My preference is knowledge.
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What are demons and Satan?
- Thread starter Unveiled Artist
- Start date
My preference is knowledge.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
...or to shake of responsabilities because they needed an excuse for the reprehensible things they did.
Force in the sense that even humans have a spirit a force.
In the Greek:
- a spirit, i.e. a simple essence, devoid of all or at least all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting
- a life giving spirit
- a human soul that has left the body
- a spirit higher than man but lower than God, i.e. an angel
- used of demons, or evil spirits, who were conceived as inhabiting the bodies of men
- the spiritual nature of Christ, higher than the highest angels and equal to God, the divine nature of Christ
- the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one
- the efficient source of any power, affection, emotion, desire, etc.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Is that Baha'i religion "preference"?
Example, I know God is my works through me cause god shown me through his phophecy and experiences (knowledge)
I have or put trust faith/trust/hope that god works through me. I can't say that I know; knowledge (different than science) isnt what I base my faith on.
I don't know. I have faith.
I have faith in God because I don't know he exists without it.
I know God exist so it's not based on hope, but actual fact.
Science isnt part of it. I'm asking about Baha'i religion belief. I tried looking it up but it kept talking about science and religion.
Is god etc fact or someone you believe to be true but Don know it is.
Of course you can have faith in God and it won't conflict with science. This is not that question.
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I tried looking it up. I got mostly faith and science. Maybe looking at various testimonies and see what people have in common.
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Physical energy?
Soul, spirit, essence are foreign words. When I think of soul, I think mind and the seat of our emotions.
When I think spirit I think like the sun, it is our energy. What keeps our body pumping. Another perspective is it's the breathe and passion. The experience of our actions.
Essence?
Pastek
Sunni muslim
In Islam Satan is called "Iblis" and he is a djinn and more precisely a demon called "shaytan".
He is not an angel but he had the rank of an angel during a certain time.
In Islam djinns have free will and angels don't. So there's no "fallen angels".
Demons are called "djinns" but there's different sorts. We believe some are bad but not all.
When they are bad then they are called "shayateen" = demons
You have for exemple "ghoul" which is a sort of demon (shaytan) (a bad djinn).
So basically they live with us. All the haunting houses ghosts, possessions, supernatural experiences, all of that is just djinns messing around.
Satan (Iblis) is just their "chief" and some are his offsprings.
nPeace
Veteran Member
No.
According to the definition a ghost is an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.
No.
According to the Bible a demon and Satan are not symbolic representations.
For example, at Revelation 12:7-10, symbolism is used to describe Satan like a dragon, likely describing his ferocious behavior. However, noteworthy is the fact that the Bible says he has angels, thus confirming he is leading angel over them.
Deity - a god or goddess (in a polytheistic religion). ; divine (of, from, or like God or a god.) status, quality, or nature.
A god (not referring to those that people carve) is a mighty one. It is an entity holding some level of power.
So throughout the ages, men were considered to be gods, either because they were imagined to be really, really powerful, or they were.
Celebrities are revered as gods, because of their imagined superior status.
The true God, however, as described in the Bible, is not a man, but a higher being, in nature, in power, in position, in quality or status, in substance, etc.
Satan too, is not a human, but is a higher being, only not to the level of the true God.
So yes. Satan is a god, hence a deity.
No.
A force is not a being, having intelligence, and qualities of that nature.
No. Definitely not.
I don't see how anyone can fit that idea in scripture.
Yes. The Bible makes clear Satan's motives, and tactics. It reveals his nature. (John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 2:11)
Satan is a spirit being. A spirit being is basically a form of life, of a higher substance than ours.
Think of the different forms of matter and energy, you can, and just consider that there are other forms that man has no knowledge of.
For example, the hypothetical Dark Matter, is said to be invisible, and unaffected by physical matter. In other words, it will pass through physical matter, or vice versa.
These things are not hard to understand, however, there are things our minds will not be able to fathom, due to the fact that we are a lower, and limited life.
Just look at nature, and you should see that.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
No.
