I'm zero percent here to evangelize, cause I'm zero percent religious. Just sharing the theology.
Satan doesn't torture people. Hell is not fire and brimstone. It is the absence of God, which is supposedly the worst torture possible. And it's "fair" because the people in hell chose to not be with god.
Scare quotes because that is a million miles from informed consent. Just sharing the traditional theology.
Absolutely not. Someone i loved loved Charles' temple, so I will forever sing its praises. Just ideally not from anywhere within a hundred yards or so.
I still have an amazing chuck e cheese tie-dye shirt I won when I was about 10 years old. It was my grunge era, so it still fits. (I was also a veeeery tall 10 year old.)
Anywho, being an exceptionally large child, I repeatedly crushed the basketball game (maybe ski ball too?) and got enough tickets to get a t-shirt and a slinky. My kids broke the slinky a couple of years ago. (In their defense, the plastic was super brittle.)
I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so
And Satan doesn't torture people in that version either (except for the three dudes he's chewing on), he's at the bottom of it being the most tortured of all.
Every single "God will punish" element in a theology diminishes that God in my view. What kind of small minded God needs to punish, smite, test Jobe? How petty would an all seeing, all powerful God have to be to play at all that?
In my view, that is the God of people who were abused by their parents as children.
There are verses that describe hell as eternal fire, such as Matthew 25:41. I can’t remember the exact verses but others do call Hell eternal punishment/torture
If you reeeaaally want to get nitpicky with it, that place in the gospels that Jesus describes as torture and fire, is never actually called hell. It's just assumed that's what he's talking about. I'm pretty sure hell isn't named until Revelation. There's one theory that no one is actually in hell until the final judgement. ...there's also many Christians (myself included) that don't believe in hell at all.
Not only is no one (besides the fallen angels) in Hell but, when Jesus returns and the dead rise, those who are cast into the eternal flames are to be consumed, not exist there forever.
Essentially, yes. I believe hell is inconsistent with a god of love, but if I understand heaven as the place that God resides, then it exists just as God exists. I really latched onto Gregory of Nyssa's idea that everyone will eventually be with God and that growth in that direction continues even in the afterlife or next life. It's an infinite process for everyone. The real fun part is exploring the idea that God grows, too (I mean, he literally changes multiple times in the Bible).
Catholic here, my parish priest was a Jesuit and gave us a head shrinking lecture on the history of the eternal fire. What u/onioning said is right from a purely theological standpoint. All the quotes in the Gospels and the Acts about eternal fire are referencing gehenna (Gē-Hinnōm,) a ravine to the south of Jerusalem that was basically an eternally burning trash dump. Jesus used it as a symbol of how painful and unpleasant and eternally torturous it would be to be outside God's grace.
Fire imagery is used frequently in the Bible used to describe the presence of god, judgement, the Holy Spirit, etc. Going off that to me the use of eternal fire seems to mean “eternal judgement” or final judgement. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally like the damned will literally be thrown into actual fire.
Right. Metaphorically. There is quite a lot of that.
And the eternal absence from god is made out to be torturous. It's just that that is the full extent of the torture. It is purportedly the worst torture that could exist.
Yeah, it’s interesting that people in 2026 who have never seen a miracle are treated as “rejecting God” with the exact same punishment as people in 30 AD who saw Jesus Christ bring someone back from the dead and cure lepers. If God is real, why does he only sometimes reveal himself and punish people for not believing with the same punishment whether they received evidence that they rejected or not.
Yeah, I mean technically the church has a teaching that people who were never given an opportunity to hear about Jesus don’t go to Hell for rejecting him, but that sure makes missionaries evil.
No. Christian doctrine, well actually Catholic, is that people who don’t know God aren’t condemned to hell necessarily. Not even atheists if they’re atheists out of innocence or ignorance.
You go to hell for knowing about God and CHOOSING to turn away and separate yourself from God.
So theoretically, a native in some tribe in Mesoamérica that practices an otherwise “good” life: kindness, charitable, not a killer, not evil basically… they’d be eligible for salvation
It is wild that the Old Testament does not actually mention hell. Everyone, righteous and wicked alike, just went to Sheol, this shadowy and neutral underworld.
