Is the Devil real?

[Allanon]

Don't lean on your own understanding but trust in the infinite knowledge of the Lord.

God does what He does how he does it because He is God!!!!

Love Him for giving you life and beleive on the Son He has sent.

[Tab]

Oh yes, don't think for yourself, just do what we tell you even though it's logically, historically, and verifiably incorrect.

Guess that's what happens when an organization has more power than the government itself for 1300 some years.

[Allanon]

Read the Word of God and decide for yourself what is right. God is God and you are just a creation. Don't play the fool and reject God's warnings. You don't have to listen to an organized source. You can read the Bible and find out what the Truth is for yourself.

[LA FORET MAUVE]

...i think God is our creation []

[LA FORET MAUVE]

when i was in a monastery, the subject of the devil couldn't go out of my mind and interrogations. I went for a calm walk in the monastery's garden with the intent to ask God if the Devil was real and what could the Devil be...
Subitely, i felt strongly that the answer was waiting for me to be see in an old well (not sure of my english here, it is the thing where you catch water deep in the ground, see what i mean ?)...i really felt that in an intuitive way deep in my heart.
I went to look inside...and what did i see ?

Myself reflecting in the water.

[Allanon]

You are NOT the Devil but you do have a fallen nature. Don't let Satan fool you into thinking that you do not deserve eternal life. It is God's gift and He paid a high price for it.

[Adrian]

Greetings Mustardseed,

quote:Originally posted by Mustardseed

It seems that a lot of people believe Demons to be real, and also Angels. Some believe that there is such a being as God, now, how about the...Devil!!!. I think that I am concluding that he must be real too and not just

Angels are Divine beings on a different evolutionary path to humans. Demons are the dark reciprocals of Angels and also exist.

The devil is a construct of the churches in line with concept of God as a deity, i.e. a personified being. Accordingly the church teaches satan is also a personified being, both integral to the churches concepts of "heaven" and "hell". The constructs of "heaven" and "hell" and therefore of "satan" where necessary to control the congregations, and even whole communities or countries. They teach those who do not believe in their concept of God, or accept Jesus as a saviour will burn in "hell" and damnation for all eternity.

In reality, God, The All is the entire Universe uncluding us, and we are God. Nothing can exist outside of The All including satan. Hell does not exist "down below" because the physical world is as low as you can get. The concepts of "hell" originate in the lower Astral which seem like "hells" to those who are there. The "hells" are nevertheless still all aspects of the Universe and therefore of God and there is no entity known as "satan" residing there.

With best regards,

Adrian.

[LA FORET MAUVE]

quote:Originally posted by Allanon

You are NOT the Devil

I think you didn't understood the point []

[Tab]

quote:Originally posted by Allanon

Read the Word of God and decide for yourself what is right.

Did it. For 15 years. And I decided what was a lot more right in a lot of ways. Have you ever read anything else? You'd be surprised.

quote:Originally posted by Allanon

God is God and you are *snip* a creation.

Oh I agree wholeheartedly. Not so much in the manner that God said "omfgzor I'm bored I think I'll make ppl and make them do crAzy stuff", but more in the manner that God is not a being, spirit, deity, or force but an infinite cause existing in the only true reality, and that from that divine prototype a shadow world of illusion was fashioned, my body included, in order for the cause to realize it's effect and vice versa.
"just" was removed because it makes me, the creation, seem inferior to the creator, when in absolute truth we are one in the same and merely reflections of each other through the mirror of brahma.

Or something like that.

[Allanon]

quote: meet the devil when I was tripping on shrooms, he gave me a tour of hell & asked me to stay but I said no thanks. It was the most interesting trip I have ever had.

That guy sucks. Why do people defend him?

[no_leaf_clover]

quote:That guy sucks. Why do people defend him?

Satan is only misunderstood. Be nice to Satan, and Satan will be defeated. If you say Satan sucks, Satan has been given more power! Neither defend him nor attack him.. Let him be, and don't let him affect your judgement.

Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.
--Romans 12:21




.....JUST KIDDING! [8D]

[Allanon]

quote:Satan is only misunderstood. Be nice to Satan, and Satan will be defeated. If you say Satan sucks, Satan has been given more power! Neither defend him nor attack him.. Let him be, and don't let him affect your judgement.

