Nightline Debate: Does Satan Exist?

[Scepcop]

Nightline Debate: Does Satan Exist?

This ABC Nightline debate happened at Mars Hill Churchs Ballard campus, and featured Pastor Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert debating the existence of Satan with Deepak Chopra and Bishop Carlton Pearson.

[Craig Browning]

I couldn't stomach it. . . I got through most of the "discussion" part but didn't listen to the audience tid bits given how the story was being edited to death.

For starters, you have a red-neck evangelists that works with a prostitute. . . toss in a "church" that is part of today's commercialized face of Religion; a physical auditorium that seats over 1,000 people. . . give me a break! That's show business, not a community that shares in humbled faith and acts honoring their deity. It is a cog in the political mechanism seeking to turn this into a theocratic government rather than the democracy it was intended to be. But there is more to this situation, starting with one very glaring fact; "Satan" or more accurately "the Devil" was originally a title or office within the ancient Hebrew traditions, the job of the one's holding this position was to present arguments that ran contrary to the conventional views associated with the scripture. To the Jews this was a very important task in that it allowed the clergy to contemplate and weigh the teachings in ways that kept them practical to their present world and living environment; they understood how things change and the only way to keep their religious view contemporary was to debate what it gave to them and thus, see it through "new eyes" -- those of a new generation that was in touch with the present vs. the past -- the archaic.

Then we have the other key elements that are, from what I could see, never brought out in this discussion, starting with mis-teaching that "Lucifer" and "Satan" are one in the same. Lucifer was a fallen angel according to myth but his becoming Satan is a latter implication -- an assumed identity shift in which the two became one in the same personage. Then again "Satan" has been given many other facets of title that include Baal, Beelzebub, and just about any other deity mentioned in the Old Testament and, by the 5th & 6th centuries c.e. a myriad of other deities that were being discovered. However, the most typical entity that was superimposed onto Satan was the paternal God image of Pagan tradition; everyone from Crononos & Pan to Hern of the Celtic nations and even some intimations towards Moses (ever seen the statutes of him with horns?)

We have that other "swept under the rug" issue as well; how the tale of Lucifer mirrors both, the Gnostic & Islamic views towards Yahweh or, if we use his full name, Yaldabaoth Yahweh -- the Demiurge -- (see The Secret Book of John/Apocryphon of John -- Gnostic Scriptures omitted from the Bible). This is the bastard child of Sophia who created him without the aid of her consort, the true Father Creator of ALL.

Upon discovering that other gods existed, including those greater than he, Yahweh imposed a "commandment" onto his own little creations, that they could only worship him -- "their god". (talk about insecurity and childhood rebellion).

The parallel between Yahweh and the Lucifer tale is uncanny; similar personalities and ultimately the same sense of "punishment" (being cast to the earth, his domain) the Gnostic teachings placing him in a position of proving his greatness by giving his creations (us) a choice -- to live under a yoke of compliance and "fear" of their god, or to awaken to a higher truth when it comes to the greater essence of true divinity and enlightenment -- a path of attraction, love and genuine freedom of choice in which you are responsible vs. an existence in which you can never know true peace and inner healing let alone connection to the divine, because you live to obey an arrogant and oppressive deity that is bigoted, known for temper tantrums, and threatens you with an eternity in some horrid lake of flame.

What better way to sway the masses to your path than to paint what is genuinely good, fair and of higher conscience as being dark and evil while painting your own deception as being "the one true way"? Satan is the master of lies and manipulation after all

[Scepcop]

Oh that was an edited version? Well here's the full version, part 1:

[naveed01]

Actually, prior to the invention of the Romanized Church religion & science were one in the same thing. Arguably, science is a religion in that it is rife with as much, if not more dogma than any other philosophic cult. You will even find a plethora of contradictory details when it comes to said dogma, just as we find within the auspices of all things "theist" as some would say.