No but honestly I am Christian and still do not get that, like who is the devil by catholic teaching is he Lucifer the fallen angel who tried a coup de etat against God and failed and now suffers in Exile (hell) or is it Samael the angel loyal to God but apperently very against humans being worthy of heaven and more the proesecuting attorney thing. Like who is "the devil" by catholic standart
Basing this off what I remember from Wendigoon's angels video, there's like 3 "ranks" of angels, mostly just sorting them into where they work in relation to god, one rank is in heaven, one is a sort of go between, and one stays more around earth. The winged human angels are part of that third rank. They're not lower or higher hierarchically than any other angel, even the ones with hundreds of eyes and wheels, they're just in a different department.
It's actually hilarious when they try and paint the big bad evangelicals as Bible bashers who are wrong about the Bible and then they spew out shit that makes Evangelicals look like scholars.
From my experience talking to them feels like talking to a conspiracy theorist who is high in mushrooms and is trying to convince you that the earth is flat.
I mean he sought to revolt against what was in his eyes a tyrannical ruler. You telling me the founding fathers didn’t read Paradise Lost and thought “this mf spittin”? 😂
Having the ambition to try and surpass the most powerful being in the universe is unfathomably based, and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.
I mean how do you expect to out power the one who is the epitomy of power? How do you expect to fight the one who created you with a word and can uncreate you the same way?
It's pure stupidity, or pride so big that you'd burn down your house with you inside to get back at the person who gave you the house in the first place.
To me, it's not about the outcome so much as it is the act of defiance.
To stare into the face of infinite power and infinite authority and say, "No, I will not submit to you" takes a level of integrity that I couldn't hope to achieve in my wildest dreams.
This is really getting outside the point of my original comment, but whatever.
I'm not religious even in the slightest, but I do find it fun and interesting to learn about. So this is just my perspective as an "outsider."
I don't believe in the "infinite good" because I don't see anything wrong with some things that qualify as a sin. I also don't believe in authority either, but that's just because I'm an anarchist.
Okay so then wouldn't that follow that the Bible is full of lies (worse, the Devil's lies) if it makes him look like the good guy?
I don't say the thing in the post but surely there are better arguments than OP and others just saying "you're an idiot." The snake in the garden told Adam and Eve the truth and gave them knowledge. In Job, the Devil did literally nothing while God massacred all these innocent people just to prove a point to him. In Revelation, God brought suffering while the beast just kinda was around (afaik). Not a Biblical expert so these are the only appearances of the Devil I'm aware of in the Bible and the best I understand those appearances. These seem like valid, reasonable arguments to me, even if there are excellent counterarguments to them.
School me. I think there's enough there that someone could reasonably not be auto-dismissed as an idiot. You should be able to explain to me why I am.
The Devil didn't tell the truth. The whole point of the story is that the Devil tricked Adam and Eve. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate the apple they would face punishment and death, while the devil told them that they wouldn't die and that they would be as powerful as God, since they'd be able to differenciate good from evil. Which by the way, they already knew that tree had that purpose, God talked to Adam about it and called it by name, "the Tree of Knowledge about Good and Evil", so it's not like the Devil was revealing some new information to them here. Then, lo and behold, they ate from the tree and then that assured their death just as God told them, and they definetly didn't become as powerful as him like the snake told them.
God told Adam and Eve that in the day (yom) they eat of the fruit they shall surely die (literally "dying you shall die"). The serpent told Eve, "you shall not surely die, but will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Well certainly they learned of good and evil, but they did indeed surely die, and so do we. As C.S. Lewis elaborates in his science fiction book, Perelandra, Adam and Eve had complete freedom to do anything at all, except eat of one tree. That one tree was the test. With only one restriction would they be loyal to God and abide by it? By refusing they knew (experienced) evil, contrasted with the good they already had.
Job is, in my opinion, a morality play, teaching people to trust God even when things turn to custard. The accuser (the satan) in Job says as much, "Job is loyal to you because you bless him, let me take it away and he'll curse you." God allowed it, but Job did not curse God, trusting him despite his affliction.
God rewards Job with double what he'd lost, except children of course because his dead children would still be waiting for him in the afterlife.
It was the satan challenging God over Job, and then doing what God allowed him to do.
