Nightline Debate: Does Satan Exist?

[Paulhoff]

Jesus found me later in life and he is the one who saves those who are capable of hearing his voice, so even if I was in another part of the world and raised in another religion

Funny, Jews don't need a middle man to talk to their so-called god, why do you, bad connection?

Paul

 

[joobz]

Jesus himself said, "narrow is the way and few who find it."

You would think god would make the road a bit more obvious....if he actually wanted people to follow him.

And just because I am an American girl does not mean I was raised to be a Christian as my parents did not raise me to walk in the ways of the Lord.

How were you raised? How were your parents raised?

The only way you will ever know is to accept Christ!

So, you must believe in order to believe. Yeah!!!!

 

[kurious_kathy]

Funny, Jews don't need a middle man to talk to their so-called god, why do you, bad connection?

Paul

Some Jews accept Jesus as their Messiah, but we are still in the time of gentiles being saved so unfortunately it does seem many Jews are still blind to the truth about Jesus. As I understand it more Jews will come to faith in Christ through the great tribulation which is surely getting closer each day.

I also think its horribly sad that so many Jews have suffered persection, but can't you see it's because Satan does exist and he knows the Jews are God's chosen people whom he hates with a vengance? If Satan does not exist then why have so many Jews suffered needlessly?

 

[kurious_kathy]

You would think god would make the road a bit more obvious....if he actually wanted people to follow him.


How were you raised? How were your parents raised?


So, you must believe in order to believe. Yeah!!!!

Yes we must first have faith to believe God before we can find him. It's easy, you just get to a place where you accept him and then he comes to live in you and shows you the way.

I was raised in a broken home with a dad who was hardly around since I was 2. He was raised Catholic but fell away quite young and I ever new this till years later as my dad unfortunately does not talk about God. He does relate to Rush quite well so I think his understanding of God may be similar to Rush's even though he never talks about Jesus.

My mom struggled as a single mom and even though she took us to a Lutheran church when I was very young she stopped going so I do not remember my mom sharing her faith with us at all. I think she may have babtised me as a baby in the Lutheran church but I'm not sure. I babtised myself later when I accepted Christ.

As for God making the road easy, forget it. Jesus himself said we must pick up our cross and follow after him once we receive him. He is the one who changes everything!

As for the OP, I never knew just how real spiritual warfare was until I received Christ, now I know Satan does exist and he is deceiving way too many people. If you had Jesus open your eyes you would know too!

 

[Foster Zygote]

Jesus himself said, "narrow is the way and few who find it."

This fails to address my point.

And just because I am an American girl does not mean I was raised to be a Christian as my parents did not raise me to walk in the ways of the Lord.

So you were never exposed to Christianity? You never heard of Christianity? Christianity was every bit as alien to you as Islam or Hinduism and you were equally likely to be exposed to all other religions as you were Christianity?

Jesus found me later in life and he is the one who saves those who are capable of hearing his voice, so even if I was in another part of the world and raised in another religion, He would have found me and pulled me out of what ever I was raised to believe.

So if you were living in a part of rural India where Christianity was virtually unknown you would still have come to evangelical Christianity? Or is it that you have difficulty admitting to yourself the accidental nature of the circumstances that led you to one particular religion out of many?

Jesus is the one who saves and changes us once we come to accept him as Lord of our life and it truly is a supernatural phenomenon that I assure you is very real!

That's just what people who worship other gods say about their deities.

The only way you will ever know is to accept Christ! I am not the one who can convince anyone but if you were to start agreeing with God and admitting your need for him I believe you would come to know what I am sharing is true. Jesus loves you!!

And if I just believe in Santa Clause I will belive in Santa Clause.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Yes we must first have faith to believe God before we can find him. It's easy, you just get to a place where you accept him and then he comes to live in you and shows you the way.

So, to believe in God, all we have to do is believe in God. That's silly.

My mom struggled as a single mom and even though she took us to a Lutheran church when I was very young she stopped going so I do not remember my mom sharing her faith with us at all. I think she may have babtised me as a baby in the Lutheran church but I'm not sure. I babtised myself later when I accepted Christ.

So you have memories of attending Christian church. Do you have any memories of attending any mosques, temples or synagogues?

