Who or what is Satan ?

Thelomen Toblackai

I always thought Satan represented evil. But recently I've been thinking he represented evil as the bible/church defines evil.

He was cast out of heaven for not blindly obeying God and accepting the authority of Jesus. He was then said to have tempted Adam and Eve into disobeying God and this was a recurrent theme of his work. To influence people into moving away from God and doing things that conflicted with the teachings of the bible or word of the lord.

Most people see Satan as the epitome of evil itself. He rules hell where he tortures people for eternity. He's behind the madness of violent murderers, a monster that lurks in the shadows waiting to claim your soul and condemn you to eternal pain etc etc

But given how it started as him simply a being who would not blindly follow another being who claimed authority over him. This notion of Satan as this horrible evil beast lurking in the shadows is just a means to instil fear in people over doing things the church doesn't want them to do.

I assume I as an atheist would be seen as someone led astray by Satan for not accepting God and for taking up notions of reality the Bible would conflict with. For having relations out of wedlock, being blasphemous, swearing, hitting my brothers and sisters..(Sorry slipped into a confession there) etc ect.

Would it not be more accurate to define Satan then as the representation of all that stands in the way of blind acceptance of the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church ?

So as someone who doesn't follow the teachings of the church I could see Satan as free will, as rational thought, curiosity or desire to understand the world or enjoy my life. Everything that makes a human being not a mindless drone to accept commands and carry out orders.

Pherekydes

Satan as free will?

Nah, satan is just the made up boogey man of some religions.

Woohoo, 13000 posts!

endacl

Simon Cowell.

/thread

recedite

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

He was cast out of heaven for not blindly obeying God and accepting the authority of Jesus. He was then said to have tempted Adam and Eve into disobeying God and this was a recurrent theme of his work.

But if he was encouraging people to disobey the god, then he would reward those people in his domain (hell) instead of punishing them as per gods instructions. On the other hand, if he just liked punishing people regardless of whose side they were on, then god is the bad guy for sending the people down to him.
Its not very well thought out, as a concept.

Niemoj

*grabs popcorn for forthcoming religious shítstorm*

magicbastarder

this is satan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbs6GvLeEXQ

BlaasForRafa

recedite wrote: »

Its not very well thought out, as a concept.

You're expecting the people who came up with ridiculous concepts like the holy trinity and transubstantiation to suddenly come up with something sensible?

The concept of the devil as an evil overlord with a big pointy trident seems to be a christian concept, the jews see it quite differently http://www.shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HTML/faq/12-35.html

The christian idea of Satan and Hell is about frightening the plebs into obeying the will of the church.

Maximus Alexander

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

You're expecting the people who came up with ridiculous concepts like the holy trinity and transubstantiation to suddenly come up with something sensible?

The concept of the devil as an evil overlord with a big pointy trident seems to be a christian concept, the jews see it quite differently http://www.shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HTML/faq/12-35.html

The christian idea of Satan and Hell is about frightening the plebs into obeying the will of the church.

That link reads like a Wiki for Lord of the Rings or something.

Peregrinus

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

I always thought Satan represented evil. But recently I've been thinking he represented evil as the bible/church defines evil.

He was cast out of heaven for not blindly obeying God and accepting the authority of Jesus. He was then said to have tempted Adam and Eve into disobeying God and this was a recurrent theme of his work. To influence people into moving away from God and doing things that conflicted with the teachings of the bible or word of the lord.

Most people see Satan as the epitome of evil itself. He rules hell where he tortures people for eternity. He's behind the madness of violent murderers, a monster that lurks in the shadows waiting to claim your soul and condemn you to eternal pain etc etc

But given how it started as him simply a being who would not blindly follow another being who claimed authority over him. This notion of Satan as this horrible evil beast lurking in the shadows is just a means to instil fear in people over doing things the church doesn't want them to do.

I assume I as an atheist would be seen as someone led astray by Satan for not accepting God and for taking up notions of reality the Bible would conflict with. For having relations out of wedlock, being blasphemous, swearing, hitting my brothers and sisters..(Sorry slipped into a confession there) etc ect.

