Quote :

"the worst things he did was tell eve to eat the fruit "

This is singularly the worst thing ever done in history. It is responsible for all the death, suffering, and unpleasantness that has ever existed in the world.

Quote :

"satan never destroyed cities"

Cities which had it coming, whose very inhabitant was abominable.

Quote :

"turned innocent women to salt"

She disobeyed a very clear and direct order from God Almighty, so she was anything but innocent.

Quote :

"covinced fathers to murder their sons then stopped them right before they did it"

The operative phrase there being "then stopped them right before they did it."

7/17/2005 11:13:16 PM

obviously, you and i have different opinions of what makes someone deserving of punishment and of what is a bad thing to do.

for instance, I'd say laying waste to cities (or every living thing in a flood) is way worse than convincing someone to eat a piece of fruit. all adam and eve were told was not to eat the fruit, or they "would surely die." they weren't told the actual consequences of their actions, and as far as we know, "the serpent" didn't knwo them either.

as for lot's wife and the cities that "had it coming," what you're telling me is that you think killing entire cities of people because they disobeyed a law is fair. That being the case, there's no way we can rationally discuss this. our beliefs are FAR too different from each other.

7/17/2005 11:42:44 PM

Thats because you are looking at situations in a different context (an antagonistic view of Christianity). Also, Adam and Eve didn't just "eat a piece of fruit".

7/18/2005 12:38:38 AM

Quote :

"Also, Adam and Eve didn't just "eat a piece of fruit"."

Precisely. What they did isn't analagous to me going into my kitchen and picking up a granny smith. They violated the only commandment of God, so they violated all the commandments of God, and in so doing condemned all their ancestors to suffer every bad thing that has ever happened in history.

Quote :

"That being the case, there's no way we can rationally discuss this. our beliefs are FAR too different from each other."

No, we can't discuss it because you aren't willing to get into the context of the thing. You can't sit outside of Christianity and tell me what to believe about the Devil within that religion's views. If you would, for the sake of argument, assume the role of a Christian (I'd probably settle for theist), you would have to, among other things, acknowledge that within the context of that belief it is not you who gets to decide what's fair and what isn't.

Quote :

"all adam and eve were told was not to eat the fruit, or they "would surely die." they weren't told the actual consequences of their actions"

Those were the consequences. It was basically the only way Adam and Eve could die, so it was a pretty big fucking deal and "you would surely die" was pretty fucking clear and concise.

7/18/2005 1:47:59 AM

devil's real... and very, very strong. you dont have to look to far to see it, either.

7/18/2005 2:17:55 AM

dude, I was in the context, several years ago. I was a christian.

all this devil silliness is one of the reasons I decided it was nutso.

you have your thing, I have mine, but I wouldn't go around supporting a guy who slaughtered entire planets of people.

7/18/2005 7:04:46 AM

You act like these were happy, innocent people going about their lives not doing anything wrong.

7/18/2005 1:49:33 PM

Where is salisburyboy?

7/18/2005 1:51:08 PM

Tending to his tinfoil hat and reciting the Book of Numbers as loudly as possible.

7/18/2005 1:53:22 PM

no, actually, I don't

what I actually act like is it's a fictional story, which it is.

that aside, these people were disobeying god, supposedly by being homosexuals or somethign else. this deserved the ire of god such that he destroyed an entire city?

and I suppose that along with every human being on earth being evil except for noah's family before the flood, all the other animals he killed were evil as well? They all deserved to die in a horrible drowning incident?

Your god, if he existed, would be a sick fuck. What worries me isn't whether he exists, but how people could not only create such a fiction, but create it because they LIKED the idea of such a vengeful beast creating and tending to the universe.

[Edited on July 18, 2005 at 3:41 PM. Reason : .]

7/18/2005 3:41:01 PM

there are specific angels with names, what are they and what have they done.

and is the same true for demons? do they have names, what are the names of demons and what have they done?

