50 Things You Didn’t Know about Satan



In the blue corner is the being supreme, the lord of love and reigning world champion in the infinite battle of Good vs. Evil, the one and only, God Almighty. In the red corner is heaven’s outcast, the devil from down below, the one and only Master

Of Deception and Father of Lies, The Prince of Darkness. That’s pretty much how the story goes, or at least that’s the tale many people tell. But Satan, he’s a complicated entity. There’s much more to him than most people know.

He’s not just a devil with a pitchfork who stands on your shoulder telling you to steal a candy bar; he has a long history, and he’s gotten up to stuff you wouldn’t believe. Today you’re going to learn a lot more about this overlord of the underworld! 50.

Ok, so first you need to know who Satan is. It’s a bit more complicated than you think, but we’ll try and make this one as short as we can. There’s a kind of devil in all the Abrahamic religions, but in Christianity, he plays a bigger role than he does in Judaism and Islam.

In all three religions, Satan is there to make people impure, to lure them to the dark side. The Old Testament talks about an entity that is an adversary of God. He’s there in the Book of Job, making life really hard for Job.

He kills Job’s children, his servants, and for good measure, he covers Job in boils. He does all this to see if Job will renounce his belief in God. So, there you go, Satan is there to mess with people’s beliefs.

Still, in that old book he was far from being a cloven-hoofed beast with horns that can spin a young girl’s head around. In the New Testament, there is talk of fallen angels. In the story of Matthew, there’s a devil-type thing that tries to persuade Jesus to give up his belief in God.

He’s yet again the tempter, the evil to all the good in the world. In short, there are lots of stories. There’s Lucifer, sometimes interchangeable as Satan, who is said to have rebelled against God, and with a gang of other fallen angels, they wage war against God.

Then you have Beelzebub, a flying demon who also is a kind of a Satan character. In the Book of Revelations, you have the Red Serpent, which you could call devilish, but what about this pitchfork swinging, constantly cursing guy who isn’t very photogenic?

Well, he was made up by some creative folks in the Middle Ages. Dante Alighieri wrote about Satan in The Divine Comedy in the early 14th century. This is how Satan is described in the “Inferno” part: He has three faces. He has a chest of ice.

He has mighty bat-like wings, crunching teeth, and he is generally a rotten thing. When the King James Bible became a best-seller after it was published in 1611, Lucifer, aka, the “Morning Star”, played a big part, as it did in John Milton’s 1667 masterpiece poem, “Paradise Lost”.

Now we have a much more wicked tempter, a more monstrous figure who’s a real brute. Satan was no longer just an angel that had switched jobs, he was something more terrifying. The cloven hooves and horns were often a feature, which relates back to Pan, a mythological

Half-goat, half-man figure that was always wild and irrepressibly horny. When you think about famine, plague, and the rest of the crappy things that made Europe a horrible home for a long time, it only makes sense that this devil turned into something absolutely terrifying. This is the guy evangelists conjure up in their nightmares.

He’s the entity that possessed witches and made Hollywood tons of money. The bottom line is the devil evolved throughout history. Ok, we had to get that out of the way. Now for some short facts. 49. Not surprisingly, when you go filling people’s heads with stories of this beast, it affects

Some folks in a bad way. In 2018, an Australian man beat his best friend to death because he thought his friend was Satan. Satanic serial killer, Richard Ramirez, once shouted at a victim, “Swear on Satan.” This one survived. Many did not.

In fact, a lot of killers have claimed to either be in the service of Satan or believe they are killing Satan. Either way, most people would believe Satan isn’t to blame. As you’ll see in this show, the devil is often a scapegoat. Well, that’s what the law thinks. 48.

A 2016 Gallup poll revealed 79 percent of the American respondents said they believed in God, but only 61 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 47. A similar poll went out in the UK, but only 18 percent of people said they believed in the devil. 46.

U.S. televangelist Paul Crouch once said that if you play a part of Led Zeppelin’s song “Stairway to Heaven” backward there is a Satanic message in there. This is how it allegedly goes: “Here’s to my sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan.

He will give those with him 666. There was a little toolshed where he made us su­ffer, sad Satan.” Guitarist Jimmy Page once said it was hard enough to write the songs forwards, never mind backward, too. By the way, some experts now say the number in the bible that represents the number of

The beast is 616. 45. There is a Church of Satan, but its founders don’t actually believe Satan, or God for that matter, exists. One of the high priests said believers are “insane” and he says Satan just represents someone who is an “adversary” or an “opposer”, someone who questions everything.

Recently, a British member of the Church of Satan said Satanism has less to do with doing bad things than it does with being atheist and libertarian. In the U.S, you can pay $225 and get a lifetime membership for the Church of Satan. 44.

Some people believe if Jesus is the son of God then the anti-Christ is the son of Satan. An example would be Damien Thorn in the Omen movies. 43. It’s been said the first of those Omen movies was cursed, with the reason being a lot of

Really unlucky things happened to the cast and crew. The weirdest of them all involved effects artist John Richardson. He was the guy responsible for creating the famous decapitation scene in the movie. During the filming of his next movie, he got into a car crash. He survived, but his passenger was decapitated.

