necessary devil?

Bond™

if there's a god, does that mean there must be a devil as well?

Rev Hellfire

no, and esp if dont assume that god would be only good a entity.
He/She may be totally amoral in which case both god and devil could be the same.

Anyway there was an interesting debate on the topic posted eariler .

Excelsior

Within Christianity, the devil is not essential. This is one major difference between it and many pagan and Gnostic beliefs. Satan chose to attempt to exalt himself over God and so he fell. Before that he was (and still is) an angel, a creature and in no way divine.

Sapien

Is Satan not the cause of the fall from grace in Eden, and hence all of humanity's subsequent theological adventure? Does he not occupy a pretty crucial role in Christian cosmogony? Does he not represent a kind of chaotic cosmic aberration without which the less-than-halcyon nature of God's creation would be a little hard to reconcile with theory?

patzer117

I'm not so sure man needs help or even encouragement to be evil.

Capt'n Midnight

Lots of people think that people are against them, when in fact the people are just out for themselves. It's much easier to think that evil exists as a force to explain things than it is to accept that other people have different interests that may conflict with yours. Is evil anything more than extreme selfishness and disregard for others ?

Main problem with the devil / evil is that you get a black and white view of things and wonderful stuff like "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"

IIRC the duality of God/Devil or good/evil or somesuch came from Zoroastrianism when the Jew were exiled in Babylon or somewhere, it's an imported concept.

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

Sapien

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

IIRC the duality of God/Devil or good/evil or somesuch came from Zoroastrianism when the Jew were exiled in Babylon or somewhere, it's an imported concept.

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

Er, I'm all for deconstructing religions, but I'm not sure that that's accurate. That is to say - I'm pretty sure that it's not.

The information to which I have access suggests that the theogony of the Hebrews was originally a kind of dualism. The Ark of the Covenant is reputed to contain, along with its more celebrated contents, (wait for it, Dan Browne moment...) an icon that represents the union of the phallus and the kteis - the male and female principles respectively. Also - one could hardly fail to notice - the Old Testament God is morally ambiguous to a spectacular degree, embodying with gusto both that which is compassionate, forgiving and loving, with that which is vengeful, tyrannical and domineering.

I do not deny that there may have been an interaction between Judaism and Zoroastrianism, but I do doubt that the precept of duality was imported from the latter to the former. Firstly because the notion of dualism is not so remote as for it to be inconceivable that it might arise independently in two isolated cultures, and secondly because Judaism evolved into a monotheism after it interacted with other Middle Eastern traditions like Zoroastrianism. The significant change in Judaism, as far as I'm aware, was from pan-pagan dualism to austere monotheism, and is attributed understandably and by many to the influence of the monotheistic heresy of the pharaoh Akhenaten, father of Tutankhamen (nee Tutankhaten).

hairyheretic

Excelsior wrote:

Within Christianity, the devil is not essential. This is one major difference between it and many pagan and Gnostic beliefs.

Would you mind expanding on that statement? Most of the pagan beliefs I'm familiar with don't have a devil figure.

It would seem to me that the devil is an essential part of christianity, if for no other reason than to provide choice. Not much point in having free will if there's only one way to choose (hopefully getting my point across here .. meeting in a few minutes, so only a brief post) .

robindch

> Main problem with the devil / evil is that you get a black and
> white view of things and wonderful stuff like "the enemy of
> my enemy is my friend"

Or even more unpleasantly, the infamous, frightening and arrogantly one-dimensional "You're either with us or against us", apparent uttered by both Stalin and Hitler, as well as the current American President and I've no doubt, other homicidal dicators and buffoons down through history. I'll refrain from commenting in this forum upon the fact that same unpleasant sentiment appears in both Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23

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

It's more effective the other way 'round:

Satan's greatest ever trick was convincing prople that he did exist.

Asiaprod

The Ark of the Covenant is reputed to contain, along with its more celebrated contents, (wait for it, Dan Browne moment...) an icon that represents the union of the phallus and the kteis - the male and female principles respectively.

