Thread: Why was Satan cast down from Heaven?

Originally Posted by Idolfan

Satan is symbolic from our sinful nature. Our sinful nature being a remenant of evolutionary principles (read Steve Taylor's 'the fall'. GREAT BOOK!!!!!)

Since i nor the majority of people who will read this thread, will read that book please deign to explain to us how exactly our sinful nature and evolutionary principles tie in together.

Its only one chapter and verse that sums it all up.

Read Revelation 12:12, which states, "woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has but a short time.

That pretty much omits any idea of a so-called hell.

From what I know he tried to against God, then God made Hell and put him there as a prison.

But, a lot of Christians believe Satan is lose on Earth now causing the evil. I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in the Bible that Satan rules Earth and has control over it. I've read it somewhere I know for a fact.

He was supposed to be released after 2000 years anyways, so I figure that's where it comes from. They think he was released in 2000, or something, and now rules over the Earth.

As a matter of fact, I'm nearly 100% sure the Bible states that he has rule over Earth right now. God made him King of the Earth, or some shit.

Also another reason he may have been cast out was that Satan hated humans when God made them, so he could have rebelled because of that.

No Jew believes Satan has any power outside of God..

And any Christian holding such belief is simply misunderstanding the Old Testament. Christians took parts of Judaism and exploded them into something they never were.


http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html

http://www.geocities.com/~Alyza/Jewish/satan.html

Here is a bit about the Jewish view of Satan, as opposed to the Christian devil. Again, Judaism has no devil, there is no embodiment of evil who tempts us, as in Christianity. The Jewish view is very different than that portrayed by Christains. I hope this will be clear by the end of this post.

First of all, the Hebrew word satan (sin-tet-nun sofit) means an adversary or accuser. It is used this way in Numbers 22:22. "And G-d’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the L-rd stood in the way as an *adversary* against him...." The word marked with *'s and translated as adversary is satan (actually l'satan, l' being a prefix that in the context gives the meaning "as"). Likewise in Numbers 22:32, part of the same story about Bilaam.

In I Samuel 29:4. "And the princes of the Philistines were angry with him; and the princes of the Philistines said to him, Make this fellow return, that he may go back to his place which you have appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an *adversary* to us; for how should he reconcile himself to his master? should it not be with the heads of these men?" Agian, the word translated as an adversary is satan. Later, in II Samuel 19:23. "And David said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be *adversaries* to me?..." Again the word is satan and is translated as adversary. I could contiue through the Tanach with this. In each case, the word satan is translated as adversary.

Now, there is the term ha'satan, meaning the adversary. It is used to indicate a definite adversary. It is used in this way in the book of Zecharaih. Zecharia 3:1-2, for example, is sometimes translated as "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the L-RD, and *Satan* standing at his right hand to thwart him. And the L-RD said to Satan, The L-RD rebukes you, O *Satan;* the L-RD that has chosen Jerusalem rebukes you. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" The word translated here as Satan is ha'satan. In other translations, this is translated as the adversary. In the historical context of the prophet, it is used to avoid using the name of the true adversary who was trying to keep the Jews from rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. The adversary was the Samaritans and a highly placed official in the Persian government. In order to avoid reprisals, Zechariah uses the term "the adversary" or "the accusor" (as the Jews were accused of building the Temple in order to rebell). Now, later in Jewish history, this was interpreted in another, somewhat metaphorical level, as if a prosecuting angel of the heavenly court were accusing Joshua ha-Kohen (the priest), and not the Samaritains that the highly placed Persian official.

The only other occurance of ha'satan is in the book of Job. The book, first of all, is one of the Writtings. It is one inspired Jews attempt to understand why bad things happen to good people. He writes a story about Job's suffering in order to explore the suffering of righteous people in general. The conculusion of his book, the moral of the story, is that only G-d knows why good people sometimes suffer. Satan in this book is a literary tool. That being said, out of this book arose the aggadic (kind of like legendary--there are many legends written in the Talmud to teach a lesson of one kind or another, but are not literally true) idea of Satan as the prosecuting attorney of G-d. Satan here is completely obedient to G-d and he NEVER rebells against G-d. He has a roll just as does the angel of death, in G-d's plan. His job is to act in the heavenly court as the prosecutor of those who recently died. He is in no way evil, he just has a job that some might find distasteful. That is the aggadic idea of Satan, which no Jew is obligated to take litterally, but we are supposed to learn the lesson that all of our actions will be known to G-d and that we will be judged.

