Who the Devil ?

https://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/the-devil/


The Devil may seem an archaic symbol of evil, but he is supposed to be alive in the world to this day with his Satanic conspiracies. From the 1960s onwards, one expression of him was the Church of Satan, set up in San Francisco by occultist, Anton La Vey.Said to have perverted many a star, his ceremonies involved a naked woman as an altar and his philosophy was based on unbridled hedonism. The death of Jane Mansfield was even put down, by some, to their rituals. Who is he ? The name, the Devil comes from the Greek ?diabolos?, meaning slanderer. A fallen angel, in the 1970s we had his image of evil implanted with the film, The Exorcist. By the 1980s we were more sceptical and he appeared humourously in the Witches of Eastwick. He is first mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls as one of the sons of darkness, but in the Bible he is simply seen as temptation, his home - the future Hell - just a place of sleep.This was no good for frightening superstitious people into obedience, so the image of the Devil became a conspiratorial perversion of the ancient Greek god, Pan, a nature deity.

With the Roman poet Virgil devising Purgatory - a place where the dead lingered - and Dante?s Medieval vision of Hell as a place of eternal torment in the Divine Comedy, the Devil was becoming imprinted on our mind.Yet as with the future ?devil-like? Pan, our notion of Hell is more akin to the Greek Hades, an underworld for bad Titans such as Sisyphus and Tantalus, the former condemned to roll a rock up a hill forever, the latter never quite reaching the water and food in front of him.

i have had the jehova's witnesses at my door today telling me that the devil is taking over and only jehova will save us all.
personally i do not believe in the christian concept of a devil. i think it has been written about to create fear and to bring about compliance of the people. it is a fact of history that all new religions moved in on the old ones and started to slander their gods. the christian image of the devil with horns is from the pagan horned god of the forest. the fertility symbols and the word 'horny' all come form cernunos, the horned god. he is nothing to do with anything evil.

Well I don't know what the medias been doing, but I know Satanism isn't what the media says they are. And the Jehovah Witness thing, its annoying.

the devil,
he basically represents anything that isn't in line with christianity.
a mix of different pagan symbolism bunched together to label all other religions as being actively against god and therefore an enemy.

I was recently reading on Satanism. They don't seem that crazy like I've heard from others. And I guess they are the opposition of chirstianity like Alexkidd says.

link Wikipedia

I'm EVERYWHERE

satanism was invented in the 60's by anton levey.
it has nothing to do with the devil at all.

the word satanism was only used by him for publicity and to publicly express distain for the catholic church.

they don't believe in satan, or god.

aside from that satanism dosn't exist, its all early pagan religion iconography.

the only satanists that are like the ones described by some christians are idiots or maniacs who are simply expressing their hatred of christianity and god,
or maybe if their 14 and from the bible belt, conformity.
they're made by christianity, and are pretty much an urban legend anyway.

the satanist sites i have seen are the church of satan and anton lefey. they dont look evil and certainly dont go around doing the stuff that the christians spout that satanists do.

OK I own up, it's me

Every-one has the wrong perception of me

Thats why I don't believe what people usually say about something until I actually know what it is.

Fundamentaly: if you do enjoy sex, you have sex outside he
matrimony or inside but with another man and you enjoy
drinking, eating well, well, in short if you think and live
independently, you are with the devil.......
what a crap. There is no indication that a devil itself
exists. For good reasons. Society changes. Once it was ok
even in biblic times to sacrify one's son. Today for
religious homicide you go to hell.
I think if there would be a hell it would be closed for
overcrowding. Too much catholics pedo-prists rowed up to
enter.
For not saying all the poor guys they lied about the 80
virgins.....

the devils as much of a tool for control by the church as god is.....its the old carrot and the stick thing.....if the carrot (god) doesnt motivate you to complie then the threat of the stick (satan) should....

True. Too bad God needs Satan to make people believe in him.

Satan comes from the Hebrew word 'Shaytan', which literally means betrayer. Mythologically, Lucifer (meaning illuminated one) was the highest ranking arch-angel in Heaven, second in power only to God. The story goes that Lucifer became boastful and proud, considering himself superior to the other angels. Eventually, he became jealous of God and wanted His power. He then led a rebellion against God and the other angels with the intent of conquering Heaven, only to be defeatd by the arch-angel Michael and being cast into Hades, or Hell, along with his angels. This Myth predates Christianity although it was heavily expanded upon by the early Roman Catholic church, who distorted the original role of Hell, as a form of social control.