God and the Devil

I have a small theory that Satan is actually the good guy. Convincing Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, that could be taken as Satan being the person to teach the blind masses or I could be going crazy just a thought

You're thinking of Prometheus

(Or "Fingers" Mazda, if you prefer the discworld version )


Edit: Speaking of Mazda, it may be worth reading up on Zoroastrianism. I was pretty keen on it...(Just checked a calender...15 odd years ago. Ouch) but I think I got distracted by money, drugs and women.
I might seek out a bit of a refresher...

I just stumbled across this old thread, and found much of interest. My take on the original post is that a literal or metaphorical God and Devil need not be opposite polarities of a unified consciousness, magnetically bound to each other as two parts of one singular whole. To me, this is rooted in old aphorisms like "You can't have sunshine without rain," "You can't have light without darkness," and "You can know joy without sadness" ... to which I would ask, why not? Admittedly such things are beyond our experience, but the vastness of all-that-is probably is far vaster still than even our conception of the universe and of multiverses. If we can imagine a thing, it can probably exist, even if we have not seen it.

Additionally, I was struck by Kodaav's statement:

Kodaav wrote: I have a small theory that Satan is actually the good guy. Convincing Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, that could be taken as Satan being the person to teach the blind masses or I could be going crazy just a thought

There are some esoteric groups that actually hold this belief. Satan is seen either as a heroic opponent of a false, capricious God (as in Christian Gnosticism) or as a partner of a gentler God whose kind intent for humanity was expressed in serving as the caretaker for innocent and relatively unaware human beings. Satan in either of these perspectives induced early humans to perform a forbidden act that opened their eyes to the freedom and power inherent within them, and while the price for that involved suffering for all concerned, the reward is the ultimate attainment by humans of their full potential. I would not argue that such a belief is ultimate truth; only that it may be a worthwhile possibility to consider for some.

Some of the comments here addressed the merits that may be present or absent in some of the world's most widely accepted religious texts, which offers a forum for my theory about scriptures. Perhaps the great scriptures from our history - the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita - in fact are divinely sourced, but are provided to humanity as a bit of a trick. In most of them, if a reader looks for hope, inspiration, solace, or wisdom, s/he can find it there. On the other hand, if a different reader is seeking a justification for bias or hatred, or divine consent for violent or abusive behavior, that can be found there too. Perhaps the writings are designed to help us find what we seek, and rather than being authoritative sources describing the rules of life are instead just mirrors, that present us to ourselves, After we see what we are, we have the opportunity to choose whether or not we like what we see, and to change or remain the same. While I don't take much for certainty when it comes to spiritual affairs, I lean toward this understanding; it helps me comprehend why a single teaching can inspire people to become both pillars of compassion and embodiments of corruption.

God and the devil are not equals. If you're speaking specifically of Satan, according to the Bible, he was created by God. He was a fallen angel.

Further more, God (or whatever name you choose to use) is everywhere, omnipotent, omniscient. While Satan can only be in one place at a time.

This is all, of course, the beliefs of Christianity. Whether you choose to believe it yourself is entirely your choice.

_Vergere_ wrote: God and the devil are not equals. If you're speaking specifically of Satan, according to the Bible, he was created by God.

What if God lied and He is actually the evil one?

In the idea of God, omnipotence, therefore I am part of God and God part of me. Therefore, God is both the angels and the demons. Both Savior and Condemner; all things working in unison conscious or not. I am not huge on the Abrahamic religions but, honestly, applying this to my view of the Force leads me to this conclusion. (this is not meant to offend any of my Christian brothers or sisters out there, just my view, please forgive).


My 3 cents,
Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

_Vergere_ wrote: God and the devil are not equals. If you're speaking specifically of Satan, according to the Bible, he was created by God.

What if God lied and He is actually the evil one?

The only way for God to lie is if God was real and was therefore manipulating his human creations. If we are using this basis to form an opinion then there is no what ifs about it. God said in the day you eat the fruit you're going to die. That wasn't true.

Of course this is often regarded as a test for Adam (humans) and God simply plays an educational role, not necessarily meant to be a real history.

The choice was basically blind obedience vs knowledge and wisdom.

Obviously God possessed the same knowledge he told humans not have. So how is it a moral question? If humans ate the fruit and had to die then why did God get to create the fruit and have eternal life? Maybe because it's what you actually DO with that knowledge?

God punishes them for disobedience, not necessarily for having the knowledge.

Okay, this basically implies that having the knowledge is wrong and therefore I'm telling you not to obtain it, under penalty of death.

But if it's wrong... then isn't God also wrong for having obtained it? And is it wrong to disobey if the order is arbitrary or hypocritical?

It seems more like the person who told the story, much like the story of Santa rewarding the good kids, is basically telling people to let the authority of God think for you when making any decision of right and wrong because it was his idea that you shouldn't have the knowledge to make those decisions; that instead you should have eternal life without that knowledge.

I'm not even sure a human without that knowledge would be fully conscious or sentient. Sounds more like an automaton.

Adam and Eve couldn't have even eaten the fruit if doing so was evil because they hadn't yet gained the knowledge of good and evil. So doesn't that prove they already had it? At least in this instance. Maybe they didn't yet know that smoking was bad or that drunk driving was bad. All of these things would come with experience but how could you have cars and all these things without the knowledge necessary to create them?

It wasn't simply the knowledge of evil that they were to avoid. It was the knowledge of both. I think the true lesson is that you cannot have one without the other and therefore man was always destined to die from the very beginning.

The "devil" in Hebrew doesn't really exist. The term "ha Shatan" simply means adversary. Good and evil exist within an adversarial relationship.

side note: humans are easily killed by microorganisms without making any wrong choices at all.

Seems to me, Zealot, that you have proven, that if God does exist, He is the evil one!