Satan????

yes............

But then it can be said just as fairly that satan is just either

a) a mental construct of our subconcsious

b) Something that is just inharent in all of us, and even in nature, we jsut choose to make a huge deal outta it. Most of what we see as "sin" is common place in nature

Originally Posted by Time

But then it can be said just as fairly that satan is just either

a) a mental construct of our subconcsious

b) Something that is just inharent in all of us, and even in nature, we jsut choose to make a huge deal outta it. Most of what we see as "sin" is common place in nature

Ad a.
It occurred to me, and I posted it somewhere , that there is a theory which says that we create thought forms and if it is true that like attracts like then all the thoughts about Satan would collect and form an entity which is as evil as thoughts make it. Each thought about Satan would make this entity more powerful.

Ad b.
There is a theory that says that once men anthropomorphised God, that is attributed God with human characteristics, men needed a scapegoat to explain why God who is said to be omniscient, all loving, all powerful, could create and allow all the hurt, pain and bad things that happen. So Satan was invented.

Hinduism which is much older than Christianity does not recognize any central evil force or entity such as the Devil opposing God and man.

[Riboflavin]

Originally Posted by Bluegreen

Ad a.
Ad b.
There is a theory that says that once men anthropomorphised God, that is attributed God with human characteristics, men needed a scapegoat to explain why God who is said to be omniscient, all loving, all powerful, could create and allow all the hurt, pain and bad things that happen. So Satan was invented.

Hinduism which is much older than Christianity does not recognize any central evil force or entity such as the Devil opposing God and man.

Or it could be just as simple as man looking at what is, and for lack of seeing anything else, imagines an anti-thesis to what he sees.

Or it could be just as simple as man looking at what is, and for lack of seeing anything else, imagines an anti-thesis to what he sees.

Could be, Riboflavin. It is what has been argued namely that there is duality, light and dark. In this universe the one cannot be without the other.
But why give it--your anti-thesis--a personality and a name?

Originally Posted by Amilius

If you read Paramahansa Yogananda's writings he too thought Satan was a mental concept. But when he became enlightened he had some awful encounters with this "dark force" that would manifest itself as many thought-forms or a single manifestation trying to harm him.

In an earlier post I suggested that we create thought-forms so also with regard to Satan. Each thought about Satan makes that thought-form more powerful until it appears to have a life of its own.

If we were to stop believing in an entity which we call Satan and stop thinking about it, the thought-form would eventually dissipate.

[Amilius777]

Then why didn't Christ who was up there with Buddha and all those enlightened souls all recognize a "satan". Either calling it Mara, Lucifer, Maya, w/e.

Lets look at the whole body of God. The whole immense body of Spirit. It starts with a first Cause- God. In God are all the forces of good. These are angels, archangels, guides, saints, God-realized souls, etc. They are dwell in the Son of God (His Consciousness). Then you have souls who are parts of this Body on different planes with their free will misdirected to temptations, evils, bad desires, etc. And they create negativity and misery and the body of God is partially stained. Like a body is a bit infected with a virus. But the evil can never reach the Godhead which all these forces dwell. But if parts in the Body of God ( souls) have gone bad and become entrapped in darkness where did the thought of doing this come from>? How could evil just impersonally appear out of nowhere. Unless God created a complete opposite to Himself for the forces of good and evil. Thus he would need a Dark Presence to be the source or "first" cause of all negativity.