized that I didn't know what many other Christian beliefs are regarding the existence of the Devil. Feel free to chime in either your personal take on the matter or that of your church(or both).

 

We'll, although I've been baptised, I don't consider myself a christian. But I do believe in both God and Satan as a manifestation of some virtues and sins. I simply choose to worship neither. Both are needed in a religion. How can you define good, without the need of evil to make comparison?

On a similar note, it is actually written in the bible that Satan is the ruler of the material world. There is a part, where he takes Jesus to a mountaintop and offers all the land to Jesus, if he will worship Satan. Satan would not be able to make this offer, if he did not have the power to actually give the land to Jesus. This should actually be a cornerstone in modern Satanism.

But feel free to correct me, if I'm wrong. I'm in no way an expert on this, and I do respect every other religion.

 

Protestant here, and I do believe God is something and that Jesus was a proof of that (otherwise I wouldn't be praying every night, would I?). And without evil there can't be no good, so this fallen angel lurks around.

 

Lutheran here and I believe that God and Satan are very real. About Satan: He is a great deciever so in my mind I picture him not as a little red man with horns but instead a fallen angel. I picture angels as very beautiful creatures. Satan is a beast, the Bible describes him as so but he is also a fallen angel so I picture him as being able to decieve with this look. Same goes for his demons, which I belive are very real also. I like to pray that God will give me wisdom and insight to see through Satan's deceits and lies daily. Well thats my take and I say everything above with seriousness.

 

I agree w/ Big B.

We have to be careful not to see God & Satan as two equal & opposite powers (in other words, the Star Wars dualism of Light & Dark is not valid in the Christian Worldview).

I do believe that Satan is a real being. He is spirit (not having a material body) like the angels. He is also intelligent, but limited.

He has been "given" a temporary power over the world (called the ruler of the air, also able to grant Jesus dominion on earth on the mountain top). However, this power is temporary, under God's supervision and control, and is about to be taken away.

The book of Job has a great example of this hierarchy, where Satan (which means "Antagonist") accuses Job of loving God only because God had blessed him. God gives Satan permission to blast Job with disease, poverty & family disaster. This testing was from Satan, but worked to God's plan.

My firm belief is that there is not a single maverick molecule that is outside of God's control. The technical term for this is SOVEREIGNTY. This means that God's will works through various means in order to achieve His goals (i.e., to glorify His name and to Redeem His people). This sovereignty extends over Satan, as we will all see in the final days.

 

I was raised Protestant but I've never been baptised. I don't really care nor think it's necessary to be baptised. I think the physical baptism is good and has a lot of significant symbolism, but is not important. Heh, that might raise a bunch of controversy.

I can't really say what religeon I am exactly. I guess you could call me a "mut". By getting to knowing me, you will find out more about who I am through my principles and beliefs, not my religeon. I enjoy listening to other peoples beliefs with an open mind. I don't think it's harmful to accept other peoples believes as their own, but accepting them as your own can be dangerous. Once you've done that, you begun to compromise.

I think it's more important for a person to have something, someone, or some idea of their own to believe in. I don't give a shtt what it is, as long as it gives you some sort of direction in life. I say pick a religeon and fckn' run with it, no one will know for sure whether they're wrong or right until the end anyways.


[This message has been edited by Vandalore (edited July 23, 2001).]

 

Seeing some of the answers so far, I've have another question: Is God considered to be good?

I don't mean that "oh, you have to worship him, because it is wrong to do otherwise...." kind of crap. I want your arguments. And everyone on these boards know the meaning of good and evil gods!

 

I have a question for you people; why must you identify yourselves by your branch of Christianity? You all believe in God. You all think Christ is your savior. You all would prefer to avoid hell. Given that, why does the fact that you all interperet different lines in Bible differently significant? This is true of many religions. Same basic tenents, but they can't get along. A few hundred years ago, people killed each other over these minor differences. Why does everyone feel they are significant?

These sort of human failings make me laugh or cry, depending on my mood

 

Is God Good? by BigGreenPriest

Let's look at it from a few different perspectives, mainly Western/European ones.

1. Fundamentalism

The Bible is true.
The Bible says God is good.

Therefore: God is Good.

[PS 100:5 For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations.]

2. Modernism (sort of a 1950's Robert Schuller-ish Liberal)

Man is inherently good.
Man is in the image of God

Therefore, God is good.

[GE 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness]

3. Judaism

God created the universe.
God has chosen Israel from that creation to bring goodness and order to a ruined world.