On top of that, an animal trainer was killed by a tiger after making The Omen, and during the filming of The Omen, a stuntman was attacked by trained Rottweilers. 42. The Pope has been accused of being the antichrist from time to time.

Martin Luther once said the Pope “is the true end times Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ.” 41. Quite a few American presidents have at one point been accused of being the antichrist. Those include Donald Trump, Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.

Hilary Clinton has been called out, too. 40. Ok, so some people think the mark of the beast will appear on us all at some point. It comes from something written in the Book of Revelations. It goes like this: “He causes all, both small and great, rich

And poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” What could that mean?

Maybe subcutaneous technology could be the mark of the beast. In the past, people used to say the number 666 was hidden in barcodes. That’s been debunked, but people have now moved onto microchips under the skin. Some evangelicals have already said those chips will be the mark of the beast that gets

Under everyone’s skin. 39. Quite a few well-known people have said the Freemasons worship the devil. We don’t have any proof to back that up. Now we’ll talk about some really dark things the devil has supposedly been involved with. 38.

According to the “Canon Episcopi”, a text of medieval canon law dating back to the 10th century, witchcraft was alive and well in Europe back then. It says witches flew around on broomsticks, and one of their favorite destinations was the forest.

The forest is where they made love to demons, and sometimes killed infants in the name of Satan. 37. Things got much more heated in the 15th century. That was when the book “Malleus Maleficarum” was written, a treatise on witches that detailed the exploits of people possessed by Satan.

It might sound funny to you, but it led to massive persecution of people accused of being witches. Thousands of people were tortured and killed during decades of witch hunts. 36. The first European folks to make the New World their home weren’t much better.

The Puritans of New England talked about babies being born with claws and horns, which was a sure sign the devil had infiltrated the woman. Some of those puritans believed the Native Americans were “children of the Devil.” 35. It was mostly thanks to the Enlightenment thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries that

Belief in witchcraft started to die. Unfortunately, some parts of Europe and the New World remained in the dark and dismissed what those thinkers said. Witch hunts stopped in most places, but belief in Satan remained strong. 34 Satan doesn’t just appear in Christian bibles,

He also shows up in the Talmud and has been discussed by Jewish rabbis at length, with some positing that Satan was involved in the story of Moses returning from Mount Sinai and that he may have played a role in the Purim story, which tells of how the Jews were

Saved from the Persian Empire. 33 And speaking of the Talmud, the origin of the name Satan actually comes from the Hebrew word which means “opposer” or “adversary” and was used in the Hebrew bible as a term for both human enemies of the Jewish people, as well as supernatural foes. 32.

In 1966, after the Beatles member John Lennon said his band was “more popular than Jesus”, people in the Southern United States took to burning Beatles’ records even if they loved them. Some people believe Lennon made a pact with the devil so he could get famous.

The devil got his due, though, because Lennon was shot dead in the street. 31. In the 1960s, the Beatles were accused of putting Satanic messages in their music. Decades later, an article in the Vatican newspaper praised the band for their melodic tunes. Now for something that may frighten you. 30.

In 2018, The Atlantic reported that priests in the U.S. were being asked to perform an unusual number of exorcisms. The article said, “The official exorcist for Indianapolis has received 1,700 requests so far in 2018.” That’s a lot for just one state, especially as there are only around 100 official Catholic

Exorcists in the U.S. 29. In 2020, in Panama, seven people died in a mass exorcism. The victims included a pregnant woman and her five young kids. An extremist religious group was blamed for the deaths when it was discovered members

Of the group held natives captive and beat them with bibles, burned them with torches, and cut them with machetes. This particular sect was denounced as “Satanic” by local church authorities. 28. The novel “The Exorcist” was partly based on the alleged demonic possession of a 14-year old American kid known as Roland Doe.

That wasn’t his real name. The exorcism was kind of like the movie, in that the boy allegedly spoke in a weird voice, things flew on their own around the room and the kid couldn’t stand to be near a holy cross. At one point marks just appeared on the kid’s body.

It’s also said he got up and broke a priest’s nose. 27. In 2014, two women in the U.S. were charged with murder after killing two children, aged one and two, during an exorcism. The women said the kids’ eyes had turned black due to the devil being inside them.

They badly beat two older kids, but they thankfully survived the ordeal. We found more recent cases of children being killed in exorcisms in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. If you think belief in demonic possession is dead, you are very wrong. 26. Parts of the bible talk about Jesus doing exorcisms.

This is from Mark 1:25/6, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.” It’s a pity all exorcisms aren’t so quick and easy. 25.

The saying, “The devil is in the details” actually comes from, “God is in the details.” 24. Satan goes by other names as well as the devil, including, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, the Antichrist, the Father of Lies, and Moloch. Ok, back to more dark details. 23.