Sapien, are you refering to the the Ancient Egyptian Ankh, a type of cross, which is sometimes given a Latin name if it appears in specifically Christian contexts, as the Crux Ansata ("handled cross"). It is also known as the Key of the Nile and the Looped Tau Cross.

Interesting fact, can you share your source of information as I have always believed that early Christianity borrowed heavily from Egyptian influences.
Peter K

robindch

> early Christianity borrowed heavily from Egyptian influences

Couldn't tell you about the Egyptian influences, but if you read the Greek philosophers, particularly Plato, you'll notice that ideas have been copied in bulk, turning up as eternal truths within the new testament, rather than suggestions as they do within Plato. I always wondered what christianity would have turned into, had the NT writers filched the deeper and wiser Socratic concepts of meaning and enquiry, in place of Plato's sermonizing about the eternity and perfection of the soul.

In terms of poetic form and emotional, heroic and philosophic content, Plato runs rings around the dowdy κοινη text and stories of the New Testament -- the wonderfully high-flown English translations, KJV and otherwise, fail to reflect the distinctly populist prose of the authors.

Sapien

Asiaprod wrote:

Sapien, are you refering to the the Ancient Egyptian Ankh, a type of cross, which is sometimes given a Latin name if it appears in specifically Christian contexts, as the Crux Ansata ("handled cross"). It is also known as the Key of the Nile and the Looped Tau Cross.

Interesting fact, can you share your source of information as I have always believed that early Christianity borrowed heavily from Egyptian influences.
Peter K

It would take me a while to figure out where I read that - it wasn't from an online source, if I remember correctly. Though I'm certain, given the context in which I read it that if the icon concerned was an ankh, such would have been mentioned explicitly.

If you are looking for a more direct avenue of the influence of Egyptian myth and spirituality upon Christianity, I would advise looking into the Coptic traditions and those forms of Gnosticism that borrowed heavily from Egyptiana and were coevals of the primitive church. I have argued here, not without intelligent refutation, that such Gnostic movements formed part of an indistinct spectrum along with forms of Christianity which we would today recognise as being more orthodox - and as such that a great variety of influences must be expected.

DaisyDuke

hairyheretic wrote:

Would you mind expanding on that statement? Most of the pagan beliefs I'm familiar with don't have a devil figure.

They don't - you're right.
The devil, satan or whatever you care to call him, does not feature in Paganism at all. It is a figure from Christianity, and, on the flipside, Satanism.

There is no ultimate evil in Paganism. That seems to be the preserve of bible/koran based beliefs.
(Yes, I'm being broad. Trying to keep concise though)

Excelsior

Sorry I've taken so long to get back to these posts.

Sapien wrote:

Is Satan not the cause of the fall from grace in Eden, and hence all of humanity's subsequent theological adventure? Does he not occupy a pretty crucial role in Christian cosmogony?

The satan is the cause of the Fall and so has come to occupy a vital role in the salvation history of Christianity. But the satan was not an essential factor. The Fall was not an inevitability but the result of a free choice.

Sapien wrote:

Does he not represent a kind of chaotic cosmic aberration without which the less-than-halcyon nature of God's creation would be a little hard to reconcile with theory?

I have trouble with your language here. I just don't think I understand you. Christianity holds that the satan is a personality, a being, who by his own free will has charted the course he has set upon.

Cptn Midnight wrote:

Is evil anything more than extreme selfishness and disregard for others ?

I would imagine any kind of selfishness (not just extreme) would have to be classified as evil.

Sapien wrote:

The information to which I have access suggests that the theogony of the Hebrews was originally a kind of dualism. The Ark of the Covenant is reputed to contain, along with its more celebrated contents, (wait for it, Dan Browne moment...) an icon that represents the union of the phallus and the kteis - the male and female principles respectively.

I would love if you could track that source down because it is completely alien to me. End my ignorance Sapien!

Excelsior wrote:

Within Christianity, the devil is not essential. This is one major difference between it and many pagan and Gnostic beliefs.

To which HairyHeretic asked for clarification because:

HairyHeretic wrote:

Most of the pagan beliefs I'm familiar with don't have a devil figure.

