Why do people hate Satan so much?

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by cyclone3483

He did act against God's will. In the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, including Matthew 4 which chronicles Satan's attempt to get Jesus to worship him instead of God.

You missed the part where I said Old Testament. In about 200 BC or so, biblical interpretations changed significantly and Lucifer and Satan were already being scholastically conflated as being the same character. Jesus' contemporaries were writing about a newly created character very different from anyone in the ancient Hebrew texts. If you believe in the bible of a literal and infallible account of the will of God, then I think we'll have a hard time finding any common ground to debate this. That said, I'll address your comments from my own perspective.

In the 10th verse, Jesus says "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' " Satan was not worshipping God and was inciting others not to serve God, both clearly against God's will.

Jesus' disciples were writing about this newly created character, because it fit with the theology of the time. But even then, he's still essentially playing the same role as the Accuser of ancient Hebrew texts. I think any Christian would agree that God tests Christians' faith on a regular basis. Here, you can easily interpret it as God testing Jesus through Satan.

Moreso, in Luke 10, Jesus said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." The Lord's enemy is clearly Satan in this context and he was no longer a member of heaven's citizenry.

Again, this is reacting to the theology surrounding Satan at the time, which was in turn based on a highly suspect interpretation of Isaiah's prophecies.

Please, if you are going to say something is in the Bible, you should provide the chapter so people can verify for themselves. Otherwise, it should be considered as potentially a lie or a misinterpretation.

Fine. Isaiah 14: 3-20.
When the LORD has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:
(...)
How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'

(I'm quoting just the relevant sections here, but if you want to add in the rest, go ahead). The reference to Day Star is from a caananite story about how the morning star rises in the east above the sun, but soon disappears - sort of an Icarus myth. The translation of Day Star (or Morning Star) is Lucifer. The passage is about how the Babylonian King is being way too high and mighty and seeking to make himself a God on earth. It's a fairly clear passage, especially considering the context of the rest of Isaiah, where the conflict with the Babylonians (now often called Assyrians) dominates a lot of the book.

[cyclone3483]

Originally Posted by octothorp

If you believe in the bible of a literal and infallible account of the will of God, then I think we'll have a hard time finding any common ground to debate this.

agreed

We agree to disagree as I take the Bible to be the Word of God written by people who had the indwelling of the Spirit of the Most High. I use the Bible to interpret the Bible. When trying to understand it, I use other passages within the Bible to help explain it. Taking any information other than the Word of God to help interpret the Bible can lead to potential misinterpretation. e.g. While the some or all of the information you cite may be factual, you also assume that the circumstances or events affected how the Biblical authors viewed or wrote about Satan, whereas it may have been that the circumstances or events were completely ignored by the Biblical authors in favour of following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Neither you or I can assume to know the mind of the Biblical authors.

So we will agree to disagree, just making sure the opposing view was heard from, in case anyone thought your view was the only possible truth...now they can exercise their free will and determine for themselves what to believe.

Have a good one, Octothorp.

[troutman]

This book might have some relevance to this discussion:

http://www.lucifereffect.com/

In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a "perfect storm" which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the "Lucifer Effect," named after God's favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971.

How and why did this transformation take place, and what does it tell us about recent events such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in Iraq? Equally important, what does it say about the "nature of human nature," and what does it suggest about effective ways to prevent such abuses in the future?


Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a “cortical cataract” that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and even annihilation.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by cyclone3483

agreed

We agree to disagree as I take the Bible to be the Word of God written by people who had the indwelling of the Spirit of the Most High.

The Straight Dope

Now to the first part of our story. Who wrote/compiled/edited (and when) the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah or the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses?
The traditional explanation is that the Five Books of Moses were written by Moses himself. There are several variants of this explanation:

• Traditional Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity believe that the text was dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, letter for letter (or pretty much letter for letter).
• Other religious groups still ascribe authorship to Moses, but use words like "divinely inspired" rather than "dictated letter for letter."
• Still others say Moses was the sole author, but there's nothing "divine" about it except in the sense that all great works of literature and poetry are "inspired."

As time went on, however, scholars became increasingly skeptical of the idea of Moses as single author.

Who wrote the Bible?

This is just so we have both sides of the story for all to see.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by T@T

I'm far from an expert but didn't the scripts of God create Satan or was it just people trying scare tactics?

Not everyone who believes in a god is Christian, and many who are, don't take the bible literally...

... so no, just because someone believes in god, it does not mean they have to believe in Satan. Only for those whose beliefs fall into a certain Judeo-Christian-Islamic sects can be held to that.

[photon]

A serious interesting discussion developed!

I'm very tempted to change the thread title to Why do people hate Stan so much?

