What do you think about Satan being allowed to influence?

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When I decided to give up Christianity at age 15, one of my several philosophical objections to it was the very idea of blaming all the world's evils on one unified group of malignant spiritual beings (Satan and demons) plus people falling for their influence.

To me, the whole idea of the non-human spirit world being divided neatly into two camps (angels vs. demons), with one camp being all-good and the other being all-evil, began to seem a bit fishy -- sort of like a theological equivalent of Cold War propaganda, I remember thinking.

At that age I had learned enough about the world to realize that neither communism nor capitalism was all-good or all-evil. And this in turn led me to become suspicious of allegedly absolute good-vs.-evil dualisms more generally.

I came to regard good and evil not as fundamental essences, but as categories of actions, traits, etc., based on their effects. Furthermore, to some extent these categories are subjective (e.g. cats are evil if you are a mouse, but not if you are a human with a pet cat).

That being the case, the very idea of some spiritual entity being the instigator of all evil no longer seemed likely to me.

Think back to the first christians. They were much more firm in their belief than the "lukewarm" christians who narcissistically publicly wear their "belief" like it's some form of scout badge for everybody to see.
“Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1-18

This is why I despise the vain public displays from many MAGA christians

The act of Christ the redeemer accepting his fate (remember he told Judas to complete his task and bring the Romans) was to martyr himself so mankind will be absolved from their original sin which was the original curse his father inflicted on Adam's descendants. it was self-sacrifice.

What then marks the first christians was
1. their decision to forgo material trappings/wealth
2. Their humility
3. their willingness to sacrifice their own lives when facing imminent death
4, their willingness to go out and help the poor

The Gnostics were among the groups who understood and their followers willingly followed Christ's lead when they were all burned at the stake.

Self-sacrifice is the lesson of Christ. There are some christians who actually follow the original teachings, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Sisters of Charity and the Quakers.

I don't understand why people always put forth God as loving. Have you read the Bible? The parts where God instructed his people to 'leave none of them alive?' I think God loves, because man loves. And Man was created in God's image.
God is God... Through Jesus he was able to convey a more loving aspect of himself, an eye for an eye ended. Then became the time of turn the other cheek.

As a Christian I really don't give Satan much consideration. He's a necessary evil. Without the existence of evil what pitfalls would there be to avoid? If there was only the choice of 'good' could we really claim to have chosen it?

All I feel when I hear of the influence of Satan is resignation. This was prophesied. Stupid people fall prey to the influence of evil, because even in persecution there is still joy to be claimed.

And thus they slaughtered every pagan man, woman, and child in Europe under Emperor Charlemagne when he decided that all of Europe would convert to Christiainity under threat of death.

The one thing all humans need is to feel loved in this world. So if you are pretty much admitting that your God is incapable of feeling love then what in the Hell is the point of even worshipping him?

God deserves to die because he was never needed in the first place.

Your asking what Epicurus asked centuries ago when he said:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but is unwilling?

Then he is not omnipotent.

IS he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

If he is neither able, nor willing?

Then why call him "god"?
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I suppose thats where the Christian afterlife comes in.

God has to offer you a choice between good and evil. And if you make the right choice he rewards in the afterlife.

The Epicurean problem of evil isn’t exactly logical. Pretty much any theodicy can stomp a mud hole in the problem of evil and walk it dry.

Besides that…

The Epicurean problem of evil presupposes so many omnis that should any one of those fall apart so does the problem of evil. All-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present make sense describing God. All-good is also appropriate. But I think describing God as all-loving or omni-benevolent is taking it too far. Many of us Christians like to describe God as all-loving. If God hates even ONE thing, then God isn’t all-loving. God hates evil. Therefore, God is NOT all-loving. With that being true, requiring God to be so many omnis is unnecessary, with the existence of evil not really presenting a problem.

You are talking about church of satan, that is only one sort of satanist even if they claim it is the one true satanism, either way I think TST(the satanic temple) is more popular as its much more open minded. I mean for TST these are thee tenents
I
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
V
Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
VI
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
VII
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

In this sort of satanism, helping people in your community out is seen as a good thing. And we don't believe anything supernatural satan is just a symbol.

Hmm, Satan.....the Church of England airbrushed him out in 2015:

https://nationalpost.com/news/religion/ ... accessible

What took them so long?

I can get behind every tenet pretty much. The only one I take issue with is this one. It’s not that I’m anti-science. It’s more of “who the hell do you think you are to tell me what my beliefs should conform to?” The issue with the scientific community is that with so much data and so many different ways data can be interpreted, science is rarely “just science.” It appears everyone is propping some agenda with facts. That “science supports” this or that is a non sequitur.

