Talk:Satan
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Misc
is it possible that Jesus and Satan are the same conflicted being? no!
- He is, therefore, the celestial prosecutor, who sees only iniquity; for he persists in his evil opinion of Job even after he has passed successfully through his first trial by surrendering to the will of God, whereupon Satan demands another test through physical suffering (Job 2:3-5).
- Modified this part of "Satan as an acuser" as "evil" is not a neutral word, and directly contradictions the concept of "Satan as an acuser" of the devine council.
Indefual 14:28, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)
On Nov 29 2001, Balanone revised the last paragraph from
- Satan is worshipped by (so-called) satanists; they disagree however on what Satan is: some claim he is a real being while others believe he is a mere symbol? for the animal desires of humans.
to:
- It is often supposed that Satan is worshipped by satanists. As discussed in more depth within the article on Satanism, there may be some called satanists who do worship Satan, but that many others do not. Some satanists will claim he is a real being; others view him as a symbol? for the animal desires of humans; still others view him as a symbol for the rebellious or independent aspects of humanity.
RK then rewrote this to the paragraph below, asking, "Why accuse Satanists of lying about their beliefs? If they say they worship Satan, then they worship Satan. Calling them liars is NOT a neutral point of view."
- Satan is worshipped by Satanists. Some satanists claim Satan is a real being; others view him as a symbol? for the animal desires of humans; still others view him as a symbol for the rebellious or independent aspects of humanity.
Would this be a better compromise?
- It is often supposed that Satan is worshipped by satanists. As discussed in more depth within the article on Satanism, some of those who call themselves satanists worship Satan, but many others who also call themselves satanists do not. Some satanists will claim he is a real being; others view him as a symbol for the animal desires of humans; still others view him as a symbol for the rebellious or independent aspects of humanity.
The current article contains the suggestion that the story of Lucifer falling from heaven is influence of Milton's Paradise Lost. I don't know for certain, but I doubt that this is true. As I understand it, this belief is based on interpretations of (admittedly somewhat obscure) passages in Revelation and Isaiah; interpretations that date back to the early church. Milton, rather than being a source of this story, merely expressed it in poetry. -- Simon J Kissane
You're correct Simon. Revelation 12:7 - 8 (NIV)
- And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 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. -- Stephen Gilbert
re: "In a few neopagan religions, Satan is merely seen as a symbolic representation of humanity's collectively evil ways. "
Not true. Neopaganism teaches that we are naturally good, not evil. There is no concept of hell, satan, or sin. --Dmerrill
You are comfortable speaking for all neopagans here?
There is a need for more discussion hee of past examples of Christians identifying those who reject Christian beliefs, values, and practices as "Satanists" even though those people never claimed to worship Satan. I am not refering to contemporary neo-pagans, but to non-Western societies under European colonial occupation, and non Christians in the early middle ages (I am not refering to Jews but to other Europeans). I have heard from enough sources that this has occured to believe it, but I am no expert and hope that other Wikipedians can fill this out, SR
Removed this: "(Interestingly, scientists have discovered that primitive snakes did indeed have legs.)"
sure, snakes evolved from lizards around 100M years ago and there were transitional forms. But it is a non-sequitur in this context. clasqm
I took another stab at the last paragraph. My main objective was to get rid of this phrase,
- Satan is thought to be worshipped by Satanists
My objection is to the passive voice, which not only (in my personal opinion) sounds pompous, but more importantly is unclear. In this context, it is especially important to specify WHO thinks Satanists worship Satan. I do not knw the historical literature well enough and hopeothers will develop this. But I do know that many accounts of "satanists worshiping Satan" were written by Christian authorities, and it is far, far from certain that the people in question actually identified themselves as Satanists, or whether they were actually worshiping Satan. SR
- Of course I don't know which accounts or which Christian authorities you may be referring to, but I think you may be misunderstanding what many Christian writers have called Satan worship. Any form of idolatry, or worship of other gods (such as the Greek or Egyptian pantheons) was often blamed on Satan simply because Satan is known as the father of lies, and the worship of false gods was called the result of Satan's deception. This isn't quite the same as accusing the heathen greeks of directly worshipping Satan himself, even if some writers enthusiastically said that the worship of Zeus for instance was actually the worship of Satan. In the Orthodox rite of baptism, which serves as a rite of initiation into the Church, one of the very first parts of the liturgy is to renounce Satan and the world, turning to worship God. This doesn't mean the Orthodox think that every convert is a former Satanist, but that every convert was formerly deceived in some way. I think that the Catholic and many Protestant baptismal services have a similar renunciation of the devil in their services as well, though I'm not certain. At various times, heretics may have been accused of Satanism or similar language used, simply because they were thought to be spreading lies, which may have been thought to have originated with Satan.
