Who is Lucifer? Who is the Devil? Who is Satan?

[Dyothelite]

OOOOOhh oooo oooo oooo. I forgot something I wanted to say,

 

How many people are familiar with Buddha's temptation by the "Devil" (Mara)? The story is nearly identical, but Buddha had greater sins to overcome.

[Southtown]

Brown committed fraud. He took the quasi-historical information from two books wriiten several decades ago. They were Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Prophesies by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Brown took their theories and fictionalized them into a book.

I know it's fictional. But I was just laying real-world implications of that line of reasoning. After all, DVC doesn't have to be true for people to believe it. And a self-proclaimed decendant of King David residing in the next Jewish temple doesn't need to be authentic in order to fulfill prophecy. He just needs followers. :)

 

To Southtown, the reason I brought up the destruction of the Temple in 70CE was that the Messiah that Jews were waiting for was someone who would restore the lineage of King David and literally fight a revoluition against occupying forces and restore the State of Israel. Jesus could have lived to see that final battle in 70CE and its interesting to think how he would have handled it a a teacher of true non-violence.

Interesting. He would be pretty old, though. :D

[Dyothelite]

I know it's fictional. But I was just laying real-world implications of that line of reasoning. After all, DVC doesn't have to be true for people to believe it. And a self-proclaimed decendant of King David residing in the next Jewish temple doesn't need to be authentic in order to fulfill prophecy. He just needs followers. :thumbs_up

 

 

Interesting. He would be pretty old, though. :)

 

Yeah but his influence would have been intruiging. Chances are no matter what the Romans would have defeated the Israelites no matter how you look at it but what if led an army? What if he took refuge, he might have been killed by other Jews for not advocating rebellion. The possibilites and ramifications would be endless.

 

Interesting question to ponder: God had to know that even if his Son had led a rebellion to became a Son of David that his army would have lost to the Romans. There is no possibility Jesus could have ever lived up to the Jewish Messiah at the time because in order to do so he'd have to defeat the Romans, which we can historical speculate would be impossible unless God Himself wiped out the entire Roman army. So his purpose could have only been to come in peace, teach peace, and die and through death and create a spiritual path to God.

[asimon2006]

Brothers and Sisters, Repent the time of Christ is near. Repent, for you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't let Satan confuse your trouble mind. Repent, I say for as my brothers the enemy wants you to become confuse and to become like him. Anyone who has an ear, let him hear. The time of the Lord's coming is near.

[Turtle]

Brothers and Sisters, Repent the time of Christ is near. Repent, for you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't let Satan confuse your trouble mind. Repent, I say for as my brothers the enemy wants you to become confuse and to become like him. Anyone who has an ear, let him hear. The time of the Lord's coming is near.

 

Anyone who has a nose, let them smell. :D

[Dyothelite]

Brothers and Sisters, Repent the time of Christ is near. Repent, for you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Don't let Satan confuse your trouble mind. Repent, I say for as my brothers the enemy wants you to become confuse and to become like him. Anyone who has an ear, let him hear. The time of the Lord's coming is near.

 

Please tell me this is sarcasm. Otherwise is smells like religious spam to me.

[Buffy]

Please tell me this is sarcasm. Otherwise is smells like religious spam to me.

Unfortunately, its spam. All are reminded of the fact now. Spam is not appreciated in these forums even if no avarice is involved.

 

Monotonically,

Buffy

[Southtown]

Wooo boy. When it rains bad rep, it pours. :D

[Dyothelite]

If you guys are bored you should read this part of my book called St. Augustine and the Question of Evil. Not a plug! It's online. I made a thread about it too, but I figured it would go well here.

 

Here it is:

 

http://www.thegreentriangle.com/spirituality.htm

[InfiniteNow]

If you guys are bored you should read this part of my book called St. Augustine and the Question of Evil. Not a plug!

Well, actually... It is. :confused:

 

Maybe, instead of just posting a link, you could discuss some aspects of it here. I'll give you a structural example:

 

In my book (available at http://www.mylink.com), I made the following statement:

Sentence 1

Sentence 2

Sentence 3

 

I would like to hear your feedback on that and open a dialogue to further my own understanding on the subject.

