JaeIsGod

When I was a kid I always thought the dragon threw those stars at the earth to kill the women. Always seemed overkill to me esp when I learned how big a star is and how many there are =]

pariah

hey magus, as our resident fundie, why DID satan depart from god? i mean, man was tricked by satan into leaving god...but why would satan leave god? plus, surely as an angel, he knew that god was omnipotent. what was he (satan) thinking??

JaeIsGod

Yeah , Satan doesnt seem to be much of a clever fellow.

Cross Examiner

Good question.

"hey magus, as our resident fundie, why DID satan depart from god? i mean, man was tricked by satan into leaving god...but why would satan leave god? plus, surely as an angel, he knew that god was omnipotent. what was he (satan) thinking??"

I'm something like a fundy, so I'll respond . I recall that Lucifer was made to be a magnificent being of incredible power and beauty; the greatest of all created entities. He declared to make himself as God, the Most High, an act of outright sedition. Personally, I wonder if the weight of his own glory was too much for his free will to resist fatal pride and the subsequent open rebellion towards God.

You'll also note that Satan fed man the same lie he fed himself on. I don't doubt he thinks he can still win against God, at least a Pyrrhic victory of sorts by deceiving the object of God's greatest love, mankind.

I didn't supply verses for the above but I'm sure a trip to Google will help the skeptical mind.

Regards,
BGic

Jobar

Since this thread is turning in to a serious discussion (maybe), and has nothing directly to do with EoG, I'm moving it to GRD.

Satan has always rather fascinated me. Sometimes I hear him described as Samael or Lucifer, most powerful and most beautiful of angels. Sometimes he's the Devil, who the Catholics claim is stupid and entirely unoriginal, who can only twist the things God has made (and his efforts toward evil always ultimately result in good, due to his utterly perverse nature.)

As is often true, the antagonist in the Bible story is the most interesting character! I strongly recommend Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil for a refreshingly different take on the role of Satan.

Mageth

IIRC, there is an Islamic myth about Satan that goes something like this. Allah created man, and required all his angels to love, and bow to, man. Satan, however, loved Allah alone, and completely, and refused to obey Allah's command and would only love and bow to Allah. So Allah chucked him out of Heaven for this act of disobedience.

Satan is an exile from love, not from rebellion. I think this makes for quite a nicer, and more interesting, tale than the Xian prideful rebellion myth.

Magus55

No its figurative, alot of Revelation is figurative.

Magus55

Because Satan (Lucifer) wasn't content worshipping God, He wanted the angels to worship Him. He wanted God's power and authority. Satan had pride and greed, the first sins ever to enter God's creation. Here is the biblical verses on Lucifer's rebellion:


Isa 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Isa 14:13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

Isa 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Isa 14:15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.


stars of God, in Isaiah 14:13 again is referring to the angels in Heaven.

Now before you say anything about these verses, I'm well aware that this is directed at the Babylonian King, but not only is it talking of him, it is a foreshadow to revelation , and the rebellion of Satan at the beginning of Creation, described there in the verses i showed before. Where Satan brought all the "stars" of God to Earth, from Heaven.

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Magus55
Yes it is. Angels are referred to as "stars" of heaven.

I guess archangels are referred to as "superstars".

Its figurative.

Just like the creation story in Genesis and Noah's ark.

winstonjen

Which also means 'go figure.' Specifically, figure out what the writers were smoking, sniffing and injecting when they wrote it.