Myth: The "soul" is something separate from the body.
Fact: The soul being a separate entity from the physical body did not come from Judaism or Christianity. In Genesis 2:7, the first man "became" a soul (Hebrew "Nephesh"[1]), he was not "given" a soul. The Old Testament teaches that the "soul" is the whole person. The Bible uses the word "soul" in reference to both humans and animals (Genesis chapter 1 and Revelation both do this). The Old Testament also teaches that the soul can die. See Ezekiel 18:4, 20.
Myth: Hell is a fiery place of torment to punish those who reject God.
Fact: There is no word "hell" in the original writings of the Bible. This was a later development. The idea that God punishes people for all eternity, essentially making him worse than Hitler, is not found in the Bible. In multiple places the Old Testament says that God does not condone burning your children in fire. See Jeremiah 7:31; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Deuteronomy 12:29-31 for a few examples. When the New Testament speaks about "eternal fire", these are symbols or illustrations to demonstrate eternal destruction of the evil ones, not literal torment. Also, the place that Jesus said people would go for this "eternal fire" was called "Gehenna"[2] (not Hell) which in those days was just a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.
Myth: The Devil's name is Lucifer.
Fact: The word "Lucifer"[3] comes from the Latin translation of Isaiah 14:12. It's simply a word that means "shining one", a word that was used to describe the King of Babylon at that time, not the Devil. The King's fall is similar to that of the Devil, but the Devil in the Bible is never referred to as "Lucifer".
I think that's a stretch. I don't think the ancient Canaanites viewed Moloch as evil. Even Milton and Flaubert consider him a god. I think such definitions only make sense within the context of the religion. I could argue that Yaweh is a demon because he is evil (has also asked for child sacrifice among other things), but that is an absurd claim within the religion where by definition he is good and the source of morality.
So by calling Moloch a demon, you are participating in perpetuating a potentially false history of Moloch that is heavily biased and Judeocentric. Sure you can call him an evil pagan god, but to call him a demon requires fitting that into a prior belief system of evil supernatural entities which is inconsistent with the very belief system he came from.
Thanks. In the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, there were 10 locations with the word "Satan". Six of those refered to humans. The other four instances were for other servants of God. My point is that the word Satan is not what people today, after translations and various interpretations, take it to mean.
The temptation of Christ. Revelations. The Garden of Eden. Job. There are plenty of teachings about how demons are evil and dangerous as well. 1 and 2 Peter, for instance.
While I understand you’re trying to add some color to the claims so as to inform us to take them with a grain of salt, you’re also committing a logical fallacy.
So what if the devil himself made the claim? Unless it’s verifiably absurd, you have to respond to the substance. It seems from reading other threads that it’s not an absurd claim, so it would be helpful if you brought some substance of your own to the discussion. Otherwise we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The demons are also supposed to suffer torment, in hell. They're not there for their amusement with the souls of the damned, but rather because they rebelled against big G.
This bit of Christian mythology does make sense, I find. Actually, a fair few do, it's just that, well, angels and demons, right?
Oh and now that I mentioned it, there's an RPG where you play devils or angels duking it out in the land of the living:
If we want to invoke scripture liberally, we can say that Satan was a disgruntled employee that was fired for insubordination and founded his own company starting a War for Souls.
I think there's a book where the setting is that Hell is structured like a corporation.
It's super obvious. But for those unfamiliar... there is a famous story about two people and a snake. You have probably heard it.
"Gnostics consider that the biblical myth of creation can be explained as follows: the creator satan of the world trapped Adam and Eve in his miserable world, and Lucifer, in the form of a serpent, offered them the forbidden fruit of saving Gnosis, and showed them that the creator was deceiving them. In other words, the creator said to man "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." On the other hand, the Serpent said "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The bible continued: "And the eyes of both of them were opened". It doesn't say "they both died", it says "the eyes of both of them were opened", like the Serpent had said. Later, the creator says "And now man has become as one of us, to know good and evil". The creator lied. He said that man would die if he ate the fruit, but man did not die. The Serpent was telling the truth. The creator himself ended up agreeing that the Serpent was right. More precisely, Gnostics called the demiurge a liar as well as a plagiarizer. For them, the entire creation is a failed attempt by the demiurge to imitate the unknowable world. In this way, they think that the bible itself is a complete plagiarism, based principally on pre-biblical Babylonian and Egyptian texts."
"Gnostics believe that this Serpent Lucifer is the liberator of man and the world. It is wisdom, the liberating Gnosis that wakes man up and saves him. Of course, this Messenger of the Unknowable God, Lucifer, is an opponent and an enemy of the creator of the world."
Myth: The "soul" is something separate from the body.
Fact: The soul being a separate entity from the physical body did not come from Judaism or Christianity. In Genesis 2:7, the first man "became" a soul (Hebrew "Nephesh"[1]), he was not "given" a soul. The Old Testament teaches that the "soul" is the whole person. The Bible uses the word "soul" in reference to both humans and animals (Genesis chapter 1 and Revelation both do this). The Old Testament also teaches that the soul can die. See Ezekiel 18:4, 20.
Myth: Hell is a fiery place of torment to punish those who reject God.
Fact: There is no word "hell" in the original writings of the Bible. This was a later development. The idea that God punishes people for all eternity, essentially making him worse than Hitler, is not found in the Bible. In multiple places the Old Testament says that God does not condone burning your children in fire. See Jeremiah 7:31; 2 Kings 17:17; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Deuteronomy 12:29-31 for a few examples. When the New Testament speaks about "eternal fire", these are symbols or illustrations to demonstrate eternal destruction of the evil ones, not literal torment. Also, the place that Jesus said people would go for this "eternal fire" was called "Gehenna"[2] (not Hell) which in those days was just a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem.
Myth: The Devil's name is Lucifer.
Fact: The word "Lucifer"[3] comes from the Latin translation of Isaiah 14:12. It's simply a word that means "shining one", a word that was used to describe the King of Babylon at that time, not the Devil. The King's fall is similar to that of the Devil, but the Devil in the Bible is never referred to as "Lucifer".
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5315/kjv/wlc/0-1/
[2] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1067/kjv/tr/0-1/
[3] https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1966/kjv/wlc/0-1/
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