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SATAN
- Thread starter Landon Caeli
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I've seen demons in my dreams. It was a long time ago, after I first became addicted to hard drugs.
There I was in the house I grew up in, and the demon of perversion, who I knew quite well, would just follow me around inside -I accepted it's presence and it accepted mine. But then he opened the front door and his friend came in as I watched but did nothing. All of a sudden his friend began spinning in circles so fast, to the point where he looked like a cylinder of brown hair. He moved quickly through the kitchen, destroying the counters and the cabinets, then the walls. He shredded the entire house within seconds, as if he was a kind of grinder, fragments were flying everywhere. I remember feeling guilty, angry and scared, all at the same time, because it wasnt my house, it was my parents, and I was responsible for the destruction of it. I knew he was unstoppable, so I ran outside screaming and crying over the fowl deed I had let happen. Running down the driveway, a woman, who reminded me of the Virgin Mary, as beautiful and as calm as could be, told me to jump in, and quickly she sped away... Then I woke up sweating and gasping for air.
...this was the scariest, and most vivid dream of my life.
There I was in the house I grew up in, and the demon of perversion, who I knew quite well, would just follow me around inside -I accepted it's presence and it accepted mine. But then he opened the front door and his friend came in as I watched but did nothing. All of a sudden his friend began spinning in circles so fast, to the point where he looked like a cylinder of brown hair. He moved quickly through the kitchen, destroying the counters and the cabinets, then the walls. He shredded the entire house within seconds, as if he was a kind of grinder, fragments were flying everywhere. I remember feeling guilty, angry and scared, all at the same time, because it wasnt my house, it was my parents, and I was responsible for the destruction of it. I knew he was unstoppable, so I ran outside screaming and crying over the fowl deed I had let happen. Running down the driveway, a woman, who reminded me of the Virgin Mary, as beautiful and as calm as could be, told me to jump in, and quickly she sped away... Then I woke up sweating and gasping for air.
...this was the scariest, and most vivid dream of my life.
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Fish and Bread
Dona nobis pacem
I think there is definitely evil in the world. I think our spiritual forebears probably said, well, if God is good, and there is evil in the world, where does it come from, as it can't come from God? Some probably said, well, from man, but then others probably answered, but if we are only created and influenced by a being who is all good, why would he make us evil? And get the garden of eden and original sin and so on, and Satan from that. That's a simplification, of course, and I'm taking thousands of years of pre-Jewish, Jewish, and Christian thought and tossing it all in a blender as if it happened at the same time- were talking more figuratively here than literally, I suppose.
Another thing that influenced the traditional Christian conception of evil is Zoroastrianism. In Judaism, Satan is traditionally thought of as God's helper- tasked by God to test and tempt people in the hopes that they will overcome that and choose the good and be better people at the end of the experience (I'm not Jewish or a scholar of Judaism, so here again, I'll just say that's my general impression, the specifics may be off). The Old Testament, and even the Book of Job can be read with that interpretation and still make sense.
Now, Christianity came into a world where Zoroastrianism, which we rarely think about these days, and many people don't know anything about, was big in the middle east. It was the official religion of the Persian Empire from 600BC-600AD, approximately (Persia was more or less modern day Iraq geographically- but the Persian Empire stretched much further at times). So Christ was born right in the middle of that- time wise and geographically.
Though we tend to think of early Christians converting Jews and Greco-Roman pagans primarily, which they of course did, for whatever reason we tend not to think of the Zorostrians, many of whom must have been among the early converts to Christianity, and who probably were also influential on the thoughts of some people who were technically Greco-Roman Pagans or Jews or Gentiles who embraced the core tenants of Judaism but didn't become Jews (This was a big thing in parts of the Roman Empire, apparently. The circumcision was a bit off-putting for adult male potential converts.
Christian baptism, they found a bit easier to take Many of that last group became Christians).
