Isaiah 14:12 “ How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,[b] son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: ‘ I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ 15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Levitcus 20:5 "Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people."
Is there scriptural support to conflate the two or is that just church convention?
Many people's ideas about lucifer's fall actually come from Milton's "Paradise Lost", but you'd be surprised how many christians swear it's in the Bible.
He's their Osama - without him there's be no need for them.
Consider though - with all his posers, the devil never once caused physical harm to a human. God, on the other hand makes Saddam look all warm and fuzzy (the whole Jonah thing doesn't count, God did all that as a sort of a side bet).
It's absolutely fascinating how he came to be regarded as the former. He is hardly mentioned in the Old Testament, and when he is first mentioned (in Job) it's hard to tell if he or God are the worst characters.
He receives a more prominent role in things in the Koran.
7And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. 12Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short."
They say history is written by the victors. If you believe the Bible is the word of god you still have no independent means of assessing him. The Bible then would be written from his point of view.
I am an atheist and one of our criticisms of christianity is that you have no idea if god is actualy evil, except to take "his" word for it.
The only thing that makes the devil evil is that the Bible says so.
"The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels. According to her, "satan" was not an entity in the original Judeo-Christian tradition but a role assigned by god to an angel to thwart men's plans. Over time, it evolved into an oppositional entity, but initially god was solely responsible for all that we consider good AND evil in the world. This was a thorny problem that had to be resolved. Hence, a satan becomes SATAN.
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