[photon]

Originally Posted by cyclone3483

agreed

We agree to disagree as I take the Bible to be the Word of God written by people who had the indwelling of the Spirit of the Most High. I use the Bible to interpret the Bible. When trying to understand it, I use other passages within the Bible to help explain it. Taking any information other than the Word of God to help interpret the Bible can lead to potential misinterpretation.

Ah but octothorp is only using the Bible to raise the point, what other sources is he using? The Bible was written by many different people across many years, and different parts of the Bible present Satan (or whomever) as very different entities.

Enough difference that it would have a huge impact on doctrine!

So if different authors writing different things at different times reflecting their beliefs at that time isn't the reason for the very different definitions of Satan, what is the reason?

I've read the Bible for 30 years and I don't have a different answer.

I also think that if you don't read the Bible in view of the authors and their contexts you miss a LOT of information. For example rather than reading the gospels horizontally, try reading vertically. Read one whole gospel without referencing the others.

You'll find that Mark's view of Jesus is very different from Luke and Matthew's (who used Mark as a source), and John is very different again appearing not to use much of the other gospels as a source.

Mark portrays Jesus as very human, read the passion in Mark thinking about how human he is. While Luke goes out of his way to portray Jesus as almost not human; or at the very least in complete control, never suffering, never in doubt. You can even see places where Luke was changed over history to try and make Luke harmonize with Mark a bit more.

Another example is Paul's attitude towards women in ministry (favorable), but in the letters that were written by someone other than Paul but in Paul's name (books of Timothy) you see a different doctrine towards women. Or even changes made over time to Paul's original letters to try to suppress women in accordance with a later belief that women were inferior.

Any, just an example of the kinds of things that can be missed if you read it as one big work rather than recognizing

Originally Posted by cyclone3483

agreed

We agree to disagree as I take the Bible to be the Word of God written by people who had the indwelling of the Spirit of the Most High.

I guess the question is then which Bible? Which version?

[Burninator]

Hail Satan!

[Vulcan]

That's an interesting take on Paul, photon. I've always had a poor opinion about his writings, so I guess I should give him the benefit of doubt on his attitude towards women.

Another point is I've often heard ministers refer to the Bible as the 'word' of god where as I think of the 'word' as god's name which leaves the bible as an inspired work but by no means infallible.

[photon]

I think the early church was pretty pro-women in general, the earliest writing seem to indicate that. The anti-women sentiment was added later.

Paul said women could and did speak openly in church, but in I Corinthians there's a command for women to keep silent, and there's evidence that that was inserted by a scribe at some point.

There's other cases of Paul's letters or even Acts being changed by scribes to reduce or eliminate a woman's prominence. In one place Paul names a woman as "foremost among the apostles", and some scribes later changed it so that she was related to the foremost, basically stripping her of being an apostle!

[BuzzardsWife]

satan's hot!

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by photon

I think the early church was pretty pro-women in general, the earliest writing seem to indicate that. The anti-women sentiment was added later.

As pro-woman as they could be for the first 1000 years.
The First Lateran Council of 1123 stated that priests, and other high level members of the church were forbidden to contract marriage or even remain married. At that time, the reason was to ensure that money remained with the Church and was not inherited.
The church was angry that Priests et al were dieing and leaving their wealth to their wives and or families. After 1123 all Priestly marriages were anulled or they were asked to leave. The Catholic church has gone on to be one of the richest organizations in the world.
I guess Satan made them get married in the first place.

[cyclone3483]

Originally Posted by photon

A serious interesting discussion developed!

I'm very tempted to change the thread title to Why do people hate Stan so much?

hey, leave Stan out of this. He never hurt anyone. Whereas Satan...

[Cheese]

Santa = Satan

No really he is...

Seriously!

[photon]

Landover Baptist Church is a parody BTW, it's not real.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/tos.html

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by photon

Landover Baptist Church is a parody BTW, it's not real.

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/tos.html

Really? Jeez and here Ive thought of them as the real thing...NOT!!! LOL

The other two links are not parodies...although they sound like they are.

[photon]

Poe's law!

[peter12]

I find the Jewish version of Satan to be quite an attractive figure, especially in light of the Hebrew's view of their God. The whole dynamic between God and Satan in the book of Job is actually quite fascinating and rather enlightening in some way.s

[Titan]

Personally I am okay with my concept of Satan.



So it adds nothing to the thread. Sue me.

[CaptainCrunch]

Isn't the devil himself half frozen in ice in the middle of the 9th circle of hell chewing on Brutis and Judas for all of eternity.

To me, It sounds like he doesn't propagate evil, the evil comes to him for punishment.