Is believing in the Devil different (stranger) than believing in God?

It's not a "necessity," as if it requires a logical argument....it's simpler than that.

And, imo, it's not a deep question. And I will answer it in one post.

What's wrong with calling it a linguistic invention of human expression that predates the Bible.

satan was just a word not capitalized. It means adversary. And in reference to God and Faith, it is sin and temptation. It later become sin and temptation animated into serpents and other, oral story-telling devices.

Just strip satan down to the history of that word, and you will see that "a surprising amount of interesting answers throughout the theological spectrum" are people throughout history just trying to make a buck and name for themselves when many linguistic historians (and many Rabbi's and Catholic priests too) know better. The words go together. They go together like good and evil...God and sin. And both exist together.

So, feel free to say God is an oral invention of story-telling, too, but don't say satan is different. Satan is a word that expresses our experience.

It is language...and language is an expression of the way we think. This is not a logical argument. It's history. And, yes, logic is also an expression of the way we think (and linguistic history)...but different than oral history.

 

The only mechanism the human mind has to make subjective judgments, like morally right and morally wrong, is to compare them against a standard. There is no right if there is no wrong; the yin and yang if you will, so a God of good cannot be determined as good unless there is a standard of evil to compare him against.

So, I don't think it's strange, I think it's required.

 

My question is if you are the all powerful GOD who created everything include time and space. Why would you create a devil to tempt insignificant beings on a tiny planet called earth?

 

That's fine if you're looking to determine the nature of satan at a secular level, but in relation to the Bible, and to God, satan is talked about in real terms. Satan isn't just Satan, he is Lucifer. Which is exactly why so many have different opinions on it. Taking the linguistic history behind it and excluding all other biblical references to Satan is balogni.

You argue that satan is God's creation of temptation, when no serious Christian would agree with that since the Bible since God doesn't tempt.

I'm aware that some Christians have adopted the viewpoint of Satan as symbolism, but listening to the H.T Wright's of the world or even the John MacArthur's of the world is interesting. The latter even argues for the neccessity of a real Satan in God's world. Of course, some even argue for the case of a satan and a Satan.

 

Because there is no perception without contrast, no protagonist without antagonist, no appreciation of the gift of life without death.

You know I'm agnostic, but the point and purpose of religion is to allay the philosophical questions of life and provide a system to judge morality to promote a civil existence.

An aside: I always wondered in the stories of religion, why a god would create a world and man. But in science, there is no reality without the concurring conclusion of an outside observer. A god would need an independent observer to determine if indeed his own existence was real. Why that would matter to him, I'm still thinking about.

 

I don't think that it is any stranger. It doesn't matter if other religions have a different interpretation of the devil, the one that Scalia subscribes to is a very common perception in the Christian belief system. According to the new testament, god and the devil go hand in hand all the way from the beginning of time.

If interested, this is an hour long documentary from a historical perspective on how Christians developed their perception of the devil ....

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/a5mYFJ4irxM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

This is my problem with religion in general.

The Bible is a book full of parables and symbolism, but most of your christian religions want to take it all literally. Really, its a cool book of stories from thousands of years ago, but it *should* have next to no relevance to the modern world....

 

"y'all dwellin on devil ****, im in a diablo!" - Jay-Z

 

Believing in the devil is not stranger than believing in the Christian god, but worshiping the devil when you believe everything else in the bible is definitely stranger than worshiping god, in my opinion.

 

I was going to bring up the same thing. If we accept an all powerful god then such a being would have aspects of both good and evil. As humans though we can only tell good from evil apart through relative comparisons. So a god that was good would actually need a evil for us to know the difference.

Leaving aside the philosophy I know for a fact that the devil does exist. That he once was a blessed being who had the capacity for good but chose the path of evil instead. Because of that he was forever denied the ultimate glory.

Spoiler

 

I have seen the devil and he likes to throw pick sixes on God's holiest of days. He is eeeevil!

 

No that is Job. He is an otherwise righteous man whose faith in the deep ball is being tested.

 

No, he will vote for someone who doesn't literally believe in the Bible stories. If that means phony Christian so be it. You and I know that there is no other way for a candidate at the Presidential level to win if they do not claim to be Christian. Thus, the only way to have an athiest/agnostic President is to have one that "lies" about their faith.

 

This sums it up. No one wants to talk about the vengeful God the destroyed the world with water.

 

To those who are saying why would an omnipotent God create an evil adversary, Satan was not created evil. He was an Archangel originally. He tried to exalt himself to be better than or at least on the same level as God. When he rebelled, 1/3 of the angels followed him. He is also not so much an adversary as he is allowed to exist. God could destroy him at any time and at some time in the future he will be cast into a lake of fire for eternity.

Now that brings up the question, if God is omnipotent and knew Satan would turn bad, why did he create him? The answer is God did know he would turn evil. He also knew that he would send Jesus as a savior too.

 

No, try to think about it this way. LOGIC actually says that if there is a GOD there must be an ANTI-GOD (Devil) because one is NOT possible without the other. Several eastern religions teach that we cannot comprehend X without having experienced Y. To put it this way, we can't know/understand/recognize/etc... GOOD without BAD. No UP if no DOWN, etc...

A true christian should actually worship and appreciate Satan/Devil and thank him for existing for without him they would not appreciate the greatness of their God. When you think about it in that context than all Monotheistic religions should really be polytheistic and at minimum include 2 deities.

 

Since God is present in all space and all times. He knew exactly what will happen as soon as he created the angel/devil, or even before he created him.

 

God must have created the devil since he was there before even time and space and he created everything right?

 

Igniting the big bang doesn't make you a "creator", in my opinion.

Believing in a God that can convict you of thought-crime might be even more ridiculous than believing in "the devil".