In 1692, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, a group of young girls were accused of being in league with Satan. What happened next became known as the Salem Witch Trials. The accused girls, as well as women, and men, appeared at a special court to address the

Accusation that they were getting friendly with the devil, which of course wasn’t true at all. 22. 20 people in all were hanged by the neck in Salem for the crime of practicing the devil’s magic, but over time around 150 people were accused of being witches.

One of the men who was executed was pressed to death, which had to be a very painful way to go. The authorities thought if he was tortured he might spill the beans, but there weren’t any beans to spill. A Massachusetts General Court soon reversed the guilty verdicts, but that came too late

For the 20 victims. The youngest of the accused was a four-year-old girl named Dorothy Good. She told the court her mom had been talking to the devil. She was also said to bite people like a wild animal. The next fact is just plain crazy. 21.

Believe it or not, animals played a big part in the hysteria that happened at Salem. Yep, cats, dogs, and other animals were also said to be possessed by Satan. Some folks believed the animals were a kind of team member for the witches, and like some of the accused witches, they had to go.

In one instance, a girl had convulsions and it was believed she was a witch. She said the neighbor’s dog had bewitched her. That dog was immediately shot. A local minister later declared the dog innocent of any wrongdoing.

Later, another mutt took a bullet, even though the locals said it was a victim of evil. 20. Did they really do a float test on accused witches, or is that just made up? It’s not fiction at all and was in vogue in the 17th century.

Sometimes called “dunking” or “ordeal by water”, it would involve throwing a person, usually a woman, into a river. If she sank, she was innocent of working with the prince of darkness, but if she floated, well, obviously she was in league with Satan.

You might ask what the rationale was behind that, but let’s remember the Age of Reason was still a century away. Some people said water was pure, and that’s why it wouldn’t accept witches. You really wouldn’t want to show off your treading-water skills in those days. 19.

You might wonder what the difference is between a demon and the devil? Basically, the devil is the CEO of evil and demons are his managers. You could say those who demons possess are the folks on the lower end of the pay scale. 18.

The American anthropologist, Erika Bourguignon, spent a lifetime studying demons and she said 488 societies in the world believed in demonic possession. You don’t need Satan to have demons, but you need evil. In the past, if you were mentally ill sometimes people would say you were a victim of demonic possession.

That still happens today in some societies. A psychiatrist in northern Thailand once said he took his team to the villages far from the city. In some villages he found autistic kids locked in cages. Their families would offer chicken sacrifices to the evil spirit so it would leave the kid’s body.

Coming up next is something called “The Satan Defense.” 17. Satan gets the blame for a lot of bad things that people do, so you could call the poor fella a handy scapegoat. In 2016, a guy appeared in court after shooting two teenagers. One of them died and the other was badly injured.

What was the guy’s defense? He actually said Satan made him do it and so he was actually innocent. The guy, named Kody Lott, was actually incensed when the media said killing two kids on their way home from school for absolutely nothing was senseless.

Lott said the devil told him to do it, so how was it senseless. He will stay in prison until at least 2046. God might feature in the courtroom, but the justice system has no time for Satan. That’s kind of weird when you think about it. 16. Satan has little to do with Halloween.

No one is exactly sure how the tradition started, but it likely goes back to harvest festivals that were held pre-Christianity. The Christians, however, got hold of it and started calling it All Hallows’ Day, which was a day to celebrate saints and the faithful that had died.

This somehow turned into a night where people walk around dressed as Hello Kitty and maniacs put glass in candy. This next one is seriously messed up. 15. There is no shortage of people who claim they are the devil. These egomaniacs are everywhere and they span all age groups.

A recent case involved a naked woman breaking into a family’s house. The owner told her to leave, to which the woman laughed and then claimed she was the devil. All hell broke loose when the woman attacked the man and his family, even though he had a gun.

39 shots were fired but the woman wasn’t hit. Not only that, but she also managed to fight off all the family. The man later said, “She had the strength of four grown men.” Maybe she was the devil, or she’d been taking some serious drugs.

You can find multiple stories every year in the USA where people who do horrible things claim to be the devil. For some reason they are usually women. 14. There is a term, “She-Devil”, but it usually refers to a woman who manipulates men and does horrible things to them.

While sometimes we refer to Satan as a ‘he’, in reality, or super-reality, the devil is sexless. However, in Hebrew, the noun for Satan is a masculine noun. 13. If Satan is real, he must work around the clock, so much so he makes Elon Musk look lazy.

That’s because around 150,000 people die in the world every day of the week. Considering most of those people will not be faithful to God and will no doubt have a rap sheet of sins a mile long, the intake process for hell must keep Satan really busy. 12.

In the bible, it doesn’t say Satan created Hell. Nope, he was condemned to live in the inferno. He’d probably prefer a three-bedroom suite in Manhattan, but sinners can’t be choosers. The bible actually teaches us that Satan spends most of his time on Earth.