According to the definition a ghost is an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.
No.
According to the Bible a demon and Satan are not symbolic representations.
For example, at Revelation 12:7-10, symbolism is used to describe Satan like a dragon, likely describing his ferocious behavior. However, noteworthy is the fact that the Bible says he has angels, thus confirming he is leading angel over them.
Deity - a god or goddess (in a polytheistic religion). ; divine (of, from, or like God or a god.) status, quality, or nature.
A god (not referring to those that people carve) is a mighty one. It is an entity holding some level of power.
So throughout the ages, men were considered to be gods, either because they were imagined to be really, really powerful, or they were.
Celebrities are revered as gods, because of their imagined superior status.
The true God, however, as described in the Bible, is not a man, but a higher being, in nature, in power, in position, in quality or status, in substance, etc.
Satan too, is not a human, but is a higher being, only not to the level of the true God.
So yes. Satan is a god, hence a deity.
No.
A force is not a being, having intelligence, and qualities of that nature.
No. Definitely not.
I don't see how anyone can fit that idea in scripture.
Yes. The Bible makes clear Satan's motives, and tactics. It reveals his nature. (John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 2:11)
Satan is a spirit being. A spirit being is basically a form of life, of a higher substance than ours.
Think of the different forms of matter and energy, you can, and just consider that there are other forms that man has no knowledge of.
For example, the hypothetical Dark Matter, is said to be invisible, and unaffected by physical matter. In other words, it will pass through physical matter, or vice versa.
These things are not hard to understand, however, there are things our minds will not be able to fathom, due to the fact that we are a lower, and limited life.
Just look at nature, and you should see that.
Thank you!
I will need to come back late to make reread it to comment but it sounds interesting.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Interesting.
How can you tell the difference between dragons being symbolism or real things in reality just as you and I?
You've lost me with higher being. Reading below.
True. In the general sense of the term. A force can be the feeling of love or being loved.
Some say god is love. That's how it relates.
Yes. There are things in our minds that we don't understand. How do you associate that with "energy" of satan?
Energy is neutral. It doesn't have feelings, motives, sex, and it isn't higher and lower. It's just unknown to us.
Are these attributes given to the unknown to understand its relationship with the living?
Kind of like giving dark matter a personality?
How can you tell the difference between dragons being symbolism or real things in reality just as you and I?
You've lost me with higher being. Reading below.
True. In the general sense of the term. A force can be the feeling of love or being loved.
Some say god is love. That's how it relates.
Yes. There are things in our minds that we don't understand. How do you associate that with "energy" of satan?
Energy is neutral. It doesn't have feelings, motives, sex, and it isn't higher and lower. It's just unknown to us.
Are these attributes given to the unknown to understand its relationship with the living?
Kind of like giving dark matter a personality?
I think they are like attitudes.
nPeace
Veteran Member
I'm using the Bible, so I am not sure if you have something else in mind.
However, is Revelation, most of the language is symbolic. We know this by what the book itself says in its opening words - Revelation 1:1
There are some things that are straight forward, and even a child can grasp it. Some things just require basic understand. Some require using the scriptures in their entirety. Some require more than some people will ever have, but that's not something we need to get into right now.
Revelation 12:1, 2 Then a great sign was seen in heaven: A woman was arrayed with the sun, and the moon was beneath her feet, and on her head was a crown of 12 stars, and she was pregnant. And she was crying out in her pains and in her agony to give birth.
The text does not require us to guess if this is symbolic. It directly says so - "a great sign was seen in heaven".
The woman, the sun, the moon, her feet, her head, the crown, the 12 stars, her pregnancy, her cries in pains... all are symbolic representation of something.
What? We use other scriptures to find out.
The next verse, starts..."Another sign was seen in heaven". So the related verses are symbolic.
Revelation 12
3 Another sign was seen in heaven. Look! A great fiery-colored dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and on its heads seven diadems; 4 and its tail drags a third of the stars of heaven, and it hurled them down to the earth. And the dragon kept standing before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth, it might devour her child.
