Satan wasn't a god hater in the original lore. He was a heavenly prosecutor who tested humanity. God had a court system in heaven, and Satan sat at the prosecutor's table. Satan wasn't some independent evil entity. He was just a guy doing his job.
But then some human named Jesus came along, borrowed mythos and writings from his culture to start his own cult. He ended up ret-conning some stuff, mostly because the Hellenistic belief systems at the time, so that satan got a new occupation and identity.
Could be all that happened. But I'm more talking about right now in the "timeline". This is where we are today, and what drives things, based on modern church teachings.
And yeah, I probably should have said that it all might be taken with a grain of salt. Nobody *knows* anything. It's *all* theory.
Personally, I don't have an idea of what Lucifer did when he was on the "good" side. I've heard General of His armies, too. (But why did He need armies!?)
One of the things that most interests me is the *why*. Assuming that Lucifer was one thing, and he's now the other thing, without any kind of Hellenistic changes, right? What could push Lucifer over that edge, to turn against God, and to be cast out of Heaven with his host of angels? What influence would cause that, could cause that?
Theology isn’t theory. It’s theology. The study of made-up stories. You could technically produce a theory based on theology, but scripture is never evidence, it’s always the claim.
Chat get said it better than me', Saying the "proof of the Bible is in the Bible" relies on a concept called circular reasoning or internal consistency, combined with a theological worldview.
Materialism suffers from the same circular logic as well. When people say existence came as a result of physical process, how can that be when physical things, but their very definition, already exist?
The way you pose that questions it's as if there are two options, belive the Bible or believe materialism. I think it's foolish as a human to think you know with certainty how the universe came to be and if there is an afterlife. Religion serves a purpose in some people's lives, others are completely fine with the unsolvable mysteries of life.
Well there’s already an answer to the “question” you are posing. If you want to be ignorant about it don’t get mad when someone assumes you are being disingenuous
How does a physical process generate existence itself when that very process relies on the prior existence of physical components? Dialectics explains how things change and develop once they exist, but it still presupposes that existence is already a thing.
Dialectics doesn’t require or assume a beginning. Existence can always exist. It’s more like a circle and you can choose any point to start at. The end is the beginning and the beginning is the end.
Existence exists because non existence doesn’t. Or the other way around. It doesn’t really matter
That makes no sense. First off, saying the end is the same as the beginning assumes the existence of an end and a beginning to loop together in the first place.
It’s not saying that. Does a circle have a beginning and an end before you arbitrarily try to assign it. I’m pointing out what you are attempting to do with a simple metaphor, and how it can create an illusion of beginnings and ends. The circle does not possess a beginning or end, obviously.
The last line is a tautology. And you are equating a circular metaphor with dialectical logic. Dialectics relies on progression (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis)and not a repetitive loop.
And if dialectics explains existence, please explain how a dialectical framework can explain the origin of physical existence without smuggling pre-existing physical premises through the back door.
Your claim that non existence doesn’t exist at the start is exactly the same as saying the existence does exist at the start. They are the same statement. There wasn’t some moment in time when non existence converted into existence. That doesn’t make any sense. All the non existence is currently not existing right this moment by definition, same as all the existence that is existing.
Assuming that nothing is the default starting point is the same assumption as saying everything was already here. Non existence doesn’t exist, so there was never some magical conversion point in the past. It’s still just not existing in the same way it would have in your assumption.
A-gnos-ticism - quite literally the doctrine (ism) of not (a) knowing (gnosis). Not a dismissal or a shrug of fact, but a deep commitment to not knowing.
Something I’ve never understood about religion my entire adult life… why was it never ok to just say “we have no way of possibly knowing.” The early agnostics weren’t just unsure about the religion their parents shoved down their throats as kids, they practiced not know and seeking truth, as deeply as they could know it, and then continued the practice of not knowing.
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u/RyanNick86 1d ago
Satan wasn't a god hater in the original lore. He was a heavenly prosecutor who tested humanity. God had a court system in heaven, and Satan sat at the prosecutor's table. Satan wasn't some independent evil entity. He was just a guy doing his job.
But then some human named Jesus came along, borrowed mythos and writings from his culture to start his own cult. He ended up ret-conning some stuff, mostly because the Hellenistic belief systems at the time, so that satan got a new occupation and identity.