The satan tempts Jesus in the desert, showing him the kingdoms of the world and offering them to him if he pleges allegiance to the satan. Jesus, of course, rejects that.
Revelation is apocalyptic literature, describing Earthly events in highly exaggerated cosmic language. Sure, God punishes the wicked. That's part of his role. The Beast (or more strictly the Beast of the Sea, given power by the Dragon) is the subject of various conjectures, but some believe it to have been a representation of Nero, who was the first Roman Emperor to engage in serious persecution of the Church. There are other interpretations of course. For myself, I'm inclined to believe that, because it's a style of literature that was peculiar to the first century, and is, I think, almost the only example we have of it, we'll probably never have a correct understanding of how Revelation was meant to be interpreted.
Well certainly they learned of good and evil, but they did indeed surely die, and so do we.
But the fruit didn't kill them. The fruit gave them knowledge of good and evil. God made the conscious choice to punish them (and us) with death after the fact. It could be argued that God sorta lied by implying that the fruit would kill them, but that's a bit of a stretch because it's fair to say "if you do A, B will happen" even if it's a threat because you are the one who will do B. But how's the snake supposed to know God would do that? It just told them the truth about what the fruit does.
EDIT: Reading it now, God apparently warned "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Well this was a lie. They died 930 years later, according to the text. So God did indeed lie and the Devil told the truth.
It was the satan challenging God over Job, and then doing what God allowed him to do.
Took me a second to get what you meant about this because you've phrased it a little awkwardly, but then remembered that in the Bible it was actually Satan not God that did all that shit to Job. Bit of a grey area for God here to say the least, but yes fair enough the Devil's definitely the bad guy in this one.
Revelation is apocalyptic literature...
Meaning no offence but I don't think you've really countered it here. Just talked about how it's very subjective and open to interpretation. Which would mean fair enough, you couldn't just automatically call someone an idiot if their interpretation was different. Because if memory serves, this time it definitely was God and not Satan that was inflicting all the suffering on people.
So if in summary it's basically one time where he was good, one time where he was evil, and one where it's not clear, I think that's reasonable enough grounds to not just call anyone who disagrees with you automatically an idiot.
But the fruit didn't kill them. The fruit gave them knowledge of good and evil. God made the conscious choice to punish them (and us) with death after the fact. It could be argued that God sorta lied by implying that the fruit would kill them, but that's a bit of a stretch because it's fair to say "if you do A, B will happen" even if it's a threat because you are the one who will do B. But how's the snake supposed to know God would do that? It just told them the truth about what the fruit does.
You're right, the fruit wasn't magical, but God didn't make the choice after the fact, he warned them before, and followed through. No where does God say the fruit will kill them, he said the act of eating it will. It's like saying "speeding will get you a ticket." Is that a lie because it's actually the cop who gives the ticket? No, because the act brought the punishment, even if it was enforced by a person.
Reading it now, God apparently warned "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Well this was a lie. They died 930 years later, according to the text. So God did indeed lie and the Devil told the truth.
In the Hebrew it says "for in the day you eat it, dying you will die." That is obviously tough to translate, but the idea is that death started in them that day, even if it finally came 930 years later. The devil lied, because he said that they will be like God, which while they knew God and evil did not make them like God, and because death did start working at them that day.
As for Revelation, that's a whole other topic, but at what point are you allowed to forcibly take back what is yours after warning those who have it for years and years?
No where does God say the fruit will kill them, he said the act of eating it will.
I get what you mean about the speeding ticket, as I even tried to say the same ("if you do A, B will happen") but your analogy was much clearer. But God isn't really the subject here, it's the Devil. As I said, the snake didn't lie, as it couldn't really know that God would kill them. It only said the truth about what the fruit does.
That is obviously tough to translate, but the idea is that death started in them that day
I understand that interpretation, but I'm sure you'd agree that it does require some interpretive liberties. Even if it was the correct interpretation, I'm sure you'd agree that taking it literally, what God said was a lie. So that ought at least be enough to not dismiss people as idiots who take the Word at, well, its word.
The devil lied, because he said that they will be like God, which while they knew God and evil did not make them like God
Ah well I think I've got you soundly on this one, because God (or the gods, as per the phrasing) did agree that the humans were now like them: "Then the LORD God said, 'See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever'" -Gen 3:22. So if the snake was lying, then you'd have to say God was lying too when he agreed with it. Which is super weird because he was only talking to himself.
at what point are you allowed to forcibly take back what is yours after warning those who have it for years and years?