The adversary in Zechariah was a very real, very human one, the adversary in Job is a teaching tool, as is the Satan of the aggadah. Humans have within them a yetzer hara and a yetzer hatov, a bad impulse and a good impulse. We need no outside, powerful, ultimate evil force to tempt us, the impulse lies within ourselves. By following G-d's will, we can overcome this temptation. There is no power to rival G-d. All angels in Judaism are obedient servants of G-d.

http://www.watchtower.org/e/bh/article_03.htm

Jesus never doubted that Satan is the ruler of this world. In some miraculous way, Satan once showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Satan then promised Jesus: “All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me.” (Matthew 4:8, 9; Luke 4:5, 6) Think about this. Would that offer have been a temptation to Jesus if Satan was not the ruler of these kingdoms? Jesus did not deny that all these worldly governments were Satan’s. Surely, Jesus would have done that if Satan was not the power behind them.

12 Of course, Jehovah is the Almighty God, the Creator of the marvelous universe. (Revelation 4:11) Yet, nowhere does the Bible say that either Jehovah God or Jesus Christ is ruler of this world. In fact, Jesus specifically referred to Satan as “the ruler of this world.” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) The Bible even refers to Satan the Devil as “the god of this system of things.” (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4) Regarding this opposer, or Satan, the Christian apostle John wrote: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.”—1 John 5:19.

Surely Super Jesus isn't wrong.

wow you've changed.

Nit, nothing like Christians changing hundreds of years of teachings on a whim.

P.S.

The word used in the Bible for those passages is Devil not Satan... Two very different concepts..

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

wow you've changed.

Me? Lol, I'm border lining on Deism and Atheism these days. I don't think I can believe in any mainstream religions anymore. I read some of the Bible few months ago and decided it's too hard to believe in a lot of the stuff inside it. :[

Originally Posted by DeathCell

Nit, nothing like Christians changing hundreds of years of teachings on a whim.

P.S.

The word used in the Bible for those passages is Devil not Satan... Two very different concepts..

What's the difference between them? Lol. I thought they were all names for the thing. Satan, Devil, Lucifer, etc. etc.

That's definately the beauty of it all for sure, "ask and ye shall receive". I wish you luck in your search for truth.


However Im curious to know why did you quote Jehovah's witnesses and not another form of christianity? Nothing's wrong with it, I just never seen a move like that from someone borderlining atheism.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

That's definately the beauty of it all for sure, "ask and ye shall receive". I wish you luck in your search for truth.


However Im curious to know why did you quote Jehovah's witnesses and not another form of christianity? Nothing's wrong with it, I just never seen a move like that from someone borderlining atheism.

No certain reason really, it was the first thing that popped up on a search engine.

Originally Posted by nitsuJ

Me? Lol, I'm border lining on Deism and Atheism these days. I don't think I can believe in any mainstream religions anymore. I read some of the Bible few months ago and decided it's too hard to believe in a lot of the stuff inside it. :[



What's the difference between them? Lol. I thought they were all names for the thing. Satan, Devil, Lucifer, etc. etc.

And that is the problem with Christianity in a nutshell.

It's nothing to do with the scripture but the fantasy people have made it into.



To quote.

"Lucifer makes his appearance in the fourteenth chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, at the twelfth verse, and nowhere else: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

The first problem is that Lucifer is a Latin name. So how did it find its way into a Hebrew manuscript, written before there was a Roman language? To find the answer, I consulted a scholar at the library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. What Hebrew name, I asked, was Satan given in this chapter of Isaiah, which describes the angel who fell to become the ruler of hell?

The answer was a surprise. In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or reference. The Hebrew scholar could only speculate that some early Christian scribes, writing in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided for themselves that they wanted the story to be about a fallen angel, a creature not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, and to whom they gave the name "Lucifer."

Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light." In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn." The name evokes the golden glitter of a proud king's dress and court (much as his personal splendor earned for King Louis XIV of France the appellation, "The Sun King").

The scholars authorized by ... King James I to translate the Bible into current English did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions translated ... largely by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place. Lucifer the morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the Prince of Darkness.

So "Lucifer" is nothing more than an ancient Latin name for the morning star, the bringer of light. That can be confusing for Christians who identify Christ himself as the morning star, a term used as a central theme in many Christian sermons. Jesus refers to himself as the morning star in Revelation 22:16: "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."

And so there are those who do not read beyond the King James version of the Bible, who say 'Lucifer is Satan: so says the Word of God'...."

Satan is viewed as a tempter/adversary, working inside of gods limitations..

This "Devil" is the incorrect understanding of scripture that many Christians play into, a being outside of ourselves willing us evil... I dare you to find a passage supporting this...

Jesus also calls one of his disciples

Matthew 16:23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

and this looks interesting.

http://www.biblebasicsonline.com/eng...lAndSatan.html

I'm not gonna lie. I'd be pissed if I was an angel and had to bow to and serve a human too. It'd be like bowing down to a monkey.

Originally Posted by Thief

Since i nor the majority of people who will read this thread, will read that book please deign to explain to us how exactly our sinful nature and evolutionary principles tie in together.

It's extremely obvious. I can't believe only a few people notice this:

Sloth
Gluttony
Greed
Envy
Lust
Wrath
Pride

= evolutionary traits for survival which are useless in the modern world

We have to grow out of them.