I hate Satan and will see him as my Lord Jesus Christ defeats Him and throws him to the lake of fire. Click on this link to see a good visual interpretation of it.

http://www.sanctuarygc.org/Revelation/revelation18.html
http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image24.asp

[Mustardseed]

Dear Adrian. Get ready for some irony ok. So.....YOU have the answer to all the questions!! (I think not). You know how it all works and have all wisdom  etc. Sorry Mr. Administrator. I resent your high handed dogmatic way of explaining what you BELIEVE to be the answer, to my question. You might be the administrator becourse of your consistent posting but as it says in the Bible, "a fool is known by his many words". Please take my advise and remember to include the sentence. I THINK or I BELIEVE, otherwise you could lead people astray into following your teaching when really they should ponder these things themselves. By the way I think you are ok so do not take it personal, this is just my opinion on your post.A bit of grassroot critiqe of your stars, and post.
Regards Mustardseed

[Tisha]

The universe is vast and all-encompassing, and God is All.  In His/Her universe, he/she created the realm of ALL POSSIBILITY, and set the universe spinning.  There is the potential for good, the potential for evil.  A creating force and a destroying one, both doing its business simultaneously. (Please note that the destroying force is not necessarily evil . . . without decomposition, for instance, we'd have no fertile soil from which to grow our food!).

From this realm of all possibilities emerges the World of Form.  
What "exists" in the world of Form is largely up to its inhabitants. We have been given the raw material from which to create our world, like children given a set of blocks.

Before we can bring something from the realm of all possibilities into the world of form, we first must create it in our thoughts. So after this long preface, I finally come to my POINT:

The more we send our thoughts toward something, the more power we give it.  Sorry, but this not my opinion, it's been proven over and over and over again in this world.  

People send evil thoughts toward the objects of their hate.  Hateful thoughts are evil. They and create an awful reality of their own and do a lot of damage.

Our powerful beliefs DO have an effect on the universe. They create thoughtforms, and these thoughtforms can take on lives of themselves and actually start doing harm.  The more people believe in them, the more powerful they become. Which explains a lot of neg and supposedly satanic activity, if you ask me . . . it is a product of sick, evil, resentful, obsessive minds.

There is so much mental illness, bad intent, and resentment/hate in this world, there is no wonder that demons and so-called "satan" exist.

So is the devil real?  He sure as heck is NOW.  

Thanks a LOT guys.

[no_leaf_clover]

quote:Originally posted by Allanon



I hate Satan and will see him as my Lord Jesus Christ defeats Him and throws him to the lake of fire. Click on this link to see a good visual interpretation of it.

http://www.sanctuarygc.org/Revelation/revelation18.html
http://www.revelationillustrated.com/shop/image24.asp

According to the Bible, you really aren't supposed to hate anything, including Satan or any other of God's creations. Those pics are like something out of a fairy tell. You'll never see anything like that in real life. Sorry. No one ever has, and no one ever will.

[Allanon]

quote:According to the Bible, you really aren't supposed to hate anything, including Satan or any other of God's creations.

Psalm 97
10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil,
for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

quote:Those pics are like something out of a fairy tell. You'll never see anything like that in real life. Sorry. No one ever has, and no one ever will.

2 Peter 1

16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

[no_leaf_clover]

Allanon, you know just as well as I that that are places in the Bible that say the exact opposite. The difference is that I'm not going to waste my time going to go hunt them down to rub them in your face. I'm sure you know Jesus never promoted hate, ever, and Christianity (your religion, more or less, though not necessarily the religion from which your first quote originates), is based on Jesus and his teachings over all other texts and prophets/teachers/etc.

quote:16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Of course not. No one ever lies, especially the church, and especially back when it was still a cult! Sounds a bit suspicious that they would put such a thing in the Bible. If Peter or whoever was being truthful, he would see no reason to write such a thing, whether to reassure himself or others.

[Mustardseed]

Well, no leaf clover listen for a moment here. You say that you know for a fact that the bible says this and that but are too busy to find the places, and then use this statement to justify your viewpoint. At least Allannon tells you what he believes and why and where it says so. It is so easy to debunk arguments in this manner  but not very wise. If you want to qoute the bible do so but let us know your referance then. Otherwise it makes no sense. Any proper argument scientific postulate or theory and even the law, will include a referance list so people can check if the qoutes say, what you say they say. It might be better if you simply state that you do not believe in the Bible as the word of God. Then you do not have to adhere to its contents. Allannon has a point and his qoute is right on. It does say that. So .....how about it. I would agree that it is right to hate evil. A gardener must not only love flowers but also hate weeds. Certainly makes sense to me. And Tirsha this stuf about "it is proven over and over" is more of the same baloney. I challenge you about that ..Where is the proof !!!!! there are many things I absolutely hate, and so do many others and I do not believe that to be nessesarily a wrong emotion. It seems too Hindu all encompassing lovey dovey . Read RB s books about counter messures and using agression. I have had several encounters with posessed people and bad spirits and believe you me they will torment you if you encounter them with this pacifistic attitude. I do believe that God has emotions and I believe that he is capable of hating as well, and that he does, and according to my belief we are made in "his picture". I have no proof of this but it is my BELIEF .....prove me wrong!

