RE: Define satan? (Full Version)

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TurboJugend -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 2:16:35 AM)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/satan.html

satan is not just a beeing in religions..it is everything seen as bad in that religion.



RCdc -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:13:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Deicide

Then by all means, provide the passages they're found in. I find it unlikely a rabbi would be explaining on the christian english OT, perhaps you mean the hebrew bible or Tanakh. Satan, as a character, appears only in job.


You have given a very misleading account of job.  Job isn't a whole book.  It's at least two very distinct pieces strung together by different authors who use totally different words, names and structure.  Folk law and poetic verse.  Satan as refered to in Job is clearly not 'a satan' but 'the satan' or 'the adversary' - it might even be in the plural as 'adversaries' in translation... that is the nearest word - however it's not such an adversary but more a 'devils advocate' - it could refer to a single heavenly body or a council... discussing the actions of Job with god and making 'what if' statements which god responds to by allowing this opposing council to try and prove.
The folk law of Job clearly states that God is in council of with heavenly bodies, including the adversary, not 'and the odd demon'.  NOT Lucifer.
People so often get Lucifer confused with Satan.
 
the.dark.
 
 
*edit to add (was going to do another post but putting it here instead) that satan is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles in the same way as mentioned in Job.  Not that they are the same person but that they are the opposite/aversary to God.



RCdc -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:16:38 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TurboJugend

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/satan.html

satan is not just a beeing in religions..it is everything seen as bad in that religion.



As condecending as this sounds, people only think of satan as evil when they don't know the meaning of the word in translation / it's origins.  Satan is the opposition of god, maybe at a stretch, an adversary sure.  But evil?  Not so much.
 
the.dark.



TurboJugend -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:23:32 AM)

Could you please explain that?



RCdc -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:41:39 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TurboJugend

Could you please explain that?


I can try D.
Orion has touched on the subject in another post on here - but the translation of the word 'Satan' is ha-satan.  Roughly translated, this means 'accuser'  or 'opposer' - try and think of this in legal terms - it helps when understanding the bible to think of a court of law.  Things make more sense as if you think back to the times the books were written - councils and elders were pretty much the done thing so it would make sense that the stories related in the OT are pretty influenced by such behaviour.  It's not really about good and evil but about two different sides taking the stand.
 
Does that make any sense?

the.dark.



TurboJugend -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:50:33 AM)

Yes that makes more sense to me. Thank you :)

I knew the word Shai-tan. I guess there are many ways to write it.
Although if sha-tan is opposer...and God is good ( as believer in that certain religion) you could say the opposer is bad..not?
bad as oppistion to good. Seen very black and white ofcourse.

Wiki has a nice explaination about he confusion that excist..or doesn't excist..lol. The early Christian writers may have/not have confused Lucifer with Satan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer 
Other sources seem to agree there may be way more important beeings kicked out of heaven.



RCdc -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 5:00:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TurboJugend

Yes that makes more sense to me. Thank you :)

I knew the word Shai-tan. I guess there are many ways to write it.
Although if sha-tan is opposer...and God is good ( as believer in that certain religion) you could say the opposer is bad..not?
bad as oppistion to good. Seen very black and white ofcourse.

Wiki has a nice explaination about he confusion that excist..or doesn't excist..lol. The early Christian writers may have/not have confused Lucifer with Satan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer 
Other sources seem to agree there may be way more important beeings kicked out of heaven.



Makes sense D.  I would also explain it like this.
Shaitan, Lucifer, the serpent, the morning star etc are types of Satan.  Even 'the satan' in Job is a type of Satan but in the plural (a collection of).
 
It's like you say golden retriever, old english sheep, border collie and pugs are all dogs.
 
I have always maintained that god cannot be defined as good or evil because he defines what is good and evil - if you follow the scriptures and beliefs anyway.  What humans term as good or evil is always going to be different anyway.  Again - using the court of law analagy it comes down to extenuating circumstances.  There is no thing as black and white - but for humans, it would make it easier to pass the buck if there was.[;)]
 
the.dark.



OrionTheWolf -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 5:31:20 AM)

When the Rabbi is assisting in showing mistakes in translation he would be commenting on it, especially if that Rabbi had been part of a group that published academic papers on the mistranslations. I would have to dig into all my old research to find it, but it related to the transaltion of ha-satan and the word advesary being used. It was also very interesting to find what appears to be completely made up passages in the Christian Old testament, and not just mistranslations.

