I want to start an online outreach to Satanists....

I'll meet you halfway and agree that the terms are made up by humans, but they correspond to forces they experience in real life: good and evil, and their respective sources. And I don't want to debate what "evil" means. If you don't think it exists, there's no point arguing. But child porn? Child molestation? Child abuse? Child murder? Rape of any age person? Swindling the elderly? Swindlers and child pornographers aren't insane. They are calculating and very rational. They purposefully inflict pain and suffering for fun and/or profit. That's what evil is.

As for Jesus, it doesn't really matter what name you ascribe to whoever it was that spoke the sermon on the mount. Denying that the words "And forgive us our trespasses ..." etc. were ever spoken by a real person is to suppose that the Gospels themselves are four different works of closely related fiction. They have little entertainment value, and so I believe they were spoken in earnest, by someone. Jesus or Yeshua are suitable enough.

Moreover, they announce principles that won't fail us if we live by them ... which I unfortunately do not, or not nearly enough.

 

I take no issue whatsoever with the message contained in the Gospels, or whatever you wish to call these guidelines for good. I merely take issue with spoiling said messaging by tainting it with an illusionary author and expecting me to accept it or perish in flames. In truth I like what is said and feel it is a positive force...I simply do not enjoy the messengers or the ways they present it.
Christians often send this idea of love with enormous levels of hate.

 

Yin and Yang - the two extremities. Good and Evil. God and Satan. Neither can exist without the other but neither are superior. Without god there is no evil and without evil there is no god, for without one how do you recognise the other. And between the two are the shades of each. The Christian Satan, the Judaistic Satan, Ahriman of Zoroastrianism, Nidhog of German mythology, Shaitan of Islam, Mara of Buddhism. I nearly forgot Lucifer, a name that came into being by some early church father misreading Isaiah. All are manmade concepts.
Life is full of people who 'worship' good and others that 'worship' evil. Are we really back to the days of Tomas de Torquemada? Days of superstition and magic, of witches and wizards, of cursing and blessing.
All these NDE experiences, talking with ancients, some who did not exist? Rick Joyner has made a fortune out of his ministries and some of the things he has said in his Bible studies make little sense. in Biblical terms.

 

That is a very interesting angle on all this but.....
personally I think that Satan can't actually hold a candle against
YHWH / HaShem the G-d of Abraham but..........
after his initial rage at being demoted Stanley Milgram Lucifer Satan
decided that it would be a shame to waste all that effort and not do some
.... OK billions and billions of reality film projects with significant spiritual,
emotional, artistic and educational value..........

Each of the lives of humans and angels is a reality film.....
and has been recorded on something far, far, far, far beyond HD, DVD or even IMax......

https://www.near-death.com/science/research/life-review.html

 

Illusory author ... By which you mean God, I take it?

But see, here's the thing: If you take no issue whatsoever with the message AND feel that it is a positive force, you're pretty far along the path. Why not give Jesus the benefit of the doubt that when he refers to "his Father" that he's not just imagining things:

"Not everyone ... will enter the kingdom of heaven, but [only] the one who does the will of My Father in heaven."

I am pretty sure that he is referring there to what we are calling "God," right? How does his reference to God -- not to be confused with the offensive (to you) conception of God held by latter day Christians, who are just men after all -- taint the message? To the Jews of his time, at least, it enhanced the message.

 

I cannot give Jesus the benefit of the doubt as I have no doubt of his fabrication and would need to lie to myself to do so, There are far too many indications that his story is a manmade construct and this is part of what I mean by spoiling the message. I am simply disturbed by pretending to be good in order to actually be good.

 

What do you mean?

 

Was that "...world's most famous Satanist..." Anton LeVay?

 

I do not feel the need to pretend something other than myself is required for me to be a good person. I also see just how "Good" many religious people turn out to be, which makes the entire concept distasteful in my mind.

 

Forget the Satanist. Focus on the average rational person who is not a believer and provide them with actual proof of your religious claims. The fact that you people always talk about having to have faith, i.e., believing in wild claims without proof, seems like an indicator you do not have any proof -- and circular logic claims regarding the Bible are not proof of anything.

 

I don't know anyone who ever said you have to accept Jesus or God to be "good." I think when you "do good," you are doing the will of God whether you believe in God or not.

Second, I don't see how we can discredit belief just because there are flawed people who accept it.

I do see the objection that too many Christians demand that you "accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" in order to be saved, which I honestly as a Catholic don't even understand. That's kind of a recent American Protestant invention, thought it presumably grew out of Luther's doctrine of sola fide.