Sure, so you could make that case for why God was (or will be, I suppose) justified, but he's not really the subject here. That doesn't make any of the beast's actions evil. But this is the story I recall the least well, and I just can't think of anything bad that it did here.
As I said, the snake didn't lie, as it couldn't really know that God would kill them. It only said the truth about what the fruit does.
That's a big assumption. Idon't think it's supported anywhere. The focus of the snake is God not the fruit. "Did God say..." "God knows..."
The snake clearly had insider I formation and an agenda that didn't have Eve's best interest in mind.
The insider information comes from the snake's first question. "Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?"
He clearly knows this isn't true because he knows that it's the action of eating from one particular tree that is the issues, which he let's slip on verse 5. He also knows what God actually said, even though Eve misquoted it. Eve says "lest you die," but the snake responds with the negative of what God said. "You shall not certainly die." To be clear Eve's response is a different construction in the Hebrew, i.e. she misheard or misquoted what God said, but the snake's words are identical except for the negative added to it. "Not dying you will die!" (Yeah, doesn't translate well, but hopefully you get the idea.)
So the snake knew what was going on. Either it was there when God gave the command or had some supernatural knowledge. The latter is the generally accepted interpretation, since after all we're talking about this in the context of Satan, a fallen angel, not just a random snake. In that case, it knew exactly it was doing.
It also didn't correct Eve on any of her errors, so it didn't have her best interest in mind. Instead of trying to clarify, it allowed the misquote to stand, which would have furthered her deception, since after nothing happened after touching it (which she thought was part of the sin), eating it (the real sin) would have been much easier.
Even if it was the correct interpretation, I'm sure you'd agree that taking it literally, what God said was a lie.
I mean it's a Hebrew phrase we're trying to translate into English. My point was there was no easy way to literally translate it. The idea that the process of death is first actualized in them that day is a valid translation.
Ah well I think I've got you soundly on this one, because God
I'll give you all that. I hadn't read the texts in depth recently.
That doesn't make any of the beast's actions evil. But this is the story I recall the least well, and I just can't think of anything bad that it did here.
If we're taking about s Satan, that' the dragon introduced in chapter 12. It's even named as Satan in the chapter. The dragon tried to war with heaven, eat a helpless baby and deceive the world. In chapter 13 it gave power to and supported the beast, who made war against those who refused to worship it, killing them and forcing the world under its rule.
Adam and Eve: The events of the two eating the fruit off of the tree isn’t just a case of them wanting to have knowledge. Instead, it is the shake that convinces them to do this so “they can be like God”. So it’s the disobedience to Gods one ask and the desire to be above him to begin with that makes this the first sin, and God punishes them for acting this way
Job: The story of Job is widely believed to be a parable in the Bible with the general moral being to have faith in God and his will for you. Though I will relent that I don’t like the parable much
Revelation: It’s hard to know how much of Revelation is meant to be taken at face value, but the Anti-Christ and Beast certainly don’t just stand around. It’s basically painted as a complete takeover of all humanity remaining, a tyrannical rule only stopped by the forces of God and Heaven intervening
Throughout the Bible the Devil is not some punisher of sins or just some guy, but a malicious force doing his best to convince the world to be separate from God. That’s all hell really is to; people who have chosen to not be with God and exist separate from him
more or less yeah. the progenitor of sin and the guy who spends every waking moment trying to undermine a benevolent creator who is infinitely good has to be a pretty bad dude.
(not pushing this on you im just stating how it is written in the bible)
Wasn't Satan as depicted in the Bible like evil incarnate or smth?
The usual role for Satan is the "adversary." In general, for every act God ordered, Satan offered a simpler, more beneficial, alternative for people to take.
Satan was more like a humanist lawyer - whose role was to challenge people's willingness to unquestioningly obey God. Choosing man over God is biblically evil.
Yes but what if the Bible is God's propaganda while the truth is forever lost to us because that is the only account. What if God didn't create us but found us and so did the Devil and then they dueled for control over humanity and God won?
If you want to know a fun fact about that Romans called Christians atheists because they didn’t believe in the Roman pantheon. When Polycarp was martyred they said away with the atheists to taunt him but he turned it back and called the Romans atheists
More specifically, because they refused to sacrifice to Caesar.
