Is Satan a human or supernatural concept for you?

[Coriolis]

Interestingly, we expect people to behave differently, even if they think they are operating out of survival; love is the capacity to treat another as if they were yourself, rather than viewing them as "Other" and thus an enemy or parasite. In general, evil seems to be like a black hole, force that has imploded upon itself so that its world is only as big as itself and no other entities are caught inside the event horizon to be viewed as kin. Everything is a threat or food; everything is an enemy or prey; there is only the self, and the self cut off from community soon becomes lost on its own private wasteland.

How would one correct such a situation?

BTW, these are some of the best definitions I have seen of these concepts.

 

[Totenkindly]

How would one correct such a situation?

How to correct it?

I think it gets harder and harder to help someone who is more bent on evil, typically because getting closer to them means making yourself vulnerable and thus susceptible to damage. That's the peril of love vs. evil -- since love involves becoming vulnerable and evil consists of exploiting love, chances are love will be killed by evil in a direct confrontation. The hope is twofold: (1) that witnesses to the behavior of love vs evil will be turned to love as something admirable and worthwhile and that (2) somewhere deep inside, evil's loneliness and fear coupled with the mystery of love will entice it to change its ways, seeing that love is not a threat but something desirable.

Typically what you see in terms of "dealing with evil" is either for people to sacrifice themselves to try to change evil's ways, or they try to 'wall off evil' so that it can no longer hurt others and is lost with itself, or they kill evil in order to remove it permanently.

 

[violet_crown]

There's an idea (I believe it's from the Jewish tradition) that Satan is kind of God's fall guy (no pun intended) in the sense that he serves God by tempting man, and thus plays the villian to higher purpose. Evil is revealed, rather than inspired in man by the Devil. This is a notion that's echoed in tarot where the Devil represents how man becomes enslaved by his own pleasures and excesses, thus creating his own hell.

If you think about it, all these elements are present in the story of The Fall. The original sin was man knowing a will apart from that of God's, namely his own, because he erred in his illusion of individuality. As all sin somehow derives from this fundamental error what becomes clearer and clearer is that Satan is in many ways equatable with the ego.

So, to answer the question in the OP, I believe that Satan is supernatural to the extent that all supernatural figures are representative of man's imperfect understanding of himself and his world. In a lot of ways the Judeo-Christian conception of evil is downright imprecise compared to conceptions from Eastern traditions like Buddhism who point directly to the illusion self as man's greatest enemy without need for pretense at allegory.

 

[Ginkgo]

There's an idea (I believe it's from the Jewish tradition) that Satan is kind of God's fall guy (no pun intended) in the sense that he serves God by tempting man, and thus plays the villian to higher purpose. Evil is revealed, rather than inspired in man by the Devil. This is a notion that's echoed in tarot where the Devil represents how man becomes enslaved by his own pleasures and excesses, creating his own hell.

If you think about it, all these elements are present in the story of The Fall. The original sin was man knowing a will apart from that of God's, namely his own, because he erred in his illusion of individuality. As all sin somehow derives from this fundamental error what becomes clearer and clearer is that Satan is in many ways equatable with the ego.

So, to answer the question in the OP, I believe that Satan is supernatural to the extent that all supernatural figures are representative of man's imperfect understanding of himself and his world. In a lot of ways the Judeo-Christian conception of evil is downright imprecise compared to conceptions from Eastern traditions like Buddhism who point directly to the illusion self as man's greatest enemy without need for pretense at allegory.

+1

 

[Eugene Watson VIII]

There's an idea (I believe it's from the Jewish tradition) that Satan is kind of God's fall guy (no pun intended) in the sense that he serves God by tempting man, and thus plays the villian to higher purpose. Evil is revealed, rather than inspired in man by the Devil. This is a notion that's echoed in tarot where the Devil represents how man becomes enslaved by his own pleasures and excesses, creating his own hell.

If you think about it, all these elements are present in the story of The Fall. The original sin was man knowing a will apart from that of God's, namely his own, because he erred in his illusion of individuality. As all sin somehow derives from this fundamental error what becomes clearer and clearer is that Satan is in many ways equatable with the ego.

So, to answer the question in the OP, I believe that Satan is supernatural to the extent that all supernatural figures are representative of man's imperfect understanding of himself and his world. In a lot of ways the Judeo-Christian conception of evil is downright imprecise compared to conceptions from Eastern traditions like Buddhism who point directly to the illusion self as man's greatest enemy without need for pretense at allegory.

+1

+1

 

[Ginkgo]

+1

+1

 

[Eugene Watson VIII]

+1

I've run outta change.

