Satan Is Alive!

[CityZen-X]

I believe that most of us adhere to the feeling that God is alive! But if we are to believe this, we also must believe that Satan is alive also.
Who in your opinion would exemplify Satan's persona at this time? Or who is the one or group that are fulfilling his machinations?

[mike1963]

1. Well, I don't believe in any supernatural superdoods from either camp.

...
edit: the "dood" spelling was intentional...

[CityZen-X]

2. Then You Don't Believe ....

in right or wrong?

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I think that's stretching it a bit

Fundamentalism requires a God and a Devil, but I'm sure that Good and Evil can function in the absence of mystical personages.

Especially evil.

--bkl

[CityZen-X]

5. Whats So Mystical?

About Ying & Yang? Or should I say positive or negative. That is the crust of my query.

[Dogmudgeon]

33. Mysticism depends on mystery

Good and Evil as personages -- God and the Devil -- are mystical. And, in many of their representations, superstitious.

Yin and Yang, the Dialectic -- that's not mystical, it's an observable dynamic.

--bkl

[dpibel]

37. Crust is for pies

The crux is the heart of the matter.

And do tell, o master of the non sequitur: What manner of being would produce spurious koans?

[lapfog_1]

7. Nah, good still functions too

it's just not remarked upon.

[CityZen-X]

10. The Contrast Of One

Good cannot exist without evil. Just as beauty cannot exist with ugly? Put your belief aside pertaining to a higher power, what I am getting at is right or wrong!

[charlie]

20. Well, yeah

Up is meaningless without down, inside without outside, light without dark. But non-acceptance of the idea of God (or the devil) doesn't mean you're unaware of the good/evil dynamic. It just means you don't believe in a God. Or Satan.

[maggrwaggr]

28. good can certainly exist without evil

it's just difficult to give it the label "good" without the label "bad" also existing.

You're confusing the labels with that which they label.

It is not a zero sum game.

If it were, there would be no progress of any kind. Spiritual or otherwise.

[mike1963]

18. Woah! Please not to ascribe amorality to me because I'm an atheist!

Sure, there's right and wrong but the distinction can only be made by each individual. The concept is innate (to sapient beings, and to a large extent "lesser" ones.) The "golden rule" which is often associated with contemporary religions is a far older concept and was understood (or at least putatively accepted) by just about every species that has ever existed. Hell, it even operates at the low level of the 'food chain' in virtually all cases but it's morally relativistic as all things must be.

Is it ever "right" to steal a loaf of bread? I have heard fundies say "no", but they would deny medical treatment to their children, preferring to leave their fate to "God's will." I can't imagine where any middle ground could exist in this seemingly insoluble situation.

What I -do- think is "right", for example, is equal treatment under the law for every person. What is "wrong" is the lack of that. Ball in yer court.

[CityZen-X]

23. Fundies Call Him Jesus

When the truth is His name is Yashua. But it's all Greek to Fundies and all those who claim to know!

[maggrwaggr]

29. the truth is that he doesn't have a freakin' name

except for the labels that different cultures give him.

[CityZen-X]

24. So Who...

in your opinion is more like Savage, or Hannity, rather than Jimmy Carter?

[mike1963]

31. I don't understand your question.

To me, Savage is .....well, just a savage. Type casting taken to the extreme. Hannity is a malleable moron. Jimmy Carter seems to me to be a decent man (I actually met him once, briefly.)

Are you toking something?

[Kinkistyle]

32. Has Satan ever flooded the globe and killing everything?

Including babies and pregnant women? Does Satan go around first-born children? I mean, what is TRULY right and what is TRULY wrong?

[klyon]

40. Nothing is either right or wrong until looked at

sorry
carry on
KL

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. The concept of good and evil personified in anthropomorphic dieties.....

is an intellectually primitive construct.

There is no more an invisible man that lives in the nether regions and foments ill will than there is an invisible man in charge of everything that lives in the sky.

In short, the Devil is as mythical as any god has ever been.

[CityZen-X]

6. One Hand Is Clapping?

So there is no Left, nor Right?

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. I didn't say anything of the sort.

I did not claim that there was no "Left, nor Right"; there is certainly evil in the world and there is certainly good. But to insist or assert that some supernatural, transcendent entity is either in charge of or directs either of those things is, in my opinion, childish and misdirected.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. By the way....when you title a thread "Satan is alive!" don't be surprised

when you find that MANY here on DU differ widely with that sentiment.

The devil is only as alive as those that create it in their own minds.

I am constantly amazed that in 2004, after almost a century and a half of industrialization and several centuries of science, so many otherwise intelligent, enlightened people still cling to such outdated, mythical absurdities as the existence of satan.