Hell is a little confusing, so we thought we’d refer to that paragon of truth, Billy Graham. In his writing he says the “everlasting fire was created for the devil and his angels”, and he also says that the devil can roam “through the earth going back and forth in it”.

There’s also the theory that sinners will be cast into the pits of hell only on judgment day, so right now they are on remand. Those who wrote the big book talk about Jesus mentioning “eternal life” and “eternal punishment”, but some Christian scholars argue that eternal punishment just means being

Wiped out, like completely being deleted from the big server in the sky. So, hell could be absolutely nothing. The idea of a goat-man with a pitchfork burning your toes with his cigar is entirely a modern fancy. It would have been alien to JC. 11.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play about hell called, “No Exit.” A well-known phrase from that play is, “Hell is other people.” In the play, people die and end up in a waiting room, but the thing is, they are there for eternity.

They soon get on each other’s nerves, and that waiting room becomes a kind of hell. It sounds a lot like social media. Ok, we’ve reached the top ten now, time to ramp up the evil. 10. Some Christians, mostly of the ilk that have Jesus bumper stickers, believe in something called “The Rapture.”

This is when the world ends and the goodies on Earth with the once faithful dead will be beamed up “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” This great kidnapping will lead to eternity in heaven. As for those left behind, things aren’t supposed to be great for them.

Maybe they will have a date with Satan at some point, or they might go on to act in a very popular TV series. By the way, most Christians don’t actually believe the big snatch will ever happen. 9. God was sometimes really wrathful; you certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of

God. In Genesis 3:14, God has some stern words with Satan, saying, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.” 8. You should know that you shouldn’t make deals with Satan because whatever he gives,

He’ll take back double. He once offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, but in the small print, there was a proviso stating that in return Jesus had to worship Satan. Jesus’ response to this offer was, “Away from me, Satan!” 7.

You’ve heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, but did you know some people say behind each one is a demon who can tempt you into committing that sin. The sins are: Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. Satan himself is behind wrath. A prince of hell named Belphegor is the gluttony guy.

He tries to convince folks to get really rich, which we all know in the real world gluttony has its fair share of problems. 6. What do you think is the most committed sin by men? Greed? Sloth? Nah, it’s lust, according to some research we read.

Think about how often every day you have a sexual thought… for women that sin was pride. 5. Speaking of sexual thoughts, there are demons called Incubi and succubi. The former is a demon in male form that makes love to women in their sleep and the latter

Does the same but she is female and chooses sleeping men. Such stories were around a long time before Christ appeared on the scene, so they are not only Christian stories. In the past, these demons were sometimes accused of messing with a man’s health, while women were said to sometimes be impregnated by them.

Maybe demons weren’t the problem… Now for something very real. 4. There is a book called “The Devil’s Bible” that was written by a monk over a period of decades in the 13th century. It’s quite the tome, too, weighing in at 165 pounds (75kg).

Some people believe the devil himself was behind the book, but most folks think that the writer just had a lot of time on his hands. If you wrote all day every day the book would take about 20 years to finish. It got the name Devil’s Bible because of an illustration on page 290.

The legend behind the book says that a monk had broken his vows and faced being walled up alive. His other option was to agree to write a book that contained all human knowledge. That wasn’t going to be easy, but what’s a monk gonna do.

He tried writing the book, but it was too hard, so the story goes that he asked Lucifer for help in exchange for his soul. All he had to do was feature that picture of the devil. 3. Ok, so how would you contact the devil if you wanted to do a deal with him?

He’s obviously a busy demon, and you can bet he has a lot of requests. We looked online for, “How to contact Satan”, but there are no clear guidelines. There are a bunch of rituals you can find online that tell you how to summon demons, which usually involve evocation spells.

There is a new book out there containing such spells, although the International Association of Exorcists condemned it saying it was like putting a grenade in people’s hands. It’s aimed at kids, too, telling them if they have too much homework or life aint going

So well, they might want to draw some lines on the floor and “dial up some demons.” 2. The good news is that after looking at a bunch of Christian websites not one agreed that the devil can read your thoughts. Satan, unlike God, is not omniscient.

Nowhere in the bible does it say the devil can plant things in your head. Watch out though, because this is in the bible: “Brothers and sisters, be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”

An interpretation of this could be that the devil is always there, just waiting for you to show some weakness. When he sees you are weak, he can somehow use his trickery to create circumstances around you that will tempt you to sin.

He also has a network of demons doing such bad work, demons that must have been busy during all those Catholic Church abuse scandals. 1. So, what is the fate of Satan? Can’t we just get rid of him?

According to the Book of Revelation, at some point Satan will be forced to hang up his gloves. This is what’s written about his forced retirement. “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.

They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Amen. Now you should watch this, “50 Insane Cold War Facts That Will Shock You!” or, have a look at this, “50 Insane Facts About Vietnam War You Didn’t Know.”

