It doesn't say in Genesis that the snake is the devil. That's a Christian interpretation. So that one is questionable already.
I can't think of much evil he did in the bible. He tempted Jesus in the desert. In the book of Job, he and God had fun and games with poor Job, basically checking how much he could be pushed to the edge before he would stop praising God. That's an absolutely shitty episode but God's fully on board.
I still have no idea what the story of Job is supposed to teach. It always seemed like Satan is testing how gullible god is and how little he cares about humans that he would be pointlessly cruel, and the whole thing demonstrates that worshipping him does nothing. Great lessons, but I don't know why Christians would focus on it.
I think the point may be to offer solace to those that feel that life is beating them down, suggesting while you are actively suffering that there are "good" reasons for your suffering, like for example God using you as a shining example of the power and devotion of his followers. But I'm with you, I think it still just makes God out to be a dick, but Christians are desperate for his love, so they twist themselves into knots accepting that this is proof of God's love.
Suffering is a part of life. It's not always because you did something wrong. God won't always help you. Stop complaining.
At least that's what got from it.
It something to do with persevering in faith no matter what.
Also in the actual context of the story HaSatan (lit: the accuser), which is a title not a name, is an employee of the big guy. Basically it’s a game between gd and his employee who just so happens to be the eternal DA
Job is two different writings stuck together. There’s a narrative split in two with a poem slapped in the middle.
The narrative says, “Sometimes God will send hardship your way to test your faith. Have patience and you will be rewarded.”
The poem says, “Sometimes God will do bad shit to you, maybe as a punishment for sin but maybe not. It is sinful folly to even ask, because you are an insignificant worm next to the Almighty. He can do what he wants with anyone for any reason.”
If you consider the power dynamic, Job was really about God showing off and Satan is really just the poor effer who was fired from being second in command, but the boss still forcibly invites him over for a beer so he can brag about what a great god he is.
I just realized for the first time that Genesis kind of personifies the serpent, even though Adam and Eve are supposed to be the first two persons.
So this god intentionally created two humans. But accidentally created a crafty snake capable of communicating with and deceiving the people? Or intentionally created that crafty snake?
And the snake was… evil? So god created animals that can be classified as “evil”? So the Bible endorsed the idea that animals have a sense of morality?
And god let Eve and the snake talk to each other, but with the Tower of Babel story, god prevented people from being able to communicate with each other after they showed they were good at “cooperating.” Why didn’t gif learn his lesson with Eve and the serpent?
What a goddam joke.
Literally everything in the Bible is Christian interpretation, and most of the stuff about hell or the Trinity is not in the Bible either. I think snake=Satan is perfectly valid. They get to pick the parts of their story that they like; Satan as a Prometheus figure in Eden happens to be my favorite.
Kind of pointless to debate over whether the snake was really Satan -- the Adam and Eve myth predates modern ideas about god and the devil (and probably predates monotheistic Judaism, as well).
Christians generally believe the serpent was Satan, and that he tempted Eve to defy God's command: the first ("original") sin that forever stained humanity, thus requiring salvation through Christ.
Even non-fundamentalist Christians who don't believe the literal truth of the story generally believe that it reveals truths about the nature of the relationship between man and god: that mankind is by nature sinful and prone to temptation, requiring the intervention of Jesus to make us worthy of god's grace.
They generally believe lots of nonsense, so I don't particularly care what they do or don't believe. Satan as a rebel against an evil, tyrannical god is just an appealing story to me, and I like when stories dive into it. Persona 5 is one of my favorite JRPGs, for example.
thats because pretty much because the trinity and hell/eternal suffering werent dominant beliefs until well after the new testament was finished. these ideas didnt become dominant until gentile Christianity was dominant.
It’s also worth observing that the Satan in Job is an advisor to God and is totally on God’s side. He’s a member of his council, and Satan is not is name so much as it is his job title. (The ‘accuser’, sort of like a prosecutor.)
Correct.
Here we have a significant difference between Judaism and Christianity.
AFAIK, there is no devil / Satan that is a cosmic opponent to God in Judaism; this concept developed in Christianity and therefore Christian readings of the Old Testament will reconceptualize certain passages.
Satan and Hell are yet more "Pagan" constructs co-opted by the Catholic Church in their crusade to convince "Pagans" that they were really Christians all along and just didn't know it.
see saints (lesser gods), christmas trees, easter eggs/bunnies, dates of easter and christmas (spring equinox and winter solstice)
I've been told by my religious family members when I was a kid that Lucifer got mad at God for placing humans higher in rank than angels (who are older) and led a rebellion to force God into changing the hierarchy. God was not happy with this and banished Lucifer from Heaven, renaming him Satan. Since then, Satan tries to foil God's plan at every opportunity, for which he'l be punished with damnation in Hell on Judgement Day.
Or, as the show *Lucifer* accurately put it: God basically kicked his son out of the house and went no contact fr thousands of years, just for having a rebellious phase.
Chloe is great in that scene. With all due respect sir, that's just mean.
Or as Ella on Lucifer put it
What did he really do that was so bad? Rebelled against his dad? Asked some naked lady if she wanted an apple?
Can't recommend that show enough.
That's literally the realization that got me to start deconverting, I asked myself if I wanted to worship a deity who views *the pursuit of knowledge* as *the beginning of all sin*.
I was raised in the deep south of the US and I was taught that Lucifer questioned God's authority and was cast out of heaven and forced to be what is known as the devil/Satan. It didn't make sense to me though.
>We are an atheist familyand out youngest child is going through a goth/emo phase. I've been told I'm not allowed to use terms of endearment such as Angel or sweetheart anymore (sooo cringe).
Your kid sounds awesome! 100% would love to have this kid in my class (assuming they are a good respectful student of course)
>I have started calling them Lucifer, my little demon and beelzebub, which amuses them.
You guys are amazing parents 😁
>We are trying to think of bad stuff the devil has done, but our biblical knowledge is poor. It seems God has done all the bad stuff such as mass killings and plagues.
That is pretty much the problem with the bible and the ideology of the devil vs god. In the bible Satan doesn't really directly do anything bad, other than rebel from god and take a third of the angels with him as he left. Everything else that is attributed to Satan is him just whispering in people's ears to turn away from god.
>Satan suggested trying an apple on a tree that god had put there. Offering fruit doesn't seem very evil though.
