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Nightline Debate: Does Satan Exist?

If Satan exists, how would you distinguish him from God? I mean, I know if I were the ruler of hell and all that and was trying to get people sent to hell, the first thing I would do would be to convince everyone I was God so they would worship me.

Comments are made above about how God is good and whatnot. But to make that determination requires an independent standard of good to compare against.

So where do you get the objective standard of good by which to evaluate God?
 
pgwenthold said:
If Satan exists, how would you distinguish him from God? I mean, I know if I were the ruler of hell and all that and was trying to get people sent to hell, the first thing I would do would be to convince everyone I was God so they would worship me.

Comments are made above about how God is good and whatnot. But to make that determination requires an independent standard of good to compare against.

So where do you get the objective standard of good by which to evaluate God?
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God gives you the numbers with which you win


PoWeRbAlL!


(Apologies to DLGAS)


M.
 
Tricky said:
Truth isn't based on what a single person, or even a group of people believe. It is based on solid, objective, verifiable evidence. If you get to call your beliefs "truth" then every other religion has the same right to call their non-Christian beliefs "truth".
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Which is the great irony of religion: many claim some immutable "Truth" that only they can lay claim to (with "evidence" from their holy texts, I might add), yet these claims contradict one another, leading to an obvious paradox...

... how can multiple religions all lay claim to the "one True path" when they disagree with each other? Answer: they can't.

I can anticipate what folks like KK will likely say, because when I was a kid asking these questions I got the usual "we're right, they're wrong, we're going to heaven, they're going to hell, so get on board with us" nonsense. Which is, of course, nothing more than attempting to scare people into going along with the rest of the herd. It was childish then, and it's childish now.

Even at 15 or 16, I realized the only solution to this paradox that made any sense to me then (and still does)...

They're all wrong. They're all just making it up. Rather than admit that they don't really know (which frightens them to no end), they'd just as soon make up fairy-tales, claim "ultimate Truth", and use all these smoke & mirrors as a cover for their own ignorance, fear, and inadequacy.
 
MattusMaximus said:
They're all wrong. They're all just making it up. Rather than admit that they don't really know (which frightens them to no end), they'd just as soon make up fairy-tales, claim "ultimate Truth", and use all these smoke & mirrors as a cover for their own ignorance, fear, and inadequacy.
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Mostly they're not making it up. Mostly they're believing what they've been told by somebody they trust. Their minds aren't flexible enough to come up with their own ideas. But you're right that fear is a big part of it. The whole concept of "I don't know" is terrifying to them. It is much better to blindly accept something... anything... than to not "know".

And here is where they differ from scientists and critical thinkers. To a critical thinker, the most wonderful phrase in the world is "we don't know". To them, it means there are new paths to be explored, new ideas to try out, new experiments to be done. They don't face ignorance with denial. They challenge ignorance with the determination to beat it by learning all they can. The excitement in such a quest is one of the greatest joys of life.

The Kathys of the world will never know that joy. And for that, I pity them.
 
Tricky said:
The Kathys of the world will never know that joy. And for that, I pity them.
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Today, my grad student gave me microscope images of polymer films on glass. They were of the most striking bifurcating crystalline structure. I started smiling. He was shocked and didn't know why.

He asked, "What does this mean for my project?"
"I don't know." I started laughing.

At that point, we sat down and considered what it meant, what we can do, what we study next. It was a fun time simply hypothesizing what's next and developing experiments to test it. I don't know is so much fun.
 
Well, if you define morality and validity of a supreme being by the actions of their more high-profile followers, then I hate to say it, KK, but Satan's followers are far more moral than those of the Judeo-Christian god.

Let's see here - Christianity gave us the Crusades, hucksters like Popoff and Tilton, adulterers like Swaggart and Bakker, crooked and corrupt windbags like Pat Robertson, and a host of atrocities throughout the ages.

Satanism gave us uh...Anton LaVey - who as far as I know had zero criminal record and was only guilty of being a rather touched and kooky individual. It is important to note that continued membership in the Church of Satan is contingent upon the person staying completely within the law. If a member is convicted of any crime, they are kicked out of the church. Compare this to the Roman Catholic church who has continued to cover up and excuse acts of pederasty by its clergy.

Based on that observation, I'd much rather have a Church of Satan on every corner than the bastion of self-righteous pompous hypocrisy that is the Southern Baptist Church.

GLOOOORY!
 
joobz said:
Yes, becuase Burning books is a clear sign of rational thought.
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Well we live in the mountains where we do burn piles quite regularly for fire safety, so it was just as easy to burn it as to throw it in the garbage.
 
JoeyDonuts said:
Well, if you define morality and validity of a supreme being by the actions of their more high-profile followers, then I hate to say it, KK, but Satan's followers are far more moral than those of the Judeo-Christian god.