Zoroastrianism was interesting in that it had a lot of features in common or that are similar to but not quite the same as modern Christianity. They viewed fire as holy- something that maybe we can see some reflections of in Pentecost and speaking of flaming tongues and such in general, and in the holy fires that the Eastern Orthodox claim spontaneously ignite yearly in a particular holy place who's name is escaping me at the moment. They also claimed that there were 7 angels of light, and 7 angels of darknesses. Judaism had angels, but Christianity puts more emphasis on it, and the 7 evil angels sound a lot like demons, don't they, which were big in Christianity at times?
But the biggest thing in Zorostrianism that may have effected Christianity, is that Zoroastrians were not pagans (many gods) or monotheists (one God), but dualists (Two Gods). Dualism, as the name implies, means two Gods. In this case, the Zorostrians had two gods with equal power. There was the good God, and there was the evil God. They were equal. Each had 7 angels. And in that way they explained why there is good and evil in the world. There were these two gods, and their angels, and they were perpetually fighting each other for influence. Zoroastrians of course worshiped the one they viewed as the good one, obviously, or at least that's the impression I've always had.
So, you take Judiasm, which is monotheistic with one God, who in Jewish thought has this angel named Lucifer who he tells to tempt people and sort of test them, but who ultimately is on God's payroll, so to speak. Then you have Zorostrianism, which is dualist with one God who is similar to the Christian God, the epitome of good as their culture saw it, and then this equal but evil God, who was the eptime of evil as they saw it.
Now, if Christianity, a Jewish based religion, comes along and converts a bunch of Zoroastrians, who of course carry some of their own thoughts and ideas with them when they convert, it would be very easy to see the Jewish angel God charges with essentially doing evil things as basically the same thing as their evil God. In doing so, they would cut the strings where God tells Lucifer to test people and just make Lucifer a rebellious guy who is pure evil and does evil and fights God- much like there was this evil God fighting the good God in Zoroastrianism. But Christianity is monotheistic, so Satan can't be equal to God, so there's sort of the thought that God let's him do his thing to a limited extent out of tolerance and to sort the wheat from the chafe, but that Satan does it because he is evil and not because God commands him to do it, and that God would kind of prefer he not, but is only going to step in at certain points and in certain cases, and kind of plans for it in figuring out how he's going to save the world.
That's not, of course, to say, that that couldn't all be one big coincidence and that the Jews couldn't have been wrong about Satan and that the Christians couldn't have gotten some sort of revelation from on high that Satan was a little different from what Jews taught. Could all be the case. Maybe God even implanted or arranged for some of these ideas that we see reflected in Christianity that come from other religions and cultures like Greco-Roman paganism and Zorostrianism to arise, in a big plan to sort of meld them all together synergistically around his one true religion that he wanted to come directly from Judiasm, but convert the world around it and get other ideas he'd planted in those other religions selectively.
There are lots of ways to view this. Just thought I'd toss a bit of history and folklore into the conversation.
In any event, I would say that Satan certainly exists as an idea. There's evil in the world, and we could call that concept Satan and he'd exist in the sense that group concepts all exist. However, is there a literal fellow with wings and horns and red skin and pitchfork tending giant fires and the damned in the underworld? Couldn't tell you. There might be, there might not be. I don't know, to be honest with you. Some days I think, there definitely is, other days I think, probably not. I kind of hope there isn't, but hope isn't necessarily the same thing as reality, and I know that.
However, either way, I would certainly say that there is light and there is darkness and that the light overcomes the darkness, or at least we should hope for it to. That's a little paraphrase of the early part of the Gospel of John, which I think is absolutely true metaphorically, at minimum.
Another thing that influenced the traditional Christian conception of evil is Zoroastrianism. In Judaism, Satan is traditionally thought of as God's helper- tasked by God to test and tempt people in the hopes that they will overcome that and choose the good and be better people at the end of the experience (I'm not Jewish or a scholar of Judaism, so here again, I'll just say that's my general impression, the specifics may be off). The Old Testament, and even the Book of Job can be read with that interpretation and still make sense.