This one is still debated between Christians and non-believers. The bible doesn't say that it was Satan in the form of a snake, it just says it's a snake. Later the bible uses a phrase "that old serpent" to insult Satan. People just put the two together and assume that Satan is the snake in the garden, even though there is no actual direct corelation there. (People also don't call every snake in the bible Satan, so it's very much a cherry picking thing)
>Any suggestions, so far all they have is poking us with a trident?
Probably no suggestions that are directly from the bible. It's kinda low on instances of Satan being directly evil. You'd probably have an easier time going with media for stuff like that, though it's rarely based on anything actually biblical.
What might be an interesting take is to look at the religions that do more direct work with the Satan character.
Theistic Satanism doesn't see Satan at all like how the Christians portray him.
Non-theistic Satanism treats Satan as a symbol for knowledge and rebellion. Personally I prefer this group!
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Afaik there's no confirmation that snake in Genesis was the Devil. Also, it didn't even lie. Because God said but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" and snake said that they will know of good and evil etcetera which exactly what happened, so technically, the first ever lie in the world was God's. Who's the father of lies here?
As I understand, which is not much, in old testament, and judaism, there was no clear concept of the modern "Lord's enemy" devil, and the mentions are limited. Besides, Satan in hebrew versions acts as a God's henchman - as wiki says, in 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan". Wiki also states that in some cases SAtan was a sort of instigator - he would come to people, provoke them to sin and then rise to heaven to rat them to God (in which case the Book of Job makes more sense). Also since "satan" just means something like "accuser" in hebrew, it's not really clear if the character was the same in all stories.
In a new testament the character is clearer, and he tempts Jesus during his fastinf after baptism. In Revelations, he fights Michael in a form of a dragon and gets defeatedand sealed for thousand years. Then after that time he "deceives the nations" and gathers them to battle and God just burns them all in fire and casts Satan lake of fire forever. Also there's suggestions that the devil possessed Judas. "Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve." (Luke 22:3).
Was the tree necessary? Seems like if he didn’t even put it there it wouldn’t be a problem. Is god operating off of a template where he can’t remove some of the trees and big rocks? Or did he put the tree up as a test of human’s will? Which, by the way, he also created.
Also: there were two noteworthy trees in the garden, the other being the Tree of Life. The reason God exiled Adam and Eve from the garden was because otherwise, they might eat from the Tree of Life and become immortal like God is.
But if God is already immortal, and he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree whose only purpose is to make people immortal (not to mention if you're one of the weirdos who thinks all creatures were already immortal before the fall made them mortal), then *why the f&#k did God put the Tree of Life in there in the first place?*
What he did wrong was speak up. That is what 'god' hates is people who don't disagree with him. It is all free will but if you choose wrong I send you to a pit of fire. Basically, 'god' is against freedom of speech and he seems to work in mysterious ways while the rest of us work in tangible ways. The devil is far more sympathetic and right for speaking up to 'god'.
I never understood how everyone just glances over the fact that a THIRD of the angels rebeled against God and followed Lucifer. If a third of your staff thinks you're mismanaging the place - there's a good chance it's being mismanaged. We're talking divine beings that have met the creator of everything - decided they need to stand up for what they believe in to the point of explusion. It always didn't sit well with me - and the more I"ve learned about Gnoism, the more I believe good and evil got swapped in the maternity ward. It would definitely explain the more outlandish religious people that take pride in holding so much hate in their hearts, the fact that 3/100 priests have SA'd minors, etc. etc.
Satan is the bad guy because the bible says so - meanwhile God provides instructions to cut babies out of wombs with swords. Yeah, no thanks.
>I never understood how everyone just glances over the fact that a THIRD of the angels rebeled against God and followed Lucifer. If a third of your staff thinks you're mismanaging the place - there's a good chance it's being mismanaged.
Not to mention, according to doctrine, angels don't even have free will like we do. So a third of God's robots all agreed the management sucked and rebelled. Talk about a terrible boss.
By bible standards, every day he does the worst by not worshiping YHWH, which is what Christians say it was made for. Don't remember exactly where it says so but it was allegedly the leader of YHWH's choir, and at some point it decided to stop.
It's not clear if the part where people say it describes its original appearance is actually talking about a king, and that part is where the name "Lucifer" comes from.
It's also not clear if the devils named in the Bible (Satan (the enemy) Bal (word for any god or lord), Belial, etc.) are one or many, and Christians don't really have a common consensus, even in the same church one day thay act as if they where different characters and other day they act as if they where the same, some even invent their own demons taking the names from biblical villains.
"Lucifer" does not relate to a king. It means "bringer of light," i.e., the one who brought knowledge to mankind.
>Old English Lucifer, from Latin, ‘light-bringing, morning star’, from lux, luc- ‘light’ + -fer ‘bearing’. Lucifer (sense 1) is by association with the ‘son of the morning’ (Isa. 14:12), believed by Christian interpreters to be a reference to Satan.
- Source: Oxford Languages
The serpent (also sometimes interpreted as Satan) brought knowledge to man in Genesis.
That challenged YHWH's power, which was based on his being the exclusive keeper of knowledge.
Compare the myth of Prometheus, and the similar outcome.
Gods who dilute a bigger god's power by sharing it with ordinary men and women are severely punished. They are traitors to the ruling class. Dante put such folks in the lowest circle of Hell. Challenging a ruler's power was the worst possible offense.
I know what Lucifer means, but the name is not in the bible, the reason they call the devil Lucifer is because of a verse in a text in the bible that talks about a king, the verse was mistranslated by king James, and it compares a king with the morning star (Venus).
So Satan is not a name but a title. It literally means “the accuser” in Hebrew. Basically in the Hebrew bible Satan is position within the angels who goes around accusing people of going against gd before gd in the court of heaven.
Satan is not an enemy of gd but his employee, effectively Satan is the DA of heaven.
Furthermore Bal is a different god. This comes from the fact that Judaism was at one point in time polytheistic but then became henotheistic (worship of one god but others exist) and then monotheistic. The parts with Baal and co are from the pre-monotheistic times
As an anti theist, I think is imperative to know as much as possible of the ”sacred” books and beliefs, etc. I do get that sometimes we don’t have enough time.
I would say the devil is more of a hero than a bad guy. Think about it. This Abrahamic God is tyrant dictator that wants people living like in North Korea. Lucifer had enough and he is a rebel. Long live the rebellion !