7/18/2005 3:47:53 PM

The demons head.

7/18/2005 4:13:46 PM

Quote :

"and I suppose that along with every human being on earth being evil except for noah's family before the flood, all the other animals he killed were evil as well? They all deserved to die in a horrible drowning incident? "

I think the fish and sea-birds got a pretty good deal in that whole situation. I guess it's hard to do so much evil when living underwater all the time.

7/18/2005 4:32:11 PM

Quote :

"If the heavenly host is infinite, and Lucifer took with him 1/3 of the heavenly host....wouldn't his army, as well, be infinite?"

But suspose we say that all things heavenly are at least 4th dimensional.. thus just one of them is infinite in human three dimensional thinking. So, in 4th dimensional terms Lucifer took 1/3rd of the heavenly host. However, from our perspective there would be no way to accurately describe what that means numerically.

7/18/2005 4:43:21 PM

maybe with the 4th dimension stuff, the devil just borrows some angels for 1/3 of each day.

7/18/2005 4:47:23 PM

Found this stuff on venus and lucifer refering to the same planet interesting on wiki

Quote :

""Lucifer" is a poetic name for the "morning star", a close translation of the Greek eosphoros, the "Dawn-bringer", which appears in the Odyssey and in Hesiod's Theogony. A classic Roman use of "Lucifer" appears in Virgil's Georgics (III, 324-5): Luciferi primo cum sidere frigida rura carpamus, dum mane novum, dum gramina canent" "Let us hasten, when first the Morning Star appears, To the cool pastures, while the day is new, while the grass is dewy" "

[Edited on July 18, 2005 at 11:02 PM. Reason : m-w.com: lucifier: the planet Venus when appearing as the morning star]

7/18/2005 11:01:13 PM

the devil is a hot piece of ass

7/18/2005 11:04:29 PM

are there any famous classical art pictures of the light bringer?

7/18/2005 11:14:30 PM

Quote :

"This is singularly the worst thing ever done in history. It is responsible for all the death, suffering, and unpleasantness that has ever existed in the world. "

This one got me. Eating an apple -> all evil in the world. We could go over the fundamental irrationality of creating such a mechanism to introduce evil in the world, but it would be like analyzing a curious george book for deeper meaning.

7/19/2005 12:06:59 AM

even after all these years, the devil still looks killer in italian silk

7/19/2005 3:42:21 AM

Quote :

" Your god, if he existed, would be a sick fuck. What worries me isn't whether he exists, but how people could not only create such a fiction, but create it because they LIKED the idea of such a vengeful beast creating and tending to the universe."

what worries me is the arrogance of those who aren't willing to consider man's inability to think beyond certain limits, thereby ruling out that which he cannot see, hear, or feel. perhaps it was not man who created a being so powerful and vengeful, but the being who created man. also, you must remember that the great flood, sodom and gamorrah, and most other biblical wraths were taken from the old testament, and in Christian ethos, all was washed away by the blood of Christ. Basically, Jesus softened God and convinced him to believe in humanity.

i can't change your mind. i realize that. but frankly, i'm offended that you would refer to the God of so many people as "a sick fuck." man i thought you were better than that.

so much for tolerance.

7/19/2005 5:57:58 AM

oh, i'm tolerant of the people.

i'm just not tolerant of the god

i believe that, if god exists, it's not somethign with human emotion, not even love. it's everything - the interconnection between life and non-life, the self-organizing chaos of the universe that brings us everything from evolution to galaxies to sunsets to beautiful women.

THAT's god to me. Some humanlike old man with a bad temper and even the slightest bit understandable in any human terms just seems archaic.

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 6:41 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2005 6:40:08 AM

Bad temper and not understandable?

7/19/2005 8:43:24 AM

see, that's god in human form. I'm saying that god, itself, is not something we can understand sitting up in the sky making rules.

For god, being human in form humbled him, and I get that part of the story.