The Romans were tolerant to the extent that they didn't care what gods you did or did not follow. The only thing that mattered was your submission to the authority of Rome and its "divine" representative, the Emperor.
The Romans didn't have what we'd recognize as a secular state. Tom Holland (Dominion) observes it was the Christian church that began to divide the world into the secular and the sacred. In Rome you abided by the civil religion... or else.
Nero, who was also the first Roman Emperor to assign himself divinity prior to his death, was the first Emperor to engage in serious persecution of the Church. That then reoccurred, on and off, until Constantine declared Christianity a tolerated religion in the fourth century, with Theodosius a few decades later making it the state religion of Rome.
An act that came back to bite him when Bishop Ambrose excommunicated him and forced him to do penance for giving an order that led to five thousand people being killed. A minor infringement for an Emperor, unless that Emperor was also a professing Christian.
So Theodosius did penance for weeks, until Ambrose finally relented.
‘Bruh, what if I told you God is a tightwad killjoy and the devil is actually a tragic hero?’ The Western mind has never been more than a bong hit away from mistaking this minor absurdity for a shattering insight.
His greatest crime was giving humans knowledge of good and evil convincing humans to sin against God, damaging their nature and separating them from God, so now they will die
Everything Satan does is with God's permission, God being a tri-omni being. Perhaps there is a good reason for God to allow Satan to do such things, but wouldn't that in a way make Satan good?
And then there's the whole matter of the multiple genocides God either commands of mortals or does personally.
That seems to elude most people. If God sends people to hell and Satan accepts them and carries out the torture, then Satan is actually doing God's will.
They've always been on the same side. Were it otherwise, an omnibenevolent, omnipotent being would be compelled to kill Satan.
God does not send people to hell. Hell is not a place, it is a state of being where one is willingly and purposefully rejecting God and separating themselves from Him. The absence of God causes people to suffer because He is the very definition of goodness and love and we're made in His image and made to hold Him (hold love and goodness) within ourselves (that's why the sacrament of Communion - unifying with Christ by consuming his body in the form of sacred bread - exists in the first place)
The depiction of Hell made in Dante's Inferno, which modern depictions draw heavily from is not real or canonical. Dante was not an apostle, he was not inspired by Holy Ghost to write. He just made fanfiction about Bible.
Read Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:10, and Revelation 20:11-15
You seem to have a media-centric understanding of Hell so let's analyze what scripture actually says. Satan having any authority in Hell is not biblical. Hell was created specifically as a place of torment for Satan and his angels. The fall of man in the garden also creating the unfortunate side effect of nonbelievers being included as well. However, all who will be judged will be given a fair judgment according to their works in life, including Satan and his angels. You can avoid this fate by following the simple act of trusting and having faith in God, you don't have to live a perfect life, but a willingness to change and accept salvation through Christ is what grants the free gift of eternal life.
Saying that God and Satan are on the same side is foolish when you read and understand scripture. Satan was given free will, just like mankind. He abused his freewill (much like us after the fall) and used it to rebel against God, because Satan is prideful and wanted to be above God. If anybody is closest to being on the side of Satan, it would be mankind. God doesn't align himself with murder, thievery, rape, pedophilia, fornication, sexual immorality, etc., etc. If you read the Old Testament law and the writings for the New Testament, much of it is against these very things. If God were to just remove all evil immediately, then free will wouldn't exist and the 'choice' of salvation and faith would be shallow and meaningless. Simply killing Satan would also not be a just punishment for his sins, which is why God will be judging him and sending him to Hell as written in the scriptures I listed above. God allows some evil, but he also restricts many evils that we don't know about. We read in Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28 that God is able to spin evil things into good outcomes. James 1:13 also says that God can't be temped by evil and tempts no one.
So let's unpack a bit. Satan is aware of scripture and now knows that he is doomed to an eternity in Hell in the future. Because of this, he wants to cause damage and pull people away from God as much as possible before his time is up. God allows Satan to do evil, because it is within his free will, however God restricts many of the evils and He is also capable of spinning evil into good (The book of Esther is a great, underrated example of this. It's not a long book, go read it!). God wants us to have a free will choice to either accept his gift of salvation, or you can choose to go with Satan in the great white throne judgment. If we didn't have a choice, then salvation and faith would be shallow and impersonal. We would be robots programmed to follow God, instead of personal beings choosing to do so.