Would it not be more accurate to define Satan then as the representation of all that stands in the way of blind acceptance of the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church ?

So as someone who doesn't follow the teachings of the church I could see Satan as free will, as rational thought, curiosity or desire to understand the world or enjoy my life. Everything that makes a human being not a mindless drone to accept commands and carry out orders.

I think it's fair to say that the character of Satan is, or at any rate became, a construct invoked to instill terror and, through instilling terror, to secure people's submission and obedience.

The catch, though, is this; if you weren't already disposed to accept the teachings of the church, why would you accept their characterisation of Satan? Pretty much by definition, anyone who is terrorised by the idea of Satan must be already docile to church teaching. So whatever else you are terrorising them to secure, it's not primarily obedience to the church. They are already obedient to the church. If they weren't, you couldn't terrify them.

I think you might fairly say that Satan is employed to reinforce and continue an existing obedience.

I think he does have other functions as well, though, and I wouldn't downplay them. I suggest that maybe one consequence of personifying evil in this way is that it enables you to distance yourself from it, or at least to believe that that is possible to do so. If your perverted lusts, your lies, your greed, your selfishness, your frauds, your callous disregard of widows and orphans, aren't coming from within you, but are being whispered in your ear by a little black imp sitting on your shoulder, then maybe it's a little bit easier for you to hope that you can escape these things; that you don't have to have them with you always; that change and progress is possible. I'm just speculating, but that could be a factor in the way the Satan character was shaped, and in the way people responded to it. It helps to avoid despair.

As for Satan being, in truth, the rejection of blind obedience, there's a problem with the word "blind". Both in his few scriptural appearances and in the later medieval notions of Satan, Satan isn't blind at all. Satan wasn't supposed to be obedient to God simply because God claimed obedience. And he wasn't disobedient simply because he wouldn't accept an unfounded claim. Satan is supposed to have recognised God's authority, acknowledged the truth of God's perfection and supremacy and the rightness of all creatures submitting to God. If Satan had obeyed God, it would not have been blind obedience; it would have been an obedience rooted in a clear-sighted recognition of reality. It's Satan's rejectin of an obedience which he knew was due that makes him Satan.

Now, obviously, there's all kinds of assumptions and beliefs in there which an atheist wouldn't accept. But if we're criticising the Christian concept of Satan, we have to critique the Christian concept of Satan.

You can of course propose Satan as a symbol of the rejection of blind obedience. But (a) that's not the Satan that Christians talk about, and (b) it's just as much a synthetic construct as the Satan that Christians talk about, except it's an atheist construct. And why an atheist would want to construct a Satan in whom he presumably does not believe is a whole other question.

Bristolscale7

The influential punk rock band The Butthole Surfers provides an interesting articulation of the concept:

Daddy?
Yes, son.
What does regret mean?
Well son, the funny thing about regret is that it's better to regret
something you have done than
to Regret something that you haven't done
And by the way, If you see your mom this weekend, will you be sure and
tell her...
SATAN SATAN SATAN!!!!

1hnr79jr65

Satan = Santa

Both are red.

Both MAY offer things to kids/adults, one would be seen to be directly influencing, other be seen to offer gift.

So in conclusion ban xmas.

magicbastarder

Bristolscale7 wrote: »

The influential punk rock band The Butthole Surfers provides an interesting articulation of the concept:

that's the bit orbital sampled.

54and56

Satan is a marketing tool for religion, end of. Satan/hell provides the downside to disobeying religious rules and keeps the flock in check.

Heaven = carrot

Hell = stick.

eviltwin

Satan is a ready made excuse for bad behaviour - Satan got into me and made me do it. He's also a handy way to keep the naive under control. Who is going to risk an eternity in hell?

