Question:
I happened to watch your debate on if Satan exists. I found it very interesting. Although I am a devoted Christian. I wanted to understand your stance of this. I think that u were trying to let people realize that when we are conditioned to believe in negativity as far as Satan, that it gives people the excuse to blame for the negativity instead of looking at ourselves and believing instead of taking responsibility for our own spirituality instead of trying to just believing that we can find spirituality in just one’s belief. If this is not correct I would really like to know your true meaning of this. I thought your debate was so interesting and I would really like to understand.
Answer:
When we objectify evil, we are implying that it is outside of us, an external force we must confront. This viewpoint prohibits us from seeing and healing the darkness, fear and ignorance within us that is actually feeding the behavior we judge as evil outside us. That is why I said personifying evil as Satan is a way of avoiding personal responsibility for looking at our own shadow side. Furthermore, it is disempowering and demeaning to suggest that the divine essence within our soul is weak and helpless in the face of our projected shadow – Satan.
When everyone is looking to fight and resist the devil in the name of God, what you end up with is different religions fighting with other religions, each certain that the other is evil and they aren’t. This only leads to further misunderstanding, fear and conflict. If instead, we could accept the notion that we all have a shadow side in that needs healing, forgiveness and love, then we would have the basis to truly love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Love,
Deepak
Good question and answer. Much of the "story" around Satan and Lucifer is all made up by the brimstone preachers, and not actually in the Bible. There was a good piece on IntentBlog about this. http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/01/satan_… comments 7 and 8 cover it. The traditional role of Satan in the Old Testament. Satan comes from the Hebrew satan, which means "opponent" or "adversary." It appears that the Hebrews did not have a devil-like power opposed to God. Lucifer means lightbringer, from the Latin lux "light" and ferre "to bear or bring." The word Lucifer is found in only one place in the Bible — Isaiah 14:12 — but only in the King James and related versions: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . ."
If you like that check out the Lethal Text http://i—-i.org/infinite_play_lethal_text_serie…
Join in the Infinite Play http://infiniteplaythemovie.com look here for http://clues.me . If you like Esoteric stuff look here http://esoteric.me it's all part of the Infinite Game.
Good Points Richard.
I viewed this debate and was amused no one would define the terms. Referring to a decent bible concordance we find satan is adversary and evil is trouble. It is the wicked who cause trouble, most usually for personal gain and perhaps as the kind of mischief we observed in school or at Summer camp. Yet in the O.T. God proclaims he creates the evil. Think of the great flood or the curses on Pharaoh. Were these events blamed on satan?
I believe Wayne Dyer has the best handle on satan/adversary when he says EGO means edge God out. This supports Deepak's point that our adversary is within. If we can acknowledge this we can demote ego as master and make it serve us. If we cannot, we will serve the maniacal fool within for the remainder of this lifetime and possibly many more. We must make these ego maniacs define their terms or no discussion with them will have any obvious meaning.
Wow Richard! That old thread at intentblog had quite a few of the old gang . . .
Miss the community we once had . . .
Peace
Dear deepak,
thanks for the interesting insight.
Wish you love, peace and happiness.
Trisha
Indeed Craig; that thread triggered a wave of nostalgia! That was quite a ride we had…
Richard: good to see you here again, bro.
The spiritual realm is much like the natural world. It is in essence breathtakingly perfect, completely harmonious and utterly flawless. I have yet to meet an evil animal or discover a satanic plant.
The only evil I have ever witnessed among plants and animals are the scars left on them by the inhumane, dark deeds of men. It is certainly not the devil who is trashing the environment, abusing the animal kingdom or trampling the hearts of loving women and breaking the spirits of brave men.
The Divine Light that you and I come from, and will return to one day, knows no evil and does not recognize the power of these shadows that some so willingly fear and follow.
Believing in the supremacy of evil entities and dark beings implies that we all come from a spiritual place of imperfection. It suggests that the Divine Source is somehow diseased, that Creation is riddled with flaws and falsehoods that dwell among us. And, worst of all, that we are so far superior in our human state that we alone are capable of fixing this broken, dysfunctional or chaotic spiritual mess.
Read the rest of this article at: http://psychicbloggers.com/archives/2454