Satan as an actual entity only appears in Job, but advesary appears in many places.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Deicide

quote:

ORIGINAL: OrionTheWolf

Interesting as ha-satan appears in at least 15 different places in the Torah. The New Englishmans Concordance can assist with this. It was recommended to me by Rabbi Blumenthal here in Atlanta. As it was explained to me, that ha-satan or Satan is an untranslated word in some areas of the English Old testament, and it means adversary. So if you look at each enlgish area that uses the word adversaty, then it is likely the original hebrew word was ha-satan. From my studies, and seems to be supported by non-demonational scholars, is that Satan was never a singular entity, but in fact there have been several advesaries of God throughout the Torah.


Then by all means, provide the passages they're found in. I find it unlikely a rabbi would be explaining on the christian english OT, perhaps you mean the hebrew bible or Tanakh. Satan, as a character, appears only in job.



NYLass -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 5:47:51 AM)

Satan aka "Basement cat"



OrionTheWolf -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 5:53:15 AM)

I agree completely with this, and several passages from the Old testament and Torah support this. I usually explain it like this: A tornado hits and several people are killed, the tornado is not evil, though it caused death. A huge thunderstorm comes and there is several days of rain that ends a drought, which saves the crops of several villages and prevents starvation from happening, this is not necessarily good. All that occurs just "is". If you believe in the Abrahamic religions then Gos is neither good or evil, and both good and evil. If you apply this to many of the various religions around the world, it is sustained in belief throughout many of them. Two examples would be Taoism, where there are two sides that are in harmony, and only when the harmony is disrupted is there usually problems. The other would be many of the pagan religions, where the archtypes of the deities represent a whole that is in balance, much like the seasons.

Further research would also reveal that a reward or punishment after death was likely a belief that the tribe of Israel was exposed to during the time of being enslaved by the Babylonians. Until that time, sheoul was used and meant at best "beyond the grave". So the idea of the reward or punishment, and some embodiment of a perpetual advesary of God, fighting over the souls of mankind, is not an original Abrahamic religious idea.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Darcyandthedark

I have always maintained that god cannot be defined as good or evil because he defines what is good and evil - if you follow the scriptures and beliefs anyway.  What humans term as good or evil is always going to be different anyway.  Again - using the court of law analagy it comes down to extenuating circumstances.  There is no thing as black and white - but for humans, it would make it easier to pass the buck if there was.[;)]
 
the.dark.



stella41b -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 6:38:36 AM)

There are also two types of evil..

quote:



THE AHRIMAN-LUCIFER AXIS.

These are two polar influences grounded in evil based on the figures of Lucifer and Ahriman.

We are talking here of two distinct types of evil - evil in the world and evil in human evolution.

Lucifer and Ahriman both have positive and negative sides.

Lucifer appeals to pride in someone and offers the delusion of divinity, but on the positive side promotes creativity and spirituality.

Ahriman causes someone to deny their divinity and live purely in the physical, material world. But on the positive promotes intellectuality and technology.



I learned about this from reading the works of Rudolf Steiner and his works on anthroposophy or 'spiritual science' and redefined the axis for myself (the above comes from my own theory of modern theatre).

I see good and evil as being polar opposites and coexisting side by side where one relates to the more physical and material and the other to the more metaphysical or spiritual.

Furthermore in my own mind for some time I have been seeking to replace the terms 'good' and 'evil' with 'beneficial' and 'adverse' and looking upon others as simply 'people'.

My reasoning here is that apart from obvious examples the judgment as to whether something is 'good' or 'evil' is largely down to perception and interpretation.

"There is nothing good or bad in this world, only thinking makes it so." (William Shakespeare).



Vendaval -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 3:26:39 PM)

I subscribe more to the concept of Yin/Yang, polarities and balance of opposites than the idea of absolute good or absolute evil.



Musicmystery -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 3:42:10 PM)

quote:

I see good and evil as being polar opposites and coexisting side by side where one relates to the more physical and material and the other to the more metaphysical or spiritual.

Furthermore in my own mind for some time I have been seeking to replace the terms 'good' and 'evil' with 'beneficial' and 'adverse' and looking upon others as simply 'people'.

My reasoning here is that apart from obvious examples the judgment as to whether something is 'good' or 'evil' is largely down to perception and interpretation.

"There is nothing good or bad in this world, only thinking makes it so." (William Shakespeare).


