Satan: what is it??

[HydrogenBond]

Satan is a symbol. While symbols are spatially integrated thought forms associated with how the right cerebral hemisphere stores data. Satan is symbolically the ruler of the earth, who was cast down from heaven.

 

In symbolism, the earth has to do with instinctive behavior or the earthy side of human natuee. In that sense, rather than being connected to natural instincts, Satan is connected to human distortions of natural instinct. If one thinks about how Satan is presented by religion, it is instinct gone wild and perverse, i.e, gluttony, drunkedness, killing, rape, stealing, etc. In other words, picture a social animal, like an ape, losing touch with its natural instincts and going the way of exagerated/distorted instinctive behavior. It would create social stresses that could disrupt the continuiity of the group.

 

What humans do is create laws to prevent this social disruption. But the laws teach people unnatural behavior that they would have never thought about on their own This adds to the data set in the right hemisphere allowing the symbol Satan to evolve.

 

Let me give an example. picture if some young people decided to mix bacon fat with cheese. Because this is bad for the health, the locals may decide to make a law against it. Until that law, only a couple of people did this unhealthy fad. But after the social hoopla to make everyone aware of the new law, the bacon fat/cheese cocktail is now common knowledge. The result is more people trying it to see what all the hype is about. Without the law, this unnatural behavioor would have been contained. With the law, the worms are let out of the can because it teaches people about the procedure.

 

In the bible, i..e, Adam and Eve, Satan is in the tree of knowledge of good and evil (moral laws) Once moral laws are created, the good and evil spread much faster, culturally, filling up the Satan symbol with new and improved data. Most of this data is what most indivudals would have never thought of on their own. The law teaches good as well as evil, with the evil data filling up the Satan symbol. Tpday the symbol is harder to define because its traditional actions are an acceptable part of culture. Only the extreme unnatural iinstinct is not tolerated.

[Southtown]

God knows what's in your heart, he doesn't test you...except that one time with Abraham.

Quite wrong.

 

Sigh...

 

No evil comes from God.

God created everything.

There is no way, given this scripture reasoning, that Satan can make a transition from 'good' to 'evil'.

 

If god created everything, then Satan created nothing. If no evil comes from god, then it doesn't exist.

 

Rinse and repeat.

Your reasoning is inanimate. Evil is not an atomic structure, it is behavior. We have free will, we have choice.

[HydrogenBond]

Because Satan likes the tree of knowledge of good and evil or moral law, the antedot for Satan is to lower the amount of moral law that is taught. I am not saying that all moral laws should be removed but it should be minimized to a basic set.

 

For example, at one time moral law required a strict repression of the world. This included stuff that today is considered tame. The people of that time, where far more cruel to each other due to the extra darkside data increasing the power of the Satan symbol. When these harsh religion laws were softened and the offenses thinned down, the level of cruelty lowered because there was less data pregrammed organization in the Satan symbol. This made it a lower level driving force behind the human personality.

 

But there is another thing to consider. It has to do with natural instinct. Since Satan is connected to departure from natural instinct, even if one removes the moral laws but people are practicing unnatural instinct, there is an internal polarization. There is no law against eating fast food, so there is no social manifestation of cruelty against those who do. But this can lead to throwing the body out of natural balance. The result can be an internal conflict leading to compulsive eating.

[Dyothelite]

I believe that God exists and has infinite power/wisdom etc. So i was just thinking, how does God(having infinite power) allow Satan to exist?B) I was thinking that maybe Satan is a metaphor explaining how humans can turn evil. And also hell, does that exist?

 

When St. Augustine converted to Christianity he was forced to answer this same question. After all, if God is omnipotent then he either creates evil or allows it to happen, either way God is malicious or negligent.

 

His response was as follows. As a Gnostic (before his conversion) he believed in a cosmic duality of good and evil as opposing forces. As a Christian he declared nothing can exist in opposition to God if God is truly universal. Therefore, what is evil and what causes it? His answer was that evil is not a "thing" or force, it is an absence of a "thing" in other words evil is the absence of God. This he said was caused by the clouding of the human mind which in tuirn separates its mind from God. It is then in the human will that evil is created as a consequence of a clouded mind that has separated its consciousness from God.

 

Think of light and dark. Both are dependent on light waves, light is a "thing" dark is merely an absence of a "thing". Saying there can be no good without evil is like saying there can be no light without dark. Light is dependent upon itself to exist, the absence of light is dark.

 

He als taught that this ego-centric separation from God happened first at the angelic level with Satan, then he ptried to get humans to do the same, that is what is meant by "The Fall of Satan" and "The Fall of Man".

 

Hell is basically an eternal separation from God through an ego-centric clouded mind based on its tendencies (hate, anger) that is reconciled through the spiritual assistance of Jesus. He's kinda like the defense attorney and Satan is the prosecutor.

