Satan and the New Testament

[-V-]

If you want to dispute the fact that this forum is on the internet, that's your business. But please keep that nonsense off my thread. Now, do you have anything to contribute or are you done here?

At no point did I dispute the fact that this forum is on the internet.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

At no point did I dispute the fact that this forum is on the internet.

Then why are you suggesting that I use the internet to acquire information, as if that's not what I'm already doing?

 

[-V-]

Then why are you suggesting that I use the internet to acquire information, as if that's not what I'm already doing?

So, this forum is the only place you can get information??

 

[Nihilist Virus]

So, this forum is the only place you can get information??

No need to try to save face when you roll with the anonymous avatar. You tried to punk me and it blew up in your face. The very concept of what you tried to pull is sophomoric at best. You failed to consider that maybe I want a two-way conversation and hence gravitate towards forums instead of reading some blog. You fail to realize that there are a lot of Christian websites that give garbage answers. You fail to realize that Christian answers often contradict one from site to site. You fail to consider that even a good answer may require follow-up questions. Instead, you come onto the forums where I am posting in the appropriate area and you suggest that I look elsewhere for answers.

After a solid first post, you've fallen flat on your face. This game you're playing is growing old and tiresome. Congratulations, you've succeeded in aggravating me. Again, do you have anything to contribute or are we done here? You've used up your allotted amount of trolling - I have room on my ignore list.

 

[-V-]

No need to try to save face when you roll with the anonymous avatar. You tried to punk me and it blew up in your face. The very concept of what you tried to pull is sophomoric at best. You failed to consider that maybe I want a two-way conversation and hence gravitate towards forums instead of reading some blog. You fail to realize that there are a lot of Christian websites that give garbage answers. You fail to realize that Christian answers often contradict one from site to site. You fail to consider that even a good answer may require follow-up questions. Instead, you come onto the forums where I am posting in the appropriate area and you suggest that I look elsewhere for answers.

After a solid first post, you've fallen flat on your face. This game you're playing is growing old and tiresome. Congratulations, you've succeeded in aggravating me. Again, do you have anything to contribute or are we done here? You've used up your allotted amount of trolling - I have room on my ignore list.

lol, riiiiight

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

The sign that Jesus gave as proof that the was the Messiah was that he would rise from the dead three days after dying. That's a sign that Satan can't duplicate. He can't raise anyone to life.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The sign that Jesus gave as proof that the was the Messiah was that he would rise from the dead three days after dying. That's a sign that Satan can't duplicate. He can't raise anyone to life.

Satan invented lots of deities who assumed human form, died for their followers, and rose again from the dead. How do I know Jesus isn't one of those?

 

[-V-]

Satan invented lots of deities who assumed human form, died for their followers, and rose again from the dead.

For example... ?

How do I know Jesus isn't one of those?

How many of those others fit the details of the Messiah given in the Old Testament, which your OP presumes is true?

 

[dcalling]

When I was a Christian, I was told that Joseph Smith, Muhammad (FBUH), and the like were in communication with the devil when they concocted their false religions. Alien abductees were actually victims of demonic encounters.

So Satan has the ability to create false religions, he has the desire to, and he has in fact succeeded in doing so.

Now, imagine that you're Satan in 1000 BC. You see that God has established a covenant with man and has set up specific rules for living, atonement of sins, and etc. You want to deceive these people. How do you do it?

Would you perhaps find a way to convince them that they don't need to perform animal sacrifices? Would you find a way to convince them that the temple is no longer a holy place? What if you could accomplish this by substituting for God someone else that they could worship? Would that be a worthwhile aim, again, pretending that you're Satan?

If you're Satan in 1000 BC, what parts of the New Testament would not seem like a good idea to you? In short, I'd like to know what parts of the New Testament could not have been authored or inspired by Satan. What parts of the New Testament contradict Satan's goals to the point that he would not advocate such ideas even to advance a false god for people to worship?

If you refuse to answer this, then you surrender your right to fling accusations of other religions or experiences being Satanic. And worse, if you refuse to answer, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not your beliefs are an extreme insult to YHWH.

You blame Satan a bit too much. Most of it is not Satan decisive people, but people decisive others for earthly gains.

To see if something is from God, all you need to do is check if what the guy preached is good for all or just a small group. Jesus come, preached to love all your neighbors as yourself, to love your enemies, to not judge, that only God saves, and that he will die (and died for us).

It is not just limited to other religions, where there are humans there are deception. Still remember when I first come here, and saw some TV evanligist, his pianist got all 10 fingers full of jeweries, and I, an atheist at the time, know he don't believe in what he preach in.

 

[Sanoy]

The difference being what?

The difference being I have no interest in wasting my time trying to convince a person against their will.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Satan invented lots of deities who assumed human form, died for their followers, and rose again from the dead. How do I know Jesus isn't one of those?

I don't think Satan invented those necessarily. They are just susurrations, intimations of the coming Incarnation. We see Paul showing the Athenians the altar to the Unknown God, showing that there are aspects of the truth in other religions. Christianity doesn't need to be completely true and the others completely wrong, for the others need only be partially wrong as opposed to the Truth of Jesus. I see no reason why corn-kings and all the other Golden-Bough like mythology, is not just foreshadowing of Christ elsewhere, and in fact in that manner supports Christianity quite well.

