Satan was "allowed" to fool the world, yet is kept alive?

[1213]

"The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
Revelation 12:9, NIV:​

Its a difficult thing to understand. Why was this Satan character was allowed to deceive so many and for so long?...

I think everyone can think critically. It is not reasonable to believe everyone blindly. That is why I think Satan is not really the problem. I think the problem is that many people often like more lies than truth.

 

[Colt]

I agree that many of these Bible characters and stories are symbolic and not to be interpreted literally. I see many Christians struggle to make sense of a literal interpretation of the Bible, and it just isn't doable.

It's obvious that believers are adoting an interpretation and trying to justify it in their own minds. The title of the thread is a bit ironic as I suggest Christianity is allowed to fool believers with these fantastic stories.

It's the Bible that depicts Satan or the devil or the crafty beast and even God as a personality reality not a stretched interpretation.

 

[F1fan]

It's the Bible that depicts Satan or the devil or the crafty beast and even God as a personality reality not a stretched interpretation.

Ancient texts translated into modern languages, and you interpret it literally?

Again, I see believers adopt one interpretion or another about the meanings of these characters and stories. There is nothing we experience or sense of reality that suggests these stories are true at face value. It's like reading the Hobbit and believing they exist, but never ponders why we don't see Hobbits walking around doing their thing.

To human understanding REAL needs to correspond to what we sense through our senses and/or instruments. These supernatural stories and characters do not correspond to anything we can sense, so are likley just fictions. To believe they are real does what for us? How does it hel you to believe these fantastic stories are true? We don't see believers behave in an astounding standard of ethics, morality, wisdom, etc., we see quite the opposite in many cases.

So I go back to wondering who the fool is, and who is keeping foolish beliefs alive in our modern era.

 

[Colt]

Ancient texts translated into modern languages, and you interpret it literally?

Again, I see believers adopt one interpretion or another about the meanings of these characters and stories. There is nothing we experience or sense of reality that suggests these stories are true at face value. It's like reading the Hobbit and believing they exist, but never ponders why we don't see Hobbits walking around doing their thing.

To human understanding REAL needs to correspond to what we sense through our senses and/or instruments. These supernatural stories and characters do not correspond to anything we can sense, so are likley just fictions. To believe they are real does what for us? How does it hel you to believe these fantastic stories are true? We don't see believers behave in an astounding standard of ethics, morality, wisdom, etc., we see quite the opposite in many cases.

So I go back to wondering who the fool is, and who is keeping foolish beliefs alive in our modern era.

I see, so Siddhartha Gautama was not a real person, but a fictional character perpetuated by fools?

 

[Wildswanderer]

There's what God allows and what God wills. God allows Satan his time because he doesn't force anyone to come to him. Would it be devotion to God if there was no other choice? As it is people have thousands of other choices, false gods and Satan's lies abound. God is not willing that anyone should perish but that all should come to repentance. But he allows people to rebel until the appointed time when he will judge them once and for all... and Satan will be locked away forever.

The spiritual battle over souls is a real battle, Satan isn't working for God, he's trying to work against him, but God will use even his evil actions for good. The important thing from our perspective is to wake up and realize that the satan is real. He's not us, he's not some imaginary being. Most people are sleeping, and allowing him to rule their lives.

 

[RestlessSoul]

"The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
Revelation 12:9, NIV:
​

Its a difficult thing to understand. Why was this Satan character was allowed to deceive so many and for so long? Some say it was forseen before the foundation of the world! How could he take down others in the celestial world? Clearly he had more powers and authority than a mere rebellious cherub? He is even given the tile "God of this world"? Isn't there only One God?

From the previously fallen "crafty beast" (already evil when he met with Eve) to the reawakening for another reign of deception, evil and destruction after a 1,000 year detention, this devil figure has been tolerated on high! Throughout the Old Testament the devil lives on while sooooo many were killed! In the flood story all the world is drown except Noah and his inlaws, everything on earth killed! But Satan lives on???

​

Revelation 20:1-3

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

7 Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. 9 They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. 10 The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

I'm curios how others treat this issue?

