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Of course. As I'm sure you already know, the bible is not a book or one work, but a collection of writings over centuries. Even the single "book" called Isaiah is written by 3 different guys over a period of 150 years. And so there are many different styles of writing. Look at the first two chapters of Genesis, both dealing with the Creation. The first book is poetry, the second prose.
Did God make the world in literally six days? Um, doubt it. Nice poem, though.
Did some of those battles in some of those places in the ancient Middle East take place? Yes, I think you can take those stories literally, or at least as far as they can be truthfully told from one side of the story.
Is there something in human intelligence that allows for a sense that something called evil exists? Maybe, I think so. Can that concept be further personified into a being that represents all evil? I think it has been. Does that being literally exist? I think not.
So in the devil, you have humanity's natural sense that something called evil exists, and then that sense is further developed into an actual person of sorts who is in charge of all that is wrong, and some things that is not are universally thought to be wrong but are deemed to be wrong by a specific culture.
And then that specific culture starts to identify which others outside their culture are doing wrong as per their definition, and concludes that the other people must be under the control of the devil.
And then, armed with the justification that they are actually fighting the DEVIL, not their fellow man, they kill them, or enslave them, or marginalize them--thereby proving by their own actions that evil really does exist.
I like this! I think I'll go with it. I think it's the logical answer.
very real. comes to us as a whisper in the guise of our own thought.
no real intelligence but can make suggests and does it all the time.
biggest suggestion is fear. next biggest weapon is offense.
God created two classes of rational beings. One class is corporeal and known as "humans". The other class lacks a body and is pure spirit. They are "angels".
"Angels" have free will just as humans do. However, they can choose only once whether to be good or evil. Evil, or fallen angels are popularly known as "demons" or "devils". "Devil" is also an allusion to the leader of the fallen angels, "Lucifer".
Supernatural realities are more difficult to grasp than material realities, but they are real nonetheless.
I see it as a self-imposed limitation on atheist's intelligence not to recognize the possibility of a supernatural world.
I don't think that the evil in this world comes from an external source, it comes from within.
We all have a dark side, some people are just unable to accept it and need something/someone else to blame instead of accepting responsibility for their own behavior.
Pretty cowardly IMHO.
"the devil made me do it"
Yup- this is how I see it. My nutshell explanation is that the devil is our ego.
Now Lucifer, he is a whole different character....out side of the bible. Interesting that Lucifer is commonly known as 'evil' and yet his name translates to 'light bringer'.... And being Christian is to be enlightened? How does that work!?
And Satan being Gods puppet.... Nails it!
The Beast is the collective mentality of all of humanity. We are the devil and it is us that keep this thing alive...we feed evil because we fall short in intelligence...To stupid to heed God and goodness...evil and stupidity are kin.
The devil has as much meaning to me as Count Dracula, Hollywood Mummy movies and of course Frankenstein. On the other hand the devil with people that believe in that sort of thing, now thats scary because they can act and not take responsibility for their actions.
"The devil made me do it." Now thats scary, because people can be evil.
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