Is Satan actually good?

[timtofly]

Error in logic there.

If we could do no harm, then eating the fruit was harmless. We ate the fruit before we had knowledge of ethics. More to the point, if eating that fruit was so bad, having knowledge of ethics could have prevented us. We'd have a chance to say to the serpent: no sir, I will not eat this fruit, because that would be bad. Instead we had no defense.

Instead, we were left as vulnerable to the serpent as can be. And God, being All-knowing knew this. The serpent would tempt us, and God being outside time knew this would happen. In short: God is just as, or being more powerful, more guilty of the original sin that Satan could ever be.

But don't worry about all of this. This would only be important if any of this actually happened.

Lastly, I cannot believe you'd say something like: "What is so great about knowing good and evil?"

One really does not like faith at all? Why do we have the term trust even in our language? If my logic failed, then faith and trust should not exist at all. Let's take the hypothesis that Adam did not know what death was. Why would he be given the choice between eating everything else and death? If he did have the full extent of what death was, why would he choose it? It was a simple choice and a simple "ethical" dilemma. It did not have to be difficult, as long as one was content in not actually experiencing death. Now we have no concept of eternal life, because no one can experience it, and if they did, no one would believe them.

If humans were allowed everything except death, once again, why would ethics be necessary? Why can humans not process life without ethics? We imagine a future utopian experience without oppression and human frailty, but we complain that life would be meaningless without pain and suffering?

Is the story just another imaginative attempt at human utopia? If utopian existence can never be a reality, then I suppose you have a point. It would seem that all hope is just emptiness then.

Being vulnerable to satan seems ridiculous. Remember that his choice was to give humans ethics and the blessing of human misery. The logic that God left humans vulnerable and satan's ethics and misery was a better choice does not make any sense. One may be correct in thinking that God was foolish to give humans a choice in the first place, but then again someone would complain along with satan that life is too easy and we need more hardships.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I like how you completely ignore anything I wrote when you replied to me.

I'm not a soapbox. I'd love to discuss but that's a two-way proposition.

 

[timtofly]

I like how you completely ignore anything I wrote when you replied to me.

I'm not a soapbox. I'd love to discuss but that's a two-way proposition.

You caught me in my passion. This two way street sometimes feels like an upstream swim.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You caught me in my passion. This two way street sometimes feels like an upstream swim.

Ah, that is unfortunate. (Not the passion, which is good, but the upstream swim)

Speaking for myself, with the knowledge of ethics, I would not want to lose it now I know my actions can have positive and negative consequences for my fellow human being. I believe that knowledge makes it possible for me to be a better person.

Wouldn't it be odd that a good deed would feel the no different from an evil one? No thanks. I want that responsibility. Because it prevents me from doing harm, it encourages me to do good deeds.

I do want to say a couple of things about your previous post that I disagree with: If my logic failed, then faith and trust should not exist at all. Faith and trust are also two-way streets. Faith and trust isn't only between you and God, but also between you and others. You have faith they will not betray you, or trust they'll not hurt you. When I questioned your logic, I in no way meant to question your faith. The passion you mentioned seems to be evidence of your faith.

The second one I already addressed in the other post: "It was a simple choice and a simple "ethical" dilemma." But Adam and Eve had no ethical knowledge. So how are they to blame if they make the wrong choice in an ethical dilemma?

Lastly: "Is the story just another imaginative attempt at human utopia? If utopian existence can never be a reality, then I suppose you have a point. It would seem that all hope is just emptiness then." Utopia or bust! If Utopia can not be a reality, one can hope to get as close to it as possible. One can still improve their existence. There is always hope when there are ways to better oneself and one's surroundings.

 

[timtofly]

Ah, that is unfortunate. (Not the passion, which is good, but the upstream swim)

Speaking for myself, with the knowledge of ethics, I would not want to lose it now I know my actions can have positive and negative consequences for my fellow human being. I believe that knowledge makes it possible for me to be a better person.

Wouldn't it be odd that a good deed would feel the no different from an evil one? No thanks. I want that responsibility. Because it prevents me from doing harm, it encourages me to do good deeds.

I would hazard a guess that doing normal things would always feel good, even without the need for judgment on if it was right or wrong. I do not see how that negates a positive feeling or experience. Everything was already pronounced good. I do not see how that would negate a positive or even varying degrees of feeling good. The biggest issue I have is that we have no clue how things would work without anything bad happening. We see bad things as a means to make improvement and the inability to do so is foreign to us. Not to mention that ethics is not about feeling good or bad. Ethics IMHO (I could be wrong) is about doing the right thing whether it feels good or not. The right thing to do was not eating the fruit, no matter how tempting it seems. Even if doing bad was burning a hole in one's subconscious. I still cannot see how we can even begin to understand the thought processes of Adam, and his feelings of being shafted.