 

 

This is not a plug, but I want you to go look at my paper on semantics... :cup:

[Dyothelite]

Well, actually... It is. :)

 

Maybe, instead of just posting a link, you could discuss some aspects of it here. I'll give you a structural example:

 

 

 

 

This is not a plug, but I want you to go look at my paper on semantics... B)

 

Actually that link just goes to a posting of a chapter about Augustinian Theology. My book is much broader.

 

I was just hoping for academic criticism on the article. It is merely an overview of St. Augustine's Theology and the question of "what is evil? satan?"

 

So it really wasn't a plug for a book just a chapter posted on a webpage.... sorry, i've done my best to not spam but this is a relevant article to this topic.

[InfiniteNow]

i've done my best to not spam but this is a relevant article to this topic.

Absolutely. I've noticed. :cup:

 

How about you quote here the portion you deem relevant?

 

 

Cheers. :D

[Dyothelite]

Absolutely. I've noticed. :beer:

 

How about you quote here the portion you deem relevant?

 

 

Cheers. :(

 

I Think for the sake of simplicity and saving space I should just give a summary. The whole article is rather long for a forum post.

 

St. Augustine was originally a Manichean Gnostic. As a Gnostic he saw the universe as a cosmological dualism with two diametrically opposed forces Good and Evil in a conflict with each other. This dualism was, spiritual world vs. material world, divine vs. human, God vs. Evil. Some Gnostics actually believed in two separate Gods a Good God and an Evil God who actually created the evil physical prison of the universe that sought to trap spirit in physical fprm and separate humans from God.

 

He began to question this and concluded a qualitative non-dualistic approach which means he was a cosmological non-dualist in that all things were dependent upon God to exist and that no things independently existed separate from God, but things have a "qualitative" distinction but not real independent existence from God. Therefore, in order for God to be truly "ultimate" there could not be an independent "Evil" force separate from God. And therefore he dissolved the dualism into a non-dualism or cosmological monism with qualitative distinctions like evil, man, devil, soul.

 

Here's a quote from the article:

"By drawing this qualitative distinction in cosmological monism one then can understand the origin of evil, the source of evil, as well as the nature of evil. To St. Augustine evil is not a “thing” or even force in the universe. Evil does not even in fact truly exist. To Augustine what evil is, is a “no-thing” or absence of God’s presence. What creates evil is the absence of God’s presence, and what creates the absence of God’s presence happens in the human mind."

 

He was then however, pressed to prove his logic, and prove why evil exists and where does it come from?

 

Here's another quote from the article:

"How then, if we are to believe that all things are dependent and inseparable in being-ness from God, can we rationalize the existence of evil in the world? We know that evil exists, but the origin of evil and its nature is still unexplained through this logic. Are we to presume that God created evil, or merely allows it to happen? In either case you define God as sinister or negligent. If God is good what is the source of evil?"

 

He clears this up as such:

" By recognizing the existence of human soul, and applying the logic used in understanding being-ness we can come to understanding of the human psychological view of himself and God. Human beings inherently see themselves as permanent individual beings separate from all other things. Humans according to Augustine, don’t in themselves truly exist, they are dependent upon God to exist, and in themselves impermanent. As a consequence to seeing themselves as truly exist beings they separate themselves from God by not recognizing their essential dependence on God to exist. This in turn creates an ego centered perception that separates their perception from God, and creates an individual perception that is in itself illusory.

 

This individual illusory perception is in turn subject to defilements, due not only to the separation from God through an ego centered worldview, but also due to individual wants, needs, desires, tendencies. Augustine defines this as the clouding of the mind. It is when the mind first turns from God and then is clouded by sin or negative psychological attachments. This is the definition of evil. Evil is not a thing or a force in antithesis to God, but is merely the absence of God. When the mind turns from God and becomes ego centered and only concerned with individual desires and habits, there is a lack of God’s presence."

