Is Satan a conscious being or a metaphor?

[django]

Satan wanted to take God's place on His throne in heaven, and was then cast out of heaven. He wants to be served by people.

He is associated with deception, and portrayed as actively luring people into his deceptions.

The deceptions are endless, but are all aimed at causing people to serve him via their lower instincts. Greed for money, power, sex, ego-serving.

Thinking 'I' am the greatest, instead of God is the greatest. Somehow this serves Satan? Because it takes our eyes off God?

Ultimately Satan wants people to think that whatever they need for life can be found through their own efforts or through the world around them.

In bringing the Kingdom of God within, I see the same battle being played out in our hearts and minds. Do 'I' sit on the throne within, or does Satan, or does God?

And in the end, is Satan a conscious being or a metaphor anyway?

[Honza]

Agreed. The 'I' tries to take God's place. Satan is any such attempt or desire to do this. Satan is a metaphor for any 'I' usurping God.

[sky]

Originally Posted by django

Satan wanted to take God's place on His throne in heaven, and was then cast out of heaven. He wants to be served by people.

He is associated with deception, and portrayed as actively luring people into his deceptions.

The deceptions are endless, but are all aimed at causing people to serve him via their lower instincts. Greed for money, power, sex, ego-serving.

Thinking 'I' am the greatest, instead of God is the greatest. Somehow this serves Satan? Because it takes our eyes off God?

Ultimately Satan wants people to think that whatever they need for life can be found through their own efforts or through the world around them.

In bringing the Kingdom of God within, I see the same battle being played out in our hearts and minds. Do 'I' sit on the throne within, or does Satan, or does God?

And in the end, is Satan a conscious being or a metaphor anyway?

A metaphor which I think can be used for ego, the ego part of us that defies our true divine nature, the divine nature of the spark of source energy/God within each of us which I personally feel is the ' I ' in I am....

I can't see God as being higher than me as this is separation, we are one.

[barrynu]

First I'll give God the Title of a Powerful Conscious Being that is not of our Physical World.God has given his power to this World many times and Jesus is the one we most remember.
Ressurection
Raising the Dead
Feeding 5000 people with 5 Loaves and 2 Fish
Turning Water in to Wine
Walking on Water
Healing Lepers and the Blind and many more.
Casting out/Healing lost Spirits
This is Evidence of God ability to change our physical World.


There are other People that have performed miracles around the World from different Religions.Saints,Gurus,ect...

If Satan is a Conscious Being then the war between him and God here on Earth is futile.I can't think of Satan's power being used here on the Physical plane.maybe I'm forgetting something.
What real Power has Satan shown us?
We can say Satan influences our mind,,so he is in our mind but we cannot be sure if it is real or our imagination so its up to each of us individually to pick one of these possibilities and live our lives with that choice.
This choice changes our Experience of Life.

I would not be afraid of any Battle between God and Satan here in our Physical World as I can see who will win.
If Satan is real,he is very limited in physical power,only affects the mind and can be controlled by us.

[theophilus]

Satan is a cherub, one of the mightiest beings God created. He rebelled and wanted to take God's place and was thrown out of Heaven. He opposes God and tries to corrupt his creation.

The book of Job illustrates the limits of Satan's power and the reason God still allows him some freedom. He accused Job of serving God because of the rewards he received. God allowed him to take away all that was good in Job's life. Job remained faithful and the end result of Satan's testing was that he grew even closer to God. God allows Satan to test righteous people because he can use that testing for their good. A time is coming when Satan will be throne into the lake of fire to spend eternity there.

Satan is more powerful that any human and we can't resist him in our own strength. We can defeat him if we submit to God. The Bible says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." If we submit to God we can resist him; if we try to resist him without first submitting to God we will always be defeated.

[barrynu]

Originally Posted by theophilus

The book of Job .

Thank's for the reminder Theo.I got a sign 4 years ago about Job,I did a little light research and it fitted in with some thoughts I had.I left it without fully reading or understanding Job.
A few days ago I got another reminder here on these forum's to read it but I still haven't.
Now you give me a sign to read it.
God has worked through you to give me another reminder and perhaps he may work through me for you too.
God does work in mysterious ways

[django]

Originally Posted by sky123

A metaphor which I think can be used for ego, the ego part of us that defies our true divine nature, the divine nature of the spark of source energy/God within each of us which I personally feel is the ' I ' in I am....

I can't see God as being higher than me as this is separation, we are one.

Within the biblical story Satan didn't see God as higher than himself either, this was the core issue.

[django]

Originally Posted by barrynu

First I'll give God the Title of a Powerful Conscious Being that is not of our Physical World.God has given his power to this World many times and Jesus is the one we most remember.
Ressurection
Raising the Dead
Feeding 5000 people with 5 Loaves and 2 Fish
Turning Water in to Wine
Walking on Water
Healing Lepers and the Blind and many more.
Casting out/Healing lost Spirits
This is Evidence of God ability to change our physical World.


There are other People that have performed miracles around the World from different Religions.Saints,Gurus,ect...