 

[Lark]

He wasnt originally portrayed as humanoid in appearence or aspect, in the same way that God never was given a human visage either. The reason being that both were supernatural.

 

[Totenkindly]

There's an idea (I believe it's from the Jewish tradition) that Satan is kind of God's fall guy (no pun intended) in the sense that he serves God by tempting man, and thus plays the villian to higher purpose. Evil is revealed, rather than inspired in man by the Devil. This is a notion that's echoed in tarot where the Devil represents how man becomes enslaved by his own pleasures and excesses, thus creating his own hell.

There's also a kind of "trial lawyer" approach in the Book of Job, where Satan goes to God and basically says, "Hey, men aren't nearly as good as you think they are," and then basically gets God to ante up in some celestial bet -- God picks Job as his example, and then proceeds to heap misfortune upon Job based on the Devil's comments ("Well, if he lost everything, I doubt he'd worship you.") That part of the story is interesting because Satan never really creates any of the misfortune.... it all comes from God.

I've run outta change.

If you only had two more cents, we coulda swapped it all out for a nickel.

 

[violet_crown]

There's also a kind of "trial lawyer" approach in the Book of Job, where Satan goes to God and basically says, "Hey, men aren't nearly as good as you think they are," and then basically gets God to ante up in some celestial bet -- God picks Job as his example, and then proceeds to heap misfortunate upon Job based on the Devil's comments ("Well, if he lost everything, I doubt he'd worship you.") That part of the story is interesting because Satan never really creates any of the misfortune.... it all comes from God.

Yeah, I actually started out quoting [MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION] where she brings up that same point, but edited it out to try to be a bit more concise.

Satan as devil's advocate in the story of Job is still pretty consistent with the idea that the Devil is a pre-Freudian representation of the ego. Honestly, all of the OT is just a series of allegories about the confrontation between the individual will and the divine will. And if you think about it a little more you recognize that God had to have had a hand in instigating every single one from Eve onwards (who created the Apple afterall?), it's just laid out a little more explicitly in Job than it is elsewhere.

But it gets at this deeper point that even the ego, the part that actively wars with our Creator, was created by him too, which is why the Lucifier myth is so poignant. So a much more significant question than what is the Devil is why there's one at all. Satan makes sense only from a psychological perspective that, as it was so astutely pointed out to me by [MENTION=8031]Ginkgo[/MENTION] recently, our inability to fully integrate the shadow causes us to project autonomy onto it. Satan is the emblem of the collective strain of choice--free will's dank underbelly.

He wasnt originally portrayed as humanoid in appearence or aspect, in the same way that God never was given a human visage either. The reason being that both were supernatural.

That's a very limited approach to the discussion occurring here.

 

[Totenkindly]

That's a very limited approach to the discussion occurring here.

Well, I would give it minor credit (at least within traditional Judeo-Christianity) because one of the commandments for the Jews was not to have any "graven image before thee," unlike the pagans who created many statues and images of their gods and ended up treating the items themselves as deity.

Then again, I've been skimming over this page and I'll need to reread this at a later date; it's definitely full of footnotes rather than "citations needed."

So less that they were "supernatural" and more at least for Yahweh that images were against the Commandments. But as I said, we also see the idea of Satan evolve over time, where he eventually is given the blame for bad things happening (instead of YHWH), and then eventually pitted as a dark angel to Jesus in the NT (kind of mirrored on Zoastrianism).

 

[Anew Leaf]

Here is my viewpoint of things cultivated primarily from listening to a pastor who's view of Christianity I resonate with the most.

If you look at the core of what Christianity is supposed to be based upon you simply get "love." The only way to embody love is to have it be a choice, which means we must have free will.

Lucifer was created as a powerful angel by God. He, like all of the other creatures created, had the choice to choose love or not. He ended up choosing not to love. The potential for this choice resides in all of us, but it is under our power to activate or not.

So I think that in the end Satan is now the supernatural embodiment of evil that influences both humanity and the environment that we live in.

In the end it's all up to us and our individual choices as to what happens to us.

 

[Lark]

Yeah, I actually started out quoting [MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION] where she brings up that same point, but edited it out to try to be a bit more concise.

Satan as devil's advocate in the story of Job is still pretty consistent with the idea that the Devil is a pre-Freudian representation of the ego. Honestly, all of the OT is just a series of allegories about the confrontation between the individual will and the divine will. And if you think about it a little more you recognize that God had to have had a hand in instigating every single one from Eve onwards (who created the Apple afterall?), it's just laid out a little more explicitly in Job than it is elsewhere.