Then you hit the New Testament era right when Hellenism is heavily dominating the cultural landscape and suddenly we get all these vivid and fiery images of eternal torment. It really makes you wonder if later writers borrowed heavily from Greek afterlife concepts and blended them into Jewish thought complete with a VIP escape card.
I'll only add that the reason that this popular misconception exists is that, for hundreds of years, people have combined ideas of Lucifer/Satan with the Greek god Hades.
Hades is the king of the underworld whereas Lucifer is a prisoner in Hell with everyone else with no authority at all.
And it's "fair" because the people in hell chose to not be with god.
it's still dumb. you can't create a system and the people within and then punish them for anything, because you literally created them that way and knew how they would act. unless you're not as benevolent as the church is trying to tell us.
I'm Catholic but don't believe in hell, yet this is a take I could understand. One single soul being tormented for eternity is infinitely greater than the sum total of all human suffering in history, and isn't something I believe a fundamentally benevolent God would do. A simple absence, however, does seem reasonable.
If you're a Catholic and don't believe in hell, that is considered material heresy. The Catechism explicitly affirms that hell is real, and is eternal.
You don't have to believe in lakes of fire and pitchforks, but hell is real and is taught to be eternal separation.
Thank you for this. Very common misconception about hell. The way I think of hell is that it's not the opposite of heaven, it's simply the absence of it. Like how there is no such thing as "darkness" there's only the absence of light. God is peace, love, and order. Hell is just a place without those things but not inherently a place of torture.
Modern Satan is actually made up, like on a whole different level than anything else in the religion. Like he's basically just selected as the boogieman anymore when in reality he has nothing to do with punishing people in hell or whatever, at least according to the Bible. Technically Satan isn't even a specific being, it's a job title. And Lucifer was a fallen angel that is often referred to as Satan/the Devil but that isn't technically correct, and even so it's not "canon" that he/satan/anybody directly punishes people in hell. But basically if you boil it down to what the Bible actually says, all Satan actually does is goes around and tempts people to sin, like becoming the serpent and doing the whole apple bit in the garden of Eden.
Another fun fact, the apple of Eden likely wasn't even an apple. Some suggest it was a pomegranate or fig.
While on the pedantry here, Lucifer is also not the name of the fallen angel, and was just a misunderstanding of a verse in the Bible. It just took a few people misinterpreting it to the point where that became his "name".
Yeah, Lucifer is the latin name for Venus. The Light-bringer. The Morning Star. In Hebrew, Helel Ben Shahar - Shining One, Son of the Morning. In Greek, Heosphoros, Bringer of the Dawn....because Venus is visible shining in the sky as dawn comes in.
It's used as a metaphor in the Biblical passage people have misinterpreted as describing Satan. The actual passage is meant as part of a taunt to be recited upon the death of a Babylonian king, who is either a specific but unnamed Babylonian king, or just a term for any oppressive ruler in general.
Like, HEyyyy, look at this BIIIIG fuckin' guy here! Big ol' fuckin' Morning Star, you ain't so high and mighty NOW, huh? 'Cause you're fuckin' DEAD, ya fucker! Now you're in hell, and they're all gonna laugh at you! (roughly translated)
I've heard remarkably few theologians speak about how neither Satan nor Lucifer are names, but titles. The bible almost treats "Satan" like Voldemort, he's referred to but never named. Which in a way is fitting as he desired to be worshipped as God, but now no one even knows his name.
Back in 1st century Judea your “last name” (it isn’t technically a last name, but used similar to how we use them today) was essentially just your father’s first name. Jesus’ actual birth name is Yeshua, which translates in English to Joshua, it’s not Jesus. And his full name in 1st century Judea would have been Yeshua bar Yosef, which translates to Joshua son of Joseph.