Paganism is often expressed as dualism. The satan is not a component, obviously enough, but his personalised role is occupied in many cases by the Demiurge or by some other dark deity that forms the dualism. Sorry about the confusing way I wrote that first time. These answers tend to be off the top of my head.

robin wrote:

Couldn't tell you about the Egyptian influences, but if you read the Greek philosophers, particularly Plato, you'll notice that ideas have been copied in bulk, turning up as eternal truths within the new testament

Not to get bogged down in another 7000 word response relay race but but what Platonic forms do you feel have crept into the NT?

Robin wrote:

I always wondered what christianity would have turned into, had the NT writers filched the deeper and wiser Socratic concepts of meaning and enquiry, in place of Plato's sermonizing about the eternity and perfection of the soul.

Again, where do you feel the NT writers have adopted Greek philosophy as their cornerstone over and against monotheistic 2nd temple Judaism? And also, how do you personally distinguish between that which is Plato's and that which is Socrates'?

Generally, I would love to see how people understand an egyptian influence working out in the belief of the early church in the writings of the church fathers, in archeological remains or in the NT itself. As oppossed to talking in broad generalities is there anyone who has read specific studies that postulate a direct link between the practice of the ekklessia and Egypt's religions?

hairyheretic

Excelsior wrote:

Paganism is often expressed as dualism. The satan is not a component, obviously enough, but his personalised role is occupied in many cases by the Demiurge or by some other dark deity that forms the dualism. Sorry about the confusing way I wrote that first time. These answers tend to be off the top of my head.

Possibly we may be thinking different things in relation to the term paganism here then. The stuff that I am familiar with, the dualism tends to be male / female, rather than good / evil.

Most pagan belief systems tend to have a pantheon of gods and goddesses that fullfill specific aspects or roles, and while some can be (very) dark, I can't think of any offhand that I would classify as pure evil.

Sapien

Excelsior wrote:

The satan is the cause of the Fall and so has come to occupy a vital role in the salvation history of Christianity. But the satan was not an essential factor. The Fall was not an inevitability but the result of a free choice.

I have trouble with your language here. I just don't think I understand you. Christianity holds that the satan is a personality, a being, who by his own free will has charted the course he has set upon.

You think in an off-puttingly linear way. Am I to take it that you believe that Satan (or the satan as you have it - an unnecessarily etymologically fastidious use of the word, I think. I see no reason to eschew its use as a proper noun) is responsible for the sequence of events that led from the Fall, and that his actions were outside the will of God? Does this not attribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to Satan, not to say a power - that he could influence events within God's Creation to such a degree?

Perhaps he was not "essential" in original God's plan, but is he not "essential" as a causal factor in bringing about the theological universe you see it today? Our use of the word essential needs some clarification, of course.

Excelsior wrote:

I would love if you could track that source down because it is completely alien to me. End my ignorance Sapien!

Sigh. You have no idea how much time that could take. I probably read it in an obscure sideways comment or a footnote of Crowley's or Waite's or some such. Perhaps I should have stayed quiet. I'll keep an eye out, I promise nothing.

Excelsior wrote:

Paganism is often expressed as dualism. The satan is not a component, obviously enough, but his personalised role is occupied in many cases by the Demiurge or by some other dark deity that forms the dualism. Sorry about the confusing way I wrote that first time. These answers tend to be off the top of my head.

Then I suggest you dig deeper than the top, or refrain entirely. We're used to your pronouncements being categorically expert - it's a little upsetting when you venture from your own territory. Of course, a great deal of the correctness of what you say here hinges on your employment of the word "pagan". If you mean by it any religion that is not Christian, or Judeo-Christian (a particularly pointless use of a word, might I add) then you are pretty safe, in that I can think of at least one religion in which Good and Evil formed an important dualism. That religion is Zoroastrianism (and Manicheism, which I consider a Zoroastrian renaissance), but I would not, according to my more specific (and useful) definition, call Zoroastrianism pagan.

No religions which I would term pagan feature a moral dualism. The dualistic antitheses in genuine pagan spiritualities are invariably morally neutral, embodying rather such pairings as masculine and feminine, day and night, life and death, manifest and unmanifest, etc. It might be useful to consider quite how fundamental, or ancient, the idea of Good versus Evil is.

