If we’re being truthful, Satan is supposed to be punished in hell too, its only modern works that portray him as the one ‘ruling’ and dishing it out to people in hell.
If we’re really being truthful, none of that stuff’s in the Bible.
Biblical Satan is a role, not a person. I’ve seen it translated as “opponent” or “rival”. Something like a “devil’s advocate” in catholic church - person or entity who tests somebody’s faith.
And Lucifer is again a completely different character, not related to Satan until much later.
The devils advocate in Catholicism is something very specific and not at all that. In order for someone to be determined a Saint there’s more or less a trial. One side presents arguments that say the individual has met the criteria by which one can be determined a Saint. The other side, which is called the devils advocate, attempts to poke holes in it and presents arguments by which the individual hasn’t met those conditions. They’ll do things like bring up sins and character flaws that persisted into the individual’s saintly period, as well as attempt to disprove any miracles the individual is said to have committed.
Is that the origin of devils advocate?
That is super interesting if so
“opponent” or “rival”
Aaand that’s the interpretation The Church of Satan takes. They’re atheists and don’t believe in Satan as an entity.
You’re thinking of The Satanic Temple. CoS is a theistic organization started by Anton Lavey. They worship a literal Satan.
https://www.churchofsatan.com/faq-fundamental-beliefs/
Why do Satanists worship The Devil?
We don’t. Satanists are atheists.
Why does faith need to be tested?
Christians seem to love the concept. The idea is if you keep believing if seriously challenged, it means you are a true believer.
The height of stupidity and evil.
Not a bad take, clearly can be read that way in the English. But I don’t read Greek, so I can’t tell you one way or the other.
I didn’t read the Bible fully but as far as I know there are only very few mentions of satan/devil and stuff.
666 the number of the beast.
A story about a guys faith and a bet between god and the devil.
The fall of lucifer the angle (not linked to either above)
And maybe the devil is mentioned in a few more sentences but not more.
You can find it here. Along with a scathing rebuke to those who wear the name Christian and yet are so full of hate they refuse to do any of these things.
Matthew 25:41-46 (NKJV)
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Well, that’s embarrassing. I thought for sure that was one of those things that was created from extra-biblical sources.
This really makes me wonder about those Christians who claim that it’s faith, not works, that gets you into Heaven. This seems like a strong argument for the opposite.
Indeed. To quote more of the bible:
James 2:26 (kjv) “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
The argument is that it’s faith that gets you into heaven, but the proof of true faith is found in works. If you claim to be faithful but do not do good works, your faith is dead.
Well unfortunately the majority of Christians believe that simply believing in Jesus grants them access. Who needs morals when you can just ask for forgiveness every time you do bad thing 🤷
What is “none of that stuff”? Both Satan and Hell are in the Bible.
They mention it a lot, but never say what it is beyond it having fire that never goes out, some passage in Matthew.
Christians have just ran away with some ideas, just like with pro-life, just like with the devil, just like with most of the religion. You decide what you want to believe and twist the Bible to back it up.
Almost the entirety of hell was made up by Dante Alegeri
Not sure why I’m being down voted. You’ve reaffirmed my statement.
Well when someone says something like Hell, a huge fixture of the religion, is in their holy book they just expect more than a sentence or two.
If you listen to the Yazidis he was sent to Hell for defying God by not bowing down to us humans, his greatest work, despite God telling Satan to never bow to anyone because he was made of God’s essence rather than us, made in his likeness.
So he went to Hell for 10 000 years until his tears put out the fires of Hell, then God forgave him. He also rewarded him for honoring his original pact with God and was given Dominion over Earth.
He took this Dominion and gave us Humans “Knowledge” like the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, only the Knowledge was of Farming.
Thing is, the Yazidis live awefully close to what is thought to be the birthplace of Farming.
When asked to describe Satan, they described him as a Peacock holding a sheaf of Wheat in it’s beak, the same image found in Gobekli Tepe, which is thought to be a shrine that taught Farming to the world.
Hail Satan.
Edit: this is just my understanding after reading an article or 2 on the subject, I’m probably wrong about loads of it, but it’s all just stories anyway so who cares?
That’s super interesting, thanks!
Thank you for the input, /u/MyPornViewingAccount.
Lmao youre welcome. Its what i get for not swapping
MyPornViewingAccount@lemmy.world
deleted by creator
Actually, Satan is always described as being on earth. In Genesis, Lucifer is cast down to earth, not hell. In Job Satan tells God he’s passing by during his comings and goings on earth. In the Gospels, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert.
Revelation 19 says the beast (maybe satan?) will be thrown into the lake of fire, and Rev 20 says the same for Satan.
Sounds like they’re not in the lake of fire then, considering nothing in revelations has come to pass.
Just not always described as on earth.
Paradise Lost is from 1667.
Well that concept isn’t in the Bible and even if it were then 1667 would still be somewhat “contemporary” compared to when the Christian scriptures were supposedly written. Of course I say all that as if any of it is real or matters anyway lol
Hell is not biblical
Floods, famine, plagues, etc are all God’s work. Sex, drugs, and rock & roll are Satan’s work. I know which one I’m going with.
We’ve only ever heard the story from one side, Satan is probably actually super chill and just wants to party
In the words of Jim Jeffries “If you disobeyed gods rules, why would Satan punish you? If anything, you’re one of his boys”.
Since the bible was written by god’s people, it’s way too biased when saying God is good and the Devil is bad.
Show me Lucifer’s side of the story and I bet he’s the more reasonable person.
I always really liked South Park’s Satan when he explains addiction to Stan.
