[WalterBlack]

Even though I classify myself as a non-religious Hindu, I believe in God. I think that there was some being or entity which created the universe.

However, I do not believe in Satan – I think that all evil acts done by humans come from within themselves – it could be because of the way they grew up, or something to do with brain chemistry or many other reasons.

If somebody says “The Devil Made Me Do it”, I think they’re trying to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

Where do you guys stand on this?

[TheNookieMonster]

All religions are fairy tales.

They universe may have had a creator, and I prefer to think that it did. Any creator or probably any significantly more advanced life would probably have an ethical system (or lack of) that is so alien to us that we might consider it Satan.

[debeguiled]

The devil's greatest trick is making you believe he doesn't exist. So, no.

[Quintus Curtius]

I definitely know there is evil in the world. What name we affix to it, is our own choosing. It cares not what it is called.

"My name is Legion...for I am many..."

I never really understood the meaning of this quote until I got older.

[Onto]

Some say Satan and God are aspects of ourselves. They are within us all the time.

In the story of Job he reflects at the end, "When I had it all, that was God, and when it was all taken away, that was God too."

I guess that begs the question, "Is God evil?" In the book of Job, it's abstracted that the Devil brought the misfortune onto Job, but there's no escaping the fact God allowed it to happen.

[Truth Teller]

Yes, I am convinced something far more evil than simple human nature exists. Whether or not you want to call it Satan is your choice.

[The Lizard of Oz]

I'll indulge myself by posting a story I posted before; but I like it so much that I don't mind giving it a little more exposure.

(05-11-2014 12:39 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

I came across a passage in a Washington Post article today that contains one of the most stunning, sublime and accurate comparisons between any two things I've ever encountered in my life! I gasped -- then howled -- then gasped again -- when I read it!!

The article itself is awesome. It is about how Pope Francis, for all his supposedly modernizing tendencies, is the most old school Pope in a long time when it comes to the Devil. He has been preaching incessantly about Satan, and has granted far greater recognition to the proponents of exorcism in the Church than they've enjoyed in decades.

Link

The passage I'm talking about has one of these exorcists, a Swiss gentleman named Rev. Cesar Truqui, recount an experience he recently had on a Swissair flight. Here it is in all its glory:

Quote:

During the conference, the Rev. Cesar Truqui, an exorcist based in Switzerland, recounted one experience he had aboard a Swissair flight. “Two lesbians,” he said, had sat behind him on the plane. Soon afterward, he said, he felt Satan’s presence. As he silently sought to repel the evil spirit through prayer, one of the women, he said, began growling demonically and threw chocolates at his head.

Asked how he knew the woman was possessed, he said that “once you hear a Satanic growl, you never forget it. It’s like smelling Margherita pizza for the first time. It’s something you never forget.”

[Paracelsus]

(10-29-2015 04:59 PM)Onto Wrote:  

Some say Satan and God are aspects of ourselves. They are within us all the time.

In the story of Job he reflects at the end, "When I had it all, that was God, and when it was all taken away, that was God too."

I guess that begs the question, "Is God evil?" In the book of Job, it's abstracted that the Devil brought the misfortune onto Job, but there's no escaping the fact God allowed it to happen.

Bear in mind the conception of Satan differs between the Old Testament and the New. The OT, from which the Book of Job comes, is far more influenced by the Judaic model of Satan which is essentially as the accuser, more of the Devil's Advocate than the Devil himself. Job itself supports that view since at the beginning of the book God is talking to Satan in heaven itself. In Genesis itself Satan does not become the enemy of man until he tempts Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Life, which again supports the idea of Satan as a sort of shadowy version or trickster version of God than God's polar opposite or rebel angel as such.

[Disco_Volante]

I keep reading around Christian types that the muslim invasion of Europe is God's punishment for whites / euros turning our back on Christianity....

that implies God basically controls the devil or keeps him at bay if and when he chooses. If we live wrongly, he will allow evil to hurt us.

it all sounds like a bunch of ridiculous hocus pocus to me.

[Mage]

If God is all powerful then Satan is just his puppet who works in the opposite direction to test us and make us grow by overcoming it.

Most people don't have the capacity to understand the statement above and believe in two dieties - one good adn one evil.

[Paracelsus]

(10-29-2015 08:49 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

I keep reading around Christian types that the muslim invasion of Europe is God's punishment for whites / euros turning our back on Christianity....

that implies God basically controls the devil or keeps him at bay if and when he chooses. If we live wrongly, he will allow evil to hurt us.

it all sounds like a bunch of ridiculous hocus pocus to me.

It is. Even Jesus lambasted that type of thinking in the Gospels.