Therefore, God is good.

4. Kantianism (Immanuel Kant)

Men have a universally implanted moral goodness, called a conscience.
Every cause must have a sufficient effect.

Therefore, God is good.

5. Truism

"God" by definition is good.
"Good" by definition is God.

Therefore God is good.

6. Inductivism (argument for likelyhood, established probability)

a. The universe contains the good, the beautiful, and the true.
b. Evil is a privation of these factors (that is, evil does not exist. It is not a thing, but an absence of a thing.)
c. Whatever it is that has been created, has been created from that which already was (That is, creation ex nihilo, out of nothing, is only materially true)
d. There was a point where there only was God.

e. Therefore, in all likelyhood, God is The Good, The Beautiful, and The True.

7. Experientialism

I have experienced goodness and rich blessings that I know intuitively or by some kind of revelation were from God.
My senses are generally reliable in these matters.
Therefore, God is good.

8. Mohamedism (Fatalistic monotheism or hard determinism, hyper-fundamentalistic)

Allah is right.
Even if he is wrong, he is right.
He can change the rules if he likes.
Even if he is the devil, he is right.
You are his servant.
You will be quiet.

Therefore, God is good.

--------------

Add your own. The Eastern traditions generally do not have a personal God, so the point is mute for Hinduism and Buddism (though this is not true for all flavors--they have their fundamentalistic strains, too). Whatever causitive force is in operation manages to be the foundation for goodness, personality, truth, and so forth, without actually sharing in those properties.

bgp

[This message has been edited by biggreenpriest (edited July 24, 2001).]

 

Big Green Priest - Very Funny and Very Good!

God is good and has a sense of humor . . . but a holy humor (define THAT one for me).

I love to see the wheels turning on these threads, even when I disagree with people I am always learning.

Here's another topic I'd love to hear your perspective on . . . define how we know that there is an Absolute Truth that is Knowable.

 

Big Green Priest: Hmmmm..... You forgot to add your point of view! Anyway, I don't see a reliable conclusion and connoction to god in your Kantanism part. And in your Mohamedism part, you write that God is right. That is not the same as good!

These are my points: How comes that a Christian has his fear of God, while a follower of Satan loves his deity?

And second: God does not forgive! Jesus does! God and Jesus are not the same person!

Another question: How comes, that everyone these days tries to tell me that 666 is the number of Satan? It is the number of the beast, not the devil himself! Read the bible!

 

Fear of God is a loving-fear I guess.

 

Groveflab: <<Big Green Priest: Hmmmm..... You forgot to add your point of view! Anyway, I don't see a reliable conclusion and connoction to god in your Kantanism part. And in your Mohamedism part, you write that God is right. That is not the same as good!>>

I think the Kantian argument is pretty good, particularly as you see how he's responding to Hume. Simply, he's saying moral design demands a moral designer, and the morality that we recognize in human conscience is necessarely a reflection of the one who created it.

And on the Muslim thing, you are right. Goodness is not meaningful in their system; Allah is right. Shut up and worship me and you'll get to drink and have unlimited sex with women in heaven. Wow, I sound sore at them; I'm not on a crusade. But I'm saddened by the general lack of integrity in Muslim apologetics, how they hide what the Koran plainly teaches.

Matheteis: That's a rather heavy request. I'm not sure I have the time or the brains to make it nice and neat. I can blather on about such, but it's hard to be concise.

And on my own lack of opinion: I will share later my two-step argument for my position. Can't now, too much work.

Good day to all!

 

I wish I'd been able to participate a little more in this topic over the last few days, but I've been distracted.

Mathetais, dualism is definitely something that has been historically put down by established Christian churches(for instance, the Cathars or the Gnostics). You seem to follow the Book of Job idea of Satan(Job being the first place he ever shows up), where Satan is merely an over-ethusiastic angel is pursuit of sinners.(Also, I believe "Satan" comes from the Hebrew stn meaning "obstruction," not "antagonist.") A lot of people would refuse to subscribe to this belief because of a hesitancy to believe God capable of all the "evil" in the world(this refusal to make God capable of such things is probably the reason for the increasing role of an evil power. Muslims' Shaytan, Satan equivalent, is a powerless little being because Islam as a religion preaches submission to Allah, his disciples having no problem with their god doing anything, "good" or "bad.).

For instance, Mathetais, this means that God is directly responsible for the Holocaust. "Why do good things happen to good people?" Lots of people want to ascribe this to Satan, hence the occasional popular dualist movements. But according to this, God is ultimately responsible for everything. He is responsible for the birth of a beautiful baby boy. He is also responsible for the Titanic sinking. Such are the downfalls of an omnipotent and omniscient deity. He can't be your buddy.