Grab All Association

Peter: You told Child Services that we steal lawn mowers, cheat on our taxes and worship some guy named Stan

Bonnie: Um, actually, I said Satan. That's a typo.

sbsquarepants

Right to begin with, you've got an omnipotent, all knowing, all seeing, all powerfull god - who somehow didn't see or know that one of his lackies was plotting a rebellion against him???
Then being all powerfull and whatnot he is somehow unable to defeat this chancer???
So he banishes him down to hell, but he's seemingly free to come and go at will. So obviously, he does the logical thing and stays in the fiery pit punishing (we're not sure why) those who wouldn't bow to the very the guy he tried to overthrow rather than devilishly corrupting a few starlets in malibu???

Hmmmmmm, sounds legit:rolleyes:

oldrnwisr

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

I always thought Satan represented evil. But recently I've been thinking he represented evil as the bible/church defines evil.

He was cast out of heaven for not blindly obeying God and accepting the authority of Jesus. He was then said to have tempted Adam and Eve into disobeying God and this was a recurrent theme of his work. To influence people into moving away from God and doing things that conflicted with the teachings of the bible or word of the lord.

Most people see Satan as the epitome of evil itself. He rules hell where he tortures people for eternity. He's behind the madness of violent murderers, a monster that lurks in the shadows waiting to claim your soul and condemn you to eternal pain etc etc

But given how it started as him simply a being who would not blindly follow another being who claimed authority over him. This notion of Satan as this horrible evil beast lurking in the shadows is just a means to instil fear in people over doing things the church doesn't want them to do.

I assume I as an atheist would be seen as someone led astray by Satan for not accepting God and for taking up notions of reality the Bible would conflict with. For having relations out of wedlock, being blasphemous, swearing, hitting my brothers and sisters..(Sorry slipped into a confession there) etc ect.

Would it not be more accurate to define Satan then as the representation of all that stands in the way of blind acceptance of the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church ?

So as someone who doesn't follow the teachings of the church I could see Satan as free will, as rational thought, curiosity or desire to understand the world or enjoy my life. Everything that makes a human being not a mindless drone to accept commands and carry out orders.

Like a lot of concepts in the Bible, Satan has evolved and transformed over time as new writers have added their take on him. If you look at the way in which different comic book writers have changed the backstory of Nick Fury, for example, over the years, you'll get a pretty good idea of what happened to Satan.

Satan is actually mentioned very rarely in the Old Testament. The word satan actually translates as adversary and in most cases, this is the context in thich it is used. In total the word satan or

שָׂטָ֔ן

only occurs (in its various grammatical forms) 27 times. In some places Satan is portrayed as a benevolent force such as when he appears to Balaam in Numbers 22:

"Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again.
Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”
Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”
“No,” he said.
Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.
The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me."

In this story Satan appears to Balaam to dissuade him from taking a reckless path. Satan's non-evil nature is even shown in the way he is introduced "mal'ach Yahwheh", an angel of God.

The only instances where Satan appears to act in any kind of malevolent capacity is when he is described as

הַשָּׂטָ֖ן

which is ha-satan or the adversary or more correctly, the accuser. This form of the word is only found twice in Job and Zechariah. It features more prominently in Job where Satan acts as a prosecutor acting under the direction of God. He is given free reign by God to test Job's faith as he sees fit (apart from physical injury).
It is used in this same form in Zechariah 3:2, where Satan again acts as an accuser.

In her book "The Origin of Satan" Elaine Pagels describes the transformation of Satan from an angel into the supervillain JC talks about. During the Maccabean revolt a divide emerges between nationalistic Jews and those seeking to incorporate Hellenistic influences into Judaic thinking. Pagels states:

"More radical than their predecessors these dissidents began increasingly to invoke the satan to characterise their Jewish opponents; in the process they turned this rather unpleasant angel into a far grander - and far more malevolent - figure. No longer one of God's faithful servants, he begins to become what he is for Mark and later Christianity - God's antagonist, his enemy, even his rival."

This is how we see Satan early in the Gospels, a being who no longer tests mankind for God but instead seeks to test God:

"And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Luke 4:12


The problem in the current misconception around the nature of Satan as a character is that so much of what people think they know about Satan comes from later interpretations and non-biblical sources. For example, Satan is not, contrary to common Christian belief, the serpent of Genesis. The appearance of the serpent in Genesis is described thus:

" Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3#fen-NASB-57a"]a[/URLany tree of the garden’?”"
Genesis 3:1

Firstly, the serpent is described as just another beast of the field which god has made and the word used for serpent is the one used to describe all other instances of snakes and serpents in the OT.

