source of evil?

Question

Ok I was talking to some religious people and they were telllng me that the evil thoughts and temptations came from Satan. Ok this sounds all fine and dandy but I kept thinking about the story of Satan and how he was an angel at one time and how he was envious of gods power. So he was tempted into leading a revolt against god. Who put the evil thoughts and temptation into Satan's head? Did God do it?

Answer 1

There is no 'evil', there is no 'Evil One'. That's just been a neat way to blame some exterior 'force' for the undesirable stuff that happens here on Earth, most of which by far is the result of thoughts, words, or deeds of us humans.

However, I have theorised a few times here that the 'birth' of negative perceptions for us humans manifested here was the result of our creating these physical emanations ( bodies ) that we trundle around in. We did use animal DNA with which to construct them, and that means that we are affected by the same drives and influences as our animal cousins.

Thus the most basic drive is survival, and the most basic element of that is the 'fight of fly syndrome', the trigger mechanism that explodes a massive 'charge' of adrenaline into the blood stream, facilitating a several times 'normal' performance capability.

This is, I believe, the start of 'negative' perception, and also the beginning of fear. And it is fear that leads to all that we describe as 'evil'.

As Master Yoda said :

"Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the 'Dark Side'.

In Star Wars, Joseph Campbell and George Lucas were trying to explain in the gentlest of terms that there is only the force, the energetic and spiritual creative power, and it is us, human beings, who determine whether we use it to produce desirable results or undesirable.

Of course, we also determine what we consider to 'desirable' and 'undesirable'. :-)))

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cosmic Love}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Answer 2

"I am God and there is no other; other than me there is no God. I will gird you, though you did not know Me, in order that those from east and west would know there is *nothing* besides Me; I am God and there is no other. I am the One who forms light and creates darkness; who makes peace AND CREATES EVIL; I am God, Maker of all these."

Isaiah 45:5-7 (in the Hebrew bible.)

Note: the word there for "evil" is "ra". It means EVIL. It does not mean "catastrophe" or "disaster" or anything else that the Christians have translated it as. It means evil.

In Judaism we believe everything comes from God. We don't believe in two Creators/Gods as Christians do with Satan and God where one creates good and one creates evil.

There is no concept in Judaism that Satan was envious of God's power and revolted against him and tries to take over God's kingdom. Christianity apparently put it together by mistranslating several unrelated verses and came up with this idea. In Judaism, Satan is an angel who does nothing but God's will - he is more like a prosecuting attorney who brings our book of life before God when we die. He isn't going around trying to take over God's role or kingdom at all.

Answer 3

In order to work, the physical universe seems to need two 'poles'.
Positive / negative. Inside / outside. Black / white. Nice / nasty. Good / evil.
Because our minds are limited, we try to apply this bi-polar model to the higher order, the ultimate reality, the Eternal.
But that it anthropomorphism - and it simply doesn't work!
As I have suggested before on here, the whole of reality is in a state of constant creation, constantly being brought into existence by the Eternal in, I guess, a constant act of joy.
At the level of the Eternal there IS no evil. It's only us who get ourselves all het up with that concept.
Indeed, the whole God / Satan story, it seems to me, is an attempt by humans to impose our limited, third dimension understanding of reality to the ultimate IS-ness of the Eternal, in which there is absolutely no conflict whatsoever.
Anthropomorphism, the attempt to attribute human characteristics to God, has caused more probems than anything else I can think of.
And now, if I may, I'd like a cuo of tea.
'Sip'

Answer 4

Please read. Thank you very much!