I think John Milton treated the issue better than just about any other Christian thinker has done, and would recommend Paradise Lost to anyone with an interest in poetry and Biblical theology.

I’m not sure Milton succeeded in his declared ambition to “Justify the ways of God to men”, but he created one of the great masterpieces of English literature in the attempt. Milton had lost his sight when he wrote his epic, but he wasn’t blind to the paradox and contradiction in the story, nor lacking in compassion for the fallen angel, who is also synonymous with the human ego.

I would also recommend Soviet era novelist Mikhael Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov’s devil shares mastery of this world with Caesar (Stalin). He and his retinue are urbane, cynical, and don’t have to work hard to corrupt a greedy and foolish humanity. In the end though, Bulgakov’s devil serves the light; he takes his orders from Yeshua Ha Nosri, when it comes to deciding the fate of souls in the next world. There’s a great passage in the novel where Wolpert - that’s the devil’s name - asks Saint Matthew to imagine a world without shadows; he asks Matthew if he would cut down every tree, for even a tree casts a shadow, and light and dark must co-exist or there would be no beauty and no world.

 

[paarsurrey]

paarsurrey said: ↑
" Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20:1-3 "

The friends here just to keep in mind that the above verses "Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20:1-3 " are not from Jesus, please. Right?

The Catholics, Protestants and Messianic Israelites have published Red Letter Bibles* in these Bibles they have colored in red letters all the stuff that is supposedly/tentatively and or that which might have been said by (Jesus) Yeshua- the Israelite Messiah, one gets to know, please. Right?
The above verses have not been colored in red in them, please. Right?
____________
*Holy Bible King James Version (Red Letter Edition)
The Roman Catholic Holy Bible with the words of Jesus in red.
World Messianic Bible

I'm referring to the commonly accepted Bible and Christian theology.

" commonly accepted Bible and Christian theology "

Did Yeshua accept this "commonly "accepted Bible and Christian theology, please? Right?
If yes, then kindly quote from Yeshua in this connection, please. Right?

Regards

 

[PureX]

I agree that many of these Bible characters and stories are symbolic and not to be interpreted literally. I see many Christians struggle to make sense of a literal interpretation of the Bible, and it just isn't doable.

It's obvious that believers are adoting an interpretation and trying to justify it in their own minds. The title of the thread is a bit ironic as I suggest Christianity is allowed to fool believers with these fantastic stories.

Mythical stories tend to be based on actual people or events, but then greatly embellished and exaggerated to help the listener see the 'lesson' or ideal that the myth exists to represent. Ancient Judaic mythology is particularly interesting in that it was not only intended to represent a social/religious ideal, but to represent the inexplicable nature of the ideal. And the story of Job is a good example of this. Men would gather together and read these stories and then discussed them, and debate them, and puzzle over them. And their mythical stories were designed for that purpose. Everyone has met, or has felt themselves to be in Job's predicament at some time in life, and couldn't understand why these things are happening to them. Why God is seemingly "punishing" them when they have done no wrong. Or is allowing Satan to do so. And we really have no clear answer for this in the story. It's one of the many things about the "living God" that was difficult for those old Jews to recon with. And for Jews and Christians alike to recon with, even today. We just don't have an answer for why good, God-fearing men and women are made to suffer at the hands of bad men (Satan). All we can do is to have faith in the face of it, and trust that being the good man will somehow be rewarded in the end. Even if we can't see how, now.

I think this message still comes across when people take the story very literally, but I also think the people that do that are trying to skate around that inexplicable nature of the old Jewish God. That God that so often did things and demanded things of them that they could not understand and that didn't seem fair or reasonable. And that's unfortunate, because that was specifically what the ancient Jews that created those stories intended their people to face, and to accept.

 

[Sand Dancer]

It's the Bible that depicts Satan or the devil or the crafty beast and even God as a personality reality not a stretched interpretation.

The Satan character, like most religious characters, has gone through transformations through history, depending on what the previous view was. Some of the previous stories are reflected in following religious stories but with a little bit of a twist.

 

[PureX]

Too dim, eh!
If I've decided that Satan doesn't exist, then doesn't that mean that I've pondered its existence?
But I'm obviously too dim to understand that.