Luke 13:1-4 Wrote:

Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, "Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

[PolymathGuru]

I am not sure if I believe in Satan or not. Because most of my knowledge derives from others. I have never seen an Atom or its sub atomic particles. I have never seen most of the galaxies in the universe. Yet I can only know because others tell me it exists. The question is about plausibility.

[wi30]

I am of the opinion that the devil was created to guilt trip peasants into giving money to the catholic church for repentance.

Fire and brimstone was/is used to scare people into loyalty.

Hell, most evil in this world is the result of the id overpowering the superego. The child in us cannot always be suppressed by the rational adult.

[Pride male]

Yes. I have met him. No, really I have met psychopathic people whose greatest joy was inflicting pain. Think Marlo from the Wire.

[H1N1]

As in some sort of ethereal personification of evil? No, in the same way that I do not believe in a personified God. I do, I think, believe in some kind of essence which is in all life giving and living things. Nicola Tesla defined it as follows:

“All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles all things and phenomena.”

I suppose my conception of evil, then, is when one acts contrary to what I believe Lao Tzu is referring to in The Tao. I don't, then, in the religious sense believe in the devil, or perhaps even in a religious conception of evil. More that one is trying to achieve harmony with this 'life giving Prana', what the Buddhists might call enlightenment, and that any act that might be termed evil is more an act of disharmony with the true way of being. My own belief is that this is why we feel disgust for evil at such a visceral, innate level - that we are acting against the true nature of our own share of Prana that exists within us, and at some extreme level of abstraction, we are aware of this fact.

[Dr. Howard]

(10-29-2015 02:27 PM)WalterBlack Wrote:  

Even though I classify myself as a non-religious Hindu, I believe in God. I think that there was some being or entity which created the universe.

However, I do not believe in Satan – I think that all evil acts done by humans come from within themselves – it could be because of the way they grew up, or something to do with brain chemistry or many other reasons.

If somebody says “The Devil Made Me Do it”, I think they’re trying to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

Where do you guys stand on this?

The devil, aka the fallen angel formely known as lucifer, doesn't ever "Make you do it" he just helps you think its a good idea.

The presence of satan and biblical stories I think are one of the most important, and subtle aspects of the bible. Satan is the embodiment of pride as a sin, and in our own lives pride is often the root of other missed steps.

The story of lucifer's 'conversion' parallels the same story of the fall of man. Just like Eve, he lived in paradise until his pride got the best of him and he felt that he needed more power, didn't need a master and could do it on his own. He rebelled and so was cast out of heaven. Same deal for adam and eve, they traded paradise for self determination (the apple was the fruit of knowledge between good and evil) because their pride of "fuck god and his rules, I'm going to eat what I want" god the best of them.

Satan the serpent didn't MAKE eve eat the apple, he just encouraged her, and this is how he tempts people.

The line of "the devil's greatest trick was convicing people that he didn't exist" is also true. The fact that his existence is doubted should be par for the course with a being that is supposed to be the Deon Sanders and Richard Sherman of persuasion. The same way that you don't know that you've been manipulated by a woman until after she has a new boyfriend is a mark of a black belt bitch...if everyone knew right away when the devil was at work, he wouldn't be much of a prince of darkness would he?

The most important part, to me, is "why does the devil even bother?""If the devil has such power and intelligence, why does he bother to continue to lose vs. God". The answer is pride. The devil knows the bible (he even quotes it when confronting Jesus) and so he should know that his fate is to be cast into the abyss right? The devil's pride keeps him fighting, he figures he can beat god's word at some point and the human's he can convince to the same thing validates that notion. This is why the devil's end goal is always "fuck that god, you don't need him, you know how to run your own life" The devil wants people to join him, in putting themselves above god and he'll march right into hell at the end of time with his allies, not thinking that it will be bad...because again satan can save himself in his mind, he's not scared of any boogeyman stories about how bad hell is.

Last, the Devil's pride fallacy is also why he 'resides' in all of us. We are like lucifer, and like adam and eve, when we rebel against 'natural law'.

So yes, I believe in Satan. I don't believe he is some sort of overt pitchfork wielding red devil, I believe that he is like the player of all players and would only go unnoticed if it weren't for his pride. He also, in my opinion, doesn't think he is evil, he is just trying to convince people to end their slavery to god and be their own masters....which again is why he doesn't seem to exist to alot of folks.

Demons/demonic posession on the otherhand, thats what I think of when I think of that classic 'excorcist' type stuff. Satan isn't so crass, even in the bible he's a tempter. Its demons, not satan that gets cast out of people when they are crazy in the bible.