Therefore, according to this belief, God cannot be "good"(to move to Grovflab's query), but obviously he cannot be "evil" either. He just is(ala Allah).

I'll elaborate more on this later, I'm out of time for the moment.

[This message has been edited by The Deviant Mage (edited July 24, 2001).]

 

Keep in mind that before man sinned in the Garden of Eden everything was good. God created Earth and it was good. Bad things didn't start happening until Satan decieved man and man started sinning.

 

D-Mage:

you said, "this means that God is directly responsible for the Holocaust. 'Why do good things happen to good people?'"

To points to consider;

1) God is indirectly responsible for the evil of the Holocaust and other events like that. Technically, this is his "permissive will" which means that he allows his creatures to exercise their free will. "Acts of God" like hurricanes are seen as results of the Fall, and again aren't directly caused by him, but allowed.

Now, I'm not trying to let God "off the hook" for these events. In the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel especially, God delights in His decrees, even ones that destroyed unjust nations.

Theodicy, or the defense of God in the face of the reality of evil, has long been a source of debate for the Church. I can't answer it completely, ever. We can go pretty far, but we do have to get to a point were we simply trust.

2) There are no "good" people. Rabbi Harold Kushner's book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" raises a false believe, that humans are innately good and therefore deserve good things to happen to them.

All have sinned, we've all lied, lusted, stole or cheated. We've taken God's name in vain and mis-used his gifts. The penalty for this activity is death.

It is MERCY that anything good happens to us, and GRACE that God provided a way for us to move beyond out sins and guilt and join His Kingdom.

That's the point of the Cross. Jesus was the only "good/holy" man who ever lived. He was without sin, but he died a sinners death, thereby paying the debt that I owed. His righteousness is applied to my account so that my sins can be forgiven.

 

Excellent point Mat. But for the goodness and mercy of God, we'd all be dead. As for Satan being an angel, the Bible makes it fairly clear that he's a fallen angel. Demons are the angels that followed him when he was cast out of heaven. (Scriptural references available upon request. I really need to start bringing my Bible to the library.)

A real Christian does not fear God. The word "fear" as used in the KJV Old Testament references to the "fear of the Lord" actually translates to reverence. We are spiritually being united to our Lord as a bride to her bridegroom. We love, adore, and reverence Him. "Perfect love casts out all fear."

The Bible also declares that Jesus was the fulness of the Godhead bodily, so I'd say that God and Jesus are the same person.

As to God forgiving, He did plenty of that even in the Old Testament. David is the most notable case; in spite of all the things he did wrong, God still declared him a man after His own heart, and did not impute sin to him.

As for God allowing Satan to bring evil into the world (which He did; Satan is a lesser being, not co-equal with God), He allowed it because He had to have a way to express everything He was. How could He ever express mercy, forgiveness, or redemption if no one ever needed it? He could not be a Savior without something to save.

 

Satan's original name was "Lucifer" which means Light Bringer. He was the highest of the high angels. He began to think that he was more important than God himself. (Angels are free beings and have emotions and aspirations just as we do). As punishment, God consigned him to the fiery deep. God knew that Lucifer did not love him, and as a result...matches were called Lucifers until the 20th century.

As far as God? Who knows? I think that it is impossible to derive a true definition of the concept of "LOVE". Yet I have complete confidence that if you're good, loving, and kind in this life - you'll be rewarded in the next.

 

I guess spawning off what Grovflab was saying:

Is God necessarily the ultimate or perfect good? I mean is the pure being called God capable of evil? He has destroyed many things that we aren't capable of until today (the nuclear bombs n diseases n crap) like the flood, killing the whole world, raining fire from the skies .. all the plagues, whatever. Each purpose of an 'evil' deed was a good motive. So good can come from evil. Right?

 

I know this isnt COMPLETELY relevant, but it is kinda. BTW I saw this on a poster and I dont mean to offend anyone by this:

Taoism: sh*t happens
Confuciusism: Confucius says "sh*t happens"
Judaism: Why does this sh*t always happen to us?
Catholicism: If sh*t happens you deserve it
Bhuddism: This sh*t happened before
Zen: What is the sound of sh*t happening?


There is also one for Hinduism and Protestantism but I cant remember them.

I dont want to offend anyone with this, if I have I am EXTREMELY sorry

--FenixStrife