Problem is that even though he was supposed to, he didn't end up changing the outcome of his followers' actions. After jesus came the crusades, the spanish inquisition, the destruction of 2000 years of pagan knowledge deemed heretical by christian conquerors, etc.

obviously, god screwed up with jesus as well. Hey, don't get me wrong, I think the jesus character was a great addition. He said everything I would have said back then, he was killed for it, and most "christians" don't give a crap about what he said. They just glorify the idea that he died and came back to life and did some magic tricks that you wouldn't even think anything of if you saw them in person today, what with computers and mirrors and sleight of hand and all that.

also, I don't believe he existed either. Not in any way other than his being a composite of real and mythical characters, of course.

7/19/2005 9:01:39 AM

DG is painfully obvious you have 0 grasp of what God actually is. Get your head out of your ASS and out of your narrow minded literal translation of everything you read.

7/19/2005 9:26:27 AM

THANK YOU

Finally, someone gets it. I DON'T have any idea what god is or what it's about, and that's EXACTLY my point. None of us knows, and we never will know, unless he/she/it/they decide (assuming it's even conscious to make decisions in the way we think of it) to reveal itself to us or unless we learn it when we die or whatever.

I seriously doubt, however, that any human mind could ever comprehend god, which is why I think that any attempt to do so is complete hooey.

as for "narrow minded literal translation of everything you read," I'd say that applies to anyone who reads the bible and thinks that it is actually the "word of god."

see, because I'm not getting what I'm saying from any readings, since what I'm saying is that nothing you read could EVER, POSSIBLY be correct about god, unless by some pure coincidence

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 9:56 AM. Reason : .]

7/19/2005 9:45:59 AM

Quote :

"None of us knows, and we never will know, unless he/she/it/they decide (assuming it's even conscious to make decisions in the way we think of it) to reveal itself to us or unless we learn it when we die or whatever."

But you know this hasnt happened? How? Books youve read? You seem to be using very narrow and literal translations of events that have been translated/altered for centuries as a basis to form this opinion.

How do you know the Bible isnt the Word of God? The claim is the Word of God was written by God, via man, not by man.

Quote :

"because I'm not getting what I'm saying from any readings"

Then how do you know things in the Bible didnt happen, or at least some version of them? You seem very confident you have figured out what God isnt and that everything in the Bible is pure fantasy. You must have gotten these ideas somewhere.

7/19/2005 10:55:42 AM

I guess I need to be more specific.

I'm not getting my philosophical idea that none of us can possibly know what/who/where/how god is from books. That's coming from my head.

Quote :

"Then how do you know things in the Bible didnt happen, or at least some version of them? You seem very confident you have figured out what God isnt and that everything in the Bible is pure fantasy. You must have gotten these ideas somewhere."

Obviously, historical evidence is coming from historical sources. Also, I'm not confident that I've figured out everything. You're still completely twisting my words. I'm confident that I've figured out NOTHING, and that I never can.

7/19/2005 11:40:44 AM

Quote :

"Finally, someone gets it. I DON'T have any idea what god is or what it's about, and that's EXACTLY my point. None of us knows, and we never will know, unless he/she/it/they decide (assuming it's even conscious to make decisions in the way we think of it) to reveal itself to us or unless we learn it when we die or whatever."

God already did that... about 2000 years ago in the flesh. The concept of God, the Father, will always be impossible to comprehend. Heck, the very notion of being eternal (and I don't mean just "living forever") is beyond our comprehension because of the limits to our existence. Also, you say that the Bible is a fictional account then quote it as irrefutable evidence of the wrongs of God/Christianity... well, which is it?

Quote :

"I'm not getting my philosophical idea that none of us can possibly know what/who/where/how god is from books. That's coming from my head."

Quote :

"Obviously, historical evidence is coming from historical sources. Also, I'm not confident that I've figured out everything. You're still completely twisting my words. I'm confident that I've figured out NOTHING, and that I never can."