 

[Paulhoff]

Some Jews accept Jesus as their Messiah,

Then they are no longer Jews...............

The would be called christians............

And that still doesn't make Jesus real.........

Paul

 

[kurious_kathy]

Then they are no longer Jews...............

The would be called christians............

And that still doesn't make Jesus real.........

Paul

Paul, Jesus is VERY REAL! And we live in a world that is not merely materialistic, we are supernatural beings with a soul that will go on forever. Why is it so hard for you to believe in the unseen world?

As for the born again Jews, they call themselves Messianic Jews. What's so exciting to me is to see how zealous they are for God once they meet their Messiah! You will never meet a more on fire for the Lord Chrisitian than a Messianic Jew. I am happy to know we are all one family through Christ!

P.S.Why stay in the dark with Satan when the light is much more exciting and brilliant?

 

[kurious_kathy]

So, to believe in God, all we have to do is believe in God. That's silly.


So you have memories of attending Christian church. Do you have any memories of attending any mosques, temples or synagogues?

It's simple faith like a child that God honors. What's so great about being intellectual if you lose the simplicity of childlike faith? Can your intellent save you? I think some of you intellectuals would do well to try to be more balanced. Just an observation of mine.

And I thought I stated I did not remember going to church as a baby or very young girl, did you read that statement correctly? My mom said she took us to church but I do not recall much of my childhood at all. I think God has protected me from some of those memories as some of what happened to me as a young girl was very bad. Either way I was not raised in a Christian home. My parents were divorced and I often wonder what it would have been like in my life if they had stayed together. "I see how Satan has worked overtime destroying the family unit which is God's design."

I will reinerate one of my statements from the above,even if I had been raised in a different part of the world or different religion, Jesus would have saved me and pulled me out of any of those other false religions. Only Christ is capable of setting the captives free!

 

[TimCallahan]

As for God making the road easy, forget it. Jesus himself said we must pick up our cross and follow after him once we receive him. He is the one who changes everything!

As for the OP, I never knew just how real spiritual warfare was until I received Christ, now I know Satan does exist and he is deceiving way too many people. If you had Jesus open your eyes you would know too!

So you're saying that things actually get WORSE once you become a Christian. You also say that once you receive Christ you know you're involved in a spiritual war.

By the way, speaking of spiritual warfare, did you know that Paul based the "whole armor of God" in Ephesians 6 on an earlier work, the Wisdom of Solomon, written ca. 100 BCE, a book not accepted as canonical by Protestant denominations? Here's a comparison of relevant verses:

Wisdom of Solomon 5:17 - 20

The Lord will take his zeal as his whole armor,
and will arm all creation to repel his enemies;
he will put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and wear impartial justice as a helmet;
he will take holiness as an invincible shield
and sharpen stern wrath as a sword.

Ephesians 6:13a, 14 - 17:

Therefore take the whole armor of God . . . . Stand, therefore having girded your loins with truth, and havine put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation , and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 

[joobz]

Yes we must first have faith to believe God before we can find him. It's easy, you just get to a place where you accept him and then he comes to live in you and shows you the way.

nothing else in reality works this way.
If I don't believe in gravity, it still effects me and I can detect it.
If I don't believe in sunline, it still burns me and I can detect it.
If I don't believe in evolution, the evidence for it still exists.
Nothing in reality requires my prior belief or me to see it.

IF god does, than that makes god less powerful and impactful then anything else in reality.

I was raised in a broken home with a dad who was hardly around since I was 2. He was raised Catholic but fell away quite young and I ever new this till years later as my dad unfortunately does not talk about God. He does relate to Rush quite well so I think his understanding of God may be similar to Rush's even though he never talks about Jesus.

My mom struggled as a single mom and even though she took us to a Lutheran church when I was very young she stopped going so I do not remember my mom sharing her faith with us at all. I think she may have babtised me as a baby in the Lutheran church but I'm not sure. I babtised myself later when I accepted Christ.

So you lied. You WERE brouht up in a christian background. It may not have been AS christian as you claim to be now, but you were exposed to the concept of Jesus as a child.

As for the OP, I never knew just how real spiritual warfare was until I received Christ, now I know Satan does exist and he is deceiving way too many people. If you had Jesus open your eyes you would know too!

So, I must believe in order to believe. Nope. Still not a convincing argument.