Now, Christianity came into a world where Zoroastrianism, which we rarely think about these days, and many people don't know anything about, was big in the middle east. It was the official religion of the Persian Empire from 600BC-600AD, approximately (Persia was more or less modern day Iraq geographically- but the Persian Empire stretched much further at times). So Christ was born right in the middle of that- time wise and geographically.
Though we tend to think of early Christians converting Jews and Greco-Roman pagans primarily, which they of course did, for whatever reason we tend not to think of the Zorostrians, many of whom must have been among the early converts to Christianity, and who probably were also influential on the thoughts of some people who were technically Greco-Roman Pagans or Jews or Gentiles who embraced the core tenants of Judaism but didn't become Jews (This was a big thing in parts of the Roman Empire, apparently. The circumcision was a bit off-putting for adult male potential converts.
Christian baptism, they found a bit easier to take Many of that last group became Christians).Zoroastrianism was interesting in that it had a lot of features in common or that are similar to but not quite the same as modern Christianity. They viewed fire as holy- something that maybe we can see some reflections of in Pentecost and speaking of flaming tongues and such in general, and in the holy fires that the Eastern Orthodox claim spontaneously ignite yearly in a particular holy place who's name is escaping me at the moment. They also claimed that there were 7 angels of light, and 7 angels of darknesses. Judaism had angels, but Christianity puts more emphasis on it, and the 7 evil angels sound a lot like demons, don't they, which were big in Christianity at times?
But the biggest thing in Zorostrianism that may have effected Christianity, is that Zoroastrians were not pagans (many gods) or monotheists (one God), but dualists (Two Gods). Dualism, as the name implies, means two Gods. In this case, the Zorostrians had two gods with equal power. There was the good God, and there was the evil God. They were equal. Each had 7 angels. And in that way they explained why there is good and evil in the world. There were these two gods, and their angels, and they were perpetually fighting each other for influence. Zoroastrians of course worshiped the one they viewed as the good one, obviously, or at least that's the impression I've always had.
So, you take Judiasm, which is monotheistic with one God, who in Jewish thought has this angel named Lucifer who he tells to tempt people and sort of test them, but who ultimately is on God's payroll, so to speak. Then you have Zorostrianism, which is dualist with one God who is similar to the Christian God, the epitome of good as their culture saw it, and then this equal but evil God, who was the eptime of evil as they saw it.
Now, if Christianity, a Jewish based religion, comes along and converts a bunch of Zoroastrians, who of course carry some of their own thoughts and ideas with them when they convert, it would be very easy to see the Jewish angel God charges with essentially doing evil things as basically the same thing as their evil God. In doing so, they would cut the strings where God tells Lucifer to test people and just make Lucifer a rebellious guy who is pure evil and does evil and fights God- much like there was this evil God fighting the good God in Zoroastrianism. But Christianity is monotheistic, so Satan can't be equal to God, so there's sort of the thought that God let's him do his thing to a limited extent out of tolerance and to sort the wheat from the chafe, but that Satan does it because he is evil and not because God commands him to do it, and that God would kind of prefer he not, but is only going to step in at certain points and in certain cases, and kind of plans for it in figuring out how he's going to save the world.
That's not, of course, to say, that that couldn't all be one big coincidence and that the Jews couldn't have been wrong about Satan and that the Christians couldn't have gotten some sort of revelation from on high that Satan was a little different from what Jews taught. Could all be the case. Maybe God even implanted or arranged for some of these ideas that we see reflected in Christianity that come from other religions and cultures like Greco-Roman paganism and Zorostrianism to arise, in a big plan to sort of meld them all together synergistically around his one true religion that he wanted to come directly from Judiasm, but convert the world around it and get other ideas he'd planted in those other religions selectively.
There are lots of ways to view this. Just thought I'd toss a bit of history and folklore into the conversation.
In any event, I would say that Satan certainly exists as an idea. There's evil in the world, and we could call that concept Satan and he'd exist in the sense that group concepts all exist. However, is there a literal fellow with wings and horns and red skin and pitchfork tending giant fires and the damned in the underworld? Couldn't tell you. There might be, there might not be. I don't know, to be honest with you. Some days I think, there definitely is, other days I think, probably not. I kind of hope there isn't, but hope isn't necessarily the same thing as reality, and I know that.