[Freddy]

Below is a link to an article about the origin of Satan in the OT. He does not appear until 1 Chronicles 21:1.

 

http://www.physorg.com/news75128924.html

[Spiked Blood]

Quite wrong.

 

 

Your reasoning is inanimate. Evil is not an atomic structure, it is behavior. We have free will, we have choice.

 

You completely miss the point, as usual.

 

It is also hilarious that you would split hairs about something that is pretty much defined in your book as an absolute.

 

Evil exists because of the devil. There's no way round it, that's what the bible says.

[Southtown]

We aren't dominos, man. What if God created something that can create also? A not-so-hypothetical question, I know. Isn't it interesting that even more "evil" is created every time someone does something bad?

 

In other words, no matter how God decides to create a universe, it will work a certain way. Then the actors within that system that possess free will can either work with the system or against it. Good vs. evil, right vs. wrong.

[Dyothelite]

I don't mean to interrupt but could you guys read my post and incorporate it? theology is my strong point. I hate to see seekers of enlightenment argue. compared to physics theology is easy. southtown and spiked blood. do you know the definition of the word satan? ask me. hahaha

[Southtown]

Of course, sorry 'bout that.

 

When St. Augustine converted to Christianity he was forced to answer this same question. After all, if God is omnipotent then he either creates evil or allows it to happen, either way God is malicious or negligent.

Whether allowing evil is negligent is debatable. Disallowing it entails the removal of free will.

 

His response was as follows. As a Gnostic (before his conversion) he believed in a cosmic duality of good and evil as opposing forces. As a Christian he declared nothing can exist in opposition to God if God is truly universal.

A logical statement such as above (if a then :warped: can be difficult to prove scripturally. First I would ask for scriptures (preferrably OT) that say God is 'universal'. Context is everything. ;)

 

Therefore, what is evil and what causes it? His answer was that evil is not a "thing" or force, it is an absence of a "thing" in other words evil is the absence of God. This he said was caused by the clouding of the human mind which in tuirn separates its mind from God. It is then in the human will that evil is created as a consequence of a clouded mind that has separated its consciousness from God.

 

Think of light and dark. Both are dependent on light waves, light is a "thing" dark is merely an absence of a "thing". Saying there can be no good without evil is like saying there can be no light without dark. Light is dependent upon itself to exist, the absence of light is dark.

We do agree that evil is not an object. But my opinion is that evil is an act. Regarding SB's assertion that God created evil, I say that his creations are the ones who create evil. I admit that God had to allow this if he is omniscient. But how could he disallow it without removing our free will?

 

He als[o] taught that this ego-centric separation from God happened first at the angelic level with Satan, then he ptried to get humans to do the same, that is what is meant by "The Fall of Satan" and "The Fall of Man".

 

Hell is basically an eternal separation from God through an ego-centric clouded mind based on its tendencies (hate, anger) that is reconciled through the spiritual assistance of Jesus. He's kinda like the defense attorney and Satan is the prosecutor.

Here's a link to a post of mine from earlier in this same thread from a while back that explains my position.

 

P.S. And (I'll bite) what is your definition of Satan?

[Dyothelite]

First those declarations weren't mine. They were St. Augustine's who is considered the central philosopher that shaped Christian theology. If you would like references to his texts I'll give you them, but scriptural references would be within his work. As far as God being universal, that was the point of his conversion, Gnostics view a cosmic dualism between Good and Evil, Augustine believed God to be universal so he converted and reconciled the dualism of Gnosticism into what i call a qualitative non-dualism, where evil is not an opposing force but an absence of a force.

 

Augustine would agree that evil is not a thing but a product of free will. The theological definition of free-will is that there are two wills: human will and Divine will. In Greek the word for will is thelema. Jesus was defined as the perfect alignment of human will and divine will, thus the theology is called Dyothelitism (dyo-two, thelema-will) named in 681 CE at the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. The misalignment of free human will and Divine will creates sin and evil.

 

The actual definition of the word Satan is "adversary". In Jewish accounts he was a prosecutor of human sins, especially in Job. In Christian accounts he became the prosecutor and tempter (sounds like entrapment to me though). Jewish accounts will not describe the snake in the Garden of Eden as Satan, it was Christian influence that called him the tempter.

 

One thing that Christians need to keep in mind is that the theology took centuries to form, the Bible was only used as reference for declarations of the Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Empire. The science of the theology and philosophy was formed over centuries of debate and even war.

[Southtown]

I don't have any arguments with the two-wills per se. It seems consistent with scripture to me. Where I stray from the path is at mention of Councils, Empires, and Constantine-ville. Catholicism is the harlot of Revelation 17.

 

http://www.remnantofgod.org/beastword.htm