Religion
Related: About this forumThe great age of Satan
Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 12:17 pm
Updated: 1:54 pm, Tue May 13, 2014.
By Ryan McLaren Special to the Coast Report
... I am a secularist and I dont believe in the supernatural, but Satan certainly exists as a metaphysical concept, as a force that works in peoples lives. Satan is the embodiment of the Selfish I ...
Unlike Christians, it is not sex, drugs and alcohol that I feel are rotting this country, or a lack of faith in a supreme deity. It is our worship of the idea of prosperity at all costs, of intense, unencumbered capitalism that makes us ill.
We all have a God, money and selfishness to rule us. Even economists, our so-called stewards of what is true in our gospel, personify our religion as the market and its Lord the great invisible hand.
I look around and see and hear people who are quite willing to hurt others to prosper. To manipulate, lie, steal and cheat to get ahead. This is Satan in action ...
http://www.coastreportonline.com/views/article_36d5cb62-dad3-11e3-bbf6-0019bb2963f4.html
trotsky
(49,533 posts)struggle4progress
(118,274 posts)Most American Christians Do Not Believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit Exist
April 2009
trotsky
(49,533 posts)40% reject the notion that Satan is a living being (as you do) - meaning that 60% accept it, to some extent or another.
In other words, a majority, as I said.
Want to go look for another survey to try and prove me wrong?
Oh, and on edit: thanks for the snip showing that you were wrong about ideas of exorcism and demonic possession too. Yup, a majority believe in that.
struggle4progress
(118,274 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)Last edited Sat May 17, 2014, 08:13 AM - Edit history (1)
When people from a religious background are tired of "God," they often see only the "Devil" as the alternative. Because that's the only alternative that many preachers mentioned. But it's just a preliminary step.
Ironically God and the Devil of course, are really in the same frame of reference; both are elements of Christianity. Those who turn from "God" to "The Devil" therefore, have not quite left the turf of Christianity. They are still in the preachers' frame of reference. "Satan" is still in the Bible, and is an element of religion. It was only preachers who saw the world schizophrenically as either 1) God, or 2) the Devil.
Eventually however, most who are really leaving traditional religion entirely, decide to leave both behind. To something else entirely. Neither God, nor the Devil.
The embrace of "The Devil" therefore is basically a little adolescent, and compromised. There are much better alternatives.