However, either way, I would certainly say that there is light and there is darkness and that the light overcomes the darkness, or at least we should hope for it to.
That's a little paraphrase of the early part of the Gospel of John, which I think is absolutely true metaphorically, at minimum.
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I think there is definitely evil in the world. I think our spiritual forebears probably said, well, if God is good, and there is evil in the world, where does it come from, as it can't come from God? Some probably said, well, from man, but then others probably answered, but if we are only created and influenced by a being who is all good, why would he make us evil? And get the garden of eden and original sin and so on, and Satan from that. That's a simplification, of course, and I'm taking thousands of years of pre-Jewish, Jewish, and Christian thought and tossing it all in a blender as if it happened at the same time- were talking more figuratively here than literally, I suppose.
Another thing that influenced the traditional Christian conception of evil is Zoroastrianism. In Judaism, Satan is traditionally thought of as God's helper- tasked by God to test and tempt people in the hopes that they will overcome that and choose the good and be better people at the end of the experience (I'm not Jewish or a scholar of Judaism, so here again, I'll just say that's my general impression, the specifics may be off). The Old Testament, and even the Book of Job can be read with that interpretation and still make sense.
Now, Christianity came into a world where Zoroastrianism, which we rarely think about these days, and many people don't know anything about, was big in the middle east. It was the official religion of the Persian Empire from 600BC-600AD, approximately (Persia was more or less modern day Iraq geographically- but the Persian Empire stretched much further at times). So Christ was born right in the middle of that- time wise and geographically.
Though we tend to think of early Christians converting Jews and Greco-Roman pagans primarily, which they of course did, for whatever reason we tend not to think of the Zorostrians, many of whom must have been among the early converts to Christianity, and who probably were also influential on the thoughts of some people who were technically Greco-Roman Pagans or Jews or Gentiles who embraced the core tenants of Judaism but didn't become Jews (This was a big thing in parts of the Roman Empire, apparently. The circumcision was a bit off-putting for adult male potential converts.
Zoroastrianism was interesting in that it had a lot of features in common or that are similar to but not quite the same as modern Christianity. They viewed fire as holy- something that maybe we can see some reflections of in Pentecost and speaking of flaming tongues and such in general, and in the holy fires that the Eastern Orthodox claim spontaneously ignite yearly in a particular holy place who's name is escaping me at the moment. They also claimed that there were 7 angels of light, and 7 angels of darknesses. Judaism had angels, but Christianity puts more emphasis on it, and the 7 evil angels sound a lot like demons, don't they, which were big in Christianity at times?
But the biggest thing in Zorostrianism that may have effected Christianity, is that Zoroastrians were not pagans (many gods) or monotheists (one God), but dualists (Two Gods). Dualism, as the name implies, means two Gods. In this case, the Zorostrians had two gods with equal power. There was the good God, and there was the evil God. They were equal. Each had 7 angels. And in that way they explained why there is good and evil in the world. There were these two gods, and their angels, and they were perpetually fighting each other for influence. Zoroastrians of course worshiped the one they viewed as the good one, obviously, or at least that's the impression I've always had.
So, you take Judiasm, which is monotheistic with one God, who in Jewish thought has this angel named Lucifer who he tells to tempt people and sort of test them, but who ultimately is on God's payroll, so to speak. Then you have Zorostrianism, which is dualist with one God who is similar to the Christian God, the epitome of good as their culture saw it, and then this equal but evil God, who was the eptime of evil as they saw it.