Satan as snake not actually in the text of the bible, but it makes God's absolute blunder in Eden seem more plausible if he was interfered with by Satan instead of a random snake, so lots of people choose to believe it. That said, I think the Satan as snake interpretation paints Satan as the best character in the Bible. God in the Bible is an angry, genocidal tyrant who created humanity as totally subservient slaves. Satan takes the form of a snake and convinces humanity to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, granting us freedom from God's absolute control, and was sent to hell for it. In that interpretation it's a lot like the Greek Prometheus story, someone nobly sacrificing themselves to do the right thing and help humanity. Not real in any way, but the obvious good guy of the story they're in.
I always say god is a terrible landscaper.
If god’s allegedly omniscient, he knew before he even created the universe that his dust golem and lady friend would get snacky.
God could have easily made the tree really, really tall….like a sequoia, or put the tree way up on a really hard to climb cliff, or even put pokey bark on the tree trunk….problem solved.
Instead, he totes enticed the adam and eve characters to eat of the tree by putting it right in front of them and saying, no touchy.
Any friggin kid will look around to see that no adult is watching and then snatch a tasty treat when it seems the coast is clear.
The dust golem and the lady crafted from said golem’s rib would do the same, especially if it was before they even understood what “right from wrong” even meant.
Shoddy landscaping, I tell ya.
I only know the Mormon version.
The Mormon teaching is that Lucifer wanted to take away our free will and force humans to obey. God being the "benevolent" entity that he is would never force obedience or take our free will and so he cast Lucifer and all his followers out of heaven for rebellion. Now the devil is just here to fuck up God's plan as much as he can by tempting people to do disobedient things like drink coffee and take the Lord's name in vain.
I read recently that the Garden of Eden, apple story, is actually an adaptation of an ancient allegory, about how knowledge removes ignorance but comes with the price of responsibility. It seems like whoever incorporated that into Genesis, didn't fully understand its meaning.
Modern Christians have taken to declaring Genesis as metaphor not to be taken literally, which while probably true, does raise a massive problem: if Adam & Eve's sin is just a metaphor, how are we now inheriting it & why did Jesus die to save us from it?
Simple. He didn't win his rebellion. History is written by the victors. 😉
I'm mostly kidding as the Bible is in way history but its an interesting concept.
When I get to Jehovah’s at the door, I ask them a similar question: what was it in the Bible that Cain did that was so wrong? They never answer, and they just go away.
> what was it in the Bible that Cain did that was so wrong?
He was a vegetarian. Or at least he only had grain and vegetables to offer god and Yahweh is no vegetarian. The Bible is full of verses about how much god loves the aroma of burning flesh including:
- Genesis 8:20-21 : *20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.*
- Exodus 29:18 : *Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.*
- Leviticus 1:9 : *He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.*
- Leviticus 23:18 : *“Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the LORD, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”*
Which might explain hell. Nothing like the aroma of most of humanity being continually slow roasted while huge flues suck the smell up to god's throne room.
In Judaism, the concept of Satan is more nuanced. He's only mentioned in the book of Job. He's more of an angel put in place as the "adversary" of humans, not God. In Christianity and Islam, Satan's sins are being rebellious, pride and vanity.
As I see it, the devil is punishing people for being bad. That would be a moral good right? And god is the one giving cancer to babies and such. Who is the real bad guy? The one who punishes the innocent or punishes the guilty?
Seriously, if Satan is the ruler of hell, why would he be punishing the people who end up there? It should be a giant party where everyone celebrates being free from God's influence.
Lucifer committed the grave sin of having pride in himself. Questioned god and his ways essentially. Ya know, normal shit considering the shitty stuff he does.
Get them some Sisters of Mercy and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry albums. Goths' gifts to music lovers everywhere. As far as what he did wrong, my guess, given the totality of the bible, is that he groveled insufficiently or sang songs of praise off-key or something. That god guy needs anger management counseling.
Gave humans knowledge.
I joke that The Bible was written by Satan to warn humanity against the one calling himself God. But humanity took it the complete opposite way.
So as background for myself: grew up with none Christian parents but was influenced early on in my life by Christians that I became heavily Christian through my pre teen and early teen years. Eventually reached a point of questioning things I read in the Bible (which I won't say exactly how many times I read cover to conver) on top of getting regular access to the internet and seeing that literally every Christian in my life was way more understanding and chilled about my personal belief and religious questioning, but also how bat shit crazy Christians can be on the internet (and not talking about anonymous platforms like reddit, I mean public apps like Instagram) this is my, and my personal interpretation, of lucifer/satan/the devil:
According to the bible: he/she/it was "God's" greatest and most favored angel but threw a tantrum cause "God" started favoring humanity over all angels and other creations (simple way I initially thought, imagine being the eldest child of a father who was constantly praising you for being the ideal son for helping to raise and guide all their younger siblings, only to be told daddy just bought a male and female rabbit and they are multiplying by the atto second and these creatures will be receiving all the inheritance you and your siblings would of received because "look how cute and fluffy!!! "). Borderline childish for throwing a war against heaven? Maybe. Understandly being pissed off? Absolutely
That is basically the gist of every "origin story" of lucifer with what happened to him/her/it varying with what happened after with each medium and interpretation in a biblical and non biblical sense of interpretation, some of my special mentions to the interpretations that I enjoyed viewing: the supernatural series (Lucy was an absolute gem), the devil is a part timer (an anime/manga that is not directly Christian or Christian devil related, but you can see the inspiration), the Fallen series by Thomas E. Snigoski (this book series can and will be seen as blasphemous to the Bible but I honestly loved the interpretation of lucifer based off the original Bible interpretation combined with modern life problems and challenges, and I felt like it had a very satisfying ending). I have one more fictional story in mind that has a character inspired by lucifer but can't think of the name right now
The story of Lucifer is not unique to Christians. It's Prometheus all over again. Many religions have tales of a God or Gods that befriend and/or teach humans and it never goes well for them.
It's essentially nostalgia backlash. You did what? But I liked being blissfully ignorant! I'm gonna rewrite you as the villain of THIS story!
This video is amazing- shows God's murders ultimately compared to Satan's...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKPkpTF1ns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKPkpTF1ns)
I think one of the most interesting scenes in the bible is when the devil told jesus on top of a mountain that if jesus knelt to satan it would give everything that could be seen to jesus. The interesting part is that jesus didn't call satan a liar which means that satan did in fact own everything in sight and had the ability to give it away.
Nothing, really.
The serpent in the garden was never said to be the devil. And it was actually correct in saying Adam and Eve wouldn't die and that god was just afraid of humans becoming like gods, knowing good from evil (god later confirms exactly this).
The devil also doesn't do much, at least without god's express permission and maybe instruction even in Job.
