This is some base and just pretty basic thinking. Why you assume GOD has to do anything, especially for humans? I'd treat prayers like spam email.
jimmybeanz wrote:
This (obviously for the agnotics and atheists) assumes both exist. If your name is sillyputty, just back back out of the thread.I'd have to be Satan. Being God would be tiresome, as humans are quite annoying with all their damb problems. As Satan, I could let chicks sacrifice themselves to me, then pipe them in Hell.
Welp now that I've been baited.
I'll try to give a spirited answer.
I'd rather be neither...Since neither exist...but if I had to choose...i'd be Satan, and heres why.
Please hear me out.
But its funny you ask, In the beginning of early christianity, which I presume you're referring to, Some gnostic christians in the early church, inverted this story; they said the "God" was Satan, and the snake was Jesus. They reasoned, that any God who wanted to deny man knowledge, could only be a false God, while Jesus would desire people to know the truth.
All the more sensible Christians, are extinct, ironically. The early catholic church also tried to reconcile this dilemma.
You see, the "god" of the bible does a lot of REALLY messed up things. Its actually Satan that opens Man's eyes to the reality and harshness of the world and the complexities of life. You could say that the satan of the bible did humanity a favor.
You could also argue that if satan was that evil then you would probably follow him and not even know it since it would confuse you. You really don't even know if you're actually following Satan or God in the first place.
I also suggest you look into the Sumerian stories of Enki and Enil. The Sumerian myths predate the christian ones. Basically they are the Satan/God paradigm again but over time modern abrahamic religions have combined these myths into things that resemble our modern preconceptions for the "god" figure...at least in western religious mythology.
The Enki myth gets repeated in various cultures. The serpent tempting Eve with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Prometheus giving fire to man.
There is a theme here: Whoever brings knowledge to man is always punished or chastised for it.
Enki is always portrayed as the friend of humanity while Enlil was the wrathful one trying to kill off humanity. For example, the deluge was Enlil's work and humanity's salvation was due to Enki's intervention. Here we see the loving/angry god complex that would later be unified into one being in the Judeo Christian mythology. The Sumerian's version was always more interesting to read
Also lets look at some stats here.
God has killed more people in the Bible than Satan if you do a tally based on scripture
As you see, Satan only kills 10 people in Job...and thats with the permission of God in the first place.
On top of that "lucifer" really doesn't exist as it says so in the bible. Its a literary figure thats been mostly influenced by Dante and many his writings about hell...doesn't make it more true though.
In the early church, many Christians were Jews, who already had accepted the Old Testament. However, many were gentiles, and although they were attracted to the message of Christ, they saw no reason why the Jewish mythology was relevant. Many claimed that Jesus was not preaching about the Jewish God, but that when he said "my Father, he was referring to a hitherto-unrevealed God represented by none of the religions of Earth.
Jehovah, therefore, was no more relevant to Jesus than Zeus was. Some believed that Jehovah existed, but was simply a powerful world-creating supernatural being, subordinate to the true God and Jesus (these class of beings are called "Demiurges", many different religions have included one in their mythology). For, noting Jehovah only offered temporal promises in the Old Testament, they said he had power over matter but not Spirit.
As an outgrowth, there was a specific brand of these "gnostic" Christians who believed the Old Testament was true, but that it represented an evil world-creating demon named Yaldabaoth, who had created the physical world as a prison, so that he might be worshipped as the highest God. Jesus's role in salvation was to free us from this prison.
The gnostics said that this was obvious; you could tell by the sinister and cruel actions of Jehovah that he could only be a demon. For instance, they read the garden of eden's message as thus "In order to keep man a slave, Yaldabaoth threatened them with death that they must not eat from the tree of knowledge. However, Jesus took the form of a Serpent to free them from their bondage". Or, for Noah's arc, "Yaldabaoth created a flood to kill the humans who no longer would obey him, keeping only a flunky alive to try and regain his dominion".
My question is not about Yaldabaoth in particular, but rather the notion of a Demiurge; a being who is incredibly powerful, but not actually a supreme being. If mystical events or miracles occur, how can you be certain it is actually God, and not a Demiurge? If God speaks to you, how can you know it is not some inferior (but nevertheless persuasive) being doing so?