750715AR.SF Lectures
Krsna is not Indian or Hindu. Krsna is everything. Everyone is Krsna's sons, in any form. Sarva-yonisu. Yoni means species. There are 8,400,000 species. So all of them are living entities, and they are part and parcel of Krsna. Therefore Krsna is very much anxious to see His sons become very happy, just like father wants to see his son very happy. So Krsna has admitted that He is bija-pradah pita, He is the supreme father. I think in Christianity also God is accepted as supreme father. So actually that is the fact. God is the supreme father. So as the father wants to see his sons very happy, similarly, Krsna wants to see all of us very happy. That is Krsna. But we are persistently avoiding Krsna and suffering. This is our business. Therefore Krsna said,


yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya
tadatmanam srjamy aham


This... Just coming here from Philadelphia we were talking with the aeroplane crews, the captain, the pilot. They (were) very patiently hearing us. The question was very intelligent, question pilot made, that "If everything is created by God..." Yes. That is a fact. Janmady asya yatah. The Vedanta-sutra says everything is emanated from God. Without a thing being present in God, there cannot be any existence of anything. That's a fact. Isavasyam idam sarvam. So his question was, "Then what is this evil?" The evil is also God's creation. So I explained like this, that for God there is no good or evil; everything is good. So I gave him this example that good, or piety, that is God's frontage, and evil means God's back side. So taking this example, the chest or the back of my body, they are equal. It is not that when there is some pain on the back side I don't care for it; I simply take care of when there is pain in the chest. No. Although it is back side, it is as important as the front side. Then evil and good is also of the same importance? No. Evil... That I gave the example, that for God there is nothing evil. I gave another example. Just like the sun, there is no darkness. Anywhere of sun's body, there is no darkness. But for us there is light and darkness. Just like if you keep the sun back side, you will find darkness, a very long darkness, your shadow. And if you keep yourself in front, sun, there is no darkness. So it is my business; I create darkness. As soon as I change my position--instead of remaining in front of God, I keep God back side--then there is darkness. Otherwise there is no question of darkness. But in the sun as it is, there is no such darkness. Therefore God is all good. And for us, when we forget God, that is evil. And when we are in God consciousness always, everything good.

Answer 5

Religion is a human invention, part of it is to explain the unknown (God did it) and part is to tell us how to live. Notice that all of the things that are said to be good are those things that keep society on a nice, even keel, and the bad things are those that do not. Your society would collapse if robbery were allowed, same with murder, etc. So the concepts of good and evil are human inventions created to promote stable societies.

Answer 6

My thoughts! God created angels... yes, not robots... they were created by God to serve God. It appears that Lucifer had a "will" as did the other angels who fell with him... 1/3 of heavens angels (now called demons.....) LUCIFER said i will be like the most high... I will assend to the Mountain of the Lord.... it was clearly Lucifer's "will" and pride that produced evil in himself. It wasn't evil really, it was rebellion. And his rebellion removed him from the presence and favour of God just as Adams rebellion, just as our own. BUT thank God for Jesus who has taken our sin, our rebellion and nailed it to the cross. We still have an "evil nature" but we are saved by grace and continually saved from our evil nature everyday. Satan's fate is sealed... WE still have a chance to turn from evil... and live for God, by God. Furthermore the bible teaches that every man is tempted from his own evil thoughts and desires.... not by God. We lust and are rebellous because we are born of Adam (evil and lustful) which is why we must be born again... of Jesus. the only perfect One. Through him our evil nature is counted void and we are made righteous. God created Lucifer, but not to be evil that was his choice. He created us but not to be evil that is our choice. God uses the evil deeds of Satan to draw us to his loving kindness, but no matter how evil rages no weapon formed against us will prosper.

Answer 7

A supposedly Perfect God, with perfect Creation Skills, Omniscient, Omnipotent but creates an emotionally imperfect Angel..... Flawed Design coming from a Flawed Designer

Answer 8

Self did it. Angels have freewill too. God does not make robots. Self went to satan's head and his love of self turned into pride turned into sin turned into his fall from heaven. God has no part in evil. God is Holy which cannot be with sin, evil. God bless

Answer 9

Propaganda, the mighty one, invented the word so as to describe the absence of proper flow of love. It is subjective and as such has no real existence.

Answer 10

hummm, you got a point there. I guess god is altogether a composure of good and evil source