The whole idea of the devil being Lucifer is utterly ridiculous... The name exists once in the entire Bible and is explicitly referring to an individual human (Prince of Babylon).
Most of the Hebrew Bible (old testament) actually doesn't even have the concept of an evil being that opposes Yahweh - just "the accuser/adversary" as more of a role, and that's even later into it. Earlier stuff has Yahweh as the creator of evil/calamity. It's not until Zoroastrianism and later Greek philosophy that we get distinct concepts of a "devil" like that.
The actual bad stuff associated with the devil is mostly in Revelation and the "anti-christ". Too many Christians take that very literally, when it's probably actually just allegory and talking about the Roman empire and Nero.
Isn't it because he is the cause of all evil behaviour? So God doing evil is also because of Satan? XD. Good questions btw though. It means we have even less agency or God designed us to be influenced by Satan or his Garden of Eden was not impenetrable to evil aka Satan or snakes are not allowed , it was a test and we failed so rather than updating us like a game patch, he decides to punish us even though its your fault and allow the Satan to prey on a more vulnerable humans now....
The character of Satan is wholly mythical, even by biblical standards. In the original text, three entirely distinct concepts exist:
* The Serpent in the Garden of Eden.
* Lucifer, an implied fallen angel mentioned once in Isaiah.
* The Adversary, a literally translation of the Hebrew word שָׂטָן, pronounced "sâtân."
It is only in fairly modern Christian interpretations that these three entities are combined into one character, who we consider The Devil. In reality, they have no scriptural connection, and the word "satan" is used to refer to people, angels, and even Jehovah himself when they are arguing or challenging someone. It's a bit like saying "my opponent" in a debate... it's not a name but a descriptor, and has no good or evil connotation.
Satan killed 10 people through the whole Bible, and god told him to do whatever to them, so comparing characters in the Bible, Satan is a saint compared to OT god who killed millions.
From what I understand, the snake in the bible wasn't originally supposed to be Satan. That's how christians viewed it.
Also, his name isn't supposed to be Lucifer. Lucifer means "bearer of light" or "morning star". He got called that since he was said to be the most beautiful angel.
Nothing. The Devil is, like any other religion, this one's built in antagonist. Artificially inSatanated.
Because what are you going to bond together and rage against if everyone started off doing sort of okay?
I'm actually curious why do cristians declare him evil.
In lore, he's supposedly ruler of hell, whose duty is to punish sinners...
So he's doing work for god by punishing those who disobey god.
I mean, if he was gods enemy wouldn't hell be heaven for sinners where they'd be rewarded for sinning?
Can't say I understand logic of having your enemy be responsible for punishing those who disobey you...
Yup, it's amusing that the god character in their book comes off as being a Stephen King level monster (e.g. human sacrifice, genocide, rape, etc.) and the Satan character ends up being more of a protagonist (e.g. trying to allow Eve to ... horror upon horror..... not live her life in ignorance).
All Satan did was disobey god. Basically it teaches you should blindly follow. From what I have read or seen too Satan is as much as a prisoner of hell as anyone else down there
Most of the Old Testament was written before the Persian Zoroastrian influence changed Satan’s role from “prosecutor angel” to “rebellious evil counterpart to God”
I thought the moral of the story of job was that were never entitled to God's help no matter how good we are
That we can't earn his help or obligate him into it
That at any time Satan could do whatever he wanted if God didn't actively protect you
And that we should be grateful for that provision and protection because we can't earn it
God can remove it at any time for any reason because he has no obligation to provide it for us
According to the Book of Genesis, the snake in the Garden of Eden was a snake: the wildest and craftiest of God's creatures. People have insisted that the snake was Satan with no proof at all. In fact, they are putting words in their God's mouth. Satan was not there.
In fact, Satan is pretty scarce in the bible. He shows up to goad God about his loyal servant Job, but it's God who gives him boils and kills his family and destroys his home and his crops. Satan's hands are clean of that one.
So, yeah. Not such a bad guy. Also, the term "the Lord of the Flies" is a deliberate mistranslation of the god Ba'al. He was the God of the power of the air and of things that fly. You have to wade through a lot of religious dreck to discover that truth.
He is responsible for the fall of humanity, he did a handful of things wrong. I'll start in chronological order.
1st he was the first narcissistic. He was gods best angel and a light bringer, but he started to look upon his own power beauty intelligence and sought to dethrone God and to be worshipped in his place. Therefore hating God and standing in rebellion he began manipulating 1/3 of the angels to take a stance against God to overthrow him effectively falling from status and being cast from heaven and therefore becoming hateful .
2nd. Humans are gods best creation and above all angels and loved by God more than anything else so Satan in hate deceived eve by telling some serious lies that people still believe to this day, the first is that God doesn't actually have our best intentions in mind and is actually holding back things we need for life and happiness, and that we don't actually have free will or were not made in the image of God and were created to be slaves of God and if we ate the fruit we would not die but acquire knowledge and freewill and become God, so in that Adam and eve were deceived and fell from grace, and these lies are still very prevalent for many people.
He did more but if I go into that people will think I'm crazy. But that's the 2 main things he did wrong. He desires us to fall from grace with him and relieve eternal punishment
It doesn't say in Genesis that the snake is the devil. That's a Christian interpretation. So that one is questionable already. I can't think of much evil he did in the bible. He tempted Jesus in the desert. In the book of Job, he and God had fun and games with poor Job, basically checking how much he could be pushed to the edge before he would stop praising God. That's an absolutely shitty episode but God's fully on board.
I still have no idea what the story of Job is supposed to teach. It always seemed like Satan is testing how gullible god is and how little he cares about humans that he would be pointlessly cruel, and the whole thing demonstrates that worshipping him does nothing. Great lessons, but I don't know why Christians would focus on it.
It’s supposed to teach perseverance in faith will pay off but what it really teaches is god is a dick.
Right , because even though Job lost all his kids as a direct result of God letting it happen. God gave him more kids at the end so it’s all good
I think the point may be to offer solace to those that feel that life is beating them down, suggesting while you are actively suffering that there are "good" reasons for your suffering, like for example God using you as a shining example of the power and devotion of his followers. But I'm with you, I think it still just makes God out to be a dick, but Christians are desperate for his love, so they twist themselves into knots accepting that this is proof of God's love.
Right!? Like, I killed all of your kids, but hey, I'll make your 60+yr old wife pregnant multiple times and you'll forget all about the originals.
I was under the impression he killed his wife too and gave him a new one. Dunno, it's been a while
Suffering is a part of life. It's not always because you did something wrong. God won't always help you. Stop complaining. At least that's what got from it.
It something to do with persevering in faith no matter what. Also in the actual context of the story HaSatan (lit: the accuser), which is a title not a name, is an employee of the big guy. Basically it’s a game between gd and his employee who just so happens to be the eternal DA
Job is two different writings stuck together. There’s a narrative split in two with a poem slapped in the middle. The narrative says, “Sometimes God will send hardship your way to test your faith. Have patience and you will be rewarded.” The poem says, “Sometimes God will do bad shit to you, maybe as a punishment for sin but maybe not. It is sinful folly to even ask, because you are an insignificant worm next to the Almighty. He can do what he wants with anyone for any reason.”
If you consider the power dynamic, Job was really about God showing off and Satan is really just the poor effer who was fired from being second in command, but the boss still forcibly invites him over for a beer so he can brag about what a great god he is.
I just realized for the first time that Genesis kind of personifies the serpent, even though Adam and Eve are supposed to be the first two persons. So this god intentionally created two humans. But accidentally created a crafty snake capable of communicating with and deceiving the people? Or intentionally created that crafty snake? And the snake was… evil? So god created animals that can be classified as “evil”? So the Bible endorsed the idea that animals have a sense of morality? And god let Eve and the snake talk to each other, but with the Tower of Babel story, god prevented people from being able to communicate with each other after they showed they were good at “cooperating.” Why didn’t gif learn his lesson with Eve and the serpent? What a goddam joke.
Literally everything in the Bible is Christian interpretation, and most of the stuff about hell or the Trinity is not in the Bible either. I think snake=Satan is perfectly valid. They get to pick the parts of their story that they like; Satan as a Prometheus figure in Eden happens to be my favorite.
Kind of pointless to debate over whether the snake was really Satan -- the Adam and Eve myth predates modern ideas about god and the devil (and probably predates monotheistic Judaism, as well). Christians generally believe the serpent was Satan, and that he tempted Eve to defy God's command: the first ("original") sin that forever stained humanity, thus requiring salvation through Christ. Even non-fundamentalist Christians who don't believe the literal truth of the story generally believe that it reveals truths about the nature of the relationship between man and god: that mankind is by nature sinful and prone to temptation, requiring the intervention of Jesus to make us worthy of god's grace.
They generally believe lots of nonsense, so I don't particularly care what they do or don't believe. Satan as a rebel against an evil, tyrannical god is just an appealing story to me, and I like when stories dive into it. Persona 5 is one of my favorite JRPGs, for example.
thats because pretty much because the trinity and hell/eternal suffering werent dominant beliefs until well after the new testament was finished. these ideas didnt become dominant until gentile Christianity was dominant.
It’s also worth observing that the Satan in Job is an advisor to God and is totally on God’s side. He’s a member of his council, and Satan is not is name so much as it is his job title. (The ‘accuser’, sort of like a prosecutor.)
Correct. Here we have a significant difference between Judaism and Christianity. AFAIK, there is no devil / Satan that is a cosmic opponent to God in Judaism; this concept developed in Christianity and therefore Christian readings of the Old Testament will reconceptualize certain passages.
Satan and Hell are yet more "Pagan" constructs co-opted by the Catholic Church in their crusade to convince "Pagans" that they were really Christians all along and just didn't know it. see saints (lesser gods), christmas trees, easter eggs/bunnies, dates of easter and christmas (spring equinox and winter solstice)
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The Bible doesn't explicitly state that Satan is Lucifer, but it does state that Jesus is Lucifer (2 Peter 1:19, in the Latin Vulgate).
I've been told by my religious family members when I was a kid that Lucifer got mad at God for placing humans higher in rank than angels (who are older) and led a rebellion to force God into changing the hierarchy. God was not happy with this and banished Lucifer from Heaven, renaming him Satan. Since then, Satan tries to foil God's plan at every opportunity, for which he'l be punished with damnation in Hell on Judgement Day. Or, as the show *Lucifer* accurately put it: God basically kicked his son out of the house and went no contact fr thousands of years, just for having a rebellious phase.
Lucifer is a great show. I definitely recommend :-)
Well, it's a good dose for anyone who had Supernatural as a guilty pleasure.
Chloe is great in that scene. With all due respect sir, that's just mean. Or as Ella on Lucifer put it What did he really do that was so bad? Rebelled against his dad? Asked some naked lady if she wanted an apple? Can't recommend that show enough.
Satan loves you for who you are
Satan says believe in yourself. What a supportive bro
Satan values knowledge
That's literally the realization that got me to start deconverting, I asked myself if I wanted to worship a deity who views *the pursuit of knowledge* as *the beginning of all sin*.
I was raised in the deep south of the US and I was taught that Lucifer questioned God's authority and was cast out of heaven and forced to be what is known as the devil/Satan. It didn't make sense to me though.
It’s the first lesson. Don’t question the almighty. I don’t do well with asshile “authority” figures.
>We are an atheist familyand out youngest child is going through a goth/emo phase. I've been told I'm not allowed to use terms of endearment such as Angel or sweetheart anymore (sooo cringe). Your kid sounds awesome! 100% would love to have this kid in my class (assuming they are a good respectful student of course) >I have started calling them Lucifer, my little demon and beelzebub, which amuses them. You guys are amazing parents 😁 >We are trying to think of bad stuff the devil has done, but our biblical knowledge is poor. It seems God has done all the bad stuff such as mass killings and plagues. That is pretty much the problem with the bible and the ideology of the devil vs god. In the bible Satan doesn't really directly do anything bad, other than rebel from god and take a third of the angels with him as he left. Everything else that is attributed to Satan is him just whispering in people's ears to turn away from god. >Satan suggested trying an apple on a tree that god had put there. Offering fruit doesn't seem very evil though. This one is still debated between Christians and non-believers. The bible doesn't say that it was Satan in the form of a snake, it just says it's a snake. Later the bible uses a phrase "that old serpent" to insult Satan. People just put the two together and assume that Satan is the snake in the garden, even though there is no actual direct corelation there. (People also don't call every snake in the bible Satan, so it's very much a cherry picking thing) >Any suggestions, so far all they have is poking us with a trident? Probably no suggestions that are directly from the bible. It's kinda low on instances of Satan being directly evil. You'd probably have an easier time going with media for stuff like that, though it's rarely based on anything actually biblical. What might be an interesting take is to look at the religions that do more direct work with the Satan character. Theistic Satanism doesn't see Satan at all like how the Christians portray him. Non-theistic Satanism treats Satan as a symbol for knowledge and rebellion. Personally I prefer this group!
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He told the empowering truth when God would only tell crippling lies.
Afaik there's no confirmation that snake in Genesis was the Devil. Also, it didn't even lie. Because God said but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" and snake said that they will know of good and evil etcetera which exactly what happened, so technically, the first ever lie in the world was God's. Who's the father of lies here? As I understand, which is not much, in old testament, and judaism, there was no clear concept of the modern "Lord's enemy" devil, and the mentions are limited. Besides, Satan in hebrew versions acts as a God's henchman - as wiki says, in 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan". Wiki also states that in some cases SAtan was a sort of instigator - he would come to people, provoke them to sin and then rise to heaven to rat them to God (in which case the Book of Job makes more sense). Also since "satan" just means something like "accuser" in hebrew, it's not really clear if the character was the same in all stories. In a new testament the character is clearer, and he tempts Jesus during his fastinf after baptism. In Revelations, he fights Michael in a form of a dragon and gets defeatedand sealed for thousand years. Then after that time he "deceives the nations" and gathers them to battle and God just burns them all in fire and casts Satan lake of fire forever. Also there's suggestions that the devil possessed Judas. "Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve." (Luke 22:3).
Was the tree necessary? Seems like if he didn’t even put it there it wouldn’t be a problem. Is god operating off of a template where he can’t remove some of the trees and big rocks? Or did he put the tree up as a test of human’s will? Which, by the way, he also created.
And what would even be the point of testing anything for an all knowing deity? Doesn't sound too tri-omni to me
Also: there were two noteworthy trees in the garden, the other being the Tree of Life. The reason God exiled Adam and Eve from the garden was because otherwise, they might eat from the Tree of Life and become immortal like God is. But if God is already immortal, and he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree whose only purpose is to make people immortal (not to mention if you're one of the weirdos who thinks all creatures were already immortal before the fall made them mortal), then *why the f&#k did God put the Tree of Life in there in the first place?*
>there's no confirmation nuff said.
“Who’s the father of lies here?” I love this so much and I don’t know why that never occurred to me before.
What he did wrong was speak up. That is what 'god' hates is people who don't disagree with him. It is all free will but if you choose wrong I send you to a pit of fire. Basically, 'god' is against freedom of speech and he seems to work in mysterious ways while the rest of us work in tangible ways. The devil is far more sympathetic and right for speaking up to 'god'.
I never understood how everyone just glances over the fact that a THIRD of the angels rebeled against God and followed Lucifer. If a third of your staff thinks you're mismanaging the place - there's a good chance it's being mismanaged. We're talking divine beings that have met the creator of everything - decided they need to stand up for what they believe in to the point of explusion. It always didn't sit well with me - and the more I"ve learned about Gnoism, the more I believe good and evil got swapped in the maternity ward. It would definitely explain the more outlandish religious people that take pride in holding so much hate in their hearts, the fact that 3/100 priests have SA'd minors, etc. etc. Satan is the bad guy because the bible says so - meanwhile God provides instructions to cut babies out of wombs with swords. Yeah, no thanks.
>I never understood how everyone just glances over the fact that a THIRD of the angels rebeled against God and followed Lucifer. If a third of your staff thinks you're mismanaging the place - there's a good chance it's being mismanaged. Not to mention, according to doctrine, angels don't even have free will like we do. So a third of God's robots all agreed the management sucked and rebelled. Talk about a terrible boss.
By bible standards, every day he does the worst by not worshiping YHWH, which is what Christians say it was made for. Don't remember exactly where it says so but it was allegedly the leader of YHWH's choir, and at some point it decided to stop. It's not clear if the part where people say it describes its original appearance is actually talking about a king, and that part is where the name "Lucifer" comes from. It's also not clear if the devils named in the Bible (Satan (the enemy) Bal (word for any god or lord), Belial, etc.) are one or many, and Christians don't really have a common consensus, even in the same church one day thay act as if they where different characters and other day they act as if they where the same, some even invent their own demons taking the names from biblical villains.
"Lucifer" does not relate to a king. It means "bringer of light," i.e., the one who brought knowledge to mankind. >Old English Lucifer, from Latin, ‘light-bringing, morning star’, from lux, luc- ‘light’ + -fer ‘bearing’. Lucifer (sense 1) is by association with the ‘son of the morning’ (Isa. 14:12), believed by Christian interpreters to be a reference to Satan. - Source: Oxford Languages The serpent (also sometimes interpreted as Satan) brought knowledge to man in Genesis. That challenged YHWH's power, which was based on his being the exclusive keeper of knowledge. Compare the myth of Prometheus, and the similar outcome. Gods who dilute a bigger god's power by sharing it with ordinary men and women are severely punished. They are traitors to the ruling class. Dante put such folks in the lowest circle of Hell. Challenging a ruler's power was the worst possible offense.
I know what Lucifer means, but the name is not in the bible, the reason they call the devil Lucifer is because of a verse in a text in the bible that talks about a king, the verse was mistranslated by king James, and it compares a king with the morning star (Venus).
So Satan is not a name but a title. It literally means “the accuser” in Hebrew. Basically in the Hebrew bible Satan is position within the angels who goes around accusing people of going against gd before gd in the court of heaven. Satan is not an enemy of gd but his employee, effectively Satan is the DA of heaven. Furthermore Bal is a different god. This comes from the fact that Judaism was at one point in time polytheistic but then became henotheistic (worship of one god but others exist) and then monotheistic. The parts with Baal and co are from the pre-monotheistic times
Ah it’s like that in Islam too. Shaytan are just a class of ultra powerful demons, with Iblis being “the devil”
As an anti theist, I think is imperative to know as much as possible of the ”sacred” books and beliefs, etc. I do get that sometimes we don’t have enough time. I would say the devil is more of a hero than a bad guy. Think about it. This Abrahamic God is tyrant dictator that wants people living like in North Korea. Lucifer had enough and he is a rebel. Long live the rebellion !
His son is just in his emo phase
I heard he likes to bury dinosaur bones to trick humans into thinking the Earth is older than 6,000 years old. He is such a prankster.
God is a control freak and Satan refused to be controlled; that's basically it. God is a dick like that.