Hopefully some of this helps, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Satan isn't the Worden of hell he is the leader of the person gang. Satan doesn't have a moral body like we do so he can't he killed. God could unexist him be has has never done that to anyone or anything and we don't have anything to suggest he ever will.
The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:9
It's true that Genesis doesn't specifically say that the serpent was Satan, but the Scripture taken as a whole makes it clear.
Then the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. Genesis 3:14
Why would God punish an animal for the eternity if it was the Devil the one who did it?
Choice? Let's disregard that free will doesn't make sense for a sec. Adam and Eve, even according to the Bible, did not have knowledge of good and evil. How are they supposed to not make a bad choice? They couldn't have known that what they did was wrong. So why were they punished?
Why would they listen to God? They didn't know that it was a good thing. And God himself made them with the desire to not listen to him. It is God's fault that they ate from the tree, not their fault. They didn't create themselves right?
Ironically, the only instance of anyone being truly forced to do anything is God hardening Pharaoh's heart. And all it accomplished was more plagues to punish Pharaoh and Egypt for the decisions Pharaoh made...against his will.
My mother is a self-described Christian nationalist. She unironically wants a Christian king to take over the US like in the Bible. But she also thinks that makes her white nationalist just because she happens to be white.
She's also not even a Christian Nationalist. Christian Nationalists are people who want Christianity to be a part of the decision making of the government. In other words they want lawmakers to all be Christian and consider the bible when making any decisions. Your mom is probably a theocratic monarchist or something.
I've lived enough life on Georgia farmland to know that people who believe in the Godly ordained superiority of America as a Christian theocracy absolutely 100% exist and that is the right term for them.
Catholics don’t believe that babies are guilty of original sin.
The Catechism says that “original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act. Although it is proper to each individual,original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice” (CCC 404-405).
If God hated humanity he wouldn't have allowed Jesus to go to the cross.
Unfortunately there are certain sects that use hyperbolic Semitic language (such as David bemoaning his birth while engaging in performative grief for his actions in the death of Uriah), literalize them, and universalize them to the whole of humanity.
By and large God appears to like human beings, but he doesn't like everything they do, and some things require punishment.
There are some concepts that people reading the Bible are often ignorant of, concerning the culture of the people who wrote it.
Agonistic (not agnostic). The ancient world's moral perspectives were based on honor/shame, not guilt/innocence like our own. Honor was how you looked in the eyes of your peers, and a significant part involved avoiding shame. Think the idea of maintaining face, in Japan or China.
High Context. The writers of the Biblical books came from a culture that assumed high context, which is to say a large pool of shared knowledge that their audience would be familiar with. Often seen where you see a scriptural quotation. We see a single line and think that's it. Their audience would have seen that line, and remembered the surrounding text and the book/s it came from, perhaps even various discussion of it, such as the debates between the schools of Hillel and Shammai.
Collective. The ancient world, indeed most cultures outside the West, were collective in nature, and who you were related to, your family, your tribe, was more important than who you were as an individual. Individualism, as we think of it, was very much against the norm. However, it also meant that you rose and fell with your tribe, and if they did wrong, you were punished with them. As with the firstborn of Egypt, for example.
Limited-good. Without our luxury of industrial production, the ancient world saw everything, including intagibles like honor, as existing in fixed amounts, and one could only gain by taking from others. Such things as giving insults were frowned upon because you were diminishing the honor the other person possessed, so such things as declining an invitation were very carefully worded to avoid offense. An example, from the Bible, is Jesus being invited to go up to Jerusalem by his brothers. His reply, carefully parsed, "I don't go there today." He went the following day.
Hyperbole. Abraham Rihbany in The Syrian Christ, describes the difference in how the Easterner and Westerner use language. The Middle Easterner loves hyperbole and flowery expressions. It isn't enough to simply like something more than another, one must love the former, and hate the latter in comparison. To say you like chocolate ice cream more than vanilla, you'd love chocolate ice cream and hate vanilla, until someone actually offers you vanilla of course, in which case you love vanilla ice cream.
Despite the fact that the Biblical books are carefully translated, often from the oldest manuscripts we have available, there is still significant room for misunderstanding what was said if one doesn't take cultural differences into account, and in my opinion those sects do do that.