Here we see the dragon is mentioned. It is a symbolic representation of something. So are its seven heads, ten horns, diadems, tail, third of the stars of heaven, and the earth.
The woman's child too is symbolic, since her pregnancy is symbolic.
Revelation 12:5, 6 - same symbolism.
5 And she gave birth to a son, a male, who is to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod. And her child was snatched away to God and to his throne. 6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God and where they would feed her for 1,260 days.
Notice however, the difference in the next verses - Revelation 12:7-12
Here is where we use basic understanding and scriptures.
This is not a sign being seen, but a real event taking place. It's easy to see.
The only thing we noticed related to any symbolism, is where the verse reveals what the dragon symbolizes, and by logic and reason - the stars it drags with its tail.
(Revelation 12:7-9)
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.
First, the verses reveal the location, and the event taking place - a war in heaven, and a battle between Michael - which other scriptures identify as the archangel (chief of the angels) - and his angels, against the dragon, and his angels (which the Bible describes as demons). Thus it is revealed that the dragon has angels.
Second, the verse reveals, what the dragon symbolizes - the original serpent, the one called Devil, and Satan.
Who is this one?
I'm sure any child who has read the Bible can answer this, not because it is drilled in their head, but by basic understand and use of scripture.
The original serpent - Genesis 3:1
It's identity is confirmed here in Revelation 12:9, but even before that, by Jesus (John 8:44), and by Paul (2 Corinthians 11:3)
So we have a clear confirmation in scripture, that the symbolic dragon represents the chief angel that rebelled against God. That angel got those names as a representation of his actions. Satan means resister, or opposer, and Devil means slanderer.
Here, the Bible has not identified what the woman symbolizes, but using the same approach here, we can learn what she represents, as well as other symbolism.
Some say love is blind, so I guess that means love has eyes, but they probably have cataracts.
I think sometimes we make the mistake of reading things too literally.... but then too, it's a matter of how we understand what is said.
For example, we read at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, 5 does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. 6 It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
One could read this as though love is an entity that does things.
However, if we understand that the text is describing what love means, we would have the right perspective.
So applying the same understanding to the expression, "God is love", we understand that it is saying that love is not just a quality God possesses, but that it is a quality that is his very essence, or nature.
In other words, God's very character, is love. So that everything he does is driven by, or motivated by love.
I think you are getting it.
I didn't say "energy" of Satan. Perhaps that's what you are thinking.
However, let's use your last question - which is headed in the right direction.
One dictionary describes being as, the nature or essence of a person, and personality is described as, the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.
So as far as our understanding goes, a being is someone with certain characteristics and qualities that make up their personality.
So higher being should give us no trouble to understand, and higher form of life, energy, etc., should not be a problem.
I think you understand.
If it's giving you trouble, just think about the child that looked at his dad lift a brick and said, "I can do that."
Child : "Ump Uhg. Wow dad. How did you do that?"
Having trouble understanding that concept may be more related to heart, than mind.
In other words, we may know something is not improbable, nor may it be impossible, but it may be inadmissible.
My (personal as opposed the Baha'i) preferred modus operandi, especially on a forum such as this is a knowledge based approach. With Faith discussions people often talk past each other and go round in circles. Its better to deal with facts and what we know rather than opinions and speculation.
So when you asked about Satan and demons I offered a 'fact' about Baha'i theology. Baha'is don't believe Satan exists literally and is a symbol for the lower self.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Yeah. I was thinking more of, not something being real or symbolic, type of thing just, I honestly can't think of how to phrase it, more...
I'm asking how confirmed you are in the theology of your religion. Is it based on hope/faith that this is true even though I can't verify it "to myself" or is it based on knowledge-yes I can verify it based on X, Y, Z "regardless of what others believe".
Not facts, proof, and science, symbolism, analogy, whatever, I'm just the foundation of your faith confirmation.
I know every bahai is different. I was just wondering whether bahaullah based his theology on what people believe or what people know.
