Well The Devil Was An Angle What Was Full Of Envey Was It Not? (I am Only So Sorry If This Is A Borin Question)
2007-11-02 09:40:45 · 20 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Belief in God doesn't automaticly mean belief in a Devil. THere's lot of religions that don't have a Devil. I think what you mean is how can someone believe in the Christian God and not the Christian Devil....and honestly, I don't know. They DO go hand in hand, don't they? You can't have "Salvation" without something to be "saved" from, right? If that's your brand of dogma, I'd have to say you really should believe in both.
2007-11-02 09:50:18 · answer #1 · answered by mental1018 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
A lot of the more intelligent Christians don't believe everything the bible says. Quite frankly, there is a lot of stuff in that bible that is just plain meaningless. Other stuff in the bible is contradictory. Still other parts are plainly wrong or horribly perverse. No sane, intelligent person that really takes a close look at the bible is going to believe all of it. (Unfortunately there are a lot of really stupid and insane people in the world that do).
At any rate, the more intelligent Christians tend to believe in a God that is an approximate version of the God in the Bible. They generally choose to believe all of the really evil stuff God does in the Bible is simply the insane ramblings of incompetent bronze age desert dwellers and never really happened.
So, a lot of Christians are perfectly capable of believing in a God without believing in a devil. Only the people who are so mentally incompetent that they feel it is necessary to take everything in the bible literally are really under any compulsion to believe in a devil.
(There are a lot of the mentally incompetent Christians on this site, by the way).
2007-11-02 11:14:56 · answer #2 · answered by Azure Z 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The whole xtian concept of 'the devil' was stolen in language from the Jews (HaSatan- which does NOT mean fallen angel or evil one or anything you guys have attached to it) and in concept from pagan religions with a fearful, burning afterlife. If you bothered to learn what your 'old testament' said in it's true form you wouldn't worry about such non-sense.
Not 'borin' (I assume you mean 'boring' but I understand most xtians aren't much for accurate translation), just based on nothing.
2007-11-02 09:52:22 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
A belief in Satan would also mean one would have to believe in God.
If you believe in God as the embodiment of all that's good, certainly you'd have to accept that there's evil in the world, and you would then see Satan as a necessary embodiment of evil.
If the voice of your conscience is the voice of God, then Satan's the one who'd help you make excuses, cut corners, do things that you know are wrong, etc.
2007-11-02 09:51:55 · answer #4 · answered by Andrew S 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Many Christians believe in God but not the devil. This is because Satan's main weapon is deception.
2007-11-02 09:46:41 · answer #5 · answered by cheir 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The concept has never, ever existed in Judaism. We don't have any such thing. Everything comes from God.
The angel named ha-satan (which means "the adversary") is simply the angel that GOD uses when He wishes to tempt people.
This angel has never rebelled against God and does only what God wishes him to do. This angel is also the one who brings our Book of Life before God when we die and acts as a kind of prosecuting attorney (on God's orders).
This angel is never, ever adversarial to God, does not wish to take over God's kingdom, and never does anything that God has not told him to do.
We do not have two Gods as Christianity does - one Big God who creates only good, and one little god who creates only evil. EVERYTHING comes from the ONE God, including as it says in Isaiah: "I alone create evil and good, there is no one besides me who does this."
So if a person believes in an angel who rebelled against God, they have bought a false propaganda invented by the Church fathers for purposes of control and fear, nothing more. What they did was take several unrelated verses in our Torah, stick them together, and created this creature named Satan who seeks to take over God's Kingdom, steal the souls of mankind, and is adversarial to God. They did this to scare their followers and control them that way, to make sure that their followers came to the Church (along with all their money and property). Those who refused to believe such nonsense were murdered and their property taken anyway. There were also forcible conversions, convert or die.
2007-11-02 09:51:16 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
If you are a Christian who reads your Bible you can believe in both. How can you not, look at all the evil in the world. the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. Everyone (especially Christians) have been attacked by the devil.
2007-11-02 10:04:22 · answer #7 · answered by doyougotapencil 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Not a boring question hun....
I believe in God and I know that the devil exists.
2007-11-02 09:51:34 · answer #8 · answered by Neenie 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Why Do You Need to Capitalize Every Word?
2007-11-02 09:46:19 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I believe in the Devil, I just don't think about him much.
2007-11-02 09:46:23 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