And the Demiurge is part of no duality. The very suggestion would have any Gnostic spluttering with rage.

Many people see the role of Satan, or Lucifer, as being noble and laudable - seeing him as the protagonist in the Genesis story, and his subsequent role as monarch of Hell and epitome of Evil as secondary. God lies quite unashamedly in Genesis, stating that to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will bring about instant death. Why is it that God does not want the divine progenitors to eat of the Tree? Why does he wish that they remain ignorant? Why does he incorporate such an obvious temptation and looming threat at the heart of Paradise? Lucifer frees Adam and Eve from this ignorance and makes them masters of their own destiny. The very name, Lucifer (not used in the Bible), reflects this, meaning "Light Bringer". He is the Judeo-Christian corollary of Prometheus, who promoted humanity from dark squalor by stealing the secret of fire from the gods, a rebel against tyranny, a benefactor of mankind, a teacher and a hero. Evil is by no means the measure of Satan - he is far more interesting and complicated than that.

Asiaprod

Generally, I would love to see how people understand an egyptian influence working out in the belief of the early church in the writings of the church fathers, in archeological remains or in the NT itself.

Excelsior

Your wish is my command. Please refer to the following web site at your leisure and see what others are saying. There has always been controvesy over the influence of for example the Osirus Myth on early Christianity. There is also the aspect of Magic which formed an integral part of early Egyptian beliefs, and this magic included waking on water, changing water into wine, and healing the sick and dying. Now where have I heard all these things mentioned before Interesting to note that the Messiah was promised to the Egyptians and not to the Jews: http://www.geocities.com/essenecx/messiah_egypt_connection.htm
and
http://www.geocities.com/essenecx/cover_page_essenes_forerunners_cx.htm

Isa 19:20-21 20: And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. 21 And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it. (KJV).

There is a lot to read on this site, I will be very interested to hear your take on it all. I too am reading it so please do not assume that these are my beliefs . I am still forming those . Happy reading.
Peter K

Asiaprod

This is just one interesting point raised on the site I posted :rolleyes: :
Early Christianity was a highly composite doctrine which combined many of the age-old religious concepts first developed by Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Buddhists, and Greeks, as well as by Jews, Phrygians, Syrians, and other inhabitants of Asia Minor. Christianity was congenitally related to all of these; and when any of them accepted Christianity, they were simply recovering what was, at least in part, originally their own. This fact alone explains the rapid acceptance and spread of Christianity with a Jewish Rabbi at its center throughout an Anti-Semitic world.
Mature essenism & the Essene-Christian faith....as found in the New Testament...a synopsis of its beliefs
• That the human race is divided into two groups which are forever separated, the Elect and the unrighteous, the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness....Dualism;
• That the former may be redeemed for everlasting glory in heaven, but only through divine intervention;
• That a God-man must appear as a human being on earth, and, in fact, had appeared, to bring salvation to humanity
• That all of the Elect who accept him and become his disciples will be redeemed;
• That all others are doomed to suffer eternally in hell fire;
• That the Children of Light are made manifest through their celibacy, saintly brotherhood, and communal poverty and equalitarianism;
• That the god-man is the soter/savior, i.e., the divine sacrifice who gives his life for many and whose flesh and blood are consumed by his communicants so that they too may become divine and immortal;
• That in his first manifestation the savior proclaims his revelation;
• That after his death, he returns to the Father for a period while his followers preach his gospel;
• That before the end of the then existing generation he would certainly return in a grand Parousia to judge all mankind and establish the kingdom of heaven
This was the Essene-Christian faith, which is also the religion of the occident and the Western world today.
Instead of being a Divine and unique revelation from God, such tenants as described above can be shown to be nothing more than a synthesis of major doctrines contained in the religions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Buddhists, Greeks, Phrygians, Syrians, and other inhabitants of Asia Minor.
Peter K

Excelsior

Sapien, I use the term the satan simply as an indicator that I am referring to the Judeo-Christian belief in an actual personality, a fallen angel who has in rebellion ended up attempting to deceive or warp all that is true. What I am saying is that I do have a reason behind referring to him this way and it is to mark out that I am referring to a very specific person and not some general, Devil played by Al Pacino source of evil.

