Following up on my last post I’d like to suggest another video from Leah Libresco that perhaps should be required viewing here.
Not only is it relevant to every conversation we have here but it is related to Turing Tests something that I find fascinating and important for “my Game” if I ever get around to it.
Here is a link for the corresponding Ideological Turing Test
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological-turing-test-contest
What do you think? Should we come up with some questions surrounding Intelligent Design?
peace
No, “Satanic” deity would be a misnomer. Satan is pretty mild compared to God depending on how you read things.
This actually brings up a funny tangent. If you read the bible, Satan never actually does anything most people would consider evil. He doesn’t rape, murder, send plagues, kill newborns, fornicate, or even enslave anyone. The one crime Satan gets accursed of repeatedly is lying, but there’s really no instance in the bible of him outright lying.
Let’s take one example. There’s some disagreement among scholars that the Serpent in The Garden was actually a reference to Satan. Most Jewish scholars say no, insisting instead that the Serpent represents man’s desires. But let’s go with the Serpent being Satan anyway. What’s He do? He poses a series of questions to Eve to get her to think about God’s instructions in a different light. You can’t even say that he lies; he’s engaging in mischief sure and arguably intends to mislead A&E, but hardly engages in anything really EVIIIIL.
What about the story of Job? Now here Satan is pretty nasty. But everything he does to Job is done with the expressed permission of God in the first place. So really…who’s the evil one there?
Beyond that he tries tempting Jesus to embrace his superhero capabilities, but doesn’t do anything particularly evil there either.
All we really know about the guy is that he runs hell, but why does he get a bad rap for that? He didn’t create hell, he didn’t choose to run it, and he’s not in charge of who goes there either. In theory, the folks who go there are there because Heaven shunned them in the first place, so presumably the stuff that happens in hell is sanctioned up the chain of command.
Honestly, I don’t get the whole “Satan is the ultimate evil” association. Seems to me the guys just a scapegoat for the real Big Bad.
Have you seen the “Good Guy Lucifer” memes? One appropriate to your comment is:
Maybe they’ll be useful for getting through to people who think scientific theories should fit on postage stamps.
Oh yeah! From the Lucifer comic (on which the fun little guilty pleasure of show is based)! Yes, I’m a big fan!
Robin,
I never did understand Satan’s motivations for torturing people in Hell. You’d think that he would instead reward them for doing bad things by making Hell a really nice place.
Interesting to contemplate why Christians also refer to Satan as Lucifer. “Lucifer” is a Roman name for the Morning Star (Venus) and means “Bringer of Light”. So Satan is the Bringer of Light? Hmm. ‘Tis a puzzlement…
sean s.
Now we know why you teach evolution.
Glen Davidson
Yes, it must be in order to make sure I get to Hell (though there are much better-paid ways to get there). Mark Twain said that he didn’t want to go to Heaven because all the most unpleasant people he knew were sure they were going there.
I’m with you on that.
I think it’s a contractual thing though; part and parcel to get the gig of Lord of Hell. He’s responsible for maintaining hell as a “hellish place”, which means of course managing the “elements of justice” (so to speak) administered to the “wicked people” who are sent their as punishment (or at least judgement) for whatever transgressions got them booted or barred from the more restful/satisfying afterlife locales.
Course, based on my research, I’m not sure (and rather not convinced) that Satan does any of the actual torturing himself. I think he doles out those jobs to all manner of lesser imps and demons (and likely a few Eldritch Abominations and “older and fouler things…in the deep places of the world” (if you know what I mean).
Course there’s always the question of whether Satan gets anything out of people going to hell. I’ve heard some folks’ theories regarding Satan misleading people into committing sin and then recruiting/converting them in hell into army to ultimately lay siege on heaven and earth, but this seems like a half-assed approach to me. I mean really…would you go up against God and the host of heaven with the lowest common denominator of humanity? That seems to me like a recipe for failure. But what do I know…
I’ve also heard the theory that Satan and certain other fallen angels actual feed off the souls of the damned and gain not just some version of energy, but immense pleasure from the consumption as well. Now THAT makes a little more sense to me if we’re going to entertain the idea that hell is an awful place and that Satan really is something to loath. But who knows.
According to the bible, Satan was Lucifer until God gave him (Lucifer) the name Satan after he (Lucifer) rebelled. Basically the story goes that Lucifer was God’s right-hand…uh…angelic general (or at least, COO), but Lucifer was tired of playing second fiddle and wanted to be God. That didn’t play, so God cast Lucifer out of the heavenly host and renamed Lucifer “Safan”, meaning “Adversary”.
Bunch of alpha male horn bashing.
Twain was concerned that all that singing and harp playing by people he knew to be tone-deaf would make an awful racket.
I actually like that kind of cacophony and am afraid I might not find it there!
That’s nothing. Want to know what is really miraculous? At any point of disagreement between the Koran and the Bible, the Bible has been changed by nasty people like Jews and Christians.
ETA: And the Koran restores the true meaning.
Yeah, we’ve learned how to determine empirically what is not impossible, and therefore, what is possible. LoL.
My own experience here has been that what we have here at TSZ is a particularly Anti-Christian membership. Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim, not so much.
What is rejected is a particular sort of theism. Perhaps the anti-theists are just ignorant.
Not really.
Aloha Snackbar!
Nothing anti-Christian here. I’m also not anti-muslim or anti-Jewish.
What I am, is anti-bullshit. Unfortunately, there’s lots of bullshit out there — among Christians, Muslims and Jews (and probably other religions). For that matter, there’s also a lot of atheist bullshit.
ID is bullshit. In principle, it need not be. But the ID proponents have made it bullshit.
If we had Jews and Muslims of the caliber of fifthmonarchyman, Gregory, and your good self participating here, I’m sure you’d see those views countered as well.
I suspect it’s more that the various Christian sects are more of a threat to secular values in the U.S. so they get discussed here more than other religions. I hear that Frankie is a Muslim, perhaps you could invite him to discuss his theology.
Fair enough. But aside from your position seemingly being contradictory with the bible’s claim that “with God all things are possible”, it does mean your bible is nothing but fiction; no actual dead raising, no healing, no walking on water, no feeding the 5000, no casting out demons, and so forth. Perhaps those references are all metaphorical. I’m good with that, but I’m betting you’re not.
Which means they didn’t happen as described. Fine by me. However you wish to rationalize “no violation of natural law” is great by me; it’s the claim of miracles and the violation of physics that makes it fantasy to me.
It is. By definition. Apparently you don’t understand why organisms die and why they don’t come “back to life” once they get there. Perhaps you need to take some courses on entropy and thermal energy states. Basically, cell structures build up by-products and get damaged as they move energy around. Once they get to the point where moving energy costs more than the energy to maintain the cell, the cell stops working autonomously. And alas, replacing cells is costly and time consuming, and eventually the pathways to keep life support systems intact just become too unstable. There’s no reversing that.
So yeah, physical resurrection is by definition impossible. Again, you want to run with the story being metaphorical, I’m all for it.
LOL! Funny how few examples of this “perfectly natural and predicable occurrence” there are…
ETA: So to sum up: you can’t seem to provide a contradiction with Allah and your god’s actions are currently limited to being metaphors. Tssssk…not looking good for your line of arguing right now…
You’re so full of shit Neil.