#Didnt #Satan

The Truth Behind Modern Day Satanism



Oh the antichrist is coming hi it’s thomas we’re in cleveland outside the house of wills this is an old funeral home owned by one eric freeman who is cleveland’s leading proponent of satanic thought he is uh formally associated with anton lavey and some of his children from the church of satan

I’m curious about full term possession like wholly giving yourself over to dark forces and they think of no better format for doing so than satanism where the foundational right is selling your soul to the biggest dark force of all the government so tonight we will be conducting uh one of the satanic rituals

Is written by levay the ceremony of the nine angles and uh we will hopefully be summoning the goat of a thousand ages and maybe indoctrinating ourselves into the order of the nine angels which is a secret society of satanists perhaps the most secret society of satanists who advocate animal sacrifice human

Sacrifice and reshaping the world according to your will let’s see if it works Hail satan Well like what is satanism like really i mean to me it’s a logical format of exactly how to fundamentally get the most out of life without any kind of dogma superstition fear or anything else controlling you it’s you being completely in control of your universe

Okay and in satanism we have our own you know general structure of how we treat people oh can you describe that structure well i mean it’s pretty simple we absolutely do not turn the other cheek stupidity is the number one sin if you’re magic and you create something never doubt yourself

Because once you doubt yourself it’s gone and that’s the that’s the worst part about heaven or hell or any of that is that people fundamentally believe that after this existence they’re going to go to a better place so what you do here doesn’t matter and that that’s

Really sad i would say these things like the skulls the tombstones the coffins any of these various objects of our memento mori’s are just symbols of death these uh do not imply in any way that we’re the least bit eager to die or have any sort of freudian death wish on the

Contrary these are constant reminders that death is around the corner and death doesn’t present a better uh than what we have now world can you walk me through the roots of american satanism i would state that uh most ideas of western satanism was probably come from the fool society back in the

Uh in germany in the uh early 1900s after that you absolutely have crowley who is the most evil man you know alive i mean when you look at him his do without wilt turned into do your own thing which is absolutely instrumental in the structure of the 60s the 70s you know

Even today with let your freak flag like that’s all based on crowley who’s the most evil man in the world but then you have this hippie peace movement that spawns from this gentleman you can even go to charles manson who was instrumental in ottowa what is the air

Trees water earth i believe the green movement today is all based on charles manson this is a man that’s still in prison today who never killed anyone like if you want to talk about will and what you can create that man like that man knows what’s going on and that’s why

They have him in a cage and if you ask him like hey do you like jail he’ll just straight up he’ll be like what jail because he knows that he can do whatever he wants in his mind is he completely sane absolutely not but that doesn’t mean that he’s

Completely ignorant as to the way things work it’s the duality of nature that people don’t comprehend they only see one thing when they look at things the altar is a living slab of flesh in the personification or in the person of a nude young woman the altar stone or the

Mantle which holds the officer was made from cobblestones from the san francisco streets that were broken up in the 1906 earthquake satan is simply a word that means the adversary or the opposition or the accuser it doesn’t necessarily mean evil or brutality or cruelty it simply means the dissenter

This is evidently today’s ritual room in the basement i know and these are i presume the participants in uh the ceremony we’re about to conduct this looks about right the order of the nine angles is actually taken from michael aquino who is the co-founder of the church of satan with levay wrote the

Satanic rituals at least the mentality behind is you utilize different trappings to collect more power so that you have more power to alter reality as a thought great center of the cosmos let thy fluids sing unto us lulling us against the terrorists of thy domain whether it existed or didn’t exist it

Exists today that’s the mentality of you know crowley manson all of it it’s all a mental state where you restructure the entire universe through your thought process satanists don’t believe in the devil they don’t believe in heaven hell god anything we believe in us and we believe in our will

Altering reality that it’s your life it’s your reality and you have the ability to do whatever you want and either you can do it or you can’t do it you can either be a victim or you can be a winner and it’s up to you on which

Choice which path you want to take you can either be part of it or you can be it you

#Truth #Modern #Day #Satanism

What The Bible Actually Says About the Devil



Satan. Lucifer. T-mobile. The Devil takes many names, but even if you’re a devout Christian you may just be surprised about what the bible does- and doesn’t- say about Satan. The traditional biography of Satan as accepted by most Christians is that he was once amongst

One of God’s most beautiful angels, but in his vanity, rebelled against God and inspired a third of the heavenly host to wage war against their creator. For this, Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven and condemned to hell, where they will spend eternity.

Satan however has occasion to leave his hellish prison. His most famous appearance is perhaps his arrival in the garden of Eden, where he transforms himself into a snake. Once he finds Eve, he tempts her to eat from the one tree in all of the garden that God

Had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from- the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Having succeeded in inspiring mankind’s first rebellion against God, Satan then makes numerous smaller appearances throughout the books of the Old Testament. His grandest appearance by far however is in the Book of Job.

Job is a good, honest man who dutifully worships and obeys God. He is one of the richest men in the land of Uz, blessed with vast flocks, a large family, and great wealth. Job is kind to his workers, and generous with those in need, and God is well pleased with him.

