alek0

If Satan is the enemy of god, and if he wants humans to disobey god, why would he then punish them for it in hell? What reason would he have to do exactly what god wants him to do, i.e. punish those who disobeyed his rules?

Marduk

The whole idea of Satan is very confusing and every cult has their own version, Hell is punishment for Satan and his demons from God, those who follow Satan follow him to hell. Whether he is their now or not is uncertain, some say he rules the Earth now. Some say no one is in hell till judgement day, others say he works for God testing people etc. etc. etc. Take your pick.

Melkor

Most people's concepts of "Satan" don't have much in the Bibbble to back them up. In fact, the Bibbble says precious little about this supposed "enemy of God". Personally, I think the idea of the personification of Evil™ is even more of a construct than the Bibbble itself is. Ask most Christians who the biggest enemy of God is and most of them will tell you "Satan" or "the Devil".

Then ask them where in the Bibbble it says that.

Bree

IIRC from my fundy days, Satan doesn't "punish" us while we're in hell. We are, in essence, punishing ourselves because we are seperate from God. Hell is existing without God in our lives, forever, and being able to see/know about our more godly counterparts partying it up in Heaven, with God.

Does that make sense?

Shake

Holy cats! I never thought about it like that! I guess you could take this several ways.

1. Satan is God's servant doing His bidding in Hell.
2. Satan is more of a managerial type. God put him in Hell and he's pissed about it, so that's why he tortures the humans that come to him.
3. If Satan is the Personification of Evil®TM, then he just gets his kicks doing what he does.
4. That torture stuff is a myth. He's building his army (a la Spawn) to take on God and Heaven's Army.

I dunno, I could probably go on, but this gets boring when you don't believe in heaven or hell, God or the Devil.

Rhea

I would say because Satan is not doing the punishing in hell.

He is being punished and the damned are condemned to suffer with him rather than at his hand. At least that's how I'd say it if I were writing the Bible.

BobW

One good reason was given by Marie Corelli in her book "The Sorrows of Satan" written around 1900. To summarize, Satan is a Jesus-Freak, addicted to being in the presence of God. According to her theory every time Satan is rejected by a human in favor of God, Satan is granted one hour of bliss in Heaven. I'm sure Marie never realized what a positively Machiavellian idea this was and what it said about the nature of God. It makes sense if you consider his origins.

Infidelettante

Well, it works more like this. God is the one who puts us in hell,
not Satan. You see, God made hell for Satan and his angels
to punish them for rebeling against Him. Now, Jesus died
to pay for our sins and offers us the rightousness of God
so we can enter heaven to be with Him and the Father.
Follow so far? Here's where it gets really sick. If we don't
accept Jesus and his offer of a pass through the Pearly Gates
we can't get into heaven because God can't be in the same
place with unrightousness which is what we are without
the gift of eternal life that God offers. What's the result of
not taking God up on His offer? Hell! Why? Well you see,
God made made Heaven then he made the Earth. So He made
two places for beings to be. Angels in Heaven and people
on Earth. So Satan gets uppity and God has to make a third
place for him and his buddies which is hell. If you die you
can't stay here on Earth and if you die lost you can't go to
heaven so where oh where can God put us? In hell! Why?
Because God is a sick bastard who can't be bothered with
creating a whole other FOURTH PLACE to put all us who
aren't taken in by His crap.

JT

MrDarwin

Satan is either the flawed creation of God [of a perfect God, who is incapable of error, and who knew when creating Satan exactly what Satan would do, and when] or Satan is doing exactly what God intends Satan to do. Christians seem to have trouble deciding which.

Either way, I'm not sure I like this idea of God. Because more simply put, either God made a huge and horrible mistake (which Christians refuse to believe) or everything has turned out exactly as God wanted, up to and including horrendous suffering on earth and the eternal torment of billions of souls after their death (which Christians refuse to admit).

Amos

Very nice, and Jesus feaks are satan worshippers who are addicted to the fuzzy feeling when they pray the HS down from heaven so he can entertain them again.

That is why I hold that to be lukewarm is to have one leg in heaven and one in on earth, or, that they must burn scriptures to fire up their mini rocket on which they soar through midheaven and crash every time the party is over.