Why is Satan supposed to be so bad? (Jehovah, disciples, America)
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Well, here's the surprise...It all had to happen...
"Had to"? God is constrained? By anything? Then he's not all-powerful. Strike Two.
But let's allow that this "had to" happen. AGAIN, it points to God PLANNING all of it as part of how things "had to" be (which obviously would include the world's first murder according to Bible mythology, something invented by God as everything was invented by God). Who does this bring the "first murderer" down to, again? God, obviously.
Unless you're claiming that Cain invented the idea of murder and God sat there going "THE FUH is this, now?" and reached for the popcorn.
He created man with a free will to make choices...
That is because the WILL is the only thing about us that matters. We are to develop and mature our WILL to only accept things compatible with the Spirit of agape love (Who IS God). We must at least develop SOME harmonic resonance with agape love to fall under the cover of Christ's perfect agape love (perfect resonance= identical). All human consciousness has been put in resonance with God's consciousness by the perfect human consciousness of Jesus the Christ. Now we need only attain some harmonic resonance with Him through love of God and each other.
What a terrible verse to partially quote, a verse that has resulted in an enormous amount of anti-semitism over the last 2,000 years and the popular idea that the Jews are related to the devil! Let me give the verse before it, though the entire passage of 8:31-59 is unfortunately illuminating:
You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
(John 8:44 NSRV)
The author of the Gospel of John was no friend of the Jews.
Putting aside the terribly anti-semitic nature of the Gospel of John and the terrible atrocities it helped usher in, the "murder" the author is referencing is probably that of Abel by Cain.
The Greek New Testament references this elsewhere:
The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way:
all who do not do what is right are not from God,
nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.
For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother.
(I John 3:10-12 NRSV)
This ties in perfectly with the Gospel's anti-Jewish stance, for there had been traditions that Cain had not been sired by Adam, but by the diabolical angel Samael - basically Satan or the serpent. The Palestinian Targum (Ben Uzziel) mentions in Genesis 5:3 that Cain was not sired by Adam:
And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat Sheth, who had the likeness of his image and of his similitude: for before had Hava born Kain, who was not like to him; and Habel was killed by his hand.
(Targum Ben Uzziel Gen. 5:3)
This thread is followed elsewhere:
Having been made pregnant by the seed of the devil ... she brought forth
a son.
(Tertullian, On Patience 5:15)
First adultery came into being, afterward murder. And he [Cain] was begotten
in adultery, for he was the child of the serpent. So he became a murderer,
just like his father, and he killed his brother.
([Gnostic] Gospel of Philip 61:5-10)
And Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by Sammael the
[wicked] angel of the Lord, and she became pregnant and gave birth to
Cain. He resembled the upper ones [angels] and not the lower ones, and she
[therefore] said, "I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the Lord:'
(Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:1)
The serpent came into her and she became pregnant with Cain, as it says,
''And the man knew his wife Eve:' What did he know? That she was already
pregnant [from someone else].
(Pirqei deR. Eliezer 21)
These interpretations largely stem from the difficult passage in Genesis in which Eve is said to have gotten pregnant "with/with the help of the LORD" - either translation is possible, but the literal reading is simply "with".
The point is that there had been ongoing traditions that the Greek New Testament authors would have been very familiar with. Many of these traditions were not fringe ideas, but were fairly well known and accepted as part and parcel of interpreting the Jewish and Christian tradition.
The interpretation that the devil was a murderer appears to have stemmed from these traditions concerning the conception of Cain. Readings that the devil was a murderer due to his association with the serpent in the Garden were largely post-Biblical (see the 4th Century AD Apostolic Constitutions VIII 7:5). The only other reference I can think of offhand is from the Wisdom of Solomon 2:24, but it's not explicit that the devil is a murderer.
Nah, I in my profession there a number of Jewish colleagues that I interact with and I find them to be intelligent, highly qualified, inquisitive, and humorous people who as a group, historically speaking, have surmounted many obstacles and prevailed. The Christian faith which I hold to also has zero animosity towards Jews or any other group of people for that matter.
Jesus was a Jew and so were the first Christians. Some of the Jewish leaders of his day, just as it happens in our time with some leaders of diverse faiths, should have known better but failed to lead the people in a fine way. It is man who has interpreted writings from the Bible to suit and justify atrocities or hatred however as is written in the Bible "Man dominates man to his own injury."
However, many people put their "faith" in internet chatter and presume that the actions of "Christians" throughout history truly represent the teaching of Christ or the apostles or that YHWH was an angry God, a creator of evil, etc . Well no. Moses wrote, "For I will declare the name of YHWH tell about the greatness of our God! The Rock, perfect is his activity,For all his ways are justice.A God of faithfulness who is never unjust;Righteous and upright is he. The Psalmist wrote, " I have seen a limit to all perfection,But your commandment has no limit (very broad). Perfection is relative and only the One God in the Bible is described as perfect in the absolute sense. The very meaning of perfection requires that one set the standard for what is perfect. A creation or "thing" therefore is perfect in relation to the role or function it was created for but that is not perfection in the absolute sense. The Bible writer James wrote, "
Every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of the celestial lights, who does not vary or change like the shifting shadows." Jesus himself is quoted as saying only the true God is perfect (in the absolute sense)-Mark 10:18.
So it is possible for a creation to be perfectly created and yet become imperfect because God created intelligent and cognizant beings who can make decisions (and if made not in accordance with God's purposes the results are well known). Satan was created not as Satan but became such.
“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas." (The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.)-Charles Baudelair
sATAN is a baddie because he caused all of the pain and suffering in the universe.....read the Book of Genesis about the fall of Mankind.
For the truth seekers out there, the fall of mankind wasn't because of any Satan. It was the direct consequence of the actions of the first humans... Adam and Eve, whose real names are Aman and Amon.
Aman reveals the real truth about their fall here:
"... We were so filled with the thought that we were all powerful and all wise, that we concluded that the obedience which God had required of us, was not necessary for us to observe, and that if we only exerted our powers, we would be as great, as He is great, and would be able to obtain that immortality which he possessed....
The disobedience was, in not waiting for God to bestow upon us the great Divine Love, that would make us like Him in substance as well as in image. We were like Him in our possession of souls and also in the possibility of obtaining the Divine Love. We disobeyed Him in that we tried to make ourselves believe, that we were as He was, and that we need not submit further to His decrees. We tried to make this belief a thing of reality, and in our vanity tried to appear as gods; but as soon as we did this, the scales dropped from our eyes, and we saw how naked and impotent we were."
It was by their own thoughts and desires, which caused their Fall. There was no apple, or any Satan or any other alleged fallen angel, which by the way, there can never be any such thing. For once an Angel, always an Angel.
For the truth seekers out there, the fall of mankind wasn't because of any Satan. It was the direct consequence of the actions of the first humans... Adam and Eve, whose real names are Aman and Amon.
Aman reveals the real truth about their fall here:
"... We were so filled with the thought that we were all powerful and all wise, that we concluded that the obedience which God had required of us, was not necessary for us to observe, and that if we only exerted our powers, we would be as great, as He is great, and would be able to obtain that immortality which he possessed....
The disobedience was, in not waiting for God to bestow upon us the great Divine Love, that would make us like Him in substance as well as in image. We were like Him in our possession of souls and also in the possibility of obtaining the Divine Love. We disobeyed Him in that we tried to make ourselves believe, that we were as He was, and that we need not submit further to His decrees. We tried to make this belief a thing of reality, and in our vanity tried to appear as gods; but as soon as we did this, the scales dropped from our eyes, and we saw how naked and impotent we were."
It was by their own thoughts and desires, which caused their Fall. There was no apple, or any Satan or any other alleged fallen angel, which by the way, there can never be any such thing. For once an Angel, always an Angel.
So they didn't BECOME imperfect, greedy, plotting, devious, ungrateful and sinful *after* eating the fruit.
They *already were* imperfect, greedy, plotting, devious, ungrateful and sinful.
Which means *they were made that way.* Not made to have the choice whether or not to be that way. Made that way, period.
Which means the fall is a lie; man never used his free will to disobey...he was created disobedient.
Which means free will is a lie too.
Which means God not only set man up to fail, He created man already failing. He created man to suffer, from the get go.
Thanks for clearing that up.
What a sicko. Really.
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