Then one day Satan arrives at God’s court along with a group of angels, and God asks him where he’s been. Satan tells God that he’s been roaming the earth, and much like a proud father, God asks Satan if he’s considered his servant Job.

Satan challenges God, and tells him that the only reason Job is so righteous is because of his vast blessings- if God removed his favor from Job’s life, then surely he would rebel against him. God agrees to allow Satan to strike down Job, but forbids him from actually killing him.

Satan then descends to the land of Uz and in one day causes a catastrophe that kills most of Job’s family, inspires raiders to steal his flocks away, and strikes Job down with painful boils. Job, though showing frustration towards God, refuses to curse him, and for his reward God

Restores twice as much as what was taken away from him and gives him supernaturally long life. Satan’s next major appearance is nearly two thousand years later. Jesus, at the very start of his ministry, retreats to the desert for forty days.

While there, Satan appears to tempt Jesus, seeking to corrupt God’s son and doom his ministry on earth. Fasting for the duration of his desert trip, Jesus has not eaten much if anything in those forty days, and Satan first tempts Jesus by telling him to turn a stone into bread so

He can eat it. Jesus rebukes Satan, telling him, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” While Satan is trying to tempt Jesus to fulfill his earthly desires of food, Jesus rebukes

Him, making it clear that spiritual matters are more important than earthly matters, even if they require sacrifice. Next, Satan transports Jesus to Jerusalem, to the very top of the holy temple. Then he tells Jesus, If you are really the son of God, cast yourself down: for it is

Written, “He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus once more rebukes Satan, telling Satan that you should never tempt the Lord your God.

In this rebuke, Jesus is rejecting the idea that he should use his supernatural powers for his own personal edification or gain. Next, Satan takes Jesus to a very high mountain, from where the duo can see all the kingdoms of the world and the riches they contain.

Satan promises Jesus that if he commits but just one act of worship to him, he’ll give him dominion over every kingdom. Jesus promptly rebukes Satan a third time, telling him “It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and only him.”

In this final rebuke, Jesus rejects the idea of gaining material wealth and political power at the cost of his service to the people of the land- the poor, the needy, and the spiritually lost. Rejected three times by Jesus, Satan retreats as Jesus is then attended to by angels.

Satan doesn’t reappear during Jesus’s time on earth, except in parables and when the Jewish religious authorities claimed that Jesus was casting out demons because he was in league with the devil. However, Jesus corrects them, saying that if one is to rob a strong man’s house, then

First he must tie up the strong man. In essence, Jesus couldn’t possibly be exorcising demons unless he had already overpowered Satan. Satan makes his big comeback however in the Book of Revelation. Here we get some glimpses of the end of the world, when Satan appears- described as a

Great red dragon with seven heads adorned with seven crowns, ten horns, and one massive tail. Satan knocks a third of the stars out of the sky, and then pursues a pregnant woman who is about to give birth. God however saves the child and helps the woman escape from Satan.

This woman is widely believed to symbolize the virgin Mary, who faced rejection by her own family after becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and was terrified that her husband-to-be, Joseph, would also reject her. God however sends an angel to explain the situation to Joseph, who agrees to take her

As his wife despite her pregnancy, thus enduring great shame from their local community. After giving birth to Jesus however, Herod- the Roman-approved king of Judea- orders all male children two years old and under to be killed. He has heard of the arrival of the Jewish messiah, and like most Jews expected that

The messiah would be a conquering figure which would restore the ancient Jewish kingdom. That would inevitably mean that Herod himself would be removed from power, and thus he ordered his troops to kill all children under 2 years of age. Satan is widely believed to have been the fearful influence driving Herod’s actions.

However, an angel comes to Mary and Joseph, and instructs them to flee until it is safe to return. Satan is once more foiled in his attempt to derail the arrival of the messiah. Next, the war in heaven is described, with the arch-angel Michael leading God’s armies against the rebellious host led by Satan.

Defeated, Michael throws Satan out of heaven and down to the earth. In hindsight, maybe Michael should’ve thrown them into space and not here on earth amongst us. Satan is imprisoned for one thousand years, and then is at last set free.

He gathers up his armies for one final battle against the righteous of the earth and Heaven’s armies, but God sends down a pillar of fire to burn up Satan’s forces. Satan himself is captured and thrown into the lake of fire, and the righteous are forever free of his influence.

There’s just one small problem with Satan’s official biography- much of it isn’t about him. The ancient Jews who wrote the Old Testament never had any inclination to believe in a figure that was ultimate evil, let alone a rival of God.

As lord and creator of all things, God could not possibly have a rival, and thus it would be foolish to assume any one being could rise to the position. In the original Hebrew, the word satan means accuser or adversary, and is used to reference humans and a celestial being.

When used to reference a celestial being, the word is accompanied by the definitive article, making it clear that the name Satan is not a name at all, but a title. Satan is not Accuser, but The Accuser- it’s his job title.