If you think Satan doesn't exist then you're exactly as dim as those who think "he" does exist and is some sort of shape-shifting demon looking to steal your soul. Both too bamboozled by the representation to recognize the content.

 

[Altfish]

If you think Satan doesn't exist then you're exactly as dim as those who think "he" does exist and is some sort of shape-shifting demon looking to steal your soul. Both too bamboozled by the representation to recognize the content.

I'll take the risk.
Dim sounds the best option in this case

 

[Father Heathen]

I see, so Siddhartha Gautama was not a real person, but a fictional character perpetuated by fools?

The difference is that historical evidence for his existence actually exists.

 

[Fool]

"The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
Revelation 12:9, NIV:
​

Its a difficult thing to understand. Why was this Satan character was allowed to deceive so many and for so long? Some say it was forseen before the foundation of the world! How could he take down others in the celestial world? Clearly he had more powers and authority than a mere rebellious cherub? He is even given the tile "God of this world"? Isn't there only One God?

From the previously fallen "crafty beast" (already evil when he met with Eve) to the reawakening for another reign of deception, evil and destruction after a 1,000 year detention, this devil figure has been tolerated on high! Throughout the Old Testament the devil lives on while sooooo many were killed! In the flood story all the world is drown except Noah and his inlaws, everything on earth killed! But Satan lives on???

​

Revelation 20:1-3

20 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.

7 Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. 9 They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. 10 The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

I'm curios how others treat this issue?

Cayce Interpretation: What was the final salvation of the bodily, mental, and spiritual forces described within John, now are shown to take place in collective humanity. When humanity recognizes the divinity within them as the controlling force in the world, and turns away from their own selfish pattern of living for self alone, the old pattern disappears and the Christ pattern emerges. John is told that the merging of the evolved self with the divine superconscious, which has taken place in John, must also take place in all humanity (Revelation 19:7). The fulfilled pattern of evolved humanity, the Christ (i.e., superconscious mind), is now shown in a position of power (the so-called “second coming of Christ”). Now the archetype of humanity’s continual rebellions, the self-willed intellect symbolized as the “devil“, is confined for a time in the collective unconscious mind. During this period of one thousand years (the 1,000 year reign of Christ on Earth), only the evolved souls will be permitted to incarnate the Earth (Revelation 20:4). At the end of this period, the remaining souls begin to incarnate, bringing with them their unsatisfied ambitions and desires. This, of course, brings about the former conditions of imbalance (wars and plagues). These conditions, all man-made, are now themselves eliminated and all mental forms and patterns not formed by divine will are purged (Revelation 20:14). The “new heaven and new Earth” John sees is humanity’s perfected state of consciousness and regenerated body. The human mind at this point is now one with the divine in the perfection of control and is free from outside limitations. The human conscious mind merges with the superconscious mind. John states that if anyone adds or takes away from this book, that person will experience the plagues in this book. The book is the body, which is the vehicle for human experience in the world. Through it, the lessons of the soul are learned. There can be no shortcuts or meanderings without dire consequences to the body.

 

[Colt]

The difference is that historical evidence for his existence actually exists.

Not really.

 

[Father Heathen]

Not really.

Willful ignorance. Shameful.

 

[Colt]

Willful ignorance. Shameful.

There is no more “proof” of Buddha than Jesus. Atheists are often contrarian for the sake of arguing. IMOP

 

[syo]

"The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
Revelation 12:9, NIV:

And that's bad, because...

 

[Father Heathen]

There is no more “proof” of Buddha than Jesus. Atheists are often contrarian for the sake of arguing. IMOP

I'm going to have to side with the actual historians on this one. Sorry. It has nothing to do with atheism and everything to do with evidence, which cannot be washed away by your tears.

 

[Colt]

I'm going to have to side with the actual historians on this one. Sorry. It has nothing to do with atheism and everything to do with evidence, which cannot be washed away by your tears.

You can start your own thread about proving Buddha’s existence.

 

[Colt]

And that's bad, because...

Satan was allowed to mislead the world and sustained in power while millions were purportedly destroyed for their wickedness. Satan is put away but then brought back to mislead more people.