Sapien wrote:

Does this not attribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to Satan, not to say a power - that he could influence events within God's Creation to such a degree?

Indeed, Satan (I've learnt from my telling off ) has a lot to answer for. But to use a technical term casually, he is a contingent being. There is no sense that he is neccessary or vital or divine, within Christian belief. The universe could have chugged along a lot happier if he managed to stay in key, to rob the amazing image that Tolkein offers in the Silmarillion.

Sapien wrote:

Sigh.

Sir, be not burdened by my demands. I just have never heard of a listing of what was inside the ark. If you turn it up, start a thread in the future.

Sapien wrote:

it's a little upsetting when you venture from your own territory.

I don't mean to trouble you.

I fully accept the criticisms of my loose and pretty much useless response on paganism yesterday. It was fuelled by a 2 hour conversation I had with the Pagan Soc at UCD last week and I think I pulled a casual chat and the terms we used into my head as an explanation for paganism.

Sapien wrote:

The dualistic antitheses in genuine pagan spiritualities are invariably morally neutral

This is of course, entirely true.

Sapien wrote:

And the Demiurge is part of no duality. The very suggestion would have any Gnostic spluttering with rage.

And that would pretty much be the last thing I would ever want to bring about. But I have often heard formalisations of the satan (allow me the accuracy here) that regarded him as a Demiurge parallel, responsible for the created world that captures the spiritual world and locks it in the decrepit time and space of our environment. Its fanciful and completely disregarding of the actual Jewish and Christian belief but I have read it once or twice and come up against it in person once before.

Sapien wrote:

Many people see the role of Satan, or Lucifer, as being noble and laudable

Ah Milton, you crazy diamond you.

Moses wrote:

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.... And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Sapien wrote:

God lies quite unashamedly in Genesis, stating that to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will bring about instant death.

He doesn't, as the text shows. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were immortal. After the Fall, their physical life will end. Christianity holds that the true immortal purpose of Man is to worship God and enjoy His presence forever. For Adam (and the not yet created Eve), they were basking in this very state in Eden. Yet when they disobeyed God and ate from the tree, the natural consequences was for that state to end. From then on they would surely die and their communion with God would end.

Sapien wrote:

Why is it that God does not want the divine progenitors to eat of the Tree? Why does he wish that they remain ignorant?

In my opinion, it is because knowledge of good does not require knowledge of bad. If you have experienced nothing but goodness and purity in your life, you do not need to be shown an act of selfishness or experience the pang of lonlieness to appreciate it. Good has a substantial existence. Badness is only the absence of good and doesn't have a substance of its own.

Now for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree, this pure experience of good would neccessarily be tainted by a sense of that which is not good. They would be worse off. God as Father was looking out for his children. But more than that, the knowledge of good and evil would open the way for evil to seep into their everyday actions and attitudes, rendering all human relationships and interactions flawed. This is a pretty good description of how things are today.

Sapien wrote:

Why does he incorporate such an obvious temptation and looming threat at the heart of Paradise?

I think this is the key to the analogy. The most magnanimous thing a perfect Being can do is to create other beings who can share in his glory. I think Creation was an outpouring of God's goodness. Built into this perfection is the unwillingness to accept automatons as the objects of his affection. If the creatures are to truly love him, they must be free to reject him. At the centre of Creation is free will. The tree, for me, is a metaphor of this freedom God offers us. He says, "You can reject my companionship and set yourselves up as gods. But you were not made to live as kings. You have been designed to live for others and not yourself. Take that route if you choose but if you live your life in a way counter to what you have been designed for it will have consequences. You will wear out trying to fit yourselves into roles that are not yours. It will ultimately kill you in every way."

And I think because of this, we are truly free to respond to God with love.

Evil is by no means the measure of Satan - he is far more interesting and complicated than that.

I'd accept that all the way to the bank.