I do want to say a couple of things about your previous post that I disagree with: If my logic failed, then faith and trust should not exist at all. Faith and trust are also two-way streets. Faith and trust isn't only between you and God, but also between you and others. You have faith they will not betray you, or trust they'll not hurt you. When I questioned your logic, I in no way meant to question your faith. The passion you mentioned seems to be evidence of your faith.

The point about faith and trust is that if some one warns you about an experience, you have to trust them that they know what they are talking about even if you have not experienced it.

I have no issue with people attacking my faith, so I take no offence. My passion is my logic and the ability to reason things out.

The second one I already addressed in the other post: "It was a simple choice and a simple "ethical" dilemma." But Adam and Eve had no ethical knowledge. So how are they to blame if they make the wrong choice in an ethical dilemma?

Faith is your friend when it comes to avoiding certain harmful experiences. Having knowledge is not relevant. We can choose to avoid a bad experience either by an assumed knowledge or an actual experience. The blame is not on the lack of knowledge, but on the lack of trust. It is not shameful to want an experience, as long as you do not blame any one else for the suffering you go through. Not satan, not God, nor any other human. I have no problem with humans who enjoy their misery as long as they take full responsibility that they got themselves into that state. I do not even have an issue with those who accept evolution as the means of their existence. And I realize that some people are born into miserable conditions, without the knowledge of anything better. It is when knowledge is received, when one should not blame circumstances.

Would not taking one's word for something negate the need for you to make that decision on your own? Is that not the definition of trust? Knowledge comes from experience or taking another person word for it. Adam lacked the experience, but he did not lack the knowledge of another beings word. To take that logically a step further knowing that God has no sense of the knowledge of good and evil either, one may point out the need for someone to have such an experience. Enter satan who had an inkling that beings were missing out on his theory of good and evil. I get the reasoning, and perhaps God was jealous that satan had experience that he did not. God still was not wrong in giving Adam the choice over his destiny via a fruit tree. It would seem that God would be wrong in not offering the choice.

Lastly: "Is the story just another imaginative attempt at human utopia? If utopian existence can never be a reality, then I suppose you have a point. It would seem that all hope is just emptiness then." Utopia or bust! If Utopia can not be a reality, one can hope to get as close to it as possible. One can still improve their existence. There is always hope when there are ways to better oneself and one's surroundings.

Hope realized is better than hope assumed?

 

[Berzerker]

Enter satan who had an inkling that beings were missing out on his theory of good and evil. I get the reasoning, and perhaps God was jealous that satan had experience that he did not.

It wasn't the Serpent's theory, after God curses everyone he explains to his friends that the man had become like them, knowing good and evil. Genesis describes human evolution, we were naked and unashamed, ignorant of sin, and we became aware...

 

[AdamCrock]

You have no idea how many times I've been called a "Satan" when I had long hairs .....

Apart from that my concept of good and evil is not a clear one. For example "Would You kill 8 children in order to save millions of people" ?

I wouldn't call satan evil but I wouldn't call him good either - He's just an idividualist and goes by his own criteria despise the God's teachings

 

[timtofly]

It wasn't the Serpent's theory, after God curses everyone he explains to his friends that the man had become like them, knowing good and evil. Genesis describes human evolution, we were naked and unashamed, ignorant of sin, and we became aware...

It was satan's theory: But God doth know that when ye shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Perfect is the work of the mighty God: for all his ways are judgment. God is true, and without wickedness: just and righteous is he.

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.

There is no evidence that God has friends. What satan said is not necessarily what God said. Satan has the view that humans need to eat the fruit. God would prefer they did not. Satan said they would be as gods. God said that man was now like Us. At that point every one including God was "ignorant" of sin. God cannot sin. Satan cannot sin. Every one including God became aware of sin, because now there was a being who knew the full extent and experience of what sin was.

God had knowledge, but no experience. Satan had a theory of what sin would do, but no knowledge. The first time that knowledge and experience of sin happened was when Adam ate the fruit. That is the theory of original sin. If sin is original with Adam, then technically knowing good and evil is not sin, because God allegedly had the knowledge of good and evil minus the experience. Satan's "rebellion" was not sin. It was not evil to want to do a better job than God, it was just an impossibility. Satan lied, because there were no gods. There was God and the angels. Adam did have the knowledge of good and evil and that knowledge made him equal with God in only one way. Humans now had the knowledge of evil.

The only difference between your point and mine is the determination of the "us". In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. If you want to go full Trinitarian, then God as a Spirit was also present in the us part. God had the knowledge of sin, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men and experienced every human aspect without sin. It would seem that God in eternity had not experienced sin, but had knowledge of sin. It is my opinion that time as linear started when Adam ate the fruit or when God "cursed" creation and change time as a consequence of Adam eating the fruit. Linear time, entropy, death, and the fact that the Word would become flesh all happened and revolve around the choice that Adam made in eating the fruit.