[Disco_Volante]

you're saying to avoid pride, we must recognize that our abilities (whatever they may be) came from God, and high achieving people are such because God gave them gifts be it mental or physical.

In other words, people who are disabled, retarded, have cerebral palsy.....God deliberately made them that way. If your skills are due to God then someone's retardation would also be from God. You can't have it both ways.
If God deliberately made Lebron 6'8 and physically superior to everyone else, then he also deliberately made the kid with down syndrome.

that seems pretty fucked up to me.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

I think that there is a negative force that is part of this physical plane.

What I don't understand sometimes about some religions is this illogical perception of Satan and God. If God had created the world, then doesn't it mean it created the negative force as well? Created it obviously for a reason?

Of course I also think that we are fully responsible for our actions, as that negative as well as the positive one permeates all of us. You really cannot blame it for anything since it's part of being here like gravity.

It is up to us humans to either embrace the path of light or the path of darkness. Also some religions are highly permeated by darkness and claim to be virtuous.

But that is a topic for a deeper discussion.

However - what is more troubling in our system is that a solid portion of our very monetary elite seem are rumored to be Luciferians, which explains a bit the state of our world. Maybe they believe in Satan or at least Lucifer, which is not the same thing.










Ah - but I am sure - it's just a coincidence. And don't look too deep into the Dutroux case in Belgium or your head will start to spin.

[Disco_Volante]

Zel - I thought a luciferian is simply someone who believes men can conquer all ourselves without a God, which is basically the same as Satan?

Are you familiar with Albert Pike's prediction of the 3rd world war, where he says 'lucifer' will reveal himself.....isn't that considered Satan? I don't grasp what this is saying
http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm


"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." 4

[Dr. Howard]

(10-30-2015 01:30 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

you're saying to avoid pride, we must recognize that our abilities (whatever they may be) came from God, and high achieving people are such because God gave them gifts be it mental or physical.

In other words, people who are disabled, retarded, have cerebral palsy.....God deliberately made them that way. If your skills are due to God then someone's retardation would also be from God. You can't have it both ways.
If God deliberately made Lebron 6'8 and physically superior to everyone else, then he also deliberately made the kid with down syndrome.

that seems pretty fucked up to me.

Romans 9:19-21

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

Yes god makes retards on purpose.

Can you run a successful basketball team with all Lebrons? No, there would be too many egos. Humans understand that a team needs many parts and a chessboard needs pawns. If humans understand that, why is it impossible to assume that a retard has a necessary purpose on God's chessboard?

That is also where pride comes in. Some people would rather be the star quarterback of the smallest, dirtiest, most underhanded, least respected football team (ahem, Tom Brady) as opposed to the 3rd string right guard on the ultimate all, never defeated team of the universe (Green Bay Packers). If the spotlight isn't on them, the reward isn't worth it, not matter how great.

Thats where a godly cripple shines. They don't bitch and moan that they are in a wheelchair, they are just pumped 24/7 that they are on team Jesus. They don't get all "diva" that they aren't on the starting line, they just support the team. The disabled folks at my church are THE most exuberant worshipers of the congregation...wheras by rational though they should be cursing and burning bibles in the pews given the 'gifts' god gave them at birth.

Contrast that with a dude like Kobe, god of athletics and talent, yet he will deep six an entire game if he's not getting enough play time. Lucifer was the Kobe Bryant of God's angels.

[Andreas]

Laci Green is the only proof of Satan that you need!

But seriously try to make the following experiment:

If you had a time machine and you could go back and kill people like Hitler do you think that there wouldn't be any mass murders or evil spreading out? Someone else would probably replace them and do equal damage to the world. Feminism is just a fancier version of Nazis etc.

So maybe you could say that there is no separate entity called Satan but rather an invincible energy, 'evil' that comes in different forms but with identical intentions each time. It's no wonder that the evils of history are repeated again and again.

[rudebwoy]

I may not believe in it but the elites certainly do.

[Onto]

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(10-30-2015 02:23 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

Zel - I thought a luciferian is simply someone who believes men can conquer all ourselves without a God, which is basically the same as Satan?

Are you familiar with Albert Pike's prediction of the 3rd world war, where he says 'lucifer' will reveal himself.....isn't that considered Satan? I don't grasp what this is saying
http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm

I think that they view it as something else - the fallen angel who actually enlightens mankind.

Personally I don't care about their symbolism, but more about their actions that stem out of that religion. I doubt it's very positive. There are signs of the fact that it might be out in the open when the money boys reveal how rich and powerful they really are. Then we might find out how much they are into that occult stuff. I hope we never find out, because that means that they cannot be toppled by us anymore.

[Pride male]

The flesh is satan.