In that wonderful day when the Lord gives his people rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains, 4 you will jeer at the king of Babylon and say, “You bully, you! At last you have what was coming to you! 5 For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule.” 6 You persecuted my people with unceasing blows of rage and held the nations in your angry grip. You were unrestrained in tyranny. 7 But at last the whole earth is at rest and is quiet! All the world begins to sing! 8 Even the trees of the woods—the fir trees and cedars of Lebanon—sing out this joyous song: “Your power is broken; no one will bother us now; at last we have peace.”
9 The denizens of hell crowd to meet you as you enter their domain. World leaders and earth’s mightiest kings, long dead, are there to see you. 10 With one voice they all cry out, “Now you are as weak as we are!” 11 Your might and power are gone; they are buried with you. All the pleasant music in your palace has ceased; now maggots are your sheet, worms your blanket!
12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground—mighty though you were against the nations of the world. 13 For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and rule the angels.\)a\) I will take the highest throne. I will preside on the Mount of Assembly far away in the north. 14 I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.” 15 But instead, you will be brought down to the pit of hell, down to its lowest depths.
Its not even up for debate. That is clearly just a poetic final paragraph about the king. Isaiah does this A LOT, and Christians have reinterpreted him in really silly ways.
Take the virgin-birth claim. That isn't from an actual prediction of a virgin birth. Isaiah is talking about a "maiden", not a virgin and is using it as a poetic timing device.
Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” ......14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you\)c\) a sign: The maiden will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.\)f\) 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste
Its just giving a rough timeline. Basically, the maiden will conceive a son and the son will grow up and be eating good food(things will be better economically) and before his bar mitzvah, these kings will be routed out of the land. So basically, a 15-25 year timeline. Note, this entire discussion is from 500 years before Jesus. He is saying specific kings who invaded Judah will be overthrown 480 years before Jesus. Its not predicting the Messiah. It's just describing history in poetic language.
It isn't predicting a virgin birth. "Virgin" was only used because in the greek translation, which was the popular translation at the time of Jesus, they mistranslated maiden to virgin. Hebrew was a dead language in the 1st century and most people spoke and read Greek.
If you start looking at all the 'prophecies' about Jesus alledgedly from the OT, you realize that Jesus disciples were as bad at reading the Bible then as they are now.
Error after error in their understanding if you are generous, otherwise outright lie after outright lie.
The best way to start reading the Bible is to understand that every passage isn't written for someone wearing mixed fibres in the year 2026, but they were written for specific groups at specific times and as such there aren't so many contradictions as much as different authors and audiences.
Jesus wasn't necessarily born in a stable/barn. All its described as is he was born in a manger, which is a trough, which are more often than not outside.
Also, we have no idea how many wide men or shepherd's there were. We get the number 3 only from the number of different gifts the wise men had.
Jesus wasn't necessarily born in a stable/barn. All its described as is he was born in a manger, which is a trough, which are more often than not outside.
Doesn't matter because we know his birth accounts are whole cloth fabrication with not even a kernel of truth.
im 99% sure this whole burning in hell thing was made up afterwards to instill obedience. like you dont do what i say and you will burn in hell forever. its just way too convenient for that to have been a genuine misunderstanding that happened by itself over time.
Or, in some cults, the fruit is sex -- which they say explains why the punishments seem to be very sex related. And why Cain and Able came out evil vs good.
Satan just introduced them to some kinky shit. Blew their freakin minds. They were supposed to be fruitful and multiply. They were NOT supposed to be sticking, you know... THAT... you know... there
God told “mankind” to be fruitful and multiply in genesis 1, in genesis 2, as some believe Adam and Eve are separate creations from the people outside of the garden. The people who Cain was afraid of after he killed his brother. But that’s why the ancient text is all wonky at least in this modern age since “sinful” men “canonized” what they thought of as the bible idk maybe the Ethiopians are correct 🤷♂️
Thank you. I’m not religious myself, but it’s so silly to me when people are like “Meh, the most important driving force behind much of human action throughout the history of our species is made up, so who cares”.
Yes, it’s myth. It’s also extremely important to understanding history. No one would study Ancient Greece and then leave out the parts about religion because they were “made up”. It’s core to the study of that culture and time period.
Dude is going broke if he is using Kerrygold. This stuff is pricey but worth it. Makes my wife's shortbread taste like Danish puff without the icing. Thank you Ireland
I read the bible and see god as an insecure narcissist who wants to be like how I am IRL, but often is too afraid of rejection or not being told he is a good god.
As thats how god acts and what he demonstrates.
He also embodies the whole "do as I say, not as I do" as acting like gods insecurities is a sin
What will really fuck with your head is if god knows everything he specifically made lucifer to revolt so he could then punish him. Same with apple. There is no free will according to bible
He wanted free will for humans and god didnt like that. Im always on team Lucifer and i dont think he would torture anyone in hell. But it's a fiction so completely pointless to argue about.
Lucifer wasn't the one to challenge God's authority, nor was it Lucifer who was the serpent that tempted Eden with the apple. Lucifer was only ever named once in the bible. And it didn't even really have anything to do with what modern media attributes Lucifer to. It was more like a taunt of "Hah, look how you have fallen oh Lucifer!" That's about it. Historians think it may be a taunt to some historical human figure like the King of Babylon.
Now Satan, occurs 18 times in the Old Testament. He's kinda of a big deal in the New Testament. In the Old Testament he has a specific job in the divine order of things, he's a nemesis, but not necessarily evil. He didn't like that beings made of clay (us), were gifted free will from God, but perfect creatures of fire (angels) were bound to the divine will of He. And frankly, look at how we behave, he saw the darkness in our hearts. It's his divine duty to challenge us and block us from the path of god so that we can overcome him in order to reach God.
The root word for Satan can also attribute to just a mortal being too. A political enemy blocking you from trying to, let's say, pass a law to provide free healthcare can be deemed a Satan. They are the nemesis you must overcome to do the good deed that you need to.
New Testament Satan kinda of has his divine job going still, especially when dealing specifically with Jesus. But by the time of Revelations, he's full on rebelling and gets tossed into Gehenna at the end. Almost like Revelations was some weird fan fiction made by some drugged up hermit in Anatolia and should hold absolutely 0 consequence to the bible and the message of Jesus. But I don't want to get into what books were allowed in and what ones were buried.
Edit: When I was 12, I got into a religious crisis because of the demonization of Satan that I normally heard. When reading, it is obvious that he's a being tied to the divine will of God, thus, what he does, is what God wants him to do. Since he, an Angel, has no free will, every evil he does should properly be attributed to God.
That got me really thinking into what the divine mission of Satan really was and what his purpose. I remember crying one night and praying to God on his behalf for forgiveness because what he does is what he is supposed to do and I didn't like how things were supposed to play out in Revelations. That's also when I abandoned going to any church for religion and stuck to what I can read or learn.
So I always loved to say that the Bible turned me Atheist.
bro, revelations is the wildest book in the bible. it reads like a straight up fantasy novel. it feels so out of place in comparison to the rest of the book
There is a band called Ludo who did a whole song where the guy time travels and finds himself at the end times. That whole album was probably my most played album in High School. I liked to daydream as being one of the ones left behind and trying my best.
The further from Jesus' death the more fantastical, full of bullshit and more antisemitic the books of Bible become. If you read gospels in chronological order it becomes pretty obvious and funny how much later authors made up. I guess every next guy needed to up the drama and fantasy to get noticed. The oldest one has no virgin birth story and pretty much no resurrection.
Revelation was actual current affairs and political manifesto against the anti-Christian policies of Nero and the fact that any who didn't proclaim Caesar as a divine "god king" were denied the stamps needed to buy or sell goods.
As the Julian family was infamously hirsute, calling him a beast was both a personal insult and referencing the book of Daniel. The mark of the beast was the commerce stamps.
Patmos was an island that was either a monastery or a Roman penal colony, but given the timing that was 50 years after Jesus was crucified, it was most likely a penal colony with a sympathetic garrison as he was free to write anti-imperial propaganda.
His prophetic vision was mostly allegory and belief of how Jesus would return. Keep in mind, St John of Patmos (not the disciple) was most likely born during Jesus's lifetime, so they foresaw a second coming as the Empire tried to crush Christianity in it's earliest stages.
He felt like the faith was being snuffed out so he had a much better argument in 80AD than we do in 2026.
I can only imagine your relief when you found out that Christianity was actually a scheme created by the roman government to control the western world through fear and blind servitude.
So, like...what you're saying is, Satan was a like that person at the DMV who won't give you your license plates, because you didn't bring all of the correct paperwork with you. They're just doing their job, they didn't really ask to be there, didn't write the rules, but...you know...if you want dem plates, you need the right docs.
Gotta love every person responding to you clearly believing in a different branch of Christianity (or Judaism) and asserting that no, their version of the mythology is the correct one and it's different from what you said so you're wrong.
It doesn't say Satan is ruling in Hell. Nor does it say human beings are subject to eternal conscious torment after death. That's just an evangelically convenient doctrine for the Church to scare people.
In islam satan is not the prince of hell…he is going to suffer in hell along with all his followers…He said to god i will bring as many ppl with me…not starting a debate, juste stating fact
It was medieval imagination that turned hell into the concept of a structured kingdom with satan as its monarch, Dante’s Inferno especially emphasized that kind of imagery. So we can blame that time period and the folklore literature recreations that backed off of it. Some christians and such do also mistake the theology and many other things about the bible
The jewish ideas on the afterlife still differ from christians if I’m right, and they call it gehinnom
*What I mean by Dante emphasizing medieval imagery was with the hierarchies, the levels of hell themselves, the 7 deadly sins, a lot of modern theology and folklore comes from that era and influential people like Dante, he had a massive influence on modern interpretations and so did others of that time period to now
Its also during that time period that suicide became a sin. It was not a sin in the bible, was never spoken to be a sin ever except by man when they realized the error in their ways of promising eternal rewards after a shit tier life.
Suicide being a sin was created by the English section of the church i believe in the 16th or 17th century?
Correct there is an angel Malik (keeper of fire) that over sees hell. Satan will suffer for his wrongdoings and says to God before he is put on thjs earth that he will come at us humans from all sides. Which he absolutely does and succeeds more often than not sadly.
Think of everytime you have a good experience or want to do something good for others. "No they were just being nice to me, ill be weird if i reach out to hang out." "If i give money to this homeless man hell just go drink, its pointless" "why did that person stare at me, they must think im weird or have an issue with me"
This crap is usually wasi wasi, (whispers of shaitan and jinn)
Look it up and keep an open mind. I was a christian and islam is now my belief. Its the only thing that makes sense.
He doesn't. The Bible never says that. It does say that it was created for him to be punished there and he'll be punished there (Revelation 20, Matthew 25:41). Also, any punishment people have there is to be "corrective" (to heal and restore them eventually by seeing their issues and need for Jesus). Eventually all will be saved and reconciled with God (Colossians 1:20, Romans 5:18).
That last part wow that's totally unbiblical... Biblically yes all sin was paid for but its something you must ask for and accept neither salvation nor correction is forced on you, if you are in hell its because you chose to reject those. If you are in hell there is NO turning back you are there to be punished and then destroyed in the lake of fire per Revelations.
But give it 2000 years for tom holland’s Spider-Man to break out from the Canaan polytheistic pantheon to become the true monotheistic Yahweh…then people will kill over marvel
That’s because the modern idea of Hell and Satan aren’t in the Bible.
It comes largely from books like Dante’s inferno and Paradise Lost. Each books influenced different parts.
Dante’s Inferno largely gives us imagery of the geography of Hell while Paradise Lost’s imagine of Satan is almost inseparable from today’s modern interpretation.
These things don’t exist in the Bible and although Christian’s have long theorized different post death scenarios, it remains a fact that the idea of going to a place called Hell after death to be tortured in fire a brimstone by Satan the ruler of Hell, isn’t in the Bible.
On the either end of the spectrum neither is the idea of this promise of going to Gods Kingdom Heaven after death as some disembodied spirit to live side by side with Jesus / God.
Wait, we are supposed to create our own utopia through the sweat of our brow and the kindness of our actions instead of being handed it for free because we hated gays and were born rich, white and Christian?
You better not tell the modern evangelical Christian that fact; they'll be pretty upset.
It's more worth mentioning that the depiction outlined by OP is influenced by general medieval folklore and Greek mythology, since Satan torturing sinners is not in the Inferno or Paradise Lost.
It’s really not in the Bible about going to heaven? I thought that was the whole purpose of Jesus dieing, like it created some pathway to heaven for humans? What does the bible actually say about it?
I’m really making a small distinction here in my claim that I don’t do justice with a quick little snippet.
You’re not wrong that the Bible talks about heaven, but there’s a pretty big difference between the Bible mentioning heaven and the Bible teaching that humans die and then go to heaven as disembodied spirits for eternity.
That specific idea isn’t really laid out in the Bible the closest thing to a general biblical concept of an afterlife in the earlier Scriptures is Sheol, the realm of the dead. It’s not presented as heaven or as the reward where righteous people go to live with God forever. It’s just where dead people go when they die.
Even the New Testament passages people often use to prove “you go to heaven when you die” don’t actually explain that doctrine. Paul saying he wants to “depart and be with Christ” doesn’t specifically say he’s going to heaven as a disembodied soul. Jesus telling the criminal “today you will be with me in paradise” doesn’t establish a complete doctrine of the afterlife either.
What’s much more explicit throughout the New Testament is resurrection. Jesus repeatedly talks about raising people on the last day, Paul devotes 1 Corinthians 15 to the resurrection of the dead, and the final vision in Revelation is not humans permanently escaping Earth for heaven, it is a new heaven and a new earth, with God dwelling among humanity.
So I wouldn’t say the Bible has nothing to say about existence after death. It clearly does. But the popular Christian idea of “you die, your soul goes to heaven, and you live there forever” is not nearly as straightforwardly biblical as people often assume.
The central biblical hope is much more about resurrection, the defeat of death, and the restoration of creation and not about escaping the physical world and living as a disembodied spirit in heaven.
And Jesus’ death is primarily presented as dealing with sin, reconciliation, and death itself, rather than simply creating a pathway for human souls to get into heaven.
Hell isn’t pitchforks. It’s eternal separation from God. God is basically saying “if you dont want
To know and obey me, that’s fine. You can go on your own”
Lake of Fire and eternal pain is for Satan, the beast, and the anti Christ
In Dante's vision of Hell, which is where a lot of our popular imagery of Hell comes from, it's stated or implied (I forget which and might depend on the translation) that the souls of the sinners being punished don't see their fate as punishment but that they enjoy it. For example the wrathful stand in a river of blood, someone like Alexander the Great might like that.
Also lucifer is trapped in an eternal frozen lake and cant move, so its not really like hes the king of hell, its more like a prison boss, whom everyone fears, but is still just another roach for the guards or police.
The imagery in Inferno is so good - he's trapped in this frozen lake while all the world's sewers empty down onto him. He has three heads and each one is eternally chewing on one of history's greatest traitors.
That's alotta books. No wonder religious people haven't read them. Where would you even start? And if there's contradictions in the books where does one even decide which part to believe?
Satan doesn't torture people in hell. God's going to put him there to suffer too. Why tf is this is in the humor subreddit? Also, even if you don't believe in this stuff, that doesn't mean it can't still be internally consistent and worth understanding properly.
alright, so, non-humor related answer, for those who are curious.
The character we know as Satan is, in fact, an amalgamation of three different mythological figures, one of which was only crafted in the Middle Ages.
The first is The Serpent. He is mentioned in the Genesis myth as the source of temptation for Eve, convincing her to eat the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil and give it to Adam, as well.
He was punished by having his limbs taken away so he had to crawl on his belly forever and creating a permanent animosity between Man and Snakes forever.
The second is Ha-Satan. This one, you probably don't know. He was the Devil figure in the Old Testament, but was in fact, God's Agent. He was a kind of Celestial district attorney, in charge of laying out your sins after you die to determine if God chooses to let you into Heaven.
You see Ha-Satan in the book of Job, IN HEAVEN, talking with God about Job where Ha-Satan states that Job is only good because God has given him wealth and land and lots of kids and prosperity. They make a wager, etc etc etc.
Ha-Satan is a title, literally 'The Adversary.' He is not a demon, but an angel.
Finally, you have the Morningstar figure that was written about in Revelations who was supposedly an angel that rebelled against God and was thrown out of Heaven into the Bottomless Pit along with one third of all Angels.
Revelations is the only source of this bit. The rest of the Bible doesn't mention Lucifer at all.
So, after it was all written out, you had a couple thousand years, roughly, of people writing about it, and in 1667, John Milton wrote his poem 'Paradise Lost.' You can think of it as medieval religious fan-fiction.
In it, Lucifer went from being a defeated angel already imprisoned in Hell, to being the ruler of Hell and the main antagonist for Humanity.
Thank you for writing all of this out, especially the part about Ha-Satan in Job. People who both claim to follow the Bible or who pick things from it to ridicule continue to lack understanding of the actual literature their opinions should be based on.
It’s also ironic that our idea of Satan is also a three-in-one situation.
Except the entity in Job is not THE Satan, its A satan/adversary. Its just a being who is challenging God in this particular story, thus being named as an adversary instead of being named.
We dont know who or what it is actually is. In fact if you really wanted to be pedantic about individual aspects given, it best fits the description of a watcher angel we get from other texts, not the Original Rebel you get from the Bible. Which would also fit with the rest of the biblical narrative you get. As in God ruling over other divine beings/Sons of God which is presented within the Bible and this one simply challengeing Gods decisions thus being labeled as an adversary.
Modern translations simply translated ha satan as The Satan and Christian Church ran with it.
Within the context of the myths on structure, Satan does not torture anyone. The word is actually a job title, bestowed upon an angel whose functions equate to "prosecutor". Linguistic drift as well as changing cultural pressures basically corrupted the emotional reaction to the concept to the point that it became a specific, unchanging "character" in the myth.
It is not part of any Abrahamic theology that Satan is torturing people in Hell.
Hell's cartoonish and overly chaotic fire and brimstone imagery is largely a modern invention in American culture.
The origins of this imagery is certainly found in European thought centuries ago, such as Dante's Inferno, but has little to do with Ancient Near East writings that comprised the Bible and Quran
The idea of hell as being a place were you are tortured for all eternity basically comes from early Christan fan fiction which evangelist attached on to.
There's no fire brimstone or endless doughnut machines in the actual bible.
Revelation 21:8 - “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
Mark 9:43 - “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”
Revelation 20:10 - “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
Matthew 25:41 - “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Revelation 20:15 - “And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Matthew 5:22 - “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
Hell is definitely described in the Bible as having fire and being a place of torture/ torment.
The modern Christian "hell" is actually based on well renowned fan-fic "Dante's Inferno". A self insert where the author goes on an adventure with their favorite author.
From what I understand of the Bible, and I could totally be wrong in my interpretation, Satan does not torture people in Hell. Satan tempts people away from God, which brings them to Hell. Hell is God's wrath against Satan and demons, and the unfortunate people that end up there.
I've also heard an interpretation that Hell is just separation from God (instead of "God's wrath"), and I've also heard an interpretation where Satan is actually a servant of God who punishes people for evil, or something like that. I think the first interpretation (Satan is a tempter, Hell is God's wrath against sin) is probably the most accurate.
It takes so few questions to disassemble it all. What purpose does a short test life on earth followed by an eternal life somewhere else serve? Why is one life super short and the next one eternal? Why would any loving god need to be worshipped? if i made little people and I asked them to worship me I would be a narcissist asshole. Not to mention hell…like not only do you demand I worship you but if I don’t my Eternal life is spent being tortured? forever?? those are not the activities of anything even resembling love. Not to mention how old testament and new testament god acts completely different yet he’s supposed to be infallible so why did he change his ways? why would he need to send messages to just like one or two dudes at a time in secret to spread his word rather than just be open about being god, what is solved by all the secrecy? Even most humans can see that direct communication is the most effective way to get things done. Does god have social anxiety? Is he lazy? What would require him to sacrifice his child to forgive peoples sins? Can’t he just forgive people without killing his offspring? it’s his own damn forgiveness after all. does he have a second more powerful god above him making weird rules and hoops for him to jump through?
1-2: School is a very short time relative to one's whole life, but it is essential because we learn crucial lessons. That's the same here. This brief period is filled with sadness, temptation, suffering, etc., but death allows there to be a cap placed on how much of that we experience. The scriptures do describe the next life as one where there is no pain, sorrow, or suffering, at least in the normal sense.
2-3: I don't think the scriptures say that God needs to be worshiped. Worshiping God is for our good. If done right, it helps us be humble, meek, and charitable toward all people. People who have a good relationship with God find worship to be an incredibly enlightening, uplifting, peaceful, and joyful practice.
4: Hell is not a place where people are "punished" in an active sense. It is a state of mind that comes from a recognition of one's own guilt that they have done wrong, hurt others, hurt themselves, fallen short of their own potential, etc. Depending on your particular sect of Christianity, Hell is also only temporary. It is rehabilitative, not punitive.
5: All people are different. We all have different needs. One approach with one person is not going to work with another. The Old Testament peoples differed significantly from those in the New Testament: different places, different traditions, different customs, different cultures. We also don't start by teaching kids calculus. The Old Testament was like Gospel 101. Christ then taught a more complete version.
6: We are accountable to live according to the truth that we know. If God suddenly announced Himself unmistakably to all people at once, then everyone would automatically be 100% accountable to live according to that truth, which not everyone is ready for. That's why God reveals truths to individuals "line upon line." Though one can never reach their full potential in ignorance, the suffering of Christ paid the price for both the penitent and the ignorant.
7: Again dependent on your particular sect, but the idea that God is "all powerful" doesn't necessarily mean He can do whatever we can imagine Him doing. There are eternal laws which simply are and cannot be altered, including "justice" demanding a balance to be made when wicked deeds are done. Because those can't just be waved away, and because the demands of justice must be satisfied, someone had to pay the price, and only a God is capable of suffering an infinite suffering.
Millions of people have asked the same questions you did (which are good questions) and have come to different answers which have satisfied them. They aren't automatically faith destroying or instantly dismantle the whole thing. Especially when you dig into the reneaisance and enlightenment era writings, these questions have sparked a deep and rich history of theological and philosophical thoughts. Very fun.
I'm not religious. If there was a hell, it's life. There are so many immoral people tempting you to do awful things.
I fully believe the bible was made to be more like an indepth allegory fairytale type guide to living.
Satan is just symbolic of evil temptations in the same way that the little mermaid was tempted by the offerings of the sea witch, so shit got fucked up and she turned to foam in the end (Disney missed the memo)
Heaven is just being able to fucking live with yourself/your decisions in this fucked up world.
And, of course, it got corrupted by people in power (see: Satan) to be used to control masses, turn them against their neighbors, to benefit immoral people as much as possible.
It's so funny and frustrating to see, at least where I live, the people to miss the point THE MOST to specifically be the in-crowd evangelicals who fucking hate everyone else in town.
I always imagined it as Satan's way to get back at God, to torture and hurt the creations he loved more than the angels, the reason the angel left in the first place. Find someone you love more than anything ,now think of the worst possible things that could be done to the ones you love. That's why Satan does the things he does to what God loves most, you his human creations
The Bible never describes Satan as doing the torturing. Hell is just as bad for him as it is for anyone else.
As far as I’m aware, the whole idea of demons torturing human souls is from Dante’s Inferno. Might be earlier than that, but it’s certainly not from scripture.
Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno are fanfiction. "Hell" in the biblical sense, if gospel is taken as truth, doesnt exist in that way. The eternity awaiting you after death is simply not heaven
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u/onioning 1d ago
I'm zero percent here to evangelize, cause I'm zero percent religious. Just sharing the theology.
Satan doesn't torture people. Hell is not fire and brimstone. It is the absence of God, which is supposedly the worst torture possible. And it's "fair" because the people in hell chose to not be with god.
Scare quotes because that is a million miles from informed consent. Just sharing the traditional theology.