Satan is not a fallen angel opposing God from the depths of hell, but rather, Satan is actually part of God’s court, and carrying out his assigned duties. We see this best in the Book of Job. Here, Satan actually arrives with a group of angels, making it clear that he himself

Is also an angel. Satan doesn’t ‘make a bet’ with God that he can break Job, as is the common Christian narrative, but rather Satan merely points out the apparently obvious- Job is only faithful to God because he has abundantly blessed him.

In order to prove that this isn’t the case, God allows Satan to carry out his duties as the accuser, but within parameters. Further difficulties arise when the Book of Job is taken as a historical account by Christians, who then use the book to support a living biography of the deeds of Satan.

However, it is quite clear from the way that Job is written that it is a work of poetry, a text meant to explore some of the deepest and most painful theological questions such as why do bad things happen to good people- and how should they respond when they do.

Jesus’s reference to Job is not a surprise then, as Jesus himself taught exclusively through parables. The writers of the Old Testament did not believe in a literal devil, but rather understood that the temptation to do evil lived in all of us.

However, these beliefs began to gradually change, and sometime in the late BCs and early ADs, Satan became a specific being which was diametrically opposed to God. Coincidentally enough, this is also when Zoroastrianism began to exert a greater and greater influence on Jewish culture.

In Zoroastrianism, good and evil exist in equal measures and are diametrically opposed. However, evil is limited by space and time, while good is not. Thus, when the world ends and space and time run out, evil will simply cease to exist, leaving only good to triumph.

This powerful duality clearly had an influence on Jewish beliefs, who began to identify Satan as a specific figure forever in opposition to God and his people- as evidenced by Satan’s greater role in later Jewish books of the Old Testament. Satan developed many of the parallels of Zoroastrianism duality, including a near-peer opposition

To God, but an inability to outright defeat him. Satan too would eventually be defeated at the end of days, and only good would remain to rule over creation. Exactly like in Zoroastrianism. Jesus himself likely saw Satan in the same traditional sense that the ancient Jews did-

As an internal temptation and not a physical being with the power to do evil and oppose God. This is because the account of the three temptations of Christ are widely accepted as having been a symbolic representation of Jesus’s internal struggles and doubts at the start of a ministry

He knew would end in his death, and not literal events. Once more given the fact that Jesus almost exclusively taught in parables, this is a very likely conclusion. His first temptation was the temptation to use his power to fulfill his own selfish needs- or hedonism.

If Jesus could heal the sick, he could use that same power to fulfill every lust and desire in his heart. His second temptation was the temptation to glorify himself, instead of God. Often pressed in on all sides by adoring crowds, Jesus would have easily been tempted to use

His massive influence and support to take leadership of the nation for himself, or to simply develop a cult of personality. The biblical account of Jesus atop the temple was a representation of how Jesus could show off his supernatural powers in front of crowds of people and gain their support or adoration.

His third temptation was to use his power to indulge his materialism. With his god-given power, Jesus could have become a great ruler if he wished- yet he didn’t come to grow political or economic power, but to begin a spiritual revolution.

While he could have been a king, he instead chose the role of a servant. The fact that no mountain peak could actually show all the kingdoms of the earth makes it clear once more that this is a symbolic representation of Jesus’s early internal struggles.

The early Christians certainly believed that Satan was a physical being completely opposed to God- the pinnacle of all evil. That belief has continued to the present day and even influenced non-Christians. Yet the earliest biblical accounts, unadulterated by the growing influence of Zoroastrianism

And other dualistic religions, make it clear that Satan is not a devil hellbent on overcoming God, but rather merely another member of God’s angelic court. However, as God’s prosecutor, he is the closest that a Jew, Christian, or Muslim has to a

Supernatural enemy- even if The Accuser is not trying to destroy faith, but rather grow it by pointing out where it is weakest. A modern belief in Satan as the enemy of God is simply doctrinally unsound, as humanity itself only rebelled against God when they ate the fruit of the knowledge of Good and

Evil. As they were the first, and only beings to eat this fruit, no angel could have possibly rebelled against God in the way that mankind did. When you’re done yelling at us in the comments, go watch 50 things you didn’t know about Satan. Or we tempt you to click this other video instead.

#Bible #Devil

The Head of a Satanic Temple Explains Satanism



We do not sacrifice children. The foundation of Satanism is built upon the self and carrying out the devil’s work. Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hail Satan! Hi! My name is Zeke Apollyon and I am the chapter head for the Satanic Temple, London and UK.

I think what attracted me most to Satanism, I think how preposterous a lot of stuff that was coming from people who call themselves Christians. These people are extremists, they’re religious extremists. That use Christianity to kind of further their extremism. Some of these people have blood on their hands, and so

I figured if they could do horrible things in the name of Jesus then I could do wonderful things in the name of Satan. It’s so liberating. It is so liberating. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as in my own skin as I do as a Satanist

Because, I mean part of it is looking at like ugly sides of yourself and being able to sort of reconcile that and looking at ugly sides of humanity. No. No. I don’t want to catch anything and I’m pretty sure other people don’t either.

