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Is Satan Happy? How Happy? Extremely Happy?

Elixir said:
Swammerdami said:
Just for fun, I checked the Bible for references to Satan.
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I am mystified by what some people think is fun.
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How about "perverse sense of whimsy" ? Watch Rain Man -- I'm the Dustin Hoffman character. Idiot-Savant, though the idiot is much more self-evident these days.
 
steve_bank said:
Liberté, égalité, fraternité? The French are perpetually on the edge of anarchy.
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Freedom and anarchy are synonymous; You cannot have one without the other.

Whether you call a particular behaviour or event "freedom" or "anarchy" is entirely down to your opinion about whether that behaviour or event is a good or a bad thing.

If you worry about anarchy, you hate freedom. Very few Americans understand that simple fact, because they've been conditioned to a pavlovian reaction to the word "freedom", which now (to an American) means merely "participation in capitalism", and as a result wouldn't know liberté, égalité, or fraternité if they tripped over them.
 
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DBT said:
We are told that Yahweh is one of the sons of the high God El, a godling given dominion over the tribe of Israel by his sire.
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Polytheists don't need an adversary, so Satan would play no roll in that series of Bronze Age myths. The need for an adversary arose when the priests of Yahweh took over and wanted to make Yahweh the only god, so they dumped all the other gods.
 
Politesse said:
James Brown said:
It's curious how often apologists will engage in formal debates such as "Does God exist?"

I've never seen a debate on lesser subjects such as "Does Satan exist?" or "Is Hell an actual place?"
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It can be quite difficult to get an atheist to discuss any theological question other than "does God exist"? I get bored with it.
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So you're saying that Christian Apologists have been desperately trying to debate the existence of Satan, and no skeptic will take them up on it?

I have to admit I haven't seen anything like that.
 
James Brown said:
Politesse said:
James Brown said:
It's curious how often apologists will engage in formal debates such as "Does God exist?"

I've never seen a debate on lesser subjects such as "Does Satan exist?" or "Is Hell an actual place?"
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It can be quite difficult to get an atheist to discuss any theological question other than "does God exist"? I get bored with it.
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So you're saying that Christian Apologists have been desperately trying to debate the existence of Satan, and no skeptic will take them up on it?

I have to admit I haven't seen anything like that.
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Well, that sounds like almost as dull an argument over God's existence. But I've been posting on these fora for decades now, and it's rare for a conversation on any religious topic not to eventually circle back to whether some very specific conception of the "Christian God" is factual or not. Conversations about other topics, or other faith traditions, die quickly.
 
Something I realized when talking with a Christian I worked with back in the early 90s.

For many especialy Evangelicals Christians god, Jesus, Satan, angels, and evil spirits are all very real. It is liketrhey are living a Lord Of The Rings reality. Epic battles between good and evil.
 
Politesse said:
Well, that sounds like almost as dull an argument over God's existence. But I've been posting on these fora for decades now, and it's rare for a conversation on any religious topic not to eventually circle back to whether some very specific conception of the "Christian God" is factual or not. Conversations about other topics, or other faith traditions, die quickly.
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Steve touches on the subject:

steve_bank said:
For many especialy Evangelicals Christians god, Jesus, Satan, angels, and evil spirits are all very real. It is liketrhey are living a Lord Of The Rings reality. Epic battles between good and evil.
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Maybe the reason these conversations often become about whether gods are real is because the larger conversation is about whether all the woo is real. How many different aspects of Santa are there that you can discuss with a child and not eventually get bored out of your skull? Do reindeer really fly? Do elves make the toys? Is Mrs. Claus a good cook? But kids outgrow the belief primarily because their peers outgrow the belief and the conversation just dries up.

I'll agree that such conversations can be stimulating and likely do much to advance cognitive development but then for many people evidence based reality takes over. For most people on this forum the existence of gods equates with the existence of woo. Gods and bible gods are just more woo, not unlike Orange Face's claims that elections are all rigged. Intelligent people just move on but are eventually impressed upon to address the subject in the face of more and more ridiculous claims.
 
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T.G.G. Moogly said:
Maybe the reason these conversations often become about whether gods are real is because the larger conversation is about whether all the woo is real. How many different aspects of Santa are there that you can discuss with a child and not eventually get bored out of your skull? Do reindeer really fly? Do elves make the toys? Is Mrs. Claus a good cook? But kids outgrow the belief primarily because their peers outgrow the belief and the conversation just dries up.
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I mean, I both enjoy talking to kids and find the Santa mythos to be an interesting phenomenon, so we may be coming from different places, here.

And if you don't want to sound like a toddler yourself, I'm not sure using words like "woo" are helping you on that front.
 
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