The doctrine of sola fide asserts God's pardon for guilty sinners is granted to and received through faith alone, excluding all "works". All mankind, it is asserted, is fallen and sinful, under the curse of God, and incapable of saving itself from God's wrath and curse. But God, on the basis of the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ alone (solus Christus), grants sinners judicial pardon, or justification, which is received solely through faith. Faith is seen as passive, merely receiving Christ and all his benefits, among which benefits are the active and passive righteousness of Jesus Christ.

(Can a Protestant help me out here? Is the above language in italics what "saved" means?)

 

Well, I think most religious people would tell you that what they mean by God is something out of time and out of space, and so it not governed by rules of evidence and logic. So you'll never convince them to become atheist by use of your logic. As Tertullain said in the 2nd century, "What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens?"

 

Forget discussions of logic. Without proof your religious claims are no different than the claims of any other religion. What you are really saying is you believe in something because it makes you feel good and meets you psychological needs. I have zero interest in convincing anyone to be an atheist and I do not consider myself to be an atheist. My interest is in having people who make religious claims provide proof of their claims. Is that to much to ask? You people claim evolution is a fraud, yet the people who claim evolution is real have discovered and sequenced DNA. You want to talk about logic. What is the logic in saying a claim without evidence is true, yet something scientifically proven is false. Don't you think it is a little disconcerting that this Tertullain you mention could argue that Pagan Gods did not exist yet provide zero proof that his God did exist?

 

Yes, actually, the way you frame it, it is too much to ask. It's like asking me to prove that a Chopin nocturne or the Pieta is moving, or that we have a moral obligation not to hurt or kill or exterminate the handicapped. We do have that obligation, but I can't prove it with logic. It just feels wrong. Why do you think that is? There are many realities that are not susceptible to the kind of proof you require.

I think the conversion of so many people, so fast, from the Levant all the way to England, without the threat of violence, much of it accomplished by force of nothing but example (Christians practicing charity in exchange for absolutely nothing), is proof that something other than material forces was at work.

The declaration of Christianity as an accepted religion in the Roman Empire drove an expansion of the provision of care. Following First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE construction of a hospital in every cathedral town was begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals

What?? No I don't! Nor does my religion:

"Evolution, if it does not include a denial of God, or of any truth revealed by God or taught by the Church, is a scientific hypothesis that must be accepted or rejected on the basis of its own scientific evidence." (Catholic Dictionary)

That seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

The being of light of near death experience fame......
has some serious Batman Cool going on.........
and I like this being of light very, very, very much......


The being of light of NDE fame, G-d or Satan?

 

Good point......
back in 1988 I figured I had G-d pretty much figured out........
but then I ran into near death experience accounts and had to rethink everything.........
and now i know that i know... that I know NOTHING........

 

And what do you think about the fact that an injection of Ketamine will produce a so called near death experience?

 

Atheists in general do not wish to "Convince" Christians of anything, they simply respond to attempts at trying to convince THEM....like I am doing right now.

 

Atheists in general ... I guess you mean the majority. I can't dispute that at all.

Do you find anything remarkable in the development and spread of Christianity, I mean in the 2nd and 3rd centuries?

I believe it was revolutionary and miraculous (not literally, though possibly literally). It was also so pervasive that we must suppose it struck a common nerve, in the Levant, North Africa, and Europe at least. It never quite caught on in the Far East, for some reason.

 

I should have said that one can't expect to use logic to shake people out of Theism or Christianity. That doesn't invalidate religion, however. Mental giants like Augustine, Aquinas, Bach, and Martin Luther were very logical people.

 

I think I don't want one.

 

At that point in human history (and until recently) society and culture had limited understanding of nature and the world, this led to the wanton need for explanation of those thing which occurred and a means of directing frustration and blame.
The creation of the deity phenomenon filled this position and thus we noted multiple versions gaining popularity and converts. With the rapid increase in scientific understanding and technological advancement these deities are being replaced with reality based explanations, which is the reasoning behind the decline in devout theism.

 

YHWH/HaShem was not the God of Abraham. Proven ancient history shows that Abraham did not exist as the Bible declares. Neither did Noah or Moses.
When the scribes wrote the OT from 7th century BCE on, they took Yahweh from earlier Ugarite beliefs where he is a 'son' of El. They enshrined all gods under this one Yahweh. Ugarite influence can be seen in the poetry of the Psalms and other OT writings.

 

Satan just told me you are all loopy and he is going to sentence you all to heaven and an eternity of Christians saying you will go to hell, where we are drinking Maggies at the brimstone beaches.

Yes...we do have Ice.