 

[Paulhoff]

Paul, Jesus is VERY REAL!

No, to you he is real, that still does not make him real, and that is because you think you need him. That is a shame, the shame is that you can't forgive yourself for making a mistakes or mistakes. It also seems that the people that mean anything to you can't forgive you unless say you found Jesus. Until you can realy forgive yourself, you'll never get that monkey off you back.

A christian, is anyone that thinks that Jesus is the son of a so-called god, if someone whats to call themselves something else, fine, they are still a christain.

Paul

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Or did those people turn their own lives around? I can now only assume that you willfully ignore the fact that people all over the world have the same sort of experiences yet attribute them to many different gods. This suggests that it is not the gods who are intervening, but the people themselves.

I have to make a point here.

I was, for a long time, a bit of a waste of space. I'm intelligent, and I'm not a bad person at all, but I was lazy and depressed. I was upset by the fact I was going nowhere in life and that made me feel even more useless. I felt trapped in a cycle that would lead me down to my grave, possibly by suicide. I wanted to kill myself because I was a stupid waste of oxygen who couldn't do anything right. I was ugly, cowardly, lazy and stupid in my mind, and I didn't deserve any of the small successes that I achieved.

For one brief period I gained lucidity, I worked hard at my university work for the first time and got decent grades, but I rapidly fell back into self loathing and laziness. I was at my wits end.

Then I was saved. Not by god, not by any higher power, but by another flawed, but wonderful human being. My girlfriend, as she now is, saved me from myself and helped me turn my life around. I wasn't doing drugs, or killing myself slowly with anything like that, but I was heading on a downward spiral all the same.

I still have my depression, and every now and then I get a little more upset than I should by some things, but with the emotional support from the woman I love, I am now employed, with a decent degree from a respectable university and actually have plans (of sorts) for the future. I'm not wasting my life anymore, I am finally doing something with it, small as it may be for the moment, and I needed no god or promise of heaven to get me there. No loving deity opened my eyes, only a loving human being, whom I care about so much. We help one another now, and we're very very happy. Life isn't perfect, but we make the best of it.

So what say you to that KK? Should I attribute my successes to God, despite the fact that neither I nor my girlfriend believe in him, or any other religious or spiritual power? Or is my current happiness and state of near stability a trick by Satan? (If so, could he please keep it up? Things are going great).

 

[MarkCorrigan]

If Satan does not exist then why have so many Jews suffered needlessly?

Because people can be cruel and hateful towards relatively small minorities?

Because orthodox Jews tend to be rather isolationist in their stance to non Jews (NB, I realise this is a sweeping statement and could be applied to any religion) and thus they are treated with suspicion and fear?

Because people like picking on smaller, weaker groups than them to make themselves feel good thanks to mob mentality?

Because both Christianity and Islam have sects (and not always small ones) who have written into their very docterine a fear and hatred of the Jews for rejecting Jesus/the revelations of Mohammed (delete as appropriate)?

Lots and lots of reasons. Mythical red men with horns don't appear in any.

 

[lightfire22000]

I think Satan just means "accuser" in Hebrew, so in that sense it exists.

Mostly, Satan/Devil/Lucifer/Beelzebub is just a fusion of several myths and stories. Satan exists, like those myths and stories exist. It's not even in the Bible explicitly. Satan is an anthropomorphic creature expressed in human nature.

Family Guy taught me that the Devil isn't the greatest threat though. The Super Devil is the greatest threat.

 

[Foster Zygote]

It's simple faith like a child that God honors. What's so great about being intellectual if you lose the simplicity of childlike faith? Can your intellent save you? I think some of you intellectuals would do well to try to be more balanced. Just an observation of mine.

Thank you for affirming that it takes a complete rejection of intelligence to become like you. Joobz was right: you feel threatened by intellect.

And I thought I stated I did not remember going to church as a baby or very young girl, did you read that statement correctly? My mom said she took us to church but I do not recall much of my childhood at all. I think God has protected me from some of those memories as some of what happened to me as a young girl was very bad. Either way I was not raised in a Christian home.

You still don't get it: you found Christianity because you were surrounded by it. The great majority of religious people whom you could have encountered are Christian. Had you been born in India you might have been surrounded by Hindus or Sikhs or Muslims or Jainists or any number of other religions. Then you would be marveling that Christians could be so blind to the one true faith.

My parents were divorced and I often wonder what it would have been like in my life if they had stayed together. "I see how Satan has worked overtime destroying the family unit which is God's design."

Yet here I am, a faithful husband still passionately in love with my wife, a loving father who can't get enough of my child's laughter, and an atheist. You're still making your sales pitch on the assumption that people who don't share your beliefs are miserably unhappy. Why can't you come to terms with the fact that many, many people are happy in their lives without sharing your beliefs?

I will reinerate one of my statements from the above,even if I had been raised in a different part of the world or different religion, Jesus would have saved me and pulled me out of any of those other false religions. Only Christ is capable of setting the captives free!

Reiterate. And you don't know that, you just want to believe it.

 

[Foster Zygote]

If Satan does not exist then why have so many Jews suffered needlessly?

You do realize just how many of those Jews suffered at the hands of Christians, yes?

For such ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they assuredly have erred and gone astray. Even a child can comprehend this. For one dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own people so long, so terribly, so unmercifully, and in addition keep silent, comforting them neither with words nor with deeds, and fixing no time limit and no end to it. Who would have faith, hope, or love toward such a God? Therefore this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer their God. This is in accord with Hosea 1:9, "Call his name Not my people, for you are not my people and I am not your God." Yes, unfortunately, this is their lot, truly a terrible one. They may interpret this as they will; we see the facts before our eyes, and these do not deceive us.

Martin Luther

 

[kurious_kathy]

This fails to address my point.


So you were never exposed to Christianity? You never heard of Christianity? Christianity was every bit as alien to you as Islam or Hinduism and you were equally likely to be exposed to all other religions as you were Christianity?


So if you were living in a part of rural India where Christianity was virtually unknown you would still have come to evangelical Christianity? Or is it that you have difficulty admitting to yourself the accidental nature of the circumstances that led you to one particular religion out of many?


That's just what people who worship other gods say about their deities.


And if I just believe in Santa Clause I will belive in Santa Clause.

I became a Christian because God saved me. He's not just words on a page, Christianity and Jesus are the truth and once Jesus makes himself known to a persson you know without any doubt the reality of his death and resurrection.

Jesus changed my life one night for good 4+ years ago and I'll never question him being there ever again! If you had heard the Saviors voice (like I have) you would know too. Jesus does what no one else or no other religion does, saves men (& women) from their sins. It's not religion or because a person is raised in a Christian home that makes them a Christian either, Jesus saves people from all tribes and nations. How do you explain that?

 

[Cavemonster]

It's not religion or because a person is raised in a Christian home that makes them a Christian either, Jesus saves people from all tribes and nations. How do you explain that?

Really? There are numerous documented cases of people who were somehow never exposed to the Christian religion having an experience with Jesus?

Links please.

 

[kurious_kathy]

So you're saying that things actually get WORSE once you become a Christian. You also say that once you receive Christ you know you're involved in a spiritual war.

By the way, speaking of spiritual warfare, did you know that Paul based the "whole armor of God" in Ephesians 6 on an earlier work, the Wisdom of Solomon, written ca. 100 BCE, a book not accepted as canonical by Protestant denominations? Here's a comparison of relevant verses:

Wisdom of Solomon 5:17 - 20

The Lord will take his zeal as his whole armor,
and will arm all creation to repel his enemies;
he will put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and wear impartial justice as a helmet;
he will take holiness as an invincible shield
and sharpen stern wrath as a sword.

Ephesians 6:13a, 14 - 17:

Therefore take the whole armor of God . . . . Stand, therefore having girded your loins with truth, and havine put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation , and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Yes I'm saying once you are saved you enter the war zone more because Satan doesn't like knowing he can't take you to hell with him anymore so he comes against you even harder than ever. Unsaved people do not seem to struggle like we do as Christians and I believe it's because Satan does everything he can to discredit the testimony of a believer. Satan can't steal our salvation, but he does everything he can to make our lives harder because he is furious. You would think he would get tired of accusing us day and night but he must get off on it or something.

I also know Satan can't do anything to me that God does not allow him to do so I find peace in knowing God is in control of my life. No matter what this world throws at me, God is for me not against me.