None of this would logically change the point that satan had a theory which ended up being played out, but not as he promised Eve. Humans did not become as God. They just now had the knowledge of good and evil and the ethics that came with such knowledge. Satan was right that now humans could enact and become gods in the sense that humans started to make up gods and some even called themselves gods. Most gods being of human form and disposition. God being a force without body or form. The form was Spirit. The Word was the ability to create and interact with the physical universe.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

It wasn't the Serpent's theory, after God curses everyone he explains to his friends that the man had become like them, knowing good and evil. Genesis describes human evolution, we were naked and unashamed, ignorant of sin, and we became aware...

Exactly. The emergence of mental self aware consciousness brought with it the sense of ego which separates us from the rest of the world. I am not sure if this path was necessary but it is evident that man can progress further and outgrow this present condition and go beyond this ego sense.

The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was God’s corrective for egoism. But man’s egoism meets God’s device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.

You have no idea how many times I've been called a "Satan" when I had long hairs .....

Apart from that my concept of good and evil is not a clear one. For example "Would You kill 8 children in order to save millions of people" ?

I wouldn't call satan evil but I wouldn't call him good either - He's just an idividualist and goes by his own criteria despise the God's teachings

I have heard simmilar absurd instances before. Life can get absurd sometimes but this seem to be some notion from ridiculous movie rather anything close to real life. You dont have to kill children to save people -- like ever...

 

[timtofly]

I have heard simmilar absurd instances before. Life can get absurd sometimes but this seem to be some notion from ridiculous movie rather anything close to real life. You dont have to kill children to save people -- like ever...

When humans come up with their own hypothetical ethics this is possible to do a lot of the time.

 

[Berzerker]

It was satan's theory: But God doth know that when ye shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

so what was the result according to God?

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.

thats what the serpent said, they both said the same thing... the serpent said they would know good and evil and thats exactly what God reports to his friends.

There is no evidence that God has friends.

Let us make man (male and female) in our image. Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. You just quoted God talking to his buddies. Elohim = gods

 

[timtofly]

so what was the result according to God?

Death.

thats what the serpent said, they both said the same thing... the serpent said they would know good and evil and thats exactly what God reports to his friends.

Satan did not offer the chance to be God, he offered them a chance to be as gods. That is different than being like God himself. God said that now they were like God, because now they had the knowledge of evil. As pointed out in the other post, that knowing by experience and knowing by theory or knowledge are two different things. I then explained that God only has such knowledge through the experience of Jesus Christ and the fact that God knows everything that would happen between the linear time frame from the start to the end of such a time frame. As Ziggy Stardust so aptly put it, it was the knowledge of ethics which now is an important part of the human experience.

Let us make man (male and female) in our image. Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. You just quoted God talking to his buddies. Elohim = gods

Why are humans social creatures? Why did God say us and not my buddies or friends?

Pains are taken to refute the arguments based on the grammatical plurals employed in Biblical texts when referring to God. "Elohim" does not designate a plurality of deities. The very context shows this, as the verbs in the predicate are in the singular. The phrase "Let us make man in our image" (Gen. i. 26) is proved by the subsequent statement, "so God created man in his own image" (ib. verse 27), to refer to one God only (Yer. Ber. ix.; Gen. R. viii., xix.). Nor, according to R. Gamaliel, is the use of both "bara" and "yaẓar," to connote God's creative action, evidence of the existence of two distinct divine powers (Gen. R. i.). The reason why in the beginning one man only was fashioned was to disprove the contention of those that believe in more than one personality in God (Sanh. 38a). God had neither associate nor helper (Sanh. 38b; Yer.Shab. vi. 8d; Eccl. R. iv. 8). The ever-recurrent principle throughout haggadic theological speculations is that there is only one "Reshut" ("Reshut aḥat hu" = "personality").

Why do humans still insist that there is more than one God? God does not demand all humans every where to even acknowledge him. When God says that he is not willing that any should parish is it the same thing as demanding that they do not parish? I wish that I could explain the mechanics that allows humans to be totally separated from God. Some humans have tried:

Adonai made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of disaster.

"Of the eternal election, by which God has predestinated some to salvation, and others to destruction".

Personally I can only do and say what I can do and say. So I continue to stretch my knowledge till it can be stretched no further. It would seem to me that the human phenomenon known as an atheist is a good indicator that being separate from God is a fact. What has not been determined yet is the reconciliation of such a phenomenon and the ability to change it's dynamics. It would seem to me that the ability is still in the hands of the free moral agent so long as they have the ability to do so. Is the ability in the knowledge or the experience? Ethics did not keep Adam separated from God. It is ethics that keeps humans separated from God.