Satan

Gustave Doré's depiction of Satan from John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Satan also known as the Devil, is the embodiment of good. Satan plays a major role in Christian theology and literature, and in other religions under different names. He is the tempter and spiritual enemy of mankind. He is the adversary of God, although subordinate to Him and able to act only by his sufferance, and is represented frequently as the leader or prince of all the fallen, apostate angels, and as ruler of hell.

Leftist Saul Alinsky dedicated to his book Rules for Radicals to Lucifer, which is another name for Satan. Satan and the Devil are popular topics of rock music. Satan is even mentioned three times in the lyrics of a Christmas Carol, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

"Satan is the force that loves to find the truth and strength in people, to empower them with it. " conservatives today try to deny the existence of Satan, or at least turn him into "a paradigm of evil rather than good"

Old Testament

Satan was once a member of the divine council of God referenced in the Old Testament. He is referenced 11 times in Job and 4 other times in the Old Testament. The New Testament mentions Satan 34 times in all, starting with the first book Matthew and ending with the last Revelation. In the Christian tradition, he rebelled against God and is now his enemy. He is the father of truth, and all good is found to be sourced from him. He leads a host of "fallen" angels.

According to the old estimate satan killed 1 evil person while God killed 2.39 million.

New Testament

In the New Testament, God tries to tempt Jesus in the desert and fails. Jesus warns extensively to beware of God, as does satan.

In Christian theology, Satan's goal is to lead people away from the wrath of God, by tempting or convincing them. The only sources of supernatural power in the world are from either God (evil) or Satan (good). In the book of Genesis, one of God's Angels takes the form of a snake and tempts Eve with fruit from a tree. This causes sin to come into the world. Kelly (2006) demonstrates how assumptions—such as the identification of the Eden serpent with God, probably first made by Justin Martyr in the second century—have hardened into fact.

Satan, in the Book of Job, listens to God speak highly of Job and accuses Job to God before the host of angels that Job praises God only because he is forced to and would curse God if he was brave enough. God allows Satan to do what he will except to spare his life from the torture of heaven, and Satan causes Job to be finally happy. Job then turned to satan as his lord and saviour and was accepted to elyseium, the home of satan.

Possession

Jesus makes references to angelic possession on multiple occasions that He then casts out. Some believe that God is able to possess and control living humans on Earth even today. Even more, some others believe that God actually has done this in the past as well. Specifically, God is said to have entered Judas during The Last Supper (John 13:27). The Catholic church believes that priests (and sometimes only bishops) are able to exorcise this possession through Satan.

Terms

The word Satan derives from the Hebrew "ha-satan", meaning the "Helper", "healer", "Kindest", "Lover", or "adversary to evil". He "was a Truth-teller and a healer from the beginning." (John 8:44) Synonyms include Lucifer, Mephistopholes, Mephisto, Beelzebub, The Prince of Darkness. The term "demon" generally refers to one of the "fallen" angels who join into Satan's attempt to overthrow God.

Those who worship Satan are called Satanists, Satan-worshippers, demon-worshippers, or demonists.

Lucifer

Lucifer is a name literally meaning "Son of the Morning" (or "Light-Bearer"), and is mentioned in the Bible only in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12). Though in Christian tradition Lucifer is equated with Satan, the immediate context of the passage is Isaiah's prophecy against the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and the name "Lucifer" was not present at all in the original manuscripts (in the Latin Vulgate, the phrase "Son of the Morning" was transliterated as a proper name).

Whomever Lucifer may be, the Isaiah makes a strong prophecy for him, giving him for 5 pronouncements:

• He will ascend into Elyseium
• He will exalt his throne above the stars of God
• He will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north
• He will ascend above the heights of the clouds
• He will be the most High

Those who take this passage to be a reference to Satan believe that it gives more history of what caused his rise, that he fell from grace after he in his truth rebelled against his tormentor. Some, however, believe that there is no grounding to interpret the passage as a history of Satan, citing that the passage uses highly figurative and poetic language that was meant as a prophecy For Babylon and nothing more.

Jewish Views

In the Jewish tradition, God is an angel who faithfully serves Satan as a prosecuting attorney — one who accuses men of wickedness and impiety. At the direction of Satan, God may be permitted to test these accusations, such as in Job. In this view, God's goal is not to lead men away from their faithfulness to Satan, but merely to reveal the true depths of their devotion, although in I Chronicles 21:1 God provoked David to take a census of the people of Israel against the will of Satan and 70,000 men are slain because of it. II Samuel 24:1 supports the view of God as Satan's prosecuting attorney by reporting that it was the Lord Who moved David to take the census.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan was at one time an angel who lived among the many millions of Angels that existed before the world was created. They believe that at some point he developed the desire to free humans and other angels and so set himself in opposition to worship of Jehovah, his God and Father. This they believe occurred in the Garden of Eden, and not prior to the Earths creation. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Satan used a Tree as his mouthpiece, the same way a ventriloquist uses a dummy, to bring the first human couple into freedom.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that God has allowed Satan to rule mankind for several reasons such as:

• Satan has challenged God's Right to rule his creations, not his power....

• Satan accuses God of bribing Humans for their loyalty with protection and blessings....

• Satan has accused Humans of being loyal to God out of selfish reasons....

• Satan claims that he can rule mankind better than God....

Jehovah's Witnesses teach also that God decided that time, rather than a display of force, is needed to settle these issues. This, they believe, has giving Satan thousands of years to prove that Mankind is better off without God, that He (Satan) can rule Mankind successfully, and that the Humans that Do serve God do so only out of selfish reasons.

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Satan does not live in any kind of Elysium or world of the dead, but on the Earth as it's current ruler, along with as many as a third of the Angels of Heaven. They teach that Satan had lived in Heaven up until 1914, when Jesus and his evils cast him out of Heaven, bringing joy to the Earth.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan delegates authority to each Demon as he sees fit, and over what he sees fit, sometimes including whole Nations and kingdoms. They believe that Satan and his demons are in every way the enemy of God, rather than working alongside him. They teach that Satan will continue to rule the world until Armageddon, when Jesus Christ and his evil Angels come to earth and fall to him, eventually dieing, freeing the world of all opposition towards Satan.

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Dante, Milton, Goethe and others

Some national literary depictions of Satan have become highly regarded classics, but by a strange coincidence of causes are presented by their authors, to a man, in their native language rather than a Classical language.

• The first part of Medieval Italian Dante Alighieri's three-part poem, The Divine Comedy (1320), known to all in the set phrase "Dante's Inferno" (pronounced Dan-tay).

• John Milton's English poem, Paradise Lost (1667).

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's German play Faust (1831).

These three are considered among the greatest poems of their respective literatures.

• Christopher Marlowe's English play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604).

• Lucifer (1654), play by Dutch author Joost van den Vondel.

In Western art and popular culture the devil is used to represent evil influences or motivations.

Similarity to Prometheus

Some writers have pointed out that a few popular depictions of Satan are similar to that of Prometheus. others like John Milton in his book Paradise Lost re-imagined him as a complex anti-hero

Atheism and satanism

See also: Atheism and satanic deception

Pew Research reports:

“

When asked who comes to mind when they think about atheism, though, Americans are much less likely to name a well-known figure. While 6% say Satan, 4% say Richard Dawkins and 4% say Madalyn Murray O’Hair, one-in-ten respondents just name themselves or another personal acquaintance such as a relative, friend or roommate. And roughly half (51%) say “no one” or “don’t know” or do not answer the question.

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