The Devil

[Skeleon]

Well, dunno if Lucifer is such a bad dude.
He rebelled against a monarchy that doesn't allow free will (angels =/= free will), kinda understandable if you ask me.
And all the information we get is from god's point of view, so...
Anyway, the idea is (as far as I know) that both heaven and hell may influence Men but we have free will, so even if, say, the devil influenced you somehow to do something bad, it's still your responsibility because of your free will. Nobody forced you to do it.
But it doesn't matter to me anyway, since I believe in neither god nor the devil.

 

[traceur_]

Lucifer and I are great mates, we go surfing every other weekend, he's a bit of a douche because he pushes me off my board but I make fun of his sunburn and he stops.

 

[Inverse Skies]

Ummm... Lucifer is meant to be really evil isn't he? I mean, who tortures people for all eternity, that doesn't sound like someone nice at all.

I'm probably generalising, I don't know that much about the literature of the devil or hell, but its meant to be hell for a reason I would have thought.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Debating the moral alignment of a ficticious being seems rather silly to me.

 

[Fingerprint]

The Testament Of Gideon Mack is a book by James Robertson (?). The book has a very interesting view on the Devil and religion. If you're really that interested I suggest you give it a try.

 

[MercurySteam]

Well someone has to be the bad guy. The Devil, God and Budda all drew straws and he lost.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Wanna know what I think? And just so you know, I'm not trying to flame any Christians, would-be Christians, or Christians-in-a-past-life, just providing my honest opinion.

The Devil, and any variations thereof, are an invention, a fabrication, created by the Church and other religious sects. The proof here is in the pudding, as there are myriad reasons why they'd have to invent such an entity.

Firstly, it absolves God of any blame whatsoever of all of the evil in this world. Starving children in Africa? El Diablo. Serial rapists on a rampage? The Devil did it! Hitler's conquests? The Devil made him do it! Such a concept means it isn't God's fault, or rather, it isn't a supposedly omnipotent deity's fault, that so much is wrong with the world. The Devil is simply a convenient scapegoat.

Secondly, it provides fear. Fear, as I understand it, is a key precept of belief. Want to get into heaven and avoid the endless tortures of Hell? Then all you have to do is join the Church and reject the Devil! Because we say so! SO SAY WE ALL! The important thing isn't how many people join, but the fear it inspires, and that fear gets many more people to join the Church, not so much as to get into heaven as to avoid Hell.

Thirdly, it provides a personal scapegoat for all the murderers, rapists, and drug dealers out there. See, it isn't humans that are responsible for their own actions- it's the Devil that's controlling them! Yeah, Lucifer must have a lot of spare time and must be whispering in the ears of everyone that's ever done wrong. That or he's got a cell phone with everyone on Earth on speed-dial. Yeah, that must be it. Forget the fact that humans are supposed to have free will, if they do something wrong or evil, it must be the Devil!

And that is my opinion. My personal opinion, and it may be wrong.

Don't get me wrong- I don't hate Christianity or Catholicism. I think it's a beautiful belief and has a lot of merit. I just think some of the practices are a little hypocritical. And that's why I left.

 

[ad3m1]

Eh. It sounds like most of the people in this thread know nothing about the bible thus nothing about the idea of "The Devil". You don't want him in power.

 

[Sindre1]

I just realised that God is a dictator :S

 

[HuCast]

Lucifer came down to bring the light to humankind-the rest of the story is christian propaganda

 

[Kell478]

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist."

Lucifer doesn't want to kill anyone! He wants to remove you from God's grace. He wants more people in hell to boost his shattered ego. God has to keep him around because of free will. People make a choice to do good or bad. Without the devil, you have no choice but to do good. God doesn't want a "Yes man".

And one more point I'd like to make and then I'll shutup, evil never beats good. Good has the capacity to sink to evil's level and then rise back up. Evil cannot rise up to fight good on goods own level. These are my humble opinions.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Lucifer came down to bring the light to humankind-the rest of the story is christian propaganda

Oh dear, a Satanist. Better hide before the Christians bring you before the Inquisition Reborn.

 

[Labyrinth]

Satan adheres to the same moral code as God, he just enforces it in a more brutal way. Oh, and God relies on him to be the bad cop. I always pictured The Devil as a skinny guy in an ill-fitting but expensive business suit smoking a pipe. I think he'd make wicked pesto. Bad guy? Only in the traditional sense.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

 

[RebelRising]

Now, as it stands, God is the seemingly benign dictator who hands out harsh sentences for every person who so much as nibbles on shrimp or doesn't sell off his daughter into slavery.

That's a very odd belief, I'm amazed how ill informed people are about religion and yet they choose to comment on it like they know something.

Christians don't, by and large, follow what the books of Moses so they aren't relivent to a conversation on the devil. Looking at it from a Jewish standpoint, you don't understand the law or text based on your comments. Nibbling on shrimp will not get you severe punishment. It's an important violation of the law, but a nibble of strimp will not do you in. As for selling a daughter into slavery, that's a christian mistranslation. The section of text is talking about the payments that often accompanied marriage arrangements and it included property and money in both directions. The laws you are talking about were actually put in place to protect the bride, but you need to read them in context and either in hebrew or correctly translated to understand this.

True, but it also interests me as to how you looked past the facetiousness of my post and tried to look for something serious. But, since you want to play this game...

Exodus 21:7-11 And if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Certain translations differ from "servant" to "slave", but I guess we can all chalk that up to "reading them in context", given the very forward thinking culture of the Hebrews at that time. For future note, I was not calling attention to the fact that she may or may not have been mistreated as a slave, but rather that her own father sold her into slavery. That's all I have to say on the matter. Good day to you, sir.

 

[EeveeElectro]

 

[pdgeorge]

Firstly, it absolves God of any blame whatsoever of all of the evil in this world. Starving children in Africa? El Diablo. Serial rapists on a rampage? The Devil did it! Hitler's conquests? The Devil made him do it! Such a concept means it isn't God's fault, or rather, it isn't a supposedly omnipotent deity's fault, that so much is wrong with the world. The Devil is simply a convenient scapegoat.

The thing of using it as a reason to absolve blame is really wrong.

Yes, from the christian standpoint bad things happen because of satan. But every person has free will. People do some REALLY retardedly stupid things. edit-(sorry adding: "even according to the christian teachings...)
The good thing about free will: You get to do what you wat
Tha bad thing: You have to deal with the choices of every other wanker out there.

Should God/whatever intervene into EVERY situation where wrong is being done... then free will would only be to the extent "you can do what you want, aslong as it's good. If it's bad... well you won't have a chance to even do it" thus removing free will entirely.
that doesn't mean that there isn't proding from each side, but it still doesn't mean every bad thing is caused by the devil. People just have to accept they are bloody stupid things at times.

 

[Abedeus]

If I was a Christian I'd be a heretic who believes Satan is just another person of the Holy Trinity (Holy Quartet?). If he's an enemy of God, why does God Almighty keep him around?
That or that he's equal to God like in Zoroastrianism.

Uhm. He doesn't keep him around? He banished him to Hell.

Why doesn't God kill the man? I mean he is awesome and mighty ain' he?

To be honest he ain't "bad". I mean, compared to God he barely even killed people. I'd rather have the devil in charge rather than "God".

Free will.

Besides, killing someone? You punish him once. And he goes... where? I don't think fallen angels go anywhere if someone kills them.

Banish him and make it so people fear him? Punishment for eternity.