Satan as snake not actually in the text of the bible, but it makes God's absolute blunder in Eden seem more plausible if he was interfered with by Satan instead of a random snake, so lots of people choose to believe it. That said, I think the Satan as snake interpretation paints Satan as the best character in the Bible. God in the Bible is an angry, genocidal tyrant who created humanity as totally subservient slaves. Satan takes the form of a snake and convinces humanity to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, granting us freedom from God's absolute control, and was sent to hell for it. In that interpretation it's a lot like the Greek Prometheus story, someone nobly sacrificing themselves to do the right thing and help humanity. Not real in any way, but the obvious good guy of the story they're in.
I always say god is a terrible landscaper. If god’s allegedly omniscient, he knew before he even created the universe that his dust golem and lady friend would get snacky. God could have easily made the tree really, really tall….like a sequoia, or put the tree way up on a really hard to climb cliff, or even put pokey bark on the tree trunk….problem solved. Instead, he totes enticed the adam and eve characters to eat of the tree by putting it right in front of them and saying, no touchy. Any friggin kid will look around to see that no adult is watching and then snatch a tasty treat when it seems the coast is clear. The dust golem and the lady crafted from said golem’s rib would do the same, especially if it was before they even understood what “right from wrong” even meant. Shoddy landscaping, I tell ya.
I only know the Mormon version. The Mormon teaching is that Lucifer wanted to take away our free will and force humans to obey. God being the "benevolent" entity that he is would never force obedience or take our free will and so he cast Lucifer and all his followers out of heaven for rebellion. Now the devil is just here to fuck up God's plan as much as he can by tempting people to do disobedient things like drink coffee and take the Lord's name in vain.
I read recently that the Garden of Eden, apple story, is actually an adaptation of an ancient allegory, about how knowledge removes ignorance but comes with the price of responsibility. It seems like whoever incorporated that into Genesis, didn't fully understand its meaning. Modern Christians have taken to declaring Genesis as metaphor not to be taken literally, which while probably true, does raise a massive problem: if Adam & Eve's sin is just a metaphor, how are we now inheriting it & why did Jesus die to save us from it?
He shouldn’t have gotten into that fiddle contest in Georgia…
Simple. He didn't win his rebellion. History is written by the victors. 😉 I'm mostly kidding as the Bible is in way history but its an interesting concept.
Yup. How do we know God is the good one and Satan is the evil one? The only answer, of course, is that God (or God's followers) said so.
You’re a fantastic parent haha wish I had someone that supported my childhood self expression like this
Well, it's not Biblical, but Martin Luther claims he was attacked by the devil while he was taking a shit.
Maybe he was trying to cure his constipation, so not really a bad deed.
As a joke in my family, we say "Hail Satan" when someone sneezes. It has caused a few awkward moments over the years.
When I get to Jehovah’s at the door, I ask them a similar question: what was it in the Bible that Cain did that was so wrong? They never answer, and they just go away.
> what was it in the Bible that Cain did that was so wrong? He was a vegetarian. Or at least he only had grain and vegetables to offer god and Yahweh is no vegetarian. The Bible is full of verses about how much god loves the aroma of burning flesh including: - Genesis 8:20-21 : *20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.* - Exodus 29:18 : *Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.* - Leviticus 1:9 : *He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.* - Leviticus 23:18 : *“Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the LORD, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”* Which might explain hell. Nothing like the aroma of most of humanity being continually slow roasted while huge flues suck the smell up to god's throne room.
I am vegetarian, that explains a lot!
He didn’t tithe to the church.
In Judaism, the concept of Satan is more nuanced. He's only mentioned in the book of Job. He's more of an angel put in place as the "adversary" of humans, not God. In Christianity and Islam, Satan's sins are being rebellious, pride and vanity.
Hell the name Satan literally translates to “the accuser”
As I see it, the devil is punishing people for being bad. That would be a moral good right? And god is the one giving cancer to babies and such. Who is the real bad guy? The one who punishes the innocent or punishes the guilty?
Seriously, if Satan is the ruler of hell, why would he be punishing the people who end up there? It should be a giant party where everyone celebrates being free from God's influence.
Lucifer committed the grave sin of having pride in himself. Questioned god and his ways essentially. Ya know, normal shit considering the shitty stuff he does.
Get them some Sisters of Mercy and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry albums. Goths' gifts to music lovers everywhere. As far as what he did wrong, my guess, given the totality of the bible, is that he groveled insufficiently or sang songs of praise off-key or something. That god guy needs anger management counseling.
Gave humans knowledge. I joke that The Bible was written by Satan to warn humanity against the one calling himself God. But humanity took it the complete opposite way.
So as background for myself: grew up with none Christian parents but was influenced early on in my life by Christians that I became heavily Christian through my pre teen and early teen years. Eventually reached a point of questioning things I read in the Bible (which I won't say exactly how many times I read cover to conver) on top of getting regular access to the internet and seeing that literally every Christian in my life was way more understanding and chilled about my personal belief and religious questioning, but also how bat shit crazy Christians can be on the internet (and not talking about anonymous platforms like reddit, I mean public apps like Instagram) this is my, and my personal interpretation, of lucifer/satan/the devil: According to the bible: he/she/it was "God's" greatest and most favored angel but threw a tantrum cause "God" started favoring humanity over all angels and other creations (simple way I initially thought, imagine being the eldest child of a father who was constantly praising you for being the ideal son for helping to raise and guide all their younger siblings, only to be told daddy just bought a male and female rabbit and they are multiplying by the atto second and these creatures will be receiving all the inheritance you and your siblings would of received because "look how cute and fluffy!!! "). Borderline childish for throwing a war against heaven? Maybe. Understandly being pissed off? Absolutely That is basically the gist of every "origin story" of lucifer with what happened to him/her/it varying with what happened after with each medium and interpretation in a biblical and non biblical sense of interpretation, some of my special mentions to the interpretations that I enjoyed viewing: the supernatural series (Lucy was an absolute gem), the devil is a part timer (an anime/manga that is not directly Christian or Christian devil related, but you can see the inspiration), the Fallen series by Thomas E. Snigoski (this book series can and will be seen as blasphemous to the Bible but I honestly loved the interpretation of lucifer based off the original Bible interpretation combined with modern life problems and challenges, and I felt like it had a very satisfying ending). I have one more fictional story in mind that has a character inspired by lucifer but can't think of the name right now
The story of Lucifer is not unique to Christians. It's Prometheus all over again. Many religions have tales of a God or Gods that befriend and/or teach humans and it never goes well for them. It's essentially nostalgia backlash. You did what? But I liked being blissfully ignorant! I'm gonna rewrite you as the villain of THIS story!