[Cleita]

8. Ying and Yang?

The force, the dark side and the lght side? positive/negative ions? Perhaps we can't survive without the opposites. I think it sort of explains gravity.

[CityZen-X]

11. X-Actually

Then who is the force.and who is the gravity!!?

[Cleita]

14. Gravity is the result of opposite forces pulling against each other?

How would I know? Perhaps some physicists or astronomers could explain? I read a lot of stuff, I don't understand very well, but I still read it. Hit me.

[pezcore64]

12. well...

While i believe there is a God and all, I tend to not even accept Satan as a reality.
I tend to go with alot of Wiccans on this one, and correct me if im wrong wiccans, but you only empower 'evil' by giving it a name and recognision. 'evil' is only around if people want it to be. thats how i feel. evil comes from the individual, not a horned mystical being.

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. HERE, HERE!! well said!

[Cleita]

17. I agree with that and the best thing you can do is

decide you don't want to be involved with it. It's know as freedom of choice. However, I wonder if when you are under orders. if you have that freedom.

[TeeYiYi]

22. I agree with your assessment . . .

. . . and have lived that ideal as a natural tenet of my life. That said, I noticed what Cleita had to say and it made me wonder — what control or empowerment DO you have in a situation where you're surrounded by evil and can't walk away from it.

TYY

[CityZen-X]

25. So Abu Garaib...

and the Satanic rituals are a fraternity joke, correct???

[pezcore64]

26. uhh

who said that? lol.

if someone believes in satan, obviously their rituals would be satanic.

oh, and if i had to say any one group, going by the bible...id say the republican fascist that are in control of our country?
heh

[CityZen-X]

16. Dem's Or Repug's

You guy's & gal's are so uptight when it comes to an issue of good vs. evil, that it makes me wonder if Hypocrisy is truly our greatest commodity! Can I make it politically simple for us, Chaney is the image of Beelzebub, and Bu$h*t is his Quasi motto! as Quasi continues to ring those bells, America continues to salivate!!!!

[Cleita]

19. Beelzebub and company are invented by humans.

We have looked very deeply into ourselves and seen the bad and good.

[CityZen-X]

21. So God Created Man...

and man returned the favor?

[Cleita]

41. Could be, but I'll let the metaphysicians argue about that one.

I do think our view of the devil though is very human in concept.

[maggrwaggr]

27. Oh, I thought you were talking about Bill Clinton

the Prince of all Evil in the world.

You gotta be kidding me, you think because a person believes in God that it follows he must believe in Satan?

Yeah, and the world is flat, too.

The believe in God and Satan is intellectually at approximately the 2nd grade level.

It's Santa Clause for grownups.

[smirkymonkey]

30. Yes, of course

...and he's living in the White House (well, part time anyway)

[Dogmudgeon]

34. You've just entered The Troll Zone

Thus Spake CityZen-X:

You guy's & gal's are so uptight when it comes to an issue of good vs. evil, that it makes me wonder if Hypocrisy is truly our greatest commodity! Can I make it politically simple for us, Chaney is the image of Beelzebub, and Bu$h*t is his Quasi motto! as Quasi continues to ring those bells, America continues to salivate!!!!

Denying personhood to abstract qualities does not make anyone a hypocrite. As desirable as belief in (a) God may be, even atheists have moral philosophies that guide them, and none of us (whom I've met, anyway) think Good and Evil are useless, incorrect, or erroneous ideas/qualities/ideals.

I also don't agree that Team Bush is the personification of Evil, that Bush himself is Quasimodo, or that Cheney is Beelzebub. History teaches us every few decades that small men can easily do great evil. No Devil is required.

Personifying Good and Evil makes for good literature, and your choice of literary language is fine and engaging, but don't fall into the error that your perception is the only correct one. No matter how we individually conceive of it, most of us can tell the difference between Good and Evil, and that the Evil done by George Bush and company is founded in nothing more mysterious than common school-yard bullying -- small bullies doing great works of evil.

--bkl

[leftofthedial]

35. I think Clark Kent is Satan

And Jethro Tull is God Man!

And Bruce Wayne is Jesus.

Does this mean I'm now tax exempt?

[HuskerDem]

36. I don't fit intoyour scenario.

I do believe in something greater than humaninty, and I believe in great power. I do not beleive that the ugliness that we humans visit upon each other with STUNNING regularity is any fault or designation but our own.

I don't believe in "satan" beyond ourselves. I believe that GOD is love. I believe that deliberate seperation from GOD................ that is , that must be what hell is.

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[Bridget Burke]

39. Satan is Real!

That's what the Louvin Brothers thought. I don't agree.

But I do believe in the Louvin Brothers.