Excelsior

Peter, I looked over the first of your sites and read it as best I could through the red underlined text, blue underlined text and parchment background. The author's style did not aid comprehension but I think I have an overall impression of the beliefs he was laying out.

He makes a point about how from Daniel 7 we can see that Israel expected a warrior deliverer. This is no revelation. By the time of Jesus, many parties in Israel were stirring up their brewing ethnic conflict that finally came to its conclusion in 72AD. The Essenes were a separatist sect that broke away from mainline Judaism, they were one strand of fundamentalism within their day. They were not a marginal and tiny group that had no major role to play in Israel's history. The Zealots were a militarised expression of Judaism and they were supported and legitimised by their political/religious wing in the form of the Pharisees.

Israel expected a tribal messiah and instead they got a Divine one. Every one of Paul's letters (a zealous Pharisee turned Christian) and a great deal of the other letters explicitly deal with this. The messiah that came was perfectly in line with prophecy but the Jewish agenda of the day for God was to be disappointed. Their messiah was not a violent political leader but a non-sectarian pacifist who fulfilled the promises of the Hebrew scriptures, especially Isa 19:18-23. This passage, as quoted by PeterK from the Astro-theology site does not mean that Jews were actually Egyptologists (seeing as the other 750,000 words of the OT pretty much stand against that) but that the promised messiah would be for all the world, just as had been promised to Abraham.

No Jew would ever regard Moses as a Messiah. He has never been considered a Messiah. The word Messiah was not understood in the 2nd Temple era to mean son of god. One of the common misuses of that word in modern western Christianity is to think that Messiah automatically means God. But Messiah, in the understanding of Jesus' contemporaries, could have meant a saviour appointed by God who was not God. The inaccuracy of the site is astonishing. It claims without support that Moses and Aaron both combined the roles of king, priest and prophet. But any Jew who knows his or her scriptures will assure you that only one person ever combined those roles and that was the mysterious Melchizedek from Genesis 14. Christians differ from Jews out of a belief that Melchizedek was a shadow of the true Prophet, Priest and King, Jesus.

What this website claims is that Ra is the source of Yahweh and that Osiris is the source of Jesus. That the Essene sect mistranslated the Hebrew Texts and so perverted ancient Jewish belief so that the picture we have today is flawed. Allegedly, our current Scriptures present a "Solar Sun-godman Messiah". The Essenes and Zealots and Nazarenes were all one group. The Synoptic Gospels are claimed to be present a different Jesus to the Gospel of John!

Forget that Yahweh is a strict monotheism and Ra isn't. Forget that Osiris flows from Ra and Christ does not flow from God the Father but is instead one as of from the beginning with the Father. Forget that the doctrine of God proposed within the two systems are diametrically oppossed and then you might have a case. As far as text perversion goes, the Dead Sea Scrolls are not the only Old Testament documents we have prior to the Septuagaint. The Essenses must have secretly had a huge influence to affect every parchment in the region over hundreds and hundreds of years (before and after their existence) and yet still only get sidebar references from historians of the time. Also, it is remarkable that history paints Israel at the turn of the common era as a bubbling site of unrest fermented by many different and quite exclusive groups. Those amazing Essenes pulled the wool over our eyes from their isolation, to make everyone think they were seperatists. The New Testament does not depict a Solar Sun-godman Messiah. It depicts an incarnated God. Jesus, by the way, was not reincarnated. He was ressurected. These are two very different things. Finally, the fourfold Gospel presents a coherent picture of Jesus of Nazareth. You may not believe it is true but it is clutching at straws to think that John is talking of a different person than Luke. Historically, it can't be supported either.

I don't have the time to read in depth the copious blue and red text on the site but I feel fairly secure from the 2 pages linked by Peter that this does not present a compelling alternative to mainstream academic research.

Asiaprod wrote:

Early Christianity was a highly composite doctrine which combined many of the age-old religious concepts first developed by Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Buddhists, and Greeks, as well as by Jews, Phrygians, Syrians, and other inhabitants of Asia Minor.