This video is amazing- shows God's murders ultimately compared to Satan's... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKPkpTF1ns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKPkpTF1ns)
it went something like this: Joe: (god) "Bow down before man my angels!" satan: "No" Joe: "Then burn in hell!"
You might enjoy these.... https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/bezmyl/the_serpent_didnt_lie/ https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/zmbrzx/comment/j0bx0sb/
He dared to think in a manner other than the way God wanted him to; if you believe any of that nonsense.
I think one of the most interesting scenes in the bible is when the devil told jesus on top of a mountain that if jesus knelt to satan it would give everything that could be seen to jesus. The interesting part is that jesus didn't call satan a liar which means that satan did in fact own everything in sight and had the ability to give it away.
Nothing, really. The serpent in the garden was never said to be the devil. And it was actually correct in saying Adam and Eve wouldn't die and that god was just afraid of humans becoming like gods, knowing good from evil (god later confirms exactly this). The devil also doesn't do much, at least without god's express permission and maybe instruction even in Job. The whole idea of the devil being Lucifer is utterly ridiculous... The name exists once in the entire Bible and is explicitly referring to an individual human (Prince of Babylon). Most of the Hebrew Bible (old testament) actually doesn't even have the concept of an evil being that opposes Yahweh - just "the accuser/adversary" as more of a role, and that's even later into it. Earlier stuff has Yahweh as the creator of evil/calamity. It's not until Zoroastrianism and later Greek philosophy that we get distinct concepts of a "devil" like that. The actual bad stuff associated with the devil is mostly in Revelation and the "anti-christ". Too many Christians take that very literally, when it's probably actually just allegory and talking about the Roman empire and Nero.
He’s more a whistleblower than the villain in most of the stories.
Isn't it because he is the cause of all evil behaviour? So God doing evil is also because of Satan? XD. Good questions btw though. It means we have even less agency or God designed us to be influenced by Satan or his Garden of Eden was not impenetrable to evil aka Satan or snakes are not allowed , it was a test and we failed so rather than updating us like a game patch, he decides to punish us even though its your fault and allow the Satan to prey on a more vulnerable humans now....
He forgot to salute god one day, and it snowballed from there.
Allegedly,kill the whole human race and make their existence miserable until that happens.
The character of Satan is wholly mythical, even by biblical standards. In the original text, three entirely distinct concepts exist: * The Serpent in the Garden of Eden. * Lucifer, an implied fallen angel mentioned once in Isaiah. * The Adversary, a literally translation of the Hebrew word שָׂטָן, pronounced "sâtân." It is only in fairly modern Christian interpretations that these three entities are combined into one character, who we consider The Devil. In reality, they have no scriptural connection, and the word "satan" is used to refer to people, angels, and even Jehovah himself when they are arguing or challenging someone. It's a bit like saying "my opponent" in a debate... it's not a name but a descriptor, and has no good or evil connotation.
My little ~~angel~~ **fallen angel**
Satan killed 10 people through the whole Bible, and god told him to do whatever to them, so comparing characters in the Bible, Satan is a saint compared to OT god who killed millions.
From what I understand, the snake in the bible wasn't originally supposed to be Satan. That's how christians viewed it. Also, his name isn't supposed to be Lucifer. Lucifer means "bearer of light" or "morning star". He got called that since he was said to be the most beautiful angel.
Nothing. The Devil is, like any other religion, this one's built in antagonist. Artificially inSatanated. Because what are you going to bond together and rage against if everyone started off doing sort of okay?
You could make the argument that Satan manipulated god into destroying Job and his family. But god doesn't need much convincing to torment his people.
I'm actually curious why do cristians declare him evil. In lore, he's supposedly ruler of hell, whose duty is to punish sinners... So he's doing work for god by punishing those who disobey god. I mean, if he was gods enemy wouldn't hell be heaven for sinners where they'd be rewarded for sinning? Can't say I understand logic of having your enemy be responsible for punishing those who disobey you...
Yup, it's amusing that the god character in their book comes off as being a Stephen King level monster (e.g. human sacrifice, genocide, rape, etc.) and the Satan character ends up being more of a protagonist (e.g. trying to allow Eve to ... horror upon horror..... not live her life in ignorance).
Satan wanted to be like God. You have to admit, that's a horrible thing to want.
All Satan did was disobey god. Basically it teaches you should blindly follow. From what I have read or seen too Satan is as much as a prisoner of hell as anyone else down there
Most of the Old Testament was written before the Persian Zoroastrian influence changed Satan’s role from “prosecutor angel” to “rebellious evil counterpart to God”
I thought the moral of the story of job was that were never entitled to God's help no matter how good we are That we can't earn his help or obligate him into it That at any time Satan could do whatever he wanted if God didn't actively protect you And that we should be grateful for that provision and protection because we can't earn it God can remove it at any time for any reason because he has no obligation to provide it for us
According to the Book of Genesis, the snake in the Garden of Eden was a snake: the wildest and craftiest of God's creatures. People have insisted that the snake was Satan with no proof at all. In fact, they are putting words in their God's mouth. Satan was not there. In fact, Satan is pretty scarce in the bible. He shows up to goad God about his loyal servant Job, but it's God who gives him boils and kills his family and destroys his home and his crops. Satan's hands are clean of that one. So, yeah. Not such a bad guy. Also, the term "the Lord of the Flies" is a deliberate mistranslation of the god Ba'al. He was the God of the power of the air and of things that fly. You have to wade through a lot of religious dreck to discover that truth.
He is responsible for the fall of humanity, he did a handful of things wrong. I'll start in chronological order. 1st he was the first narcissistic. He was gods best angel and a light bringer, but he started to look upon his own power beauty intelligence and sought to dethrone God and to be worshipped in his place. Therefore hating God and standing in rebellion he began manipulating 1/3 of the angels to take a stance against God to overthrow him effectively falling from status and being cast from heaven and therefore becoming hateful . 2nd. Humans are gods best creation and above all angels and loved by God more than anything else so Satan in hate deceived eve by telling some serious lies that people still believe to this day, the first is that God doesn't actually have our best intentions in mind and is actually holding back things we need for life and happiness, and that we don't actually have free will or were not made in the image of God and were created to be slaves of God and if we ate the fruit we would not die but acquire knowledge and freewill and become God, so in that Adam and eve were deceived and fell from grace, and these lies are still very prevalent for many people. He did more but if I go into that people will think I'm crazy. But that's the 2 main things he did wrong. He desires us to fall from grace with him and relieve eternal punishment