People get in touch with us and we just have a conversation. A lot of times what people want is community, a lot of people feel like outsiders and so they come to us because they’re looking for people that are accepting. They do not come around anymore. They don’t come around anymore.

They came over one time when we were having a big ritual and they must have seen it on my face or something ’cause I opened the door to come out to get something and they were walking up the path and I was just like, no! And they just turned around and left.

And I haven’t seen them since. We still live in a time when people who are satanists have to live incognito? But I think in terms of misconceptions about Satanists I think people think that we sacrifice babies, that we are engaged in some kind of like underground sex trafficking.

I’ve definitely met some babies that I haven’t really gotten on with very well, but I’ve never actually killed one. There’s a little girl in the window right there. Satanism, it’s been a philosophy or a way of life for people for a very long time.

For me, Satanism is really about not letting myself off the hook. And I believe for me that being a Satanist is about trying to continually advocate for people especially people who aren’t able to advocate for themselves. You could definitely go much worse than to use those things

As your way to kind of move forward. Every day! In fact somebody is probably right now, asking us to put them in touch with the devil. People ask for riches, they ask if we can allow them access to the Illuminati. Some of the weirdest interactions are people who like send us satanic prayers.

People will sometimes ask us to pass on messages to the devil. And I’m like, we’re not the devils answering service. I wish! Satanism is a love affair with the self. Actually, I think one of the things that the Satanic Temple wants to do is actually sponsor an orgy.

We do, but like we would be there as people who would fold the towels and we would make sure that there was enough condoms and lube. And we would provide sex education. A lot of us are trained. Some of us are medics. And what we would do is facilitate

What would be like a safe, consensual, group sex practice for people and it would benefit something. I think it would be great if Satanists went on Love Island. That would be amazing. I totally would. I would turn that party out.

#Satanic #Temple #Explains #Satanism

A brief history of the devil – Brian A. Pavlac



Satan, the beast crunching sinners’ bones in his subterranean lair. Lucifer, the fallen angel raging against the established order. Mephistopheles, the trickster striking deals with unsuspecting humans. These three divergent devils are all based on Satan of the Old Testament,

An angelic member of God’s court who torments Job in the Book of Job. But unlike any of these literary devils, the Satan of the Bible was a relatively minor character, with scant information about his deeds or appearance.

So how did he become the ultimate antagonist, with so many different forms? In the New Testament, Satan saw a little more action: tempting Jesus, using demons to possess people, and finally appearing as a giant dragon who is cast into hell. This last image particularly inspired medieval artists and writers,

Who depicted a scaled, shaggy-furred creature with overgrown toenails. In Michael Pacher’s painting of St. Augustine and the Devil, the devil appears as an upright lizard— with a second miniature face glinting on his rear and. The epitome of these monster Satans appeared in Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno.”

Encased in the ninth circle of hell, Dante’s Satan is a three-headed, bat-winged behemoth who feasts on sinners. But he’s also an object of pity: powerless as the panicked beating of his wings only encases him further in ice. The poem’s protagonist escapes from hell by clambering over Satan’s body,

And feels both disgust and sympathy for the trapped beast— prompting the reader to consider the pain of doing evil. By the Renaissance, the devil started to assume a more human form. Artists painted him as a man with cloven hooves and curling horns inspired by Pan, the Greek god of the wild.

In his 1667 masterpiece “Paradise Lost,” English poet John Milton depicted the devil as Lucifer, an angel who started a rebellion on the grounds that God is too powerful. Kicked out of heaven, this charismatic rebel becomes Satan, and declares that he’d rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

Milton’s take inspired numerous depictions of Lucifer as an ambiguous figure, rather than a purely evil one. Milton’s Lucifer later became an iconic character for the Romantics of the 1800s, who saw him as a hero who defied higher power in pursuit of essential truths, with tragic consequences.

Meanwhile, in the German legend of Doctor Faust, which dates to the 16th century, we get a look at what happens when the devil comes to Earth. Faust, a dissatisfied scholar, pledges his soul to the devil in exchange for bottomless pleasure. With the help of the devil’s messenger Mephistopheles,

Faust quickly seizes women, power, and money— only to fall into the eternal fires of hell. Later versions of the story show Mephistopheles in different lights. In Christopher Marlowe’s account, a cynical Doctor Faustus is happy to strike a deal with Mephistopheles. In Johann Wolfgang van Goethe’s version,

Mephistopheles tricks Faust into a grisly deal. Today, a Faustian bargain refers to a trade that sacrifices integrity for short-term gains. In stagings of Goethe’s play, Mephistopheles appeared in red tights and cape. This version of the devil was often played as a charming trickster— one that eventually paraded through comic books,

Advertising, and film in his red suit. These three takes on the devil are just the tip of the iceberg: the devil continues to stalk the public imagination to this day, tempting artists of all kinds to render him according to new and fantastical visions.

#history #devil #Brian #Pavlac