Do you believe in the Devil?

redfacedbear

Prawo Jazdy wrote: »

I wondered if the Devil was as much around as God.

Yes God and the Devil are both equally 'around'. Which is to say that they are both equally non-existant and therefore equally 'not around'.

Run_to_da_hills

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" I Peter 5 8

stovelid

Mrmoe wrote: »

He better exist, I sold my soul to him years ago and the check bounced, damn evil bastard.

He pulled a Faust one on you, eh?

Fink Goddie

Pics of the devil to prove he's real or GTFO!

sashafierce

This post has been deleted.

garrincha62

Jakkass wrote: »

I have yet to see anything beat the 100,000,000 deaths under state atheist regimes in the 20th century.

By state atheist regimes I take it you are referring to Facist & Communist regimes. If this is the case then it should be noted that these regimes did not cause 100,000,000 deaths as a means of promoting atheism or furthering the cause of atheism.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

You're having a laugh now Sam. If you don't know anything about the promotion of atheism and the persecution of religious belief in the Soviet Union, that is for you to research. It isn't for me to inform you about.

All I'm saying is, other ideologies are equally open to criticism based on promotion of hatred than Christianity is in any respect.

I'm willing to say that this is down to the abuse of atheism, and the neglection of humanist principles, as I am willing to say the Crusades were caused by the abuse of Christianity, and the neglection of Christian principles.

Those cases are down to the abuse of communism and political power in general. People overrode their better judgement because they were told to do so by an authority figure, because they had an irrational loyalty to that authority figure. Atheism and humanism are about reason and doing something against your better judgement because an authority figure tells you to is the antithesis of reason. Nowhere but from a Christian do you hear these countries called "atheist regimes", to everyone else they're communist, fascist, totalitarian and/or dictatorship regimes because everyone except those with a vested interest in thinking otherwise recognises that not believing in God was the motivation for those acts, irrational patriotism was. There is nothing in atheism that requires you follow anyone's instructions but the same cannot be said for fascism, communism and religion

philologos

It seems like nothing more than making excuses though. The State promoted atheism through it's media at the time, and destroyed places of religious worship, banned publication of religious material, and persecuted religious believers. Are we willing to accept that happened or not?

I'm saying both cases are motivated by evil.

nibtrix

Fink Goddie wrote: »

God and the devil are about as real as santa.

Santa??? Satan?!?!?! Oh no, you've uncovered the link!



.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

It seems like nothing more than making excuses though. The State promoted atheism through it's media at the time, and destroyed places of religious worship, banned publication of religious material, and persecuted religious believers. Are we willing to accept that happened or not?

I am willing to accept that happened but it happened because they wanted everyone to focus all their efforts on the state instead of on God, because they were communists. They were trying to stop people from worshipping god for the purpose of making them worship the state. Simply not believing in God is not a motivation to kill millions of people but if you're a mental person running a country and want all of the focus to be on you, religion is getting in the way and so must be stopped. The motivation for those acts was communism coupled with a copious amount of crazy, not simply lack of belief in god.

pikachucheeks

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" I Peter 5 8

I take that "devil" as a more of a metaphor, than a physical being.

4zn76tysfajdxp

pikachucheeks wrote: »

I take that "devil" as a more of a metaphor, than a physical being.

It's not the Devil but "D'evil," like the charming colloqualism of a D'Unbelievables video.

pikachucheeks

Cedric Big Droplet wrote: »

It's not the Devil but "D'evil," like the charming colloqualism of a D'Unbelievables video.

Those D'unbelievable idiots are worse than a symbolic representation of Evil ever will be!

:P

bill_ashmount

3 simple words.

Freedom from Religion

smokingman

The devil eh? A personification of evil yeah?
Yet another excuse to lay blame for doing something bad on anyone other than yourself. To say that evil "exists" is nonsense, everyone does bad things in their lives, some more horrible than others and to make this external in any way is a cop out - same happens when you do something good.

Lazy people not taking responsibility for the choices in their lives, that's all it is.

toiletduck

Splendour wrote: »

Ditto to Jackass's post. Satan will do his utmost to turn us away from God and sadly, he's doing a great job of it. Not forever though I might add...

Could be that what you consider the devil is actually god and vice versa. The idea of adoration of him is repulsive to the being, his first commandment could be "Though shalt not worship me or anyone else. Live your life." Though Jesus and pals being all evil and whatnot start to mess around here on Earth, spreading all these wild ideas about the Mass etc to turn you away from the true god.


Say what you like, it's as pausible as anything of the other nonsense being spouted :pac:

biko

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I am willing to accept that happened but it happened because they wanted everyone to focus all their efforts on the state instead of on God, because they were communists. They were trying to stop people from worshipping god for the purpose of making them worship the state. Simply not believing in God is not a motivation to kill millions of people but if you're a mental person running a country and want all of the focus to be on you, religion is getting in the way and so must be stopped. The motivation for those acts was communism coupled with a copious amount of crazy, not simply lack of belief in god.

I agree with you there, communism does try to kill all other belief systems (not much unlike the Roman Catholic Church in days gone by) that may threaten to topple the state.

It's quite evident in present day by Chinas rounding up and torturing/killing Falun Gong members, simply because of the members beliefs. In 1998, the Chinese government published a figure of 70 million practitioners. It was banned by the government 1999 and branded a evil cult. It''s also been suggested that the killed are then being harvested for organs to be sold on.

Neonlight

when the devil came ,
he was not red,
He was chrommmmeeeee
and he said.......
come with me(rock on WILCO):cool::cool:

EdgarAllenPoo

BOFH_139 wrote: »

Are we talking about the Devil or Super Devil?

Damn, I was going to say that. I'll say one thing, if it's possible to sell your soul to the devil in order to get something than I've been seriously short changed over the years.

TwoShedsJackson

Jakkass wrote: »

Yes, I believe in Satan's existence. The father of all lies, deception, temptation and hatred in this world.

I understand that people will no doubt disagree with me on this one as per usual.

No doubt, seeing as both the Devil and God are fairy tale constructs for the weak-minded.

philologos

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

No doubt, seeing as both the Devil and God are fairy tale constructs for the weak-minded.

I wouldn't consider myself weak-minded in any way. I'd be curious to hear a further explanation of your reasoning though.

Fink Goddie

nibtrix wrote: »

Santa??? Satan?!?!?! Oh no, you've uncovered the link!



.

Its the dyslexics!!!!! them bastards always have more nuf!

Fink Goddie

Jakkass wrote: »

I wouldn't consider myself weak-minded in any way. I'd be curious to hear a further explanation of your reasoning though.

It cant be proved so why believe in it?

CCCP^

I don't believe in the Devil but he believe's in me.

philologos

Fink Goddie wrote: »

It cant be proved so why believe in it?

Mostly because it makes logical sense in comparison to the alternative of atheism or agnosticism. Lets deal with the weak-minded claim first though. I'm genuinely curious about that.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

Mostly because it makes logical sense in comparison to the alternative of atheism or agnosticism.

A system where a child rapist can get eternal paradise but someone will burn for eternity for the cardinal sin of not finding your holy book more convincing than all of the others makes no logical sense.

philologos

Sam Vimes wrote: »

A system where a child rapist can get eternal paradise but someone will burn for eternity for the cardinal sin of not finding your holy book more convincing than all of the others makes no logical sense.

As for the latter, it isn't clear in Christianity whether or not people who have never heard about Christianity will be subject to the same judgement as others who have outwardly rejected it.

As for the former, I notice it is rather convenient that you leave out that said sinner would have to genuinely repent of their sinfulness and effectively change their ways and be truly sorry for what they had done. Or don't you accept that many people can actually turn their lives around for the better? Your position sounds more unmerciful than anything Christianity has put forward.

What is left out is often what is most telling about ones motivation.

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

As for the latter, it isn't clear in Christianity whether or not people who have never heard about Christianity will be subject to the same judgement as others who have outwardly rejected it.

It's quite clear that the only path to saviour is through Jesus Christ but that doesn't sound right so people reinterpret it

Jakkass wrote: »

As for the former, I notice it is rather convenient that you leave out that said sinner would have to genuinely repent of their sinfulness and effectively change their ways and be truly sorry for what they had done. Or don't you accept that many people can actually turn their lives around for the better? Your position sounds more unmerciful than anything Christianity has put forward.

What is left out is often what is most telling about ones motivation.

I was pointing out that God doesn't give a crap about morality. The only people he will not accept into heaven are those who did not find the bible more convincing than, say, the qur'an or the bhagavad gita. Not finding something convincing without supporting evidence is not immoral, in fact in a world where people engage in underhanded tactics to get you to accept their position it is to be encouraged, and yet it is the only thing that will not be forgiven. I don't even see that there is anything to forgive tbh. This idea that bad things will happen to you if you don't accept what you're told is a classic cult tactic. You appeal to fear because you can't appeal to rationality

smokingman

Jakkass wrote: »

Lets deal with the weak-minded claim first though. I'm genuinely curious about that.

Maybe it's in reference to not being strong enough to take responsibility for ones own actions and choices without blaming/praising something external for their causes.

Banter Joe

Jakkass wrote: »

it isn't clear in Christianity whether or not people who have never heard about Christianity will be subject to the same judgement as others who have outwardly rejected it.

Absolute stupidity.

If you haven't heard of Christianity and live a completely moral life, it's touch and go whether or not you're going to be tossed into the burning lake of fire.

On the other hand, if you're a serial rapist who turns it all around, converts to Christianity, and pleads forgiveness, you're good to go.