Now, if Christianity, a Jewish based religion, comes along and converts a bunch of Zoroastrians, who of course carry some of their own thoughts and ideas with them when they convert, it would be very easy to see the Jewish angel God charges with essentially doing evil things as basically the same thing as their evil God. In doing so, they would cut the strings where God tells Lucifer to test people and just make Lucifer a rebellious guy who is pure evil and does evil and fights God- much like there was this evil God fighting the good God in Zoroastrianism. But Christianity is monotheistic, so Satan can't be equal to God, so there's sort of the thought that God let's him do his thing to a limited extent out of tolerance and to sort the wheat from the chafe, but that Satan does it because he is evil and not because God commands him to do it, and that God would kind of prefer he not, but is only going to step in at certain points and in certain cases, and kind of plans for it in figuring out how he's going to save the world.
That's not, of course, to say, that that couldn't all be one big coincidence and that the Jews couldn't have been wrong about Satan and that the Christians couldn't have gotten some sort of revelation from on high that Satan was a little different from what Jews taught. Could all be the case. Maybe God even implanted or arranged for some of these ideas that we see reflected in Christianity that come from other religions and cultures like Greco-Roman paganism and Zorostrianism to arise, in a big plan to sort of meld them all together synergistically around his one true religion that he wanted to come directly from Judiasm, but convert the world around it and get other ideas he'd planted in those other religions selectively.
There are lots of ways to view this. Just thought I'd toss a bit of history and folklore into the conversation.
In any event, I would say that Satan certainly exists as an idea. There's evil in the world, and we could call that concept Satan and he'd exist in the sense that group concepts all exist. However, is there a literal fellow with wings and horns and red skin and pitchfork tending giant fires and the damned in the underworld? Couldn't tell you. There might be, there might not be. I don't know, to be honest with you. Some days I think, there definitely is, other days I think, probably not. I kind of hope there isn't, but hope isn't necessarily the same thing as reality, and I know that.
However, either way, I would certainly say that there is light and there is darkness and that the light overcomes the darkness, or at least we should hope for it to.
Thank you! Very well explained. You will very likely be condemned for pointing out these facts.
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Close. Lucifer is not a Jewish word but a Christian one. It comes from the Latin Vulgate when it translated the Hebrew word for Morning Star and it became a name. Satan is the Hebrew word and it means adversary. Now, by itself it is just the normal word for adversary. Two people against each other in a contest would be adversaries to each other.
The best way I know to describe the Jewish view it would be to envision a prosecuting attorney. Picture a court room with the defendants being humans and the prosecutor being Satan. That's the Jewish view.
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Martinius
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Some time back this question was in a thread. My response then and today is that Satan does not exist as a real, created being. Evil and sin come from mankind, without any help from a spirit. I can find the old thread and give a more complete response if anyone cares.
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I care. But first, I do have a question.
Can animals be evil and commit sin? ...or just mankind?
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Wouldn't animals lack the culpability and capability to be evil or sinful? They weren't given rules to live by nor were they given the ability to reason like humans can.
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What's to condemn? Zoroastrianism was a fine religion -my second favorite.
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I agree, and it raises the questions as to why humans can choose evil, and where evil comes from.
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I can't answer that in terms of it being Catholic theology but I firmly believe that evil comes from us. I believe that the likeness of the divine we were given has to do with the ability to discern and reason which leads us to being able to choose wrong. I don't think it has anything to do with how we look. We're given that ability and it is at the same time our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. We can choose, unlike animals, to become better than just animated flesh. We can help raise up our neighbors, help do good in the world, build great things, inspire people, make music, and worship HaShem because we choose to do so. We also can choose to hurt our neighbors, make the world a worse place to live, kill, maim, and cause suffering. Our dual nature is where human evil comes from. We choose to give in to that part of us that tells us to do the wrong thing. Sadly, we often even justify it by making it seem like the right thing.
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True, but with free will, we only have the ability to 'choose' between available choices -otherwise man could be considered the Creator of evil.
...Designers in our own right.
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Well, there is this:
Isaiah 45:
7. Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates evil; I am the Lord, Who makes all these.
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I don't typically cite the bible in posts for fear of coming off as too fundamentalist, but... There's also this:
John 8:44
You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
Then of course, there is The Temptation of Jesus.
matthew 4:1-11
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