Actually, stella, this line of reasoning would indicate instead that good and evil don't exist.



stella41b -> RE: Define satan? (8/18/2009 4:55:39 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

quote:

I see good and evil as being polar opposites and coexisting side by side where one relates to the more physical and material and the other to the more metaphysical or spiritual.

Furthermore in my own mind for some time I have been seeking to replace the terms 'good' and 'evil' with 'beneficial' and 'adverse' and looking upon others as simply 'people'.

My reasoning here is that apart from obvious examples the judgment as to whether something is 'good' or 'evil' is largely down to perception and interpretation.

"There is nothing good or bad in this world, only thinking makes it so." (William Shakespeare).


Actually, stella, this line of reasoning would indicate instead that good and evil don't exist.


Possibly if you look at it a certain way but they do exist but I refuse to accept that what is good and what is evil is always clear cut and absolute. You see there can be evil done with good intention or where the end result is good, and vice versa, there can be good done with evil intent or where the result turns out to be adverse or indeed disastrous.

To me if you have polarity of energy - both positive and negative - then it stands to reason that good and evil are also polar in nature and also that there is the same dichotomy as with physical and metaphysical.

My use here of beneficial and adverse is purely metaphorical and personal and wasn't intended to negate or deny the existence of good and evil and if it appeared as such then I do apologize.



knees2you -> RE: Define satan? (8/19/2009 10:54:33 PM)

My father in~law  Is a retired Baptist Minister and he has been 2 every Continent on the earth except 2.
 
He has read the quran, the Mormon bible, the Jehovah witness bible. He's read the Greek bible, etc.
 
He can explain this a whole lot better.
 
quote:

"So often times it happens, that we live our lives in Chains. That we never even know we have the Key!" {Eagles Group}

 
Always, Ant~[sm=cactus.gif]



fadedshadow -> RE: Define satan? (8/19/2009 10:58:24 PM)

doesn't satan mean adversary in hebrew?



IronBear -> RE: Define satan? (8/20/2009 2:04:41 AM)

Being  a Pagan by birth and practice I can't believe in the Christian version of a Satan and hell, however I do recognise that there are negative forces which are necessary to balance the scales of equilibrium. mankind being what it is with all the imperfections manages to ensure that that equilibrium is mostly out of balance. I do also recognise that many areas of the realm of spirit are not evil but are by nature chaotic as can be found in the study of both elementals and planetary spirits in both the Qabala and also the Enochian systems, both of which we use in Lodge. 'Tis indeed a foolish man who casts his hands up in absolute disbelief of anything higher than his erection , the power of his orgasm or the strength of his urinating and I feel a great sorrow for him. 'Tis also my belief that irrespectof of claims to the contrary, no one religion or faith has all the answers not a diving right to the trueth, but rather all faiths and religions have a small piece of it just as every man no matter his belief, creed, colour, or race is part of a divine being.. 



GoddessImaginos -> RE: Define satan? (8/20/2009 2:10:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronBear

Being  a Pagan by birth and practice I can't believe in the Christian version of a Satan and hell, however I do recognise that there are negative forces which are necessary to balance the scales of equilibrium. mankind being what it is with all the imperfections manages to ensure that that equilibrium is mostly out of balance. I do also recognise that many areas of the realm of spirit are not evil but are by nature chaotic as can be found in the study of both elementals and planetary spirits in both the Qabala and also the Enochian systems, both of which we use in Lodge. 'Tis indeed a foolish man who casts his hands up in absolute disbelief of anything higher than his erection , the power of his orgasm or the strength of his urinating and I feel a great sorrow for him. 'Tis also my belief that irrespectof of claims to the contrary, no one religion or faith has all the answers not a diving right to the trueth, but rather all faiths and religions have a small piece of it just as every man no matter his belief, creed, colour, or race is part of a divine being.. 


*AGREE AGREE AGREE* Thank You, brother Bear, well said Sir..



IronBear -> RE: Define satan? (8/20/2009 7:05:17 AM)

Of course to put things in a happy context I'll quote a line from the Country and Western Song which I love recorded by: Billy Currington and written by  Bobby Braddock and Wayne Jones.

"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy."

Of course you should take the term GOD in the context in which you believe the deity to be which includes the various forms of both male and female deities in a whole pantheon of such beings and not just the male form. The words of the song can be for all..



popeye1250 -> RE: Define satan? (8/20/2009 2:52:26 PM)

Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George Bush all rolled up into one.



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