Origin and Evolution of Satan (hell, angels, etc) from all points of view

[awareness]

Originally Posted by zeek

What one thinks about this entails a philosophy of religion. Are religious symbols like Satan and God invented by people due to social political forces or perhaps economic forces if you're a Marxist? To say that the New Testament writers invented the Satan narrative to exonerate the Romans in the death of Jesus implies as much. Doesn't it? And how far down can we go with this kind of historical hypothesizing? We know some things about the social political facts of the time. But what would do we really know about the writer of the Gospel of Mark for instance? At what point does knowledge shade into guesswork? What are the limits of the historical method for understanding the Bible? Cuz life is short and we're already living it, and we need to answer now.

Silly boy ... there's a monster in the closet, and under the bed. That's when we were kids. But grown-ups require a bigger monster, a universal monster, with greater power than the monster in the closet.

Satan is a very handy tool. He not only deflects blame from God, but explains the unexplainable bad things that happen, and our bad behavior.

Plus, we are duty bound to God to defeat Satan whenever encountered, or when we need it.

A despicable example : we used Satan to kill and take land from the Native Americans. It was obvious by how they danced around the fire that they were worshipping the devil, plus they weren't people of The Book. We had to do it for God.

Satan is handy like that.