Can you actually tell me which Christian beliefs are drawn from Buddhism and which from Syria and which from the Phrygians and so on? Christianity is a development of Judaism that occurred within a Graeco-Roman context. It is categorically a Jewish belief system and I think that on any kind of serious or rigourous engagement with the texts and sources, this would be quite evident.

Asiaprod wrote:

Christianity was congenitally related to all of these; and when any of them accepted Christianity, they were simply recovering what was, at least in part, originally their own. This fact alone explains the rapid acceptance and spread of Christianity with a Jewish Rabbi at its center throughout an Anti-Semitic world.

I honestly don't think you have read the New Testament recently. Was that world anti-Semitic? Surely that term needs many qualifiers to be used as a reference to Jews in the 2nd temple era? That seems a bold claim. It also seems to stretch my skepticism that allegedly anti-semites would embrace a Gospel so fundamentally Jewish.

I understand that in the following lists, you are not advancing these views as your own but rather as Essene faith.

Asiaprod wrote:

That the human race is divided into two groups which are forever separated, the Elect and the unrighteous, the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness....Dualism;

Christianity, from the very beginning, stands expressedly against dualism. 1 John could pretty much be renamed Against Dualism.

Asiaprod wrote:

That the former may be redeemed for everlasting glory in heaven, but only through divine intervention;

Which is Judaism. Abraham in Genesis 15 is given the first declaration of the Covenant. The next three points you make are also explicitly lifted from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Asiaprod wrote:

That the Children of Light are made manifest through their celibacy, saintly brotherhood, and communal poverty and equalitarianism;

Celibacy? Saintly brotherhood? These are not terms that can be applied to the early Christian church.

Asiaprod wrote:

That the god-man is the soter/savior, i.e., the divine sacrifice who gives his life for many and whose flesh and blood are consumed by his communicants so that they too may become divine and immortal;

Christianity, like Judaism before it, does not hold that consumption of the sacrificed flesh brings about the salvation won by the savior, whether it is a lamb or The Lamb. Rather, the consumption of food in a celebratory feast is to commemerate and celebrate the salvation. In no way does either Christianity or Judaism make space for talking about communicants of God becoming divine.

Asiaprod wrote:

That after his death, he returns to the Father for a period while his followers preach his gospel;

If by this you mean that "after his resurrection", then you are correct. But the Nicene Creed is clear on where Jesus went after his death.

Asisprod wrote:

That before the end of the then existing generation he would certainly return in a grand Parousia to judge all mankind and establish the kingdom of heaven

This is neither a belief of 2nd Temple Judaism nor a belief of the first Christians.

Whether or not they are beliefs of the Essenes (you can find out for yourself by paying €10 or €12 for the paperback collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls in any bookshop), they certainly do not represent the beliefs of the early Christians.

Talliesin

Bond&#8482 wrote:

if there's a god, does that mean there must be a devil as well?

Taking this question at face value, it is one of theodicy in the earlier sense - when Leibniz introduced the term to philosophy it meant tackling the problem of the existence of evil (nowadays theodicy refers to any attempt to tackle the question of divinity through reason alone, and therefore is primarily concerned with proving or disproving God's existence, or at one remove from that proving or disproving whether such a question can be answered through reason alone at all).

The logical answer to the question is "No". Because we can conceive of a god which is either not all powerful, not good, or who has a plan whereby what we experience as harmful is part of a greater plan and therefore not truly evil, or as evil as not being an absolute, but the result of humans acting upon free will.

To answer within the framework of a particular faith brings us away from this simple question though. To narrow it down to the credo of one particular denomination of Christianity, which has a belief in the devil and ask if he must be there or to another denomination which does not believe in a literal devil and ask how he cannot be there really becomes a question of whether that credo withstands rational examination, and also whether it needs to withstand rational examination.

Once we move away from the simplicity of the question given to a more concrete sense of what is meant by "god" and "devil" we are quickly examining the entire cosmology and ethical basis of a faith, and the question moves from one of a moments deduction to one of a lifetime of soulsearching, contemplation and living in faith.

omnicorp

the devil is just people's attempt to pass the responsibilty for their own bad deeds to something else.
the devil didn't start wars or discriminate against people.