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I’m an atheist and this is ultra-cringe.
Unfortunately this doesn’t really faze Christians at all because many of them believe that God is the source of all that is good, and so by default anyone who worships God is also good by default, and of course this logic follows that anyone that doesn’t worship God is evil by default.
Also, barring that, just because Satan punishes bad people doesn’t make him good. He punishes bad people because he’s jealous of God’s love for Humans, and he hates them for it. He’s more of an antihero I guess if you really wanted to paint him in a somewhat good light.
Except that’s a horrible distortion of Satan’s real role in Abrahamic religion - he was once understood as YHWH’s most loyal angel, willing to inflict eternal torture against his will for the sake of cleansing sin or whatever the fuck his torture was supposed to achieve. If the Christian god stopped being a massive piece of shit and went “yo, I don’t think all this torture stuff is actually helpful”, Satan would immediately stop his business.
To be upfront, I am not religious and never have been, but my understanding is that Satan isn’t the one doing the actual punishing? He is being punished by God himself, as is everyone else in Hell
That is a common misconception. Lucifer was punished and had his holy light removed, but Satan was always supposed to stay in hell and govern it.
Well, he was banished for being proud. But it all depends how you interpret the Bible
There isn’t really much about eternal torture or damnation back when Satan was still an agent of God, and he certainly wasn’t in charge of Hell. All the talk of gnashing teeth and lakes of fire was originally metaphor for how much it sucked, not literal.
Hell isn’t a place, it’s a state of complete lack of Grace. The idea is that everyone has a 2 way connection to God, and all good feelings and emotions must come from it. People are free to reject that connection by committing mortal sin, but “the line stays open,” as long as someone lives. Honest repentance is accepting the connection back. If one dies before accepting grace again, God shrugs and accepts they aren’t interested, and cuts his side of the line. This leaves an existence with zero positive thoughts or feelings, best case scenario is eternal meh. Of course, it was hyped up to be awful to help convert and maintain control. And, ofcourse, Satan did do a bit of torture here and there, but it was generally all on living folk to test them.
anyone who worships God is also good by default, and of course this logic follows that anyone that doesn’t worship God is evil by default.
If that was the case they wouldn’t put an emphasis on hypocrites.
Michael Mittermeier?
Michael Mittermeier!
Dies unser kommentarbereich? 🥹
Wider den deutschen Kulturimperialismus! Spaß. Als nächstes bitte Mettigel in die Memes verpacken 😄
Jawohl!
Bearbeitung: Ich tat es.
Ich habe ihn zuletzt öfter auf Lemmy gesehen als im TV.
Siehste mal.
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Remember kids, Libertarians just want what Satan wanted.
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Satan is the only character in the Bible that tells the truth.
As concerned as most christians seem to be with punishment of those doing some imagined wrong or another, wouldn’t that sort of mean they’re following in their supposed satan’s ways and tenets.
Meanwhile Satanists…
Or Satan is so evil, he’s evil towards evil. Now that’s evil af.
I don’t think punishing bad guys makes you a good guy.
you’re missing the point. There are a slew of contradictions in christian dogma that don’t make any sense at all. People who “punish” people are typically the good guys in stories. Take a sheriff in a western for instance. They chase the robber and throw them in jail as a form of punishment. The meme is just showcasing an example of how religion faulters under critical examination
A whise DreamButt…
They merely said that being separated from God means suffering, while following H…er.im means walking towards the establishment of H…er.is Kingdom/City unto Earth. They talked more about Hell as a state than as a physical place, but, well… who cares nowadays, right ? Parabola never taught us anything about the real world, the spirit doesn’t exist, and morals are relative, they were simply naive ignorants who never had anything to teach us, embrace modernity and reject 100% of the past.
I like how you skipped over the part where it’s been a core component of oppression and suffering
I don’t entirely agree with my comment either, because there’s multiple interpretation of Hell.
One of them is interesting, it says that if our consciousness survives after our death, our mind will finally think clearly, we’ll remember our past better than if it happened today, and we’ll be overwhelmed by shame, this hell would be created by ourselves.
Another one would talk about a real place, but not in the afterlife but right here, on Earth(, it combines perfectly with this talk of afterlife if you believe in reincarnation), and says that if we all live our lives ‘searching for’/‘aiming at’ God, then our descendants/reincarnations will live in Paradise(, or in Hell if we don’t).
There’re other interpretations, as well as the thought that we’re not free since we’re determined, so God decided before our birth whether we would end up in Hell or in Paradise, a thought discussed in the Middle-Ages and rejected in favor of free-will(, i don’t think Spinoza would disagree with the conclusion that God predestined us for Hell, if he believed in Hell).
Obviously, the most common explanation is that police(wo)men didn’t existed back then, God-fearing people was the equivalent of virtuous people, even when nobody can see/stop them.
And that’s why they don’t want you to think. Because if you think, it all crumbles away.
Just 600 more to go!
Update: 594
Im neither a Christian nor a bible expert but i thought satan was just one of 7 deadly sins and not the punisher of bad people? Wasn’t there an entity called “the devil” that is referred to as satan and/or lucifer but is basically an entire different entity to lucifer and satan? Also isn’t hell a general place of suffering/redemption and the deadly sins are just luring people there?
That’s how i understood it. Didn’t read the bilbe tho, only got this from references and random fun “facts” over the years so it could be completely wrong
Justice≠Revenge, otherwise Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the rest, would be justified.
If every evil was stopped though it would be the end of ‘our trip’/‘any possible progress’.Pretty sure that’s not how it works