The first and only association between the serpent in Genesis and Satan doesn't arrive until Revelations, a book that wasn't written until almost 600 years after Genesis. In Revelations we see the following passage:

"And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time."
Revelation 20:2-3

Here Satan is described as a dragon, a serpent of old. However this isn't a reference to Genesis. Instead, it is a reference to the Greek, Latin and pretty much every other language's meaning of dragon. The greek word for dragon is:

δράκων

which literally translates as serpent or giant seafish.

Dragon (wiki)

Dragons throughout history have always been portrayed as having some degree of serpentine features.

So, in summary, there's no evidence that the author of Revelation (a book derived from hallucinatory visions btw) intended to refer to the serpent of Genesis when talking about Satan. More importantly, the book was written at a point when the figure of Satan had already been transformed into a supervillain. So the idea that the authors of Genesis ever intended the serpent in Genesis to represent Satan is ridiculous.

Another example is the idea referenced in the OP about Satan being a rebellious fallen angel. Although you have some oblique references like Luke 10:18, the most direct reference to this comes from a misapplication of Isaiah 14 and the association of Satan with Lucifer


On the day the LORD gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression. All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing. Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon gloat over you and say, “Now that you have been laid low, no one comes to cut us down.” The realm of the dead below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you— all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones— all those who were kings over the nations. They will all respond, they will say to you, “You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.” All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?” All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people. Let the offspring of the wicked never be mentioned again.

The fallen angel in this passage actually refers to the King of Babylon and not Satan although many Christians have since interpreted it as such.

Much of what people think of when they think of Satan's appearance comes from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost.

Satan is a story, one that has been expanded and embellished by numerous writers over several centuries. It's a scary story to keep Christians on the straight and narrow but the reality is far less fantastic.

La Fenetre

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Like a lot of concepts in the Bible, Satan has evolved and transformed over time [...] Satan is a story, one that has been expanded and embellished by numerous writers over several centuries. It's a scary story to keep Christians on the straight and narrow but the reality is far less fantastic.

Where are you getting this notion that the word adversary must be referring to Satan ? It no more has to mean Satan than the term morning star can only be referring to Lucifer.

Peregrinus

La Fenetre wrote: »

Where are you getting this notion that the word adversary must be referring to Satan ? It no more has to mean Satan than the term morning star can only be referring to Lucifer.

The English word "Satan" is a transliteration of a Hebrew word which means "adversary", and which comes ultimately from a Hebrew verb meaning to oppose or plot against.

All the Old Testament references to Satan - e.g. in Job - employ the Hebrew word"adversary" in the original Hebrew text. In the New Testament, references to Satan (e.g. in Matt 4:10) have satanas in the original Greek text; this is a Greek version of the Hebrew word which (so far as I know) is only found in the NT. The usual Greek work for a devil or demon is diabolos; this word is also used in the NT (often in the plural) and its' translated into English as "devil" or "devils".

Nichard Dixon

I'm sure Satan doesn't believe in God, so he probably posts here.

oldrnwisr

La Fenetre wrote: »

Where are you getting this notion that the word adversary must be referring to Satan ? It no more has to mean Satan than the term morning star can only be referring to Lucifer.

Peregrinus has already answered this question quite concisely but since you asked...

There are two points here about the word satan.

Firstly, I'm not saying that all the references to satan in the OT refer to Satan (as Christians understand him). For example, the reference to satan in 1 Kings 11 refers to Hadad the Edomite. However, when the verse is referring to Satan, it does so in the context of Satan acting as an adversary to some character (Job, Balaam, David etc.) but always with God's permission or under God's direction.

Secondly, as Peregrinus pointed out the entire reason for the word Satan in the English language is because it is a translation from the Hebrew word shaitan which means adversary. It is in this way that we are first introduced to Satan who is called a "mal'ach Yahweh" or angel of God who acts as a satan, an adversary, to Balaam.

