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What did Satan do anyway?

Serious question for some of you who know more about the bible than me. I was raised atheist and only know basics I picked up from culture. Sorry if it's a repeat.

Why exactly is Satan evil? What did he do that was wrong? I only see the posts from atheists here and elsewhere that seem to make him an abnormally moral character than others in the raping torturing baby murdering text. Am I missing something?

MsAl 8 Aug 29
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4

He went down to Georgia to enter a fiddle contest and lost, or so the story goes.

@Winkiedink54 I don't know what Charlie Daniels take on that would be.

@Winkiedink54 Maybe Duck Dynasty would have something to say to that. They seem to be into bird calls.

That fiddle contest was rigged. I can tell you as a musician, the devil's fiddle playing was way more impressive.

Was that before or after he had the flat on his Chevy?

0

There is no satan, all made up shit so who the fuck cares about something that doesn't exist.

@creative51 i don't like to waste my time in useless subjects.

0

I know Satan drinks a lot of bourbon and smokes a pipe.

I believe that is his cousin, Santa.

"I tell you its the devil..."

2

As a former Mormon, I was taught that Satan was selfish and wanted to take all the glory of God on himself and he would guarantee every soul would return to heaven. Jesus had other ideas and God chose Jesus plan over Satan's.So Satan rebelled against God and was tossed out of heaven (or pre-heaven). Satan then vowed to do everything he could to frustrate and disrupt Jesus' plan which God accepted. Sounds so silly explaining it now.

Since leaving Christianity, I have read that Satan was not really a significant character in Judaism until after contact with the Persians and Zoroastrianism. This Persian religion has two opposing deities one encouraging mankind to do good and the other to do evil. This concept was adapted and Satan was assigned to the evil deity. Prior to this contact God was good and rebellious man was evil. Satan didn't factor into the equation.

Some other concepts adapted from Zoroastrianism are the idea of the end of the world and the great judgement of all mankind. According fo what I read, the Hebrews didn't have an end times scenario in their religion until this contact with Persians.

@RussRAB Yes, but what do you call an Zoroastrianism Believer? A Zoroist? And, are there many out there nowadays?

@twill - Zoroastrian numbers are estimated between 110,000 to 120,000 most living in India and Iran according to Wikipedia. The numbers are believed to be in decline in the present day. The decline began in the 7th century with the expansion of Islam.

5

all I know is he went down to Georgia lookin' for a soul to steal. I heard he was behind on his quota and rather desperate.

The best! 😂

I'd forgotten that one😊

He was way behind, he was in a bind

0

Never existed 🤷🏻♂️

whether god exists is irrelevent .....what the sects claim about god is......

@blzjz also irrelevant

@KrypticKalEl hey thanks for that....I have no pickle up my ass about my revelence...

1

Read the Babble....actually there was no Satan, it was the Son of Gowd (one of them?!?) named Lucifer that went wrong.....

Love the tv show “Lucifer “. He is depicted as god’s Son.

@bradnyijuan just found it on Netflix...binge watching!

3

So the story goes, The Archangel and most beloved of God, Lucifer attempted to usurp the throne of heaven and led a rebellion of one third of the other angels in a war in heaven, thus mass expulsions, to earth for the renamed former Archangel, Satan and his legions. Nice garden spot to drop the lot off, don't you think?

I do believe, as many stories in the Bible go, there is more than one version of the tale. The Muslims have their spin on a similar tale.
Then there are another 200 Angels, that get cast out later, Thus the tale of the Watchers.

So basically Satan, Lucifer, the old dragon and few other names get blamed for most if not all the evil in the mythos. As there are many denominations and traditions, lots of other non-canonical tales get added by various denominations and cultures. Our modern mishmash of tales about Satan don't really add up. If that helps much. lol

0

One or two people here have pointed out that Satan/ satan is a title not a name, but the satan is not the same through the bible. In fact several satans appear early on as loyal helpers of god, there is no reason to believe from the bible that the snake in the Garden of Eden is the same thing as any of the others, in fact it seems to be just a snake. Here is quite a good video history you may enjoy.

@Bierbasstard Never heard of the snake being Lilith, but I bet someone came up with that story.

1

I just noticed.... when referring to 'god' many people still use a capital 'G'.....an irrelevant god needs no cap!

blzjz Level 7 Sep 1, 2019

I don't usually capitalize the G in god. Sometimes if I'm referring to a specific god, I'll capitalize it like I would any other name. Oh and sometimes my spellcheck will capitalize it and I don't even realize it.

spell check does that for me. sometimes I undo it, sometimes I let it go. It is a proper known when used refering to hin, even if he is imaginary

3

Well....After the contradictions made me an unbeliever, i continued to study the bible finding more and more absurdities. i noticed that the book had god doing things that we were specifically told were evil, sinful, and wicked. So i wondered how many...and kept finding more. Then I wondered...does Satan do any evil. And the worst thing i could find him doing was smiting job with boils. Everything he was accused of, GOD is found doing. So, WHO created evil, brings forth evil, speaks evil, has evil thoughts, sends forth evil spirits, murders, threatens to spread poo in his people's faces AND make them eat their babies, has smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire coming out of his mouth, and horns????? Not Satan. god.