For example: there is no use in denying patriarchy as the enemy of women’s personal rights. It is also a fact that with VERY FEW abnormal exceptions, sex/gender are a product of DNA via sex chromosomes. Gender dysphoria is also fact. While patriarchy is largely forgotten, it still rears its ugly head when gender lines, which SHOULD be black/white, are blurred when gender dysphoria becomes gender fluidity. Patriarchy then begins wearing women’s clothes and becomes Trans-activism. Girls can be punished when they express being uncomfortable with boys using their bathrooms, or for not using the right pronouns. “Science” people will say that gender is more than DNA and mumble something about phenotype. Actual facts do little to reflect gender fluidity, yet somehow gender dysphoria proves that men aren’t really men, etc.

I’m not saying that you can’t identify as a man if you were born a woman or the other way around. Facts/science don’t have that much to say about it, yet we are all meant to believe that gender is fluid.

Maybe you disagree with me. Fine. But if we disagree on things, we should have the right to look at the evidence and decide for ourselves what we choose to believe. I don’t believe gender is fluid. It’s not my place to tell you that you can’t believe that it is. I feel that “science” to often used to say ONLY this conclusion can possibly be right and you’re anti-intellectual if you disagree.

Well, it seems to say you should use sceintific knowledge to the best of your ability, so it does leave room for questioning science. As for what you mention I think science just hasn't quite figured out gender/sex, like it's a work in progress.

As for the trans stuff, idk a male to female trans person isn't a 'boy' but then again I could also see cis girls being a bit off-put by it due to society. I am not really sure what the correct solution is. Idk the way I see things I'd be fine with bathrooms not being gendered at all I don't really care what the person in the stall next to me has going on down there. So to me the solution is maybe quit the gendered bathrooms, besides from what I see guys bathrooms are a lot of time like worse than womens bathrooms like what is with the urinals with no stalls why can't everyone get a stall and a full toilet to do their peeing and crapping.

But either way science is finding gender/sex is not nessisarily black and white, it doesn't mean there aren't men and women just that its not all there is. Like there are people born with genitals that don't line up to being female or male, intersex people that aren't specifically one or the other.

That may be your truth, but it isn’t mine.

I think that tenet may be a tad poorly-worded*, but it's not a commandment, it's a guideline. I think its basic message is simply that rather than jumping to conclusions we might do better to apply scientific rigour. The only problem I see with it is that if taken to extremes we can get bogged down in overthinking which may delay action when we can't afford to wait.


Indeed the "scientific community" isn't always perfectly scientific. But swallowing the statements of science authorities isn't what the tenet recommends.

*I don't think science is about belief at all. It's about testing and presenting experimental data and tentative conclusions for consideration, further testing, and possible overturning or amending by others. And I'm wary of the use of the word "should," as I see it as a rather judgemental word that distracts me from being impartial about the content surrounding it - not so much of a problem for me these days because I've learned to consider forgiving it as shorthand for something about what the author wants. I think those who use the word sometimes do so innocently like that.

That had me wondering for a while - I sensed that urinals were there for efficiency somehow but I couldn't see how or provide evidence. Luckily Reddit informed me thus:

The efficiency of a urinal in a public setting is it's ability to handle high capacity use. you can stack them in tight or have a whole wall trough deal and breeze through a tonne of guys.
There's a thing about how a line for the ladies toilets are longer than the gents and it pretty much comes down to the capacity of a mix between stalls and urinals versus just stalls.

https://libredd.it/r/AskReddit/comments ... ooms_have/

So there would be a downside to removing urinals, and a moral / political conundrum about who got landed with the cost and the inconvenience.

Unisex public toilets may also have an important downside with regard to women's safety from male predators but I haven't thought that one through yet.

If you'll reread my post I said that I think God loves, but I don't see why people seeking to deny the existence of God always put him forth as "loving." I think he loves, I don't think his ways as described in the Bible, are as we see 'loving.'

If you think God deserves to die then that's what you think. Nobody is going to react to that.

I wonder if there isn’t some subconscious desperation of dealing with God’s existence.

There’s a difference between what Christians describe as a loving God and a secular view of love. For human beings, love is only what love means to us.

The Epicurean problem of evil is sort of twisted to favor atheism, but Epicurus was not an atheist. Epicurus’s problem of evil was more about defining who God is and challenging certain notions about God. For Epicurus, the point of life was to avoid suffering. He was also a Hedonist. So his point in asking “Why call Him God” has to do with his idea of gods being sort of absentee landlords and not worthy of any special reverence. Epicurus doesn’t say there are no gods. He just says there’s no point in being afraid of them.