La Fenetre

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Peregrinus has already answered this question quite concisely but since you asked...

There are two points here about the word satan.

Firstly, I'm not saying that all the references to satan in the OT refer to Satan (as Christians understand him). For example, the reference to satan in 1 Kings 11 refers to Hadad the Edomite. However, when the verse is referring to Satan, it does so in the context of Satan acting as an adversary to some character (Job, Balaam, David etc.) but always with God's permission or under God's direction.

Secondly, as Peregrinus pointed out the entire reason for the word Satan in the English language is because it is a translation from the Hebrew word shaitan which means adversary. It is in this way that we are first introduced to Satan who is called a "mal'ach Yahweh" or angel of God who acts as a satan, an adversary, to Balaam.

No you misunderstand my question, I know the etymology of the name Satan. I'm wondering where you got the idea that in the passage you quoted about Balaam, the use of the word adversary, must mean that it's actually referring to Satan as you claimed.

Peregrinus

La Fenetre wrote: »

No you misunderstand my question, I know the etymology of the name Satan. I'm wondering where you got the idea that in the passage you quoted about Balaam, the use of the word adversary, must mean that it's actually referring to Satan as you claimed.

The word used in the Hebrew text is shaitan.

And that's really the point. That word is used a great deal in the OT. In English translations, it is sometimes rendered as "adversary", "opponent", or something similar and sometimes as "Satan".

When it's used with reference to a human person, it's always adversary, opponent, etc.

But, when it's used with reference to a supernatural entity, the translator has to make a decision. And that's a decision which will be informed by his own theological background and context.

There's no doubt that the angel in Balaam's story is an adversary; the text says so explicitly. But is he The Adversary? We generally think not, even though "Shaitan" in the Book of Job, who plays in some ways a similar role, generally is identified as Satan, and most translations reflect that.

Both Job's Shaitan and Balaam's are opposing humans, not God, and this suggests that our concept of Satan as, fundamentally, an angel who rebelled (and is always rebelling) against God is a later development. And it's because of the influence of this later development that we read, and translate, Balaam's story and Job's story the way we do. The original creators, and the original audience, for these stories would not have understood them that way.

ShatterProof

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Absolam

No! I am Keyser Söze.

Peregrinus

ShatterProof wrote: »

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

No. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that the greatest trick he had ever pulled was convincing us that he didn't exist. This means we don't notice the many, many greater tricks that he has pulled - reality television, Starbucks "coffee", Heineken "beer" and instant mashed potato, to name but a few.

Pherekydes

Peregrinus wrote: »

...Heineken "beer" and instant mashed potato, to name but a few.

:eek: Heino is ok, but Budweiser on the other hand. That is definitely the devil's brew. An anagram of Budweiser beer is rubberised wee.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

No. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that the greatest trick he had ever pulled was convincing us that he didn't exist.

Or probably more accurately, one of the greatest tricks mankind ever played on itself was convincing whole swaths of it that any of these entities exist at all. To sell, en masse, the idea there are non-human intelligent intentional agencies responsible for creating or influencing mankind..... without a single shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning to suggest any of it true..... is quite the marketing stunt.

However I often find myself wondering what some religions would be like without the hell and satan concepts though. After all, if you are selling this idea of a wonderful, paradise after life, populated by all the people you spend your life in this world grieving the loss of.... one wonders what this does to peoples opinions on suicide as a means to accelerate their attendance in this blissful communion.

Whether intentional or not, perhaps concepts like hell and satan serve as a control mechanism for ensuring that......... while people dedicate themselves to the path the religion sells them to get into their personal heaven..... they do not take too many steps to get there any quicker than they otherwise might. Was it Jeffery Fisher I was told said that the worst thing Nuclear War could do is speed people on their way to paradise?

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

However I often find myself wondering what some religions would be like without the hell and satan concepts though.

You don't have to wonder. There are plenty of religions without hell and Satan concepts. It's not difficult to find out what they're like, if you're interested to know.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Was it Jeffery Fisher I was told said that the worst thing Nuclear War could do is speed people on their way to paradise?