- Are these the sorts of accounts you were referring to, or were you thinking of something quite different? At any rate, I think the new text could use a tiny bit more precision. Wesley
- Wesley, I welcome your help in revising my recent change in order to make it more precise. I only ask that we maintain NPOV. I understand why Christians might think of non-Christian beliefs and practices as "satan worship." But it is crucial that we distinguish between what one group of outside observers claim, what other outside observers might claim (non-Christians would not identify any form of idolatry such as ancient Greek or Egyptian pantheons as satan worship), and what the people themselves (e.g. ancient Greeks or Egyptians) claim. This is my main concern.
- I entirely agree that these distinctions should be maintained. Wesley
- I do understand the distinction you make. Be that as it may, there is some evidence that medieval witchcraft was not (originally, at least) Satan worship in the eyes of medieval witches, but was nevertheless identified as satan worship by the Church. I also know of examples of Christian missionaries who have identified local religions in South America and Africa as "Satan worship" even though the people in Africa and Suuth America didn't see it that way.
- I won't dispute either of these examples. Perhaps they should be identified, instead of the vague reference to "Christian authorities"? Wesley
- I know there are two other phenomena this article should address: people who worship the devil or Satan but who do not share Christian's understanding of what/who the devil is (I think the article already acknowledges this), and also people today who do worship the same Satan that Christians abhor (I actually do not know if this happens, but the article suggests it does and I think could benefit from more detail).
- I don't know if there are such people either. I do know there was a professed evangelical Christian, Mike Warnke, who published a once-popular book in the seventies or early eighties called Satan Seller, in which he claimed to have been a Satanist High Priest, described his experiences as such and his later conversion to Christianity. Some time in the late eighties he was exposed as a complete fraud. I think his book and concert sales have dropped off considerably since then. :-/ Wesley
- As you say, it could be more precise. But the contribution I recently made comes pretty close to the limits of my own knowledge, SR
about the line: "One novel view is that Satan will be restored in the last days and become a good angel again."
could someone provide a reference to where this view comes from? JFQ
- Wesley, thanks for remembering that the "novel view" came from the Unification Church. That was one of my earliest contributions, but it was a bit vague, eh? I've included an external link to Lucifer, A Criminal Against Humanity (http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/books/lcah/0-toc.htm), which includes what UC members generally accept as Satan's confession (I doubt any other church gives it any credence, of course). --Ed Poor
- No problem. Thanks for the external link. Just skimmed a couple of sections, and it's certainly interesting. Wesley
The article provides a Hebrew and a Greek derivation for the word. It is my understanding that the word is Hebrew, it entered Greek from Hebrew, and is no more a Greek word than it is an English word. Is there any expert on the history of Greek out there who knows more about this? Slrubenstein
- The Greek forms of satan and satanas are merely borrowings from the respective Hebrew and Aramaic words, so I put those forms instead. -- Stephen C. Carlson
- isn't the Hebrew word "shaitan", and shouldn't that word be used for the "adversary" concept from the Torah, i.e. in the Book of Job? This concept is VERY different from the idea of Satan in Christianity. See "Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels for the whole history of evolution of this concept.
No. Shaitan is the Arabic spelling of Satan. شيطان for those of you who can read Arabic. ---Chiramabi
Rachelle
I removed the additional name "Rachelle". I can't find any corroboration for it. I'm very suspicious to see a modern girl's name in the list of appelations of the devil. If I was oversuspicious, please replace. --ESP 00:54, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
History and Development of Satan
Better to begin with the history and development of Satan before you get to depictions of Satan in the movies. Eliminate all passive voice of nonattribution. Get your dates attached to your documents (ca 150 A.D.-- like that). Use more quotes. There is no satan in paganism, that's a Christian and post-Christian fantasy. Leave the movies and video game images for the end. Forget "Apocrypha:" give books their names and dates. How can you discuss O.T. Satan without dividing your discussion into pre- and post-Exilic notions. What about Persia? "Apocrypha" is a historical development in itself and incompatible with NPOV, right? Get a format here where people who have some hard facts can hang them on something. Wetman 02:26, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Dispute over introductory paragraph re origin of Satan.