Then why are you so quick to make disparaging remarks about God and other Christian concepts. Twisiting in your own confusion is just fine but I see no need to vent your personal frustrations on the beliefs/feelings of others. Play the "I was a Christian card all you want but nothing I see in your speech or attitude conveys any tie to it. Just because someone was registered Democrat at some point does not make them an authority on leftist policy/thinking nor an adequate representative (Zell Miller anyone?). It just reminds me so much of how you are poitically... saying "I'm not liberal! I'm not liberal!" but spending every waking breath bashing Republicans/Conservatives. The way I see it you simply don't like run-of-the-mill Christians, for various reasons, and you want to take your frustrations out on the faith. Its no different than the shallow minds who condemn all Muslims because of terrorists and rapists who let the wickedness of man corrupt their "religious acts". Many will claim to be pious (in every religion) but as Jesus said, "small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Ma. 7:14) and "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (Ma. 7:21).

7/19/2005 2:12:43 PM

well this thread is for facts, rumors, guesses, and folklore about the devil. the truth is in large part irrelevant to this thread.

7/19/2005 2:15:08 PM

Bedazzled
End of Days
Little Nicky
The Devil's Advocate
The Exorcist
Prophecy
Tribulation
The Cell
Bless the Child
Rosemary's Baby
Fallen
The Jesus Mini Series (CBS)

others?



(t3h d3vil is one of my favorite fictional characters....)

7/19/2005 3:02:49 PM

the chick in the 9th gate is either the devil or a powerful servant of the devil.

7/19/2005 3:37:52 PM

7/19/2005 4:09:44 PM

Quote :

"The way I see it you simply don't like run-of-the-mill Christians, for various reasons, and you want to take your frustrations out on the faith. Its no different than the shallow minds who condemn all Muslims because of terrorists and rapists who let the wickedness of man corrupt their "religious acts"."

yep, you caught me. I'm just like that. I don't like christians. I hate my parents, my cousins, and all my aunts and uncles who are christians. Oh, and all my christian friends? I just act like I'm their friends so I can berate them.

What you are saying is the way you see things based on your own view of the world, and the same goes for me, but I absolutely have no problem with christians of any sort, at least not BECAUSE they're christians.

I have a problem with closed minded, biggoted, unrational people. If they're christians or atheists or muslims, I don't care, so long as they are friendly and open minded.

What I hate the most is human beings acting like they know what god's about and using it to their own advantage or to support their own hatred, greed, or intolerance.

Quote :

"Then why are you so quick to make disparaging remarks about God and other Christian concepts."

that's just it, see, i'm NOT making disparaging remarks about god. I'm making disparaging remarks about peoples' notions of a god who is hateful and vile and represents the worst in them rather than being about the mysteries of the universe. I'd say that if there is some sort of god with any sort of consciousness as we see it, I hope he's PISSED at people for turning him into what they've turned him into, but if he IS what they say he is, I don't want anything to do with him.

I'd assume that neither is the case, however, and there is no conscious entity running things. God is everything, and that's about it.

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 4:55 PM. Reason : .]

7/19/2005 4:53:47 PM

gods all about not showing himself directly cause you need to make a free willed choice to believe in him, i get that. but why doesn't the devil show up all the time, i dont think he would care about how he gets followers, and he doesn't mind being worshipped as a god if people who followed pan and other horned gods were really just worshipping him.

couldn't he easily get lots of cults and power?

7/19/2005 10:28:03 PM

^
From a Christian standpoint he has seeing as anything that does not draw one closer to God only draws them away from God. Therefore the devil would manifest himself in the numerous idols we worship today, i.e. greed, pride, lust; or more concretely people who set themselves up as authorities and role models that present these kinds of actions as natural and good.

Why would the devil present himself as such, people would be smarter than to follow someone who presented himself as the antithesis of God. Rather, would it not be more effective for him to follow the path he does now by drawing people towards him using much more appealing aspects that appeal to our natural immorality?

Now I realize that you would perhaps argue that the devil could just call himself God and present himself to us as such. However, once you have accepted the Christian perspective of God and the devil you now must also realize that with God in the picture he will not allow Satan this power. That is until as many scholars believe, the rise of the beast, which symbolizes God allowing Satan to rise to power only to be crushed in the end, when God's final vengeance upon those who opposed him is served.

[Edited on July 19, 2005 at 10:57 PM. Reason : didn't reread the last sentence for grammar errors]

7/19/2005 10:46:26 PM

7/19/2005 11:04:09 PM

7/19/2005 11:05:20 PM

Quote :

"I have a problem with closed minded, biggoted, unrational people. If they're christians or atheists or muslims, I don't care, so long as they are friendly and open minded. What I hate the most is human beings acting like they know what god's about and using it to their own advantage or to support their own hatred, greed, or intolerance."

Agreed, ame here... I tend to get in a lot of arguements at my fellowship groups because I'm not a fundamentalist or right-winger.

Quote :

"that's just it, see, i'm NOT making disparaging remarks about god. I'm making disparaging remarks about peoples' notions of a god who is hateful and vile and represents the worst in them rather than being about the mysteries of the universe. I'd say that if there is some sort of god with any sort of consciousness as we see it, I hope he's PISSED at people for turning him into what they've turned him into, but if he IS what they say he is, I don't want anything to do with him."

He is only "hateful and vile" because of the way you want to distort his representation. In no way do I see how you can consider the Bible, in its entirety, and consider God to be a "sick fuck", "hateful and vile", "representing the worst" in man, etc. Its hasty generalization. Also, you can't say the Bible is full of crap and then use its contents as evidence to defame. If you are wanting to "grade" the Christian concept of God then you would have to accept what the Bible says, and this would include Jesus. Heck, even from a non-Christian perspective I don't see how someone could say Jesus wasn't a great human being just based on His messages. He is the one who said that simply follow the commandment "Love your neighbor as you love yourself" and the rest will pretty much be taken care of.

7/20/2005 1:02:17 AM

^Your argument pretty much amounts to circular reasoning. Dirtygreek says, "hey, most of the stuff god does or allows to happen in the bible is pretty shitty. Exterminating the whole populations of city is appreciably worse than purportedly sacrificing your alleged son for others. If god were the ruler of any country, he would be a bad guy."

All people such as GrumpyGOP have to do is say, "well, exterminating a city isn't really bad because god said it wasn't bad!" So, the bible's portrayal of god is a moral one because the bible says it is. Dirtygreek is not allowed to use a sense of commonly accepted morals (ones that we would apply to any real person) to judge god because the other side assumes that everything god does is moral.

There is no point to having an argument if the other side assumes that it is correct.

7/20/2005 1:20:44 AM

Quote :

"Your argument pretty much amounts to circular reasoning. Dirtygreek says, "hey, most of the stuff god does or allows to happen in the bible is pretty shitty. Exterminating the whole populations of city is appreciably worse than purportedly sacrificing your alleged son for others. If god were the ruler of any country, he would be a bad guy." All people such as GrumpyGOP have to do is say, "well, exterminating a city isn't really bad because god said it wasn't bad!" So, the bible's portrayal of god is a moral one because the bible says it is. Dirtygreek is not allowed to use a sense of commonly accepted morals (ones that we would apply to any real person) to judge god because the other side assumes that everything god does is moral. There is no point to having an argument if the other side assumes that it is correct."

Not so. The problem is that Dirty applies hasty generalization and looks at instances strictly in a cursory glance, not to mention never bringing up anything on the opposite end of the spectrum that is found in the Bible, Christ for example. At the same time, comparing the creator of the universe to the ruler of a nation is like comparing a bar fight to a war... completely different roles and scenarios. For some reason people dwell on the Old Testament when talking about Christianity's view of God and ignore the other half that contains dialog with an incarnate God.

7/20/2005 1:32:22 AM

^you are still using circular reasoning. The bad things god did in the bible are quite tangibly bad (i.e. killing lots of people). The supposedly good things -- sending son to die for everyone's sins -- are not. If my neighbor came up and said he sacrificed his son for my good, I would think him more crazy than credible. The rhetoric in the new testament really isn't tangibly good, either. Plenty of people can and do speak nice-sounding words, but it doesn't amount to much.

This leads us to your second point -- why can't we compare god to mortals and apply the same moral standard? The reason you give -- god is god, not a mortal -- is simply circular. That point has no bearing on whether we should judge god UNLESS you believe that simply being god confers some extra privilege that allows god not to be judged as a man. You are doing exactly what I said you might -- assuming your argument to be true.

For non believers, the difference in scale (or scenario or role) fails to provide justification for applying a different standard. Your analogy about war and a bar fight is neither here nor there. Indeed, why wouldn't an analogy between a ceo and a grunt worker be more apt than the war analogy?

[Edited on July 20, 2005 at 2:11 AM. Reason : sdfdfs]

7/20/2005 1:56:29 AM

Quote :

"you are still using circular reasoning. The bad things god did in the bible are quite tangibly bad (i.e. killing lots of people). The supposedly good things -- sending son to die for everyone's sins -- are not. If my neighbor came up and said he sacrificed his son for my good, I would think him more crazy than credible. The rhetoric in the new testament really isn't tangibly good, either. Plenty of people can and do speak nice-sounding words, but it doesn't amount to much."

How is the elimination of a wicked element "tangibly bad"? Pretty much every single culture and religion in history allows for such a thing. And please explain to me how the fundamentals of Christs' teachings aren't "tangibly good" Also, certain things cannot have a direct correlation to non-religious instances simply because there are extenuating circumstances to them and to try to say that they do neglects the purpose of the statement in the first place.

Quote :

"This leads us to your second point -- why can't we compare god to mortals and apply the same moral standard? The reason you give -- god is god, not a mortal -- is simply circular. That point has no bearing on whether we should judge god UNLESS you believe that simply being god confers some extra privilege that allows god not to be judged as a man. You are doing exactly what I said you might -- assuming your argument to be true."

No, its not a God is God and man is man point. Its simply that the very nature of the "job" is inherrently different and therefore cannot be compared. To simplify the role of creator of the universe/life to that of a president is gross negligence.

Quote :

"For non believers, the difference in scale fails to provide justification for applying a different standard. Your analogy about war and a bar fight is neither here nor there."

How can you justly grade a situation/entity if you fail to take into account any context. Applying strictly outside guidelines with any consideration of the realm it takes place in and its subsequent rule set is just wrong.

7/20/2005 2:35:55 AM

the devil does well and is good, if by only presenting an example of what not to be.

7/20/2005 9:15:51 AM

you're all retarded for arguing over this bullshit

7/20/2005 9:32:14 AM

God and the Devil were walking along together when the Devil says, "God, the problem that I have is that there just ain't no justice in this world." God said, "What do you mean?" "Watch", said the Devil.

He put a dirty rock of gold on the road, and a man who was walking down the road tripped on it. "Damn the devil", he said. As he picked it up to throw it he noticed it was make of gold. He then dropped to his knees and said, "Thank you God".

"See", said the Devil. "There ain't no justice in this world."

7/20/2005 12:12:09 PM

gods got the bible, are their any popular devil books?

7/20/2005 6:29:08 PM

Harry Potter.

7/20/2005 6:56:04 PM

7/20/2005 6:59:24 PM

the most hated being in all the west, worse than terrorists, pedophiles, illegal immigrants, gays, liberals, the french, and the UN combined. and there are only less than 2 full pages on the subject?

with all the time spent on discussing lessor evils than this, it makes me think maybe the devil isn't all that bad?

7/21/2005 2:42:49 PM