If the events of the Bible are true, how do we know it was not as the Gnostics believe; that some celestial being simply thought it was God, and was strong enough that no human would doubt it.
I could believe that out there somewhere, there is a highly evolved form of life that has abilities dazzling and incomprehensible to modern humans; I find it a much harder sell to think there is a truly unsurpassed and unsurpassable Prime Mover that we are ever going to encounter. How can you be sure, even in the presence of miracles, that you have the later and not the former?
Satan first appears in the book of Job, as an angel in God's court who challenges God about whether Job will remain faithful when he suffers, and with God's permission afflicts Job with all sorts of tragedies. This is basically his only appearance in the Old Testament; Jewish writers do not consider him an enemy of God, but rather a servant of him, who acts as prosecuting attorney to God's "judge".
In the New Testament, Satan appears to Jesus when he is fasting in the desert, offering him the world if he will serve him. Conventional Christians call this being the same one as the Job character, an evil fallen angel challenging God; Gnostics would have considered him one of the Archons, or evil demons that control the Earth, siting his dominance over the material world in these passages.
Jesus has a lot to say about Satan. He calls him the leader of demons, and also the king of the world (same thing, if you ask Gnostics). He curses Satan when Peter says he does not want Jesus to die; in this instance, is Peter possessed by Satan? Or is he simply casting Peter as a generic "adversary"? Satan also acts to possess Judas, and compel him to betray Christ. The Gnostics had their own "Gospel of Judas" where a different version was put forth: Judas was instructed to do so, in order to carry out Jesus's plan to present an ascension from the flesh by his crucifixion.
Paul gave us many passages describing a supernatural being Satan, mainly through his liberal use of claims that his opponents were serving him.
There is another passage where people say Satan's name is given as "Lucifer". If you read this in context, you'll see it says nothing of the sort. A Babylonian King is being mocked for thinking he was greater than God, only to fall; he is likened to Lucifer (which just means "Venus" in this context) in terms of brightness, and also to a fallen angel because he fell. At no point is this actually saying there's a fallen angel named Lucifer, its just two different analogies people conflated.
So basically, Satan is spoken of many times in the Bible; its a little more doubtful whether these are meant to be one single being, or a host of different characters all dubbed "adversaries".
That's the current Bible's view, in the gnostic gospels, a very different demonology is used, based on the starting assumption that the old testament God himself was a demon, and thus, all the "angels" are demons as well. In this view, you can't rely on any supernatural being, except Christ himself. The others are all out to get you.
For those up on biblical mythology, I offer you some counter-arguments to your common mainstream perspective on the "Satan" figure.
All the evidence seems to point out that Satan has always wanted mankind to be wise and knowledgeable, and has always served as God's tester of man, pointing out hypocrisy and weakness, and serving as god's personal Abu-Graib guardian, as punishment for pissing off the almighty in an earlier scrap.
Nothing shows him as the evil hater of mankind as represented. As others have mentioned, all mythical references refer to him as keeping his word and contracts, and even in the Bible he keeps his word with God about Job and what can and cannot be done to him. All he ever offers to man is what man wants.
It's God that proposes and enforces the horrific punishments and sets up the rigged game, by making Mankind want the very things the most that would damn him the quickest.
Prometheus. .
Enki. . .
coyote
lucifer
all brought light/fire in the stories.
And what happens? They all get punished
Consider this Scene from The Devil's Advocate, starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves:
John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look...but don't touch. Touch...but don't taste. Taste...don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, #!%@#%' @+! off! He's a tight-@+!! He's a SADIST! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!
Kevin Lomax: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", is that it?
John Milton: Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.
Biblical morality is, well, messed up and absurd. Satan's the bad guy... but why? Sometimes he's depicted doing things that, when you think about it, are actually moral when compared to the stuff that Yahweh is depicted doing.
Now do I worship satan? Hell no. Doesn't even exist...but when you consider the perspective...it makes you wonder why you all love this "god" figure so much.
Sidenote: I'm an atheist because I actually study this stuff. Not to brag, but I probably know more about this than you do...and some of this was copied and pasted from other sources but I DID read all of it for consistency.
tl;dr: Essentially, I'd rather be the "devil" figure. The story is more interesting.