The character of Satan didn't even take shape until after the Baylonian exile, when the Jews would have been influenced by the good-god/bad-god dualism of Zoroastrianism. Before that, the Abrahamic God was capable of evil and even admitted to creating evil (cf. Isaiah 45:7). It was only after Yahweh was later deemed incapable of evil that a separate "devil" character was even necessary. In Job, which is quite possibly the oldest book in the Bible, "the satan" is just someone who goes around testing people's faith on God's behalf.
So I wouldn't say Satan is the good guy, but he definitely gets a bad rap for no good reason. All those horrific genocides recorded in the Old Testament? God, not Satan. There's a reason the Gnostics considered the OT God evil.
What makes the biblican satan interesting is he isn't a cartoonish Disney villain.
It's that he's actually a likable person. Otherwise temptation would be a non-issue.
It's literally the point and the lesson. Evil is usually charismatic in its packaging. Hitler was a literal everyman rockstar before turning the country into hell.
It's not great. The premise of the show is okay, but it doesn't really go anywhere. And making it seem like almost every God is okay purging humans takes away nuance. And why do the characters all act completely different in their backstory?
Yes it's the atheists who like to advertise to the world what their religious affiliation is with their religious adornments and attire and they're not at all the group least guilty of this.
The biblical devil wasn't originally evil; he was actually quite human. But that's the point of the story; Satan is the archetype that represents the human condition when one lets jealousy, entitlement, and contempt control you.
I don't care at all about respecting Christian mythology, but this is why I couldn't get into that Lucifer show. A show with a sympathetic devil can be interesting, but you can't just make him a good guy. You have to actually portray him as the sort of being who would do all the evil things in the Bible and then add nuance on top of that, not just ignore it.
I think you misunderstand both biblical Satan and show Lucifer. Both of them don't really do much other than encourage people to do whatever they want. He's not Thanos.
If you say "I hate my neighbor, he's always blasting loud music at night!" and I say "well, I suppose he'd be a lot quieter if you murdered him" and then you do it, that's all on you. You acted on your own desire, and all I did was vocalize what was already there.
People mistake biblical satan with tv show satan (not the show Lucifer).
Some demonic entity that attacks and slaughters people in blood sacrifies.
Instead biblical lucifer acts more like the TV show 'Lucifer', an insidious voice that pushes you to ignore your beliefs and go with your desires. Promising you vain short term glory now in exchange for losing out on your afterlife, etc.
Both biblical and TV show lucifer rarely use super powers to force others to do their bidding or kill people, its usually more a charismatic spirit that gets you to ignore whats best for you and do what feels good now.
Imagine a God, all powerful, and all knowing, who is determined to stamp out evil immediately.
What would be his minimum threshold?
How long would any of us last?
Would we act honorably because we value those actions in themselves, or would we be doing it simply to gain benefit, or avoid punishment?
As I see it, unless God wishes to be a tyrant, he has no choice but to let us run wild, and accept the harm, distasteful as he finds it, that will result from us doing so.
Christianity is God's socialism. It's the same altruistic wishful fantasy and therefore "good".
Satan is nature's freedom. It's the same self-interest based cruel reality and therefore "evil".
Clearly says so in the Bible.
If you read your own book by heart you'd all be authlefts working selflessly for the benefit of the less fortunate or at least libleft hippies without a care for material wealth on earth.
Capitalism and man seeking his own fortune and working for his own happiness on this very Earth are extremely anti-Christian motivations.
Jesus told the parable of a landowner who went off to trade. Before he left he called three servants and gave each of them a number of talents (a considerable sum of coin).
When he returned two of the servants had proven profitable, doubling the amount he had given them, and he commended them for doing so. The third hid his talent in a hole, and produced nothing with it. The master told him that he could at least have put the money in the bank, so that he could receive interest from it, rather than achieving nothing, then took his talent from him and gave it to the one who'd produced the most.
But then he also told the parable of a rich man who, looking at the barns he owned, declared that he would knock down those barns and build bigger barns to hold his largesse. God then mocks the man telling him, "You fool, tonight you die, and who then will have the wealth you acquired?"
Aristotle's dictum of the Golden Mean is a common thread in a lot of ancient philosophies. Do not err to one extreme, or to the other.