 

He then claims that this first happened on the angelic level through the clouding of Satan's mind, and he then in turn influenced the human mind to do the same and continues to do so through temptation and clouding the mind spiritually.

 

He wrote concerning the mind’s inherent inability to perceive the Divine: “But because this very mind, in which reason and understanding are naturally present, is itself enfeebled by long-standing faults which darken it, it is too weak to cleave to that changeless light and to enjoy it; it is even too weak to endure it, until it has been renewed and healed day after day so as to become capable of such happiness. [And so the mind] had first to be imbued and purged by faith.”

 

And to some up the relevance here:

"According to Augustine evil entered into the world at the beginning of Creation. Augustine equates the separation of light and darkness to be equated to the separation of angels do to the nature of their wills. According to Augustine, evil entered the world through the flaw or choice of will in Satan. Originally all angels were created with the same nature, they are in themselves one of the same substance and existence, however, they differ in the choice of their will. When Satan and other angels chose a certain path with his will, God separated them due to the nature of their wills. Evil in turn is not something created by God, it is a product of chaotic chance events brought about by the individual choice of free-will. Augustine supports this by saying the where the Bible says that Lucifer “fell” he must therefore, have once been “unfallen”. This event then was created by a chance event brought about by Lucifer’s will.

 

This in turn created the Fall of Man. Satan, using the logic of his own reasoning concerning his fall from God, tempted Adam and Eve to choose with their own free wills. The Fall of Man refers to the beginning of sin and the chaotic chance events brought about by the individual free will. Therefore, evil events caused by man’s will are not created by God. In this way, he declares two distinct types of will in the universe, God’s will, and human will. This theology will later become discussed and reaffirmed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, where they equally declared the existence of two distinct wills in Jesus, however Jesus had a perfect qualitative non-dual balance between the two. This theology is called dyothelitism, or two-wills."

 

Sorry this was so long. I tried to keep it short.

I showed this to clarify the question of evil and Satan in eyes of the most prominent Christian Theologian ever.

[Garry Denke]

...and the Garry Denke anagram, the Dark Energy,

exercises the Dragon/Beast/False Prophet power:

 

Revelation 12 Dragon

seven heads (.0000000) three sixes (.666) ten horns (x 10) seven crowns (^-07)

Big G's us., .666 x 10^-07 length^3/mass-time^2

 

Revelation 13 Beast

seven heads (.0000000) three sixes (666.) ten horns (x 10) ten crowns (^-10)

Big G's us., 666. x 10^-10 length^3/mass-time^2

 

Revelation 16 False Prophet

...6...6...6... hopping frogs ...6...6...6... hopping frogs ...6...6...6...

Big G's us., 6.66 x 10^-08 length^3/mass-time^2

 

(well 6'ers always looked like frogs to me,

points jumping about Philadelphia and all)

 

Big G's us., 6.66 x 10^-08 centimetre^3/gram-second^2

 

Quintessence^TM

 

G, Jesus, G's us., 666. x 10^-10 with beastly tail,

the mark, the name, the image, and the number.

 

Lucifer, the Devil, and Satan

(dragon, beast, false prophet)

[Dyothelite]

I heard a rumor that the Devil dresses in drag.

[Dyothelite]

Anyone else ever realize that Carbon 12 is 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons? 666? All living beings have 666 in their structure ..... carbon 12.

 

Am I the only one here? Am I wrong?

[Turtle]

...and the Garry Denke anagram, the Dark Energy,

exercises the Dragon/Beast/False Prophet power:

 

 

Nice to hear from you Garry. :( Did you find my box yet? :eek2: Did you look on its bottom? :naughty: :eek:

 

Sorry had to do it. I'll probably edit this before everyone wakes up tomorrow.

 

I am awake, and dressed. ;)

 

Anyone else ever realize that Carbon 12 is 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons? 666? All living beings have 666 in their structure ..... carbon 12.

 

Am I the only one here? Am I wrong?

 

I have seen it mentioned; you are not the only one. If you want to study six's I heartily recommend Fuller's Synergetics. :)