This is exactly what I was getting at! I just don't have quite the background in knowledge to back it up but that's what it always sounded like.

@MsAl I have a HUGE list of bible verses where god is doing the very things the bible calls evil... studied this a while back when I was debunking the bible..the perfectionist in me couldn't stop, lol. I will be glad to share. Just message me if you are interested.

2

This popped up in my YouTube list tonight. Good timing!

LOVE this! Thank you!

1

no such thing as satan. the only god that exists is the personification of the universe.

3

I'm pretty sure he invented Rock & Roll.

Thank him for me, would you please?

0

He’s seen as an entity of evil. Others have pointed out that he changes through the Bible due to the myriad of authors, but most Christians (my former self included) typically interpreted him to mean a single entity.
As for what he did, he was a former arch angel named Lucifer who was far greater than any of the other angels let alone humans which is why he rebelled against god who he saw as unjustly favoring the human saying to god “thou didst make me out of fire and he out of clay”. This rebellion was the reason for god kicking Lucifer out of heaven. He’s then attributed to bringing sin into the world in the garden of Eden although the snake is never actually identified as being satan and Christians typically use him as the excuse for evil/hardship in the world (ignoring the fact that this is another example of the problem of evil).
As for why he’s viewed as moral in the atheist community, I’d guess it’s either for irony/mocking Christian logic (especially for the former believers) or the fact that we see actions of their adherents. In the US at least, many times when evangelicals try to erect a religious statue they’re often stopped solely because the satanists will then erect a statue using the same logic (that and they do a lot of outreach programs for underprivileged youth for education without the indoctrination of Christians).

2

Satan dindu nuffin!

Actually, it's not even clear that Satan killed those 10. If you read it closely, 'a fire from god out of heaven' killed some, and a whirlwind killed some others. (god is in the whirlwind according to another verse) But Satan did smite job with boils...that is the only thing in the whole book he is did bad....

1

Satan, the "fallen" angel created by a perfect god?
Well, apparently he questioned god and tossed up the B.S. flag a few times pre- creation.
Lucifer (the most prized angel, also had followers)
They say Satan's favorite song was "Anything you can do, I can do better". God got pissed and tossed him (SATAN) and his followers out of heaven.
Long story short.

3

Every good piece of literature needs an angst driven villian with father issues and an asshole father, who only later, realizes he is to blame.

0

Other than what Maturin said I have no idea.

It has never occurred to me to ask it this way.

So okay, he pissed off the mighty creator of him. Now he is in charge of, or banished to, hell. So, why would he help the creator punish people? Why does he get off in torturing people? Wouldn't he get bored after awhile?

You think listening to people screaming as they burn for eternity would get boring after a few millenniums.

1

Satan starts out in the Bible as an advisor/confidant to Yahweh, but over time is depicted as more of the "adversary" and eventually the wicked tempter and deceiver. It isn't until late in the New Testament (Revelations, I think) when Satan is retconned as the serpent in Genesis — but there's no reason to think that was the intent in Genesis. One of the early references to Satan in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job, where (at worst) Satan helps Yahweh torture Job, as Yahweh is proving a point for his own ego. It's speculated that Yahweh, a god from earlier traditions, originally maintained his good and bad traits, but over time it was necessary to paint him as benevolent and that meant having an adversary. So, gradually, the evil was attributed to Satan and death became the suffering pit of Hell over which Satan presided over the damned. With the New Testament, Yeshua (Jesus) has that message of peace and love, but there's the insideous introduction of eternal, agonizing punishment for those who don't believe. Satan here becomes a much more formidable character, with great power and influence. So, to me it's less about what Satan did than about what the Hebrews and Christians needed him to be over time. They wrote his story arc as they needed more conflict in the plot.

2

Is not what Satan did but what Satan does. What does he do? Privides a service. Which service is that? Justify God/religion crap existance. You're welcome.

5

He probably had sex with someone. Christians hate it when people have sex.

1

Although I am nowhere near an expert on the Bible, I think the main idea about Satan was that he lured people away from God.

3

Satan (Lucifer) was the most beautiful angel of all, but he wanted the other angels to worship him rather than God. He lead an unsuccessful revolt to overthrow God and God kicked him and his minions out of heaven. His only satisfaction now comes from subverting God's will, tempting God's human creation to do evil. His first success was Eve and Adam but he's still at it tempting you and me and everybody else. That's the story I was taught--but I think it is more from Paradise Lost than from the Bible.

5

I think he owned a chain of hotels, and golf courses.

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