If Satan is a Conscious Being then the war between him and God here on Earth is futile.I can't think of Satan's power being used here on the Physical plane.maybe I'm forgetting something.
What real Power has Satan shown us?
We can say Satan influences our mind,,so he is in our mind but we cannot be sure if it is real or our imagination so its up to each of us individually to pick one of these possibilities and live our lives with that choice.
This choice changes our Experience of Life.

I would not be afraid of any Battle between God and Satan here in our Physical World as I can see who will win.
If Satan is real,he is very limited in physical power,only affects the mind and can be controlled by us.

If he is real, and I don't know yet which way I think on this, his power is the ability to deceive. If you don't follow God's way, but make up your own mind, this is a win for him.

I was thinking yesterday that Buddha said we are deluded, Hindu's say we live in illusion and Maya:

Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion.

To me it's a matter of coming to understand that my mind is deluded and disordered, and the only way to sort it is to allow the battle between God and Satan/illusion/disorder/Maya/delusion to play out and the battlefield is within me, in my mind.

One question though, why can God be an entity, but Satan not? What about both are just symbols, or both are real consciousnesses?

[SaturninePluto]

Taken from wikipedia
A figure known as "the satan" first appears in the Tanakh as a heavenly prosecutor, a member of the sons of God subordinate to Yahweh, who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers by forcing them to suffer.

From this I would suppose Satan is a figure which originated from the Jewish Tannakh. Whom was a prosecutor and a member of the sons of God (This I know not what that is suppose to be/,mean) Subordinate to God, or if Jewish- Yahweh, he prosecutes the nation of Judah, and tests the loyalty of men.


This is what I gather from the original version of the entity that is called Satan.

The islam version of the tale has Satan as a Jinn that falls out of pride as opposed to an angel and the Christian version seems based off a verse written in the king james bible version that seems to be describing a "King" of Tyre. A King of Babylon (Don't cite me) if my memory serves me, as well as a verse/ passage written by the prophet Ezekiel (?) I believe.

The sufis of Islam have a differing view. They view Satan's fall as a great show of his love for God- hence his refusal to bow to Adam, over God- refuses to bow to naught but God. So opposed to viewing it as Satan falling due to envy or pride, Some sufis prefer the view of Satan showing loyalty to God, by his refusal to bow to Adam.

Whereas Christianity has him the fourth angel, called Lucifer, who falls in accordance with pride. However, in other cultures the fourth angel is not referred to as Lucifer, but as an angel by another name.

My personal thought on the matter is that Satan was not originally a Christian idea, but appears in all three abrahamic religions. First appearance in Judaism, and adopted by the others.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by SaturninePluto

From this I would suppose Satan is a figure which originated from the Jewish Tannakh. Whom was a prosecutor and a member of the sons of God (This I know not what that is suppose to be/,mean) Subordinate to God, or if Jewish- Yahweh, he prosecutes the nation of Judah, and tests the loyalty of men.


This is what I gather from the original version of the entity that is called Satan.

The islam version of the tale has Satan as a Jinn that falls out of pride as opposed to an angel and the Christian version seems based off a verse written in the king james bible version that seems to be describing a "King" of Tyre. A King of Babylon (Don't cite me) if my memory serves me, as well as a verse/ passage written by the prophet Ezekiel (?) I believe.

The sufis of Islam have a differing view. They view Satan's fall as a great show of his love for God- hence his refusal to bow to Adam, over God- refuses to bow to naught but God. So opposed to viewing it as Satan falling due to envy or pride, Some sufis prefer the view of Satan showing loyalty to God, by his refusal to bow to Adam.

Whereas Christianity has him the fourth angel, called Lucifer, who falls in accordance with pride. However, in other cultures the fourth angel is not referred to as Lucifer, but as an angel by another name.

My personal thought on the matter is that Satan was not originally a Christian idea, but appears in all three abrahamic religions. First appearance in Judaism, and adopted by the others.

This is exactly what I was going to say.

I was taught that Lucifer was expelled from Heaven because he loved God so much, he refused to bow to Adam over God.

This is showing two things...

Firstly, that God loves us so much that He bows to us and expects His Angels to do likewise. We are the pinnacle of God's creation...His 'pride and joy' as it were, but when Lucifer took one look at how we treat each other, he basically said "why should I worship such imperfect beings as these over one who I believed was perfect, but who is now showing imperfection by creating and placing such faith in these pitiable creatures?"

Secondly, that one should not ignore worshiping the God IN man, and loving/serving their fellow beings over just loving and worshiping God Himself and even I am guilty of this and so, this story also carries with it a personal message.

Over time, the fallen angel Lucifer became associated with Satan or the Devil, but one would think the Christians would come up with a better title than the 'Bearer of Light' because that's God's job and Satan would be the "Bringer of Darkness" and so, I never felt comfortable with the whole Lucifer story.

Having said that, 'Satan' is just as much a personification as 'God' is, because to treat Satan as a metaphor for something, the same must also apply to God...and you would also think that God, being omnipotent and all, means that He also created Satan and is fully aware of what is going on, or else it's a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.