CS Lewis writes that if we think of life as if we are reading a story, and suddenly someone brings us a page and says this is the apex of the plot, we need to see if it fits and brings out new information or themes in the rest. This is exactly what the Incarnation and sacrifice of Christ does, for it not only makes us understand the OT better, but allows us to read so much other mythology as foreshadowing it as well, and reading His miracles as small scale wonders as to large scale actions of God.

To quote Lewis:
"The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in large letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and other prophecies.
God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus ever year, from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana. Every year God makes a little corn into much corn: the seed is sown and there is an increase, and men according to the fashion of their age say 'It is Ceres, it is Adonis, it is the Corn-King' or else 'it is the law of Nature', the close up, the translation of this wonder, is the feeding of the five thousand.” - Miracles, in God in the Dock


"I think we are rather in this position. Supposing you had before you a manuscript of some great work, either a symphony or a novel. There then comes to you a person, saying, “Here is a new bit of the manuscript that I found; it is the central passage of that symphony, or the central chapter of that novel. The text is incomplete without it. I have got the missing passage which is really the center of the whole work.”

The only thing you could do would be to put this new piece of the manuscript in that central position, and then see how it reacted on the whole of the rest of the work. If it constantly brought out new meanings from the whole of the rest of the work, if it made you notice things in the rest of the work which you had not noticed before, then I think you would decide that it was authentic. On the other hand, if it failed to do that, then, however attractive it was in itself, you would reject it.

Now, what is the missing chapter in this case, the chapter which Christians are offering? The story of the Incarnation is the story of a descent and resurrection. When I say “resurrection” here, I am not referring simply to the first few hours, or the first few weeks of the Resurrection. I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again. What we ordinarily call the Resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns.

...

In that sense the doctrine fits in very well, so well in fact that immediately there comes the suspicion, Is it not fitting in a great deal too well? In other words, does not the Christian story show this pattern of descent and reascent because that is part of all the nature religions of the world? We have read about it in The Golden Boughs. We all know about Adonis, and the stories of the rest of those rather tedious people; is not this one more instance of the same thing, “the dying god”? Well, yes it is. That is what makes the question subtle.

What the anthropological critic of Christianity is always saying is perfectly true. Christ is a figure of that sort. And here comes a very curious thing. When I first, after childhood, read the Gospels, I was full of that stuff about the dying god, The Golden Bough, and so on. It was to me then a very poetic, and mysterious, and quickening idea; and when I turned to the Gospels never will I forget my disappointment and repulsion at finding hardly anything about it at all. The metaphor of the seed dropping into the ground in this connection occurs (I think) twice in the New Testament, and for the rest hardly any notice is taken; it seemed to me extraordinary. You had a dying God, Who was always representative of the corn: you see Him holding the corn, that is, bread, in His hand, and saying, “This is My Body,” and from my point of view, as I then was, He did not seem to realize what He was saying. Surely there, if anywhere, this connection between the Christian story and the corn must have come out; the whole context is crying out for it. But everything goes on as if the principal actor, and still more, those about Him, were totally ignorant of what they were doing.

It is as if you got very good evidence concerning the sea serpent, but the men who brought this good evidence seemed never to have heard of sea serpents. Or to put it in another way, why was it that the only case of the “dying god” which might conceivably have been historical occurred among a people (and the only people in the whole Mediterranean world) who had not got any trace of this nature religion, and indeed seemed to know nothing about it? Why is it among them the thing suddenly appears to happen?

...

The corn itself is in its far-off way an imitation of the supernatural reality; the thing dying, and coming to life again, descending, and reascending beyond all Nature. The principle is there in Nature because it was first there in God Himself. Thus one is getting in behind the nature religions, and behind Nature to Someone Who is not explained by, but explains, not, indeed, the nature religions directly, but that whole characteristic behavior of Nature on which nature religions were based. Well, that is one way in which it surprised me. It seemed to fit in a very peculiar way, showing me something about Nature more fully than I had seen it before, while itself remaining quite outside and above the nature religions." - The Grand Miracle, in God in the Dock

 

[mindlight]

When I was a Christian, I was told that Joseph Smith, Muhammad (FBUH), and the like were in communication with the devil when they concocted their false religions. Alien abductees were actually victims of demonic encounters.

So Satan has the ability to create false religions, he has the desire to, and he has in fact succeeded in doing so.

Now, imagine that you're Satan in 1000 BC. You see that God has established a covenant with man and has set up specific rules for living, atonement of sins, and etc. You want to deceive these people. How do you do it?

Would you perhaps find a way to convince them that they don't need to perform animal sacrifices? Would you find a way to convince them that the temple is no longer a holy place? What if you could accomplish this by substituting for God someone else that they could worship? Would that be a worthwhile aim, again, pretending that you're Satan?

If you're Satan in 1000 BC, what parts of the New Testament would not seem like a good idea to you? In short, I'd like to know what parts of the New Testament could not have been authored or inspired by Satan. What parts of the New Testament contradict Satan's goals to the point that he would not advocate such ideas even to advance a false god for people to worship?

If you refuse to answer this, then you surrender your right to fling accusations of other religions or experiences being Satanic. And worse, if you refuse to answer, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not your beliefs are an extreme insult to YHWH.

This was a bit of a confusing post. But I think you are suggesting that all other religions than the Christian one are regarded as Satanic counterfeits by Christians. That is something I can broadly agree without exaggerating the role of Satan. As in some religions there is an extensive human input also.

You second main point and then question was to do with what there was in the NT that Satan must absolutely hate and what was distinctively not Satanic. I suppose your intention with the post was to suggest that various comparative religious studies showed that there were no distinctive Christian features to the NT and that therefore Satan was all in all.

However the best answer I can think of to the broad question is to look at the way the only major religion to post date Christianity deals with the NT and with Jesus. That is to say how does Islam handle it.

1) Jesus is not awarded his full status as God-Man but is rather regarded only as a prophet
2) There is no redemption by the cross because Jesus never died on the cross
3) God is not Trinitarian thereby modelling love within Himself and with the eternal love relationship of the Trinity. Thereby implying a non relational and non personal nature to God. The Christian God by contrast is one we can know personally and intimately.
4) That the authors of scripture were people inspired directly by God. Satan would prefer to have an angel dictate the text.

So I would suggest Satans four biggest hates in the OT are to do with:

1) Incarnation
2) Redemption and the cross and resurrection
3) The Trinitarian and relational nature of God
4) The relative redundancy of angels

 

[Nihilist Virus]

For example... ?


How many of those others fit the details of the Messiah given in the Old Testament, which your OP presumes is true?

Youz dis thang whuts calld teh inturnetz

 

[-V-]

Youz dis thang whuts calld teh inturnetz

I already have, which makes me curious where you got these "lots of other deities" from.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I already have, which makes me curious where you got these "lots of other deities" from.

Like I said, you've aggravated me. You've used up your allotment of my patience. So if you think you can ignore what I asked you, and then ask me a question, you're bananas. Answer me first, and then maybe we can have a discussion. Or don't. I really don't give a shekel.

 

[-V-]

Like I said, you've aggravated me. You've used up your allotment of my patience. So if you think you can ignore what I asked you, and then ask me a question, you're bananas. Answer me first, and then maybe we can have a discussion. Or don't. I really don't give a shekel.

I haven't ignored anything.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You blame Satan a bit too much. Most of it is not Satan decisive people, but people decisive others for earthly gains.

To see if something is from God, all you need to do is check if what the guy preached is good for all or just a small group. Jesus come, preached to love all your neighbors as yourself, to love your enemies, to not judge, that only God saves, and that he will die (and died for us).

It is not just limited to other religions, where there are humans there are deception. Still remember when I first come here, and saw some TV evanligist, his pianist got all 10 fingers full of jeweries, and I, an atheist at the time, know he don't believe in what he preach in.

You are pitching a self-defeating criteria. What Jesus preached is not good for everyone. Did you even read any of the gospels?

Jesus said that Christians will be persecuted for his sake. Non-Christians will go to hell. I see a lot of bad for everyone.

So I can only assume that you are referring to the actions recommended or commanded by Jesus and not the consequences of belief or disbelief. So... taking up your cross daily is good for everyone? Hating your mother, father, and everyone is good for everyone?

Do you think things out before you post? Every time I read what you say, there's something severely wrong with it.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I haven't ignored anything.

K, bye.

 

[-V-]

So... taking up your cross daily is good for everyone? Hating your mother, father, and everyone is good for everyone?

Do you even know what those things mean? How are those things not good, other than because you say so?

 

[Chriliman]

When I was a Christian, I was told that Joseph Smith, Muhammad (FBUH), and the like were in communication with the devil when they concocted their false religions. Alien abductees were actually victims of demonic encounters.

So Satan has the ability to create false religions, he has the desire to, and he has in fact succeeded in doing so.

Now, imagine that you're Satan in 1000 BC. You see that God has established a covenant with man and has set up specific rules for living, atonement of sins, and etc. You want to deceive these people. How do you do it?

Would you perhaps find a way to convince them that they don't need to perform animal sacrifices? Would you find a way to convince them that the temple is no longer a holy place? What if you could accomplish this by substituting for God someone else that they could worship? Would that be a worthwhile aim, again, pretending that you're Satan?

If you're Satan in 1000 BC, what parts of the New Testament would not seem like a good idea to you? In short, I'd like to know what parts of the New Testament could not have been authored or inspired by Satan. What parts of the New Testament contradict Satan's goals to the point that he would not advocate such ideas even to advance a false god for people to worship?

If you refuse to answer this, then you surrender your right to fling accusations of other religions or experiences being Satanic. And worse, if you refuse to answer, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not your beliefs are an extreme insult to YHWH.

Satan would not tell us to love God and love others, which is really what the New Testimate is all about revealing. Any attempt to twist this truth will be exposed as fraudulent.

You come from the point of view that God either does not exist or is actually evil, so I understand why you desire to oppose these concepts of God that you have in your mind.