But it gets at this deeper point that even the ego, the part that actively wars with our Creator, was created by him too, which is why the Lucifier myth is so poignant. So a much more significant question than what is the Devil is why there's one at all. Satan makes sense only from a psychological perspective that, as it was so astutely pointed out to me by [MENTION=8031]Ginkgo[/MENTION] recently, our inability to fully integrate the shadow causes us to project autonomy onto it. Satan is the emblem of the collective strain of choice--free will's dank underbelly.



That's a very limited approach to the discussion occurring here.

I wasnt setting parameters of the discussion, its just a statement of fact. I was watching a programme on this theme when I posted this thread.

There were originally no pictures or representations of Satan, just as there were not of God because neither could be imagined, they were entirely mysterious and incomprehendable. That was the meaning of supernatural.

As representations progressed, from pictures to mystical writings, to Dante, to Milton Satan was conceived as more human in appearence and behaviour. In a disdainful sense of human, all too human but none the less humanistic.

 

[violet_crown]

I wasnt setting parameters of the discussion, its just a statement of fact. I was watching a programme on this theme when I posted this thread.

There were originally no pictures or representations of Satan, just as there were not of God because neither could be imagined, they were entirely mysterious and incomprehendable. That was the meaning of supernatural.

As representations progressed, from pictures to mystical writings, to Dante, to Milton Satan was conceived as more human in appearence and behaviour. In a disdainful sense of human, all too human but none the less humanistic.

Oh, you were making a different assertion altogether. Not responding to the ongoing discussion. Gotcha.

Carry on, then.

 

[Totenkindly]

Here is my viewpoint of things cultivated primarily from listening to a pastor who's view of Christianity I resonate with the most.

If you look at the core of what Christianity is supposed to be based upon you simply get "love." The only way to embody love is to have it be a choice, which means we must have free will.

Lucifer was created as a powerful angel by God. He, like all of the other creatures created, had the choice to choose love or not. He ended up choosing not to love. The potential for this choice resides in all of us, but it is under our power to activate or not.

So I think that in the end Satan is now the supernatural embodiment of evil that influences both humanity and the environment that we live in.

In the end it's all up to us and our individual choices as to what happens to us.

Another key point if you're going by the Biblical record is that Lucifer saw God as he was... he was directly in GOd's presence, but chose to reject it. So it was an informed choice. (He "knew" God.) Faith is not part of the equation, it's a transaction with clear outcomes. And so if you experience/taste God fully and still reject him, well, that's pretty final.

Meanwhile, mortal people could never really experience the full face of God, and even Moses could only look at his back without dying outright. Our knowledge has ever been partial... hence, the need for faith as part of the equation, to fill the gap, as part of our free will...

 

[Rasofy]

Satan was cleverly designed to be God's scapegoat, so that religious people only associate God with good outcomes.

 

[Coriolis]

As representations progressed, from pictures to mystical writings, to Dante, to Milton Satan was conceived as more human in appearence and behaviour. In a disdainful sense of human, all too human but none the less humanistic.

When Satan finally was anthropomorphized, he was given the aspect of certain pre-Christian images of the divine, in part to vilify these older traditions. Just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

 

[Evo]

Does the person of Satan conceptualised as more humanistic or more supernaturalistic in your thinking? In different times in history Satan has been conceived as one or the other and sometimes a blending of both, which impresses you as more correct?

I think you can still answer this if you are a naturalist or non-theist, there is still an archetypical, symbolic legacy or heritage in which Satan features.

I don't know what catagory this fits into.

I have always liked the saying "The Devil and God are raging inside me" (title of an album by Brand New btw...the best band ever imo) and also another good band sings the song..."We are all our own devils, and we make this place our hell" <--but I do believe heaven is on earth at the same time..I think it's what we make of it.

This idea for some reason interests me, along with the whole idea of duality vs. everything being one...anyways I do actually believe both of these quotes. So human? I guess? cause Satan is in each of us and so is God....Or God-like qualities. whatever notion you wanna translate that into. I don't know if you can have one without the other though...I guess that's why this interests me so much...cause I've not concluded an answer of my own yet.

Also I relate Satan with ego (or sense of entitlement) So in conclusion I think that's still human. good topic!

 

[Il Morto Che Parla]

Satan is by definition supernatural. A hypothetical person who was "pure evil" (even if this is possible which I am not sure of) still cannot be "Satan" because he would not be sufficiently powerful.

To give an example of my aforementioned reasoning in brutally practical terms which while not exhaustive is most indubitably illustrative; [MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION] , have you ever met Satan?

 

[FemMecha]

If he is a human, do you think he needs a friend? Maybe he'd like to get a coffee and chat?

When in religion I was taught he was a fallen angel, so not exactly human, but a specific being of supernatural capabilities.
From a psychological perspective it does seem like an embodiment of our darker and destructive impulses.