The first paragraph states regarding Satan:
In the Hebrew Bible, Satan is an angel that God utilizes to test man for various reasons usually dealing with his level of piety (i.e. the test of Adam and Eve in Genesis, and the Book of Job). In the Apocrypha and New Testament, Satan is portrayed as an evil, rebellious demon who is the enemy of God and mankind.
From my knowledge of the Bible and various religion's interpretations of such, I would say that statement presented one of several different interpretations of who or what Satan is/represents in the Bible.
In addition, the paragraph implies that the Satan of the Old Testament is different to the Satan of the New Testament, which isn't a view many religions share. Perhaps the paragraph could be rewritten to present a more multilateral explanation.
--ClintonDaniel 06:06, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Revelation 12 and the Hebrew Bible
If Satan is a servant of god, and Michael is also, then why do Micahel and Satan fight each other? Is Revelation 12 the same in the Hebrew Bible? --Rebroad 20:38, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- The Hebrew Bible is a neutral-ish term for what Christians call the Old Testament, and Jews call the Tanakh. It does not include the Revelation of St. John, which is the final book of the Christian New Testament. --FOo 21:24, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yom Kippur influence of Satan
The page says "On the Day of Atonement his power vanishes; for the numerical value of the letters of his name (gematria and Hebrew numerals) is only 364, one day being thus exempt from his influence (Yoma 20a)." but the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar and does not have 365 days. What's up with that?
A Satanist vestige?
Why at the ens of the section "Images of Satan" there stands 2Hail Satan" and a Satanist symbol depicted? Andres 08:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Satan in Powerpuff Girls
The following piece of text was removed by User:Marcus2 from the section Satan#Satan in entertainment media. His edition summary was: "not relevant or notable enough to the article; please don't revert again". If you have an opinion about this, please add your comments. I feel there should be at least a mention about The Powerpuff Girls, if not a full description. Feel free to reorganize the entertainment section, as it currently is in a poor state.
- Cartoon Network's ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' mildly depicts Satan as the cheerfully evil, red-skinned, cross-dressing demon simply referred to as "Him".
Wipe 18:32, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
origin of satan
i would like a discussion about when and why satan was invented.
Satan's Fall to Earth
I (--Wasabe3543 16:40, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)) deleted this section because it contains raving nonsense as follows:
Satan's Fall to Earth
- Research into spiritual matters using archeological precepts has been enhanced by the availability of powerful internet search engines. Very interesting and profound discoveries which also reveal the existence and physical nature of Satan have been made. These possibilities were previously abandoned or not considered due to its overwhelming nature previous to the advent of the Internet. The more popularly held views of Satan are excluded in favor of a truly literal and biblical method which, abandons the deeply entrenched traditional views reinforced by the media using both spiritual and secular repetition, inculcated into the gullible and unwary youth through the education systems of todays western world and then once again regurgitated through encylopedic policy. In this way the entire world has easily been misled and deceived. The scriptures themselves provide evidence that the entire world will be deceived as a consequence of Satan's "Fall to Earth":
Revelation 12:9
9And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent, he who is called Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole habitable world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Availability of Powerful Internet Research Tools Identify Satan (http://ablebodiedman.blogspot.com/2004/10/while-researching-something-entirely.html)
Satan in Genesis
The intro paragraph currently gives Genesis as an example of a place in the Hebrew scriptures/OT that God uses Satan to test humans. However, Genesis merely refers to the "serpent," not Satan, and that text is pretty clear that the serpent is merely one of its species rather than Satan-the-angel (otherwise the "Just So Stories" curse upon all of serpent-kind to slither in the dirt makes little sense). Ignoring of course POV religious retcons, is there something in the original Hebrew of the original source(s) of Genesis that suggests that this serpent is Satan, or was it just a talking snake as it clearly appears to be in the English translations? Additionally, what in Genesis indicates that God was testing humans? Job was explicitly expressed as a test—a bet, in fact, between God and Satan, but in Genesis, it doesn't appear that God was trying to see what humans would do, but rather that he just expected that they would obey. Postdlf 07:42, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)