No, it wasn't. All the google links which suggest that he said that give his name as "Jeffery", which is a good hint that they are likely all to be drawn ultimately from the one not terribly accurate source. The man's name was "Geoffrey".

What he actually said was, reportedly, "The very worst the Bomb can do is to sweep a vast number of People from this world into the next into which they must all go anyway". To be specific, in a 1999 article in the Guardian the poet Christopher Logue recalls Ken Tynan having said to him, 39 years previously, that the Daily Mail had quoted Geoffrey Fisher as saying that. Whether the Daily Mail did quote Fisher as saying that, I cannot say.

Be that as it may, there's nothing in the quote to suggest that Fisher thought that sweeping people into the next world ahead of schedule was a good thing. In fact he thought it was a very bad thing but, because of his refusal to embrace Christian pacifism, he maintained that war was not, in every circumstance, the worst possible thing; there were times when war - even nuclear war - was justified as the lesser of two evils. (As he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1944, I think we can guess what formed his views in this regard.)

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

You don't have to wonder. There are plenty of religions without hell and Satan concepts. It's not difficult to find out what they're like, if you're interested to know.

Think you missed what I was saying. I am aware of the religions that have no such concept and know very much about many them. What I meant by what I said was...... the ones that DO CURRENTLY have it..... what some of THEM might be like without it is what I sometimes find myself wondering.

The quotes, as I feared, was not entirely accurate but it is not hard to see how some could read that meaning into it even as you have worded it. That this unsubstantiated after life is tempering ones reaction to deaths caused by bombs. They are being killed by bombs otherwise before their time, and the worst he can see about it, if the quote is true, is that it is merely pushing them from here to where he believes they are going anyway.

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Think you missed what I was saying. I am aware of the religions that have no such concept and know very much about many them. What I meant by what I said was...... the ones that DO CURRENTLY have it..... what some of THEM might be like without it is what I sometimes find myself wondering.

Ah, right, OK.

I think it might be worth your while looking at Judaism, then. It obviously has a lot in common with Christianity and Islam, but doesn't really lay much stress on Hell (or Heaven, for that matter). In fact, you can be a perfectly orthodox Jew and not believe in any afterlife at all. While Judaism doesn't rigorously exclude the possibility of an afterlife, it treats the question as not really important, and it doesn't play much role in Jewish thinking about how one should live, or what the important things in life are. And how that pans out in Judaism might give some pointers as to how it would have panned out in Christianity and Islam, had they inherited that particular Jewish characteristic.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The quotes, as I feared, was not entirely accurate but it is not hard to see how some could read that meaning into it even as you have worded it. That this unsubstantiated after life is tempering ones reaction to deaths caused by bombs. They are being killed by bombs otherwise before their time, and the worst he can see about it, if the quote is true, is that it is merely pushing them from here to where he believes they are going anyway.

Oh, yes. Even the corrected quote bothers me, I can tell you (but then I lean very heavily towards pacifism).

But it's not really different from the view that a Stoic might take. Death is inevitable; there is no point in worrying about it because it cannot be evaded. The Bomb merely accelerates a death which would happen anyway. The point of life is not to live as long as possible, but to live as well as possible. If living well requires us to fight against injustice and tyranny and we die in the fight, well, that's a bad outcome, but not as bad as not having fought against injustice and tyranny.

Or, as one well known socialist atheist put it, "it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"

In other words, I don't like Fisher's view, but I don't think it's one which is the logical consequence of a belief in a "next world", or one that can only be held those who believe in a next world. Fisher expressed the view in terms of a next world because that is the language he would default to. But we have no reason to think that he held the view because of his beliefs in a next world.

nozzferrahhtoo

I know quite a lot about Judaism, relative to what I know about many other religions. It still does not address what I am saying because, as you said, the after life concept is not that important in many ways. As the old joke about the two Rabbis that sat up all night conclusing there was no god, even there being a god is often not that important to them

To repeat, I was solely talking about religions that currently have the heaven and hell concept heavily ingrained in them. And I find myself often wondering what THOSE religions would be like were the hell and Satan aspect suddenly removed. Would one, for example, get a few of the 33000+ Christian variants in the world who would happily go into a hut "10 commandments of God sect" style and joyfully off themselves and their children in order to get to this paradise after life sooner? One can but wonder really as it is an experiment I have not heard being run in real time.