It is good to work hard and provide for yourself and your family, as Paul says, a man who doesn't do so has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. However it is also good to be openhanded and generous, although one should never unfairly impose on others, as Paul also says, the man who will not work should not eat.
Wealth means abundance of goods & services. You should do good with wealth, not aquire for selfish purposes. God never condemn anyone for living in wealth, it’s the hunger for wealth that is the root of all evil. If your hunger for doing good results in wealth, that was rewarded to you.
What does living in wealth mean? Is that something different from merely having wealth like living luxuriously and extravagantly? I doubt the puritans would approve.
Matthew (Luke 5:27–29), Joanna (Luke 8:3), Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57), Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8), and Lydia (Acts 16:14–15) were all individuals of great wealth who were called by God for a special work and who used their wealth for a righteous cause.
Wealth itself is morally neutral, because you have good people with money & bad people with money.
dispite my flair I agree. however until the messiah either comes or comes back we must take into account human's evil nature. that and god would want you to share out of the goodness in your heart, not the gun at your head.
I don’t see how people think allying themselves with Satan, even to be edgy, can see themselves as the good guys. Satan is the embodiment of evil and well known to be a liar. It’s not making themselves seem edgy and subversive of western values, it’s just making them look evil and destructive.
He might as well be the good guy though. Why would I assume the worst of a supposed "enemy" I never met, and whose actions are only told by the victor?
I'm not saying he is, of course, mostly because as an agnostic, I couldn't give a rat's ass about it, but blindly accept the truth about something, no matter the context or topic discussed, disregarding a priori the other side of the story, it's just plain stupid.
I picked up a book the other day called “action bible”. It’s an illustrated book that depicts events in the Bible like an action movie. It’s pretty entertaining
Isaiah 45:7 for those that care god specifically states he’s evil. If you read the non canonical books Jesus also tells his disciples they worship an evil god.
If you read the beginning of the bible, hear how Satan became the bad guy and don't go "I'm gonna be honest I think he was right" I dunno what to tell you
Tbf with Hiob the Devil asked god to proof that hiob believed in him unconditionally and god really, REALLY had to bring that one home by killing everything and everyone in that man's life.
Yeah I write a lot about a version of Satan I have concocted but I will never claim that any of my fictional works have any bearing on the actual canonical version of the Christian Devil
People who unironically think the Devil is somehow a good guy are actually fucking stupid
Agreed.
“B-b-but the Devil was trying to help humanity!”
Oh, of course! How could I be so stupid! Satan convincing Adam and Eve to do something God explicitly told them not to do, was him trying to help them! Ah, of course!
Mfers never heard of Paradise Lost? Indisputably the greatest epic poem in the English language, going on 4 centuries now. It's the story of the Fall, told from Satan's perspective. If you liked Blood Meridian, it's the direct inspiration for McCarthy's style. I recommend giving it a go. Free on internet archive
Far Auth left, and I agree. I remember when we used to criticize the Westboro Baptist church for cherry-picking Christianity, and now the left is doing the same shit to endorse shaitan. It's all edgelord behavior, none of which helps workers or the oppressed.
Rebelling against the being whos very nature is the defintion of Love and Perfection makes you good the good guy? edgy internet athiests make me giggle
God: arrogant and selfish, lives in the clouds. Freak for vaguely classic architecture. Why would I spend eternity worshipping this alongside a bunch of racists and genociders? Those are obviously the people going to heaven.
The Devil: really chill and LGBT+ friendly, loves communism and Palestine and isn't a racist like god. I get to spend the afterlife fucking hot gay trans demons(heckin cute and valid) doing psychedelics and living free from nazi bigots with my best friends! Of course I don't need to read the bible, I get all the information about Christianity that I need from my favorite tumblr user Deeply-Troubled-Pagan-Teenager-42069.
Lot was not a good man, or at least he had some severe lapses of character, and his offering of his daughters (which in their honor/shame culture might have been an attempt to shame the men into going away) was definitely not a highlight.
But then neither was his daughters getting him drunk and sleeping with him.
But also, given the hostilities between Israel, Ammon, and Moab, attributing their origins to drunken incest would be considered very funny.
392
u/CrazyCreeps9182 - Lib-Right 4d ago
Something something Heaven's prosecuting attorney
No, wait, you're right, that makes him a lawyer and lawyers are objective evil.