Is there somewhere I can look it up?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
@adrian009
Another way to put it is. Christianity theology says that one must believe by faith not by sight. That's the foundation of how the theology is-faith without needing the "physical" to prove it.
Even though one christian may say science and christianity are united and the other may say they are not, that doesn't exclude what their theology and bible teaches: one must have faith (what one believes and trust) not knowledge (what one can see and hear) when following christ.
That's christianity.
What about bahai?
Another way to put it is. Christianity theology says that one must believe by faith not by sight. That's the foundation of how the theology is-faith without needing the "physical" to prove it.
Even though one christian may say science and christianity are united and the other may say they are not, that doesn't exclude what their theology and bible teaches: one must have faith (what one believes and trust) not knowledge (what one can see and hear) when following christ.
That's christianity.
What about bahai?
Ask different Baha’is and we will all have something different to say. The spent 8 months reading about the Baha’i Faith and hanging out with Baha’is before I decided to become a member. It just felt like the right thing to do. Not long after I had a dream with Abdul’baha summoning me to join him and leave some of my Christian friends behind. That was one of several experiences I had confirming me in my new found faith. As time has gone on, the Baha’i Faith makes the most sense to me of any of the religions. So first there was a social connection, then a heart connection and then it all intellectually made sense. Everyone comes to it in different ways though.
In a way its like asking what an orange tastes without ever having tasted an orange. Maybe like or a virgin asking what its like to have sex. I know what its like to be a Baha’i for me. To be a member of any faith, you have to do it with your whole being at some point.
One could stand on the edge of a lake and dip their toe in the water but to experience swimming one must eventually become immersed.
Interestingly I couldn’t become fully immersed as a Christian but I could as a Baha’i. I suspect the religion that’s the best fit for you, where you can truly immerse yourself is Buddhism.
nPeace
Veteran Member
"their theology and bible teaches: one must have faith (what one believes and trust) not knowledge (what one can see and hear) when following christ."
That's odd. That's not Christianity?
Theology... Perhaps, maybe. I don't know... but not Christianity.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Is Christianity based on faith?
I know many say don't go by what you see and others say it's not about feelings.
If something is based on knowledge, one can describe God I a way that doesn't depend on personal experiences. The foundation (not saying Christianity has no knowledge trait,) based on knowledge makes "belief" in God mute.
Faith based belief leaves open god being spirit etc. Knowledge based god can be explained by psychology, culture, and neurology.
Can one describe the nature of God depart from religion, culture, and personal experiences?
Knowledge isn't bias
nPeace
Veteran Member
What I understand by "based on" is founded on, and the foundation of Christianity is Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:20-22), and what the scripture say, regarding him.
Without the Christian Greek scriptures, Christianity would never have been. At least that seems evident.
Faith on the other hand, is based or founded on the evidence that the scriptures present the truth about Jesus Christ, and God the father.
(Hebrews 11:1)
It is important to note that there is no one way to define most words, so it is important that we be clear on what we mean, when we use term, so that it doesn't become a case of dogmatically asserting that the word we use does not mean what the other person says it means.
So I will highlight the meaning I am using, as opposed to the meaning you may be using.
Evidence - the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
Knowledge - Wikipedia
Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning.
Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic.
Faith - Wikipedia
Faith, derived from Latin fides and Old French feid, is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, one can define faith as confidence or trust in a particular system of religious belief. Religious people often think of faith as confidence based on a perceived degree of warrant [For example, the evidence is consistent with what we know generally*], while others who are more skeptical of religion tend to think of faith as simply belief without evidence.
Perhaps you can add something more to this, about your views.
However, Faith, from a Biblical perspective, is not blind, but based on, or founded on knowledge.
You can read up on the section Christianity in this link Faith - Wikipedia
Then we can discuss it further if you want to.
If your argument, is that we have never seen Christ, or God, therefore we have faith that they are. Yes, but that can be said of many things we don't see. Have you ever seen your mind, or your conscious being, or your feelings? Do you have faith they exist?
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