[Tisha]

Aggression and force are not the same as hate.  It is proper to react to a threatening force with force of your own.  

And, love is not weak. "lovey-dovey" is not real love. Love is strong and powerful, as powerful as hate.  So pick your tonic.  I've picked mine!

[no_leaf_clover]

Thanks, Mustardseed. I went out looking to find such quotes only to find quotes from the Bible that support hate in certain situations, which I found suprising, coming from a religion based (or supposed to be based) on the teachings of Jesus. I'm not saying there are no such quotes as the ones I mentioned before, but they're obviously much overlooked or in small numbers or both.

If proof is all that matters to you, there's nothing wrong with that, but I find it odd that you're here telling me to get proof for my statements when the Bible itself is and has been a work of fiction. I was telling Allanon that Christianity is (or maybe better worded as 'should be') a religion of love, being based on the teachings of Jesus. Hate is negative, and hate is not the way to go, whether you feel it for someone you know or an entity you happen to belief exists. Jesus could tell you that much himself, but maybe you'd want proof of that, too.

Does anyone know if anyone has approached Robert Bruce's argument that the Bible is a complete work of fiction and has no proof? I thought I saw that on a couple different topics but I wasn't following it that closely. []

[Tab]

I actually picked the bible up a few days ago out of utter boredom. After reading a little ways into the old testament, I couldn't help thinking "WTF? Do people actually READ the bible?!?"
I mean, the guys of Sodom and Gomorrah tried to rape the damn angels. Wtf? Then Lot was like "omg guys my daughters are virgins rape them instead".
Later Lot's two daughters wind up getting him drunk and taking turns in bed with him.
Before all that, when Abraham is travelling through Egypt during the famine, he says Sarah is his sister so Pharaoh will take her and give him a bunch of sheep and goods.

And that was like not even the first half of Genesis. >_O

[Allanon]

This post by Allanon has been deleted as it was one of 6 replicas of a post originally submitted by Chill in topic -
Be warned: The spirit-war is well underway...

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6894&whichpage=2

Regards
James.

[Mustardseed]

(Qoute)
I'm not saying there are no such quotes as the ones I mentioned before, but they're obviously much overlooked or in small numbers or both.
(Answer)Ha You could not find them


(Qoute)
the Bible itself is and has been a work of fiction.......
Does anyone know if anyone has approached Robert Bruce's argument that the Bible is a complete work of fiction



(Answer) You know what No leaf clover......!!  I have decided you are not worth my time. You argue with such a degree of ignorance qouting RB and anyone else or just making up opinions off the top of your head,you my young friend in my book are .....a fool. So in light of that I will refrain from wasting more of my time posting to you, till you either get a bit more mature or older ....and that might happen simuntaneusly.
Regards Mustardseed

[no_leaf_clover]

quote:(Answer) You know what No leaf clover......!! I have decided you are not worth my time. You argue with such a degree of ignorance qouting RB and anyone else or just making up opinions off the top of your head,you my young friend in my book are .....a fool. So in light of that I will refrain from wasting more of my time posting to you, till you either get a bit more mature or older ....and that might happen simuntaneusly.
Regards Mustardseed

Robert Bruce might not have used the word 'fiction' but the idea is the same and 'fiction' does technically apply to the Bible since it has no evidence that supports it beyond any doubt. It seems to me you're simply trying to avoid the question and take the pressure you put on yourself by having to come up with an answer by calling me a 'fool', etc., which honestly doesn't bother me. You can call me what you like, but the Bible has no proof.

In all fairness, I think I should say that the only reason the Bible is brought under such fire for having no proof is because it is a religious and therefore an obviously biased document; that's it. It's a bit too late to complain about such 'unprovable' texts, because our history is actually based on them.

For example, our modern views on ancient Egyptian history owe as much to the greek historian Herodotus as they do to Egyptian archaeology itself. It was Herodotus that went to Greece and told us exactly who built what and why, yet how did he know? And where is his proof? It is largely because of Herodotus that we believe Khufu built the first Pyramid, yet egyptian texts themselves tell us that all 3 Pyramids and the Sphinx existed before Khufu was born. There is neither 'proof' * of Herodotus's claim nor the egyptian texts', but for simplicity, archaeologists take Herodotus's claim over Egypt's, having not to want to explain where the Pyramids must've really came from or to deal with alien or Atlantis theories.