One can certainly imagine, were one to let ones imagination run wild, the village witch doctor or seer or whoever selling the idea of a wonderful paradise of an after life and then suddenly thinking "Oh crap, loads of these people are offing themselves to get there.... I better now invent a further place people go to if they do that" and, for obvious reasons, that new meme getting Selected better than the original one.

I think we can safely say that the more divorced a world view is from reality......... and the lack of ANY substantiation from this theist cohort that ANY of this is true really does suggest such a divide from reality.............the more likely one is to observe unforseen consequences of perpetuating it en masse, and the more likely it is the people who came up with this crap are to find themselves having to modify it and invent further new layers of complexity to mediate for those consequences.

oldrnwisr

La Fenetre wrote: »

No you misunderstand my question, I know the etymology of the name Satan. I'm wondering where you got the idea that in the passage you quoted about Balaam, the use of the word adversary, must mean that it's actually referring to Satan as you claimed.

OK, I'll try to clarify for you.

It is important before we begin to separate the Old Testament idea of Satan from the New Testament view of Satan. To do this, just as in my last post I refer to the OT as satan and the NT one as Satan. This is because that the OT satan is a non-descript angel whereas the NT Satan is much more and is a much more fleshed out character and a specific entity.

The Satan that appears in the NT is not something that the writers of the various OT works in which satan is mentioned would recognise. The idea of a malevolent fallen angel, plotting his malicious schemes from the depths of hell with his army of demons like some comic book villain does not appear in the OT at all. So to answer your question concisely, no, the satan in Numbers does not refer to the same Satan that tempts Jesus in the NT, the one that Christians believe in. However it is the same satan who tests Job and Zechariah and influences David to take a census.

It's all quite complicated though really. You see in order to fully understand the references to satan in the OT you have to understand, among other things, the nuances of Hebrew, the social and political background of the Jewish people (particularly in the aftermath of the Babylonian captivity) and the difference between mythos and logos.

The word satan is used in the OT to refer to both human characters (e.g. 1 Kings 11:14, 1 Samuel 29:4) and angels. It is the angel references we will focus on here. There are four distinct references to an angel acting as a satan or adversary to a human character in the OT:

Job 1-2 (satan & Job)
Zechariah 3:1-2 (satan & Zechariah)
Numbers 22:22-33 (satan & Balaam)
1 Chronicles 21:1 (satan & David)

In all of these stories an angel of God acts as an adversary to a human character either with God's permission or under his direction. In two of these stories satan acts as a prosecuting attorney or Grand Inquisitor and is referred to in the story as ha-satan or the adversary. However, none of the stories are intended to be read as a literal interaction between an angel a human character.

In Job, God assembles his host of angels (referred to as ben elohim or sons of God) and tells them of Job who is a God-fearing man (not sure why God would want anyone to fear him). God then turns to satan and asks him "where have you come from." Satan replies that he has been "roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it." This is not an idle comment on the part of the writer but rather a play on the similarity between the satan and shût, the Hebrew word for roam. The intention of the author here is to portray satan as a wandering intelligence agent, something familiar to the Jews of the time as "the king's ear" (think Tyrion Lannister) an intelligence officer of the king who would roam the land looking for signs of disloyalty among the people.
The point of the Job narrative is to portray God as a beneficient but strict ruler, lavishly rewarding loyalty (giving Job twice as much as he had before when he passes the test) and punishing disloyalty. The satan character is just a plot device to make the message of the story familiar to the reader.

In Zechariah, Chapter 3 opens with this exchange:

"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”

Again, here, we see satan portrayed as a prosecuting attorney and again being on the losing side. However, the political upheaval which was occurring at the time when this passage was written (c. 550-500 BCE) sheds some light on the passage above. In the wake of the Babylonian captivity thousands of Jews who had been captured returned to Palestine from exile. Many of these Jews were educated and some of them were, or at least had been, influential. However, they didn't exactly get a warm welcome. Those who had remained in Palestine were suspicious of the returnees and suspected them of trying to usurp power on behalf of the King of Persia. The passage above is to give voice to the disaffected and portray the returning Jews in a negative light by associating them with the same satan character employed in Job.

As time moves on the use of the satan character becomes an established character used as a metaphor for conflict or division. In 1 Chronicles, written almost 200 years after Job and Zechariah, it had become used to portray division in Israel. Around 1000 BCE, David ordered a census for the purposes of instituting taxation. This was a wildly unpopular move and sparked mass conflict in Israel. This is reflected in the story in the argument between David and Joab. However, since the story was written almost 650 years after the events in question, it is presented in a revisionist manner and the author of Chronicles lets David off the hook by portraying satan as the true influence behind the census.

Finally, in Numbers 22 satan acts as an adversary to Balaam, causing Balaam's donkey to swerve off the road in an attempt to dissuade Balaam from taking an unwise path.

In all of the stories above satan is an agent of God and although by some parties in the stories might be seen as malicious, he can't really be objectively viewed as such. However, the real aim of these stories is not to portray a literal fallen angel but rather to convey a deeper political, historical or theological message using an antagonistic character. The satan of the OT is much more like Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor to God's Jesus than say the NT version which is more like Satan as Wiley Coyote to Jesus' road runner.

ScumLord

So satan is a Christian misinterpretation of the Jewish religion, and the Jewish people probably stole the idea from the babylonians.

oldrnwisr

ScumLord wrote: »

So satan is a Christian misinterpretation of the Jewish religion, and the Jewish people probably stole the idea from the babylonians.

Something like that. The Jews themselves evolved the idea over time with a significant step change in the view of satan occurring during the intertestamental period. During this time the influence of Hellenistic thought on Judaism caused a revision in Jewish soteriological beliefs. The "death is the end" idea prevalent in the OT got iteratively reworked in books like The Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses until you ended up with the Christian view of the afterlife that exists today.
Given that the Abrahamic religions are syncretic at their core, the tendency was to try and incorporate these new beliefs into their ad-hoc theological framework. Just like in physics, the new information can either be rationalised into the existing framework or it breaks and a wildly different understanding emerges.

As for the Jews and the Babylonians, the Jews always had a tendency to rip off other cultures and denigrate them. This is why the Ugaritic deity Ba'al Zabul or Lord of the Heavens becomes Beelzebub or Lord of the Flies in Judaism.

La Fenetre

oldrnwisr wrote: »

OK, I'll try to clarify for you.[...]

Good job Jesus came along to correct many misconceptions the Jews had about the old testament.

robindch

Mod: La Fenetre - you may not be aware of it, but A+A is a discussion forum where people discuss things. A bit of back and forth. Mixed in with a bit of friendly banter. But at its core, a discussion.

Asking a question, then sticking your fingers into your ears when somebody takes the time to answer it properly it is not only unhelpful and anti-social, but is likely to earn you a card or a ban if you do it again.

oldrnwisr

La Fenetre wrote: »

Good job Jesus came along to correct many misconceptions the Jews had about the old testament.

What misconceptions? How exactly did Jesus correct any misconceptions of the Jews?

Bandana boy

The modern day Devil or Satan was a tool of the early Christian conquerors to supress other religions.

There is a great book by Peter Stanford which traces the history of the Devil his many incarnations and changes over time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Devil-Biography-Peter-Stanford/dp/0099465566

Brindor

Apparently, Ha Satan itself literally means "The Accuser."
Maybe he should invest into a career in prosecution these days.

The Randy Riverbeast

La Fenetre wrote: »

Good job Jesus came along to correct many misconceptions the Jews had about the old testament.

Unfortunately he forgot to leave a note on which bits still apply and which don't. Currently the method of what suits sticks, what doesn't is gone is a bit confusing as nobody appears to agree on which is which.