Let's see here - Christianity gave us the Crusades, hucksters like Popoff and Tilton, adulterers like Swaggart and Bakker, crooked and corrupt windbags like Pat Robertson, and a host of atrocities throughout the ages.

Satanism gave us uh...Anton LaVey - who as far as I know had zero criminal record and was only guilty of being a rather touched and kooky individual. It is important to note that continued membership in the Church of Satan is contingent upon the person staying completely within the law. If a member is convicted of any crime, they are kicked out of the church. Compare this to the Roman Catholic church who has continued to cover up and excuse acts of pederasty by its clergy.

Based on that observation, I'd much rather have a Church of Satan on every corner than the bastion of self-righteous pompous hypocrisy that is the Southern Baptist Church.

GLOOOORY!
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I never said what the Catholic church believes is right now have I? There are way too many false manmade religions and false prophets in our world today but people who know Jesus are not falling for so many phonies who teach heresy. The Holy Spirit once indwelling a person does in fact lead us into all truth which is found in the Word of God. I am truly sorry there have been way too many phonies out there but that does not mean there aren't people who truly love and know God that choose to overcome evil by doing good. I pray the Lord will bring some true Christians into your path so you can see there is a difference!
 
Hokulele said:
Because that is just so much more rational and open-minded than reading and challenging the ideas within. :rolleyes:
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Depak Chopra is a false teacher so why once I know that would I even want to read his bad theories? That's all it is something that may sound good to some but full of lies that deceive many. I did at one time read his stuff, but once you know it's bad why would you ever want to read it again?
 
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joobz said:
Today, my grad student gave me microscope images of polymer films on glass. They were of the most striking bifurcating crystalline structure. I started smiling. He was shocked and didn't know why.

He asked, "What does this mean for my project?"
"I don't know." I started laughing.

At that point, we sat down and considered what it meant, what we can do, what we study next. It was a fun time simply hypothesizing what's next and developing experiments to test it. I don't know is so much fun.
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I still have many questions I ask each day and make many new discoveries. Why would you think just because I am bold in my faith I am not inquisitive?
 
Hokulele said:
Let me know when you meet one.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4497292#post4497292




What the heck? Did you even look at the links I posted? Read any of the text I wrote? Where on earth did I mention Deepak (The Moron) Chopra? Do you think people of Indian descent are interchangeable? The Borg?

V.S. Ramachandran.

http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html
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I was commenting on another person making a statement on why I burned his book on this post and then you made a comment? Perhaps we got our wires crossed because I did not see the link. I took it as you put me down for burning Depak's book. Sorry if I wasn't following you well but it looked like you commented to my comment about that. Why don't we leave the other threads alone and I'll get back to you comment on that one. When people try to blend thread topics it does get a bit messy don't you think?
 
kurious_kathy said:
I was commenting on another person making a statement on why I burned his book on this post and then you made a comment? Perhaps we got our wires crossed because I did not see the link. I took it as you put me down for burning Depak's book. Sorry if I wasn't following you well but it looked like you commented to my comment about that. Why don't we leave the other threads alone and I'll get back to you comment on that one. When people try to blend thread topics it does get a bit messy don't you think?
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Yep, I got my threads crossed and apologized for the mistaken rant (my post has been edited).

My bad.
 
kurious_kathy said:
I still have many questions I ask each day and make many new discoveries. Why would you think just because I am bold in my faith I am not inquisitive?
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Because faith makes people stupid. Faith makes you stop looking. Faith makes you believe you have answers you don't have.

You are an example of someone without one ounce of inquisiveness, just closed minded faith. A book burner, a liar and someone who claims some "truth" without one bit of intelligence behind that claim.
 
supercorgi said:
You burned the books!? What's wrong with you? Couldn't you have just donated them to a library or nursing home or something? KK is a book burner, just one more reason to dislike her.
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When I have parties at my house, my friends look through my bookcase. I also enjoy looking at peoples book collections to see if they have something interesting and to learn about their interests.

One fine day I decided that for the sake of public relations I should get rid of my collection of woo. So it was bye bye to Deepak and creative visualisation and a whole bunch of other crap that was just standing there and making me look like an idiot.

So, after harvesting a box full of woo, what to do with it?
I remembered that in my days of woo, I enjoyed rummaging through the second hand occult books at the store. There was that extra special feeling of a book "coming to you" when it was second hand. And then I realised that I didn't want inflict all this deceitful, time-wasting bull crap on some impressionable teenager. I don't want to be responsible for someone doing visualisation exercises before an exam, instead of actually reading the frigging schoolbooks.

So in the paper recycle bin it went.

With any luck some fat bloke is now wiping his butt with Shati Gawain and practical magyck. What could be more appropriate?
 
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