My point is that, when it comes to history, and especially ancient history, you might as well forget trying to prove something happened in the same way as you can prove that the ocean is composed of water. There's simply no way to tell if something really happened, or if it really happened the way we thought it did, or if we're just being lied to. You can sometimes tell when something started existing in a form that it still remains in to this day, like roughly when a castle is built, but you can't really say anything about people said and did around that castle and prove it. History is almost all supposed.



* There is actually evidence that the Pyramids and Sphinx are much older than could be possible for Khufu to have started their construction, but since archaeologists deem the evidence utter bullcrap, I say that neither really have the evidence required to be 'scientific'. But then again, what does? We would be hard pressed to even prove that such things as the American Civil War took place, should we have to.

[Mustardseed]

(  Found on the net )     Many critics of Christianity claim that the Bible we read today has been changed in major ways since the originals were written.  For example, some have claimed that there are "hundreds of thousands of errors" in our present Bibles.  Some have claimed that the Catholic Church in the fourth and fifth centuries made major revisions of the Bible in order to support their own peculiar doctrine.  Still others have claimed that certain inspired books have been kept out of the Bible (for example the Gospel of Thomas).

       All of these claims rest on the assumption that we do not have available to us the original New Testament writings.  Although it is true that we do not have actual copies of the original manuscripts of the gospels or the letters, what we do have is very solid evidence that the current Greek text of the New Testament is extremely reliable.  

       Our Greek text is based on some very ancient manuscripts.  Some of the most important manuscripts available today are listed below.

1.  The Codex Vaticanus, or Codex B.  The Codex Vaticanus is a vellum codex on 759 pages in uncial script.  The manuscript has been dated to around AD 350 .  It contains the entire New Testament, except Hebrews 9:13-end, I and II Timothy, Titus and Revelation.  It also contains all of the Old Testament in Greek except the first few chapters of Genesis and several Psalms.  The manuscript has been kept in the Vatican since at least 1481.

2.  The Codex Sinaiticus, or Codex Aleph.  The Sinaiticus manuscript received its name because it was discovered at St. Catharines Monastery on Mt. Sainai in 1844 by the biblical scholar Tischendorf.  It was found in a basket of old parchments which were about to be thrown into a fire.  This manuscript is now in the British Museum.  Like the Vatican manuscript, it has been dated to around 350 AD.  It contains much of the Old Testament in Greek, but most significantly, it has the entire New Testament in Greek.

3. The Alexandrian Codex, or Codex A.  This is a fifth-century codex, containing most of the Old Testament and all the New Testament except a few pages of Matthew, two from 1st John and three from 2 Corinthians.  This manuscript was found in Alexandria in Egypt, but was given as a gift to the king of England in 1621. The manuscript is now located on the British Library.

4.  The Washington Manuscript.  This manuscript from the end of the fourth century contains the four gospels.  It is especially significant, as it contains Mark 16:9-20, unlike the three manuscripts already mentioned.

5.  The Chester Beatty Papyri.  This is a collection of a number of papyrus codex fragments, located in the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin, Ireland.  One of the papyri contains thirty leaves of the New Testament in Greek which have been dated to the late second or early third century (ie. around 200 AD).  Another includes 86 of 104 leaves of the letters of Paul from around from the early third century.

6.  The Bodmer Papyri.  This is a group of manuscripts found in the Bodmer Library of World Literature.  Included are a complete manuscript of Luke and John dated to 175-225 BC, as well as a manuscript of over half of the book of John which has been dated as early as 150 AD.

7.  The John Rylands Fragment.  This papyrus fragment contains only John 18:31-33 and 37,38, which would make it an insignificant find except that it has been dated to 130 AD.  This fragment was copied within fifty years of the death of the apostle John.

       From this list, one can see that we have manuscripts of the entire Bible from about 350 AD and of significant portions of the Bible from around 200 AD or before.  Claims that the New Testament was added to, subtracted from or changed in any significant way are indefensible in the light of this evidence.

        Additional evidence in support of the accuracy of the New Testament we have in our hands today is found in the writings of the early church "fathers."  Writers such as Polycarp, Clement, Justin Martyr and many others wrote extensively in the first and second centuries AD, quoting from a large proportion of the entire New Testament, providing further evidence in support of the accuracy of our New Testament text.

        As to the claims that there are "hundreds of thousands of errors" in our New Testament text, this is based on the nearly ten thousand manuscripts which we have.  Virtually all the supposed errors are minor slips of the pen of the many scribes who copied the Greek New Testament.   Through careful analysis of the thousands of manuscripts, scholars are able to reproduce a Greek text which is a virtually exact copy of the original.  To quote Sir Frederic Kenyon, the world famous Biblical scholar and former director of the British Museum for twenty-one years, who sums up the evidence nicely;

                        "The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hands and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries."