Why exactly is Satan bad?

[Kenny]

I've read it many times.

View it in a different perspective then?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

He stole the authority of man to become the god of this world
He steals the word of God from people’s hearts and anything that has the semblance of God.

That's pretty vague. Care to be a little more specific?

Yes… it was Satan who killed them.

Those 10 people you mean... not the millions of others that were killed in god's genocides or the genocides he commanded to be carried out.
And those 10 were with god's permission. So go explicitly agreed with those murders. He gave the green light, much like a mafia boss gives his permission for a wiseguy to go and kill somebody.

As I read it, it isn’t so much about “God’s permission” as much as it was Job’s giving place to the Devil - Opening the door where the NT says “give no place to the devil"

It matters not what twist you give to it or what you think the purpose was.
There is no denying that god gave permission for it, for whatever reason.

Ultimately, he lost the battle. He destroys anything that looks like God… like marriages.

How?

I think that is a perspective. He saved humanity whereas the devil would love to destroy everything. At least in our belief system, God will restore everything to where it was supposed to be.

So Satan kills 10 people with gods permission and that makes satan bad.
Meanwhile god engages in the biggest genocide of all time and then it is "saving humanity".

Apologetic logic 101.

Man gave the devil permission. The devil doesn’t need God’s permission

More twisting of the actual text.

The list is endless… but he started by lying to Eve when he said “You should not eat or touch the fruit"

Huh? Not sure what you are talking about. Typo?

Things like inciting contention and temptations

Again rather vague

 

[soulsurvivor]

Why exactly is Satan evil?

To me it seems that God is much worse, according to the bible

Like I said, I don't believe in a single evil deity like Satan. There are many such evil deities. Any person (human or non-human) has a choice to be good (meaning respect the rights of others and work for their welfare) or to be evil - try to control others and make them his slaves or otherwise destroy them - 'Satan' is such a person - it is his choice to be evil.

As for what the OT says about God - that book is filled with lies and nonsense. I would not pay any attention to it. The psalms are the only good part of the OT although even Psalm 137:9 is horrible.

 

[Kenny]

That's pretty vague. Care to be a little more specific?

God gave the authority of the earth to mankind. When Adam decided to follow the Serpent and his voice, he handed over the authority of the world to Satan. Thus, when Satan tempted Jesus with the glory of the world, it was his to tempt Jesus. In essence saying, “if you will worship me, you won’t have to go to the cross to gain the authority, I will give it to you”.

As far as the robbing the word - Mark 4 - Satan comes immediately to rob the word - which is the weapon that can defeat Satan. (Jesus always said, “it is written”.

Those 10 people you mean... not the millions of others that were killed in god's genocides or the genocides he commanded to be carried out.
And those 10 were with god's permission. So go explicitly agreed with those murders. He gave the green light, much like a mafia boss gives his permission for a wiseguy to go and kill somebody.

This has been addressed ad nauseam. It is a common response from those who aren’t going to be moved from their viewpoint.

It matters not what twist you give to it or what you think the purpose was.
There is no denying that god gave permission for it, for whatever reason.

No… Job gave him permission

How?

Divorces.

So Satan kills 10 people with gods permission and that makes satan bad.
Meanwhile god engages in the biggest genocide of all time and then it is "saving humanity".

This has been addressed ad nauseam. It is a common response from those who aren’t going to be moved from their viewpoint.

More twisting of the actual text.

Not as I read and study it.

Huh? Not sure what you are talking about. Typo?

Gen 3. When Satan tempted Eve, he actually added to what God said.

Again rather vague

What is vague about “temptations?”

 

[Father Heathen]

I know you think so. But His standards are farther above yours than you could ever know.

Wrong. You're suggesting that might makes right, which is completely antithetical to ethics, morality, and virtue. How can a god be righteous without embodying, personifying, or exemplifying righteousness?

You suggest that we should hold god to a lower rather than higher standard than we do our fellow man. If a mortal were to behave just as god's depiction in the bible/torah, he would be considered an infantile sociopath, but sprinkle in some magic, he becomes something we're obliged to revere?

On the subject of reverence and worship, it should arise from inspiration rather than coercion.

 

[Father Heathen]

Yeah.

Satan's rebellion in the story always reminds me of this picture:

View attachment 87995

The angel rebellion was Heaven's Tiananmen Square.

 

[Father Heathen]

"It is not a question of armaments or disarmament. Neither does the question of conscription or voluntary military service enter into these problems of maintaining world-wide peace. If you take every form of modern mechanical armaments and all types of explosives away from strong nations, they will fight with fists, stones, and clubs as long as they cling to their delusions of the divine right of national sovereignty.

War is not man’s great and terrible disease; war is a symptom, a result. The real disease is the virus of national sovereignty." UB 1955

Revelation 12:7-17​

​

King James Version​

​

​

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Not sure what point you were trying to make?

 

[Father Heathen]

There are theistic Satanists who take "an enemy of my enemy is my friend" too far in their philosophy, in my opinion. It doesn't matter so much which deity they worship to me, because I don't think either is real. In the case of ex-Christian Satanists, though, it usually feels similar to one of those people who is "rescued" from an abusive relationship by another abuser. If we're too kind to Satan, we end up giving undue legitimacy to theistic Satanism. And I think we risk doing a disservice to people who are recovering from Christian religious abuse to wave away all of the red flags that the Satanic archetype displays and ignore all of the various harmful Satanic cults, ideas, and superstitions.

If we're not careful, we can just enable a new superstition that's just as harmful in a different way. There's a lot of fascism and Darwinism in theistic Satanism. JoS? O9A? ToBL? Even CoS leans in that direction, and they're mostly not even theists. Do we really want to help promote a narrative that can (and does with some frequency) convert Christians into Satanic Neo-Nazis? I'm not sure that I want to give that too much rhetorical weight, personally.

I'm not trying to start a Satanic Panic or anything. Not all Satanists are like this, just like not all Christians are alt-right fundamentalists. But I'm not sure if arguing in favor of the literal personification of evil is really all that helpful, either.

I think theistic Satanists and literal devil worshippers are very few and far between, and even the ones who believe in Satan/Lucifer as an actual entity don't perceive or portray him in the same way as Christians do. The depictions of Hollywood and evangelical imaginations doesn't reflect the reality. There are teenage edgelords who do things for the sake of shock and attention, but they tend to grow out of it. I think the Satanic neo-Nazi types fall into that category since LHP philosophy is totally antithetical to any sort of fascist ideology, so they can't be taken seriously.

 

[Colt]

Not sure what point you were trying to make?

IMOP

Lucifer, Satan & company tried to do the undoable! They rebelled against the rule of the Paradise sons in the Fathers name and attempted to set up their own domain, like your illustration about colonies breaking away from England. It was literally an insurrection, an attempted coup d’état.

Eventually, only one world government of nation states, by the people, for the people, the surrender of national sovereignty into one sovereign, world wide nation will be the only thing that produces world peace. The same is true for Lucifers folly!

 

[Father Heathen]

IMOP

Lucifer, Satan & company tried to do the undoable! They rebelled against the rule of the Paradise sons in the Fathers name and attempted to set up their own domain, like your illustration about colonies breaking away from England. It was literally an insurrection, an attempted coup d’état.

Eventually, only one world government of nation states, by the people, for the people, the surrender of national sovereignty into one sovereign, world wide nation will be the only thing that produces world peace. The same is true for Lucifers folly!

Wait, so you advocate for a globalist one world government/new world order?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The list is endless… but he started by lying to Eve when he said “You should not eat or touch the fruit"

Wasn't that particular lie from God?

Satan was the one encouraging Eve to eat the fruit and telling her that she wouldn't actually die when she ate it, desPite what God had said.

(And it turned out on that item, God was the liar and Satan told the truth)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

View it in a different perspective then?

Let me take you to the hurting ground
Where all good men are trampled down
Just to settle a bet that could not be won
Between a prideful father and his son

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

View it in a different perspective then?

Why don't you tell me in what "perspective" the death of 10 people is one of God's great kindnesses! I don't possess such a skewed perspective of right and wrong.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

This has been addressed ad nauseam. It is a common response from those who aren’t going to be moved from their viewpoint.

This has been addressed ad nauseam. It is a common response from those who aren’t going to be moved from their viewpoint.

As was that! Twice in the same post -- both times avoiding actually answering the question posed.

Because, of course, there is no answer, but you won't be moved from your viewpoint.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Yes… it was Satan who killed them. As I read it, it isn’t so much about “God’s permission” as much as it was Job’s giving place to the Devil - Opening the door where the NT says “give no place to the devil"

You say that you have read Job "quite a few times." Please demonstrate from the text where Job is "giving place to the Devil." God himself is careful to point out that Job "shuns evil." In fact, it is clear from the text that Job does not know that Satan is doing anything -- Job is totally mystified about why his misfortunes were happening to him, but when urged to do so, still refuses to curse God. No mention of Job cursing, or even being aware of, the Devil.

In fact, when news of all his calamities is brought to him, what was Job's reaction?

20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship ​

​

21 and said:​

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,​

and naked I will depart.​

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;​

may the name of the Lord be praised.”​

​

22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.​

 

[Shaul]

From what you said, it actually sounds like he has no standards of morality at all.
He is as amoral as it gets.

So you, a mere mortal, presume to pass judgement on Him?

 

[Shaul]

Nope, I'm pretty sure I'm not anyone's possession and that other people aren't too

So you think you came about ex nihilo. I'm sure you are wrong.

 

[Shaul]

So the effects of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil weren't as advertised, eh?

That is a great example of a non sequitur.

 

[PureX]

Why exactly is Satan bad?

Why is he "the enemy"?

Satan is just a mythical character used as a representational device. It's neither good nor evil. It's inert.

The question is what it represents to us. And it represents different ideals in different stories, and in the minds of those that hear the stories.

 

[Shaul]

Wrong. You're suggesting that might makes right, which is completely antithetical to ethics, morality, and virtue. How can a god be righteous without embodying, personifying, or exemplifying righteousness?

You suggest that we should hold god to a lower rather than higher standard than we do our fellow man. If a mortal were to behave just as god's depiction in the bible/torah, he would be considered an infantile sociopath, but sprinkle in some magic, he becomes something we're obliged to revere?

On the subject of reverence and worship, it should arise from inspiration rather than coercion.

I didn't suggest any of that nonsense.