Luscifer - Good or Bad?

[Shu]

Let's discuss semantics in theology.

Though before this, I want to express that this is going to be an intellectual debate, nothing in regards to blind faith or ignorance. So please do not come at this with a "Hammer of God" wrath.

So Luscifer aka the Light Bearer aka the Morning Star, was said to be the black sheep of the arch angels to the Hebrew God. It was said (going to give it a "he") that he did many different things due to many different variations of the texts of literature. These "different" things caused him to be cast out of heaven into another realm/pits of hell/blah de blah de blah.

I've heard the following:

1) He betrayed God, by seeking to have more power (Southern Baptist, fire and brim stone)
2) He questioned God for God having Pity on Humans
3) He disobeyed God's orders.

Now getting to the opinion based logic; since of course no one can prove directly that Luscifer exists, let's discuss his symbolism.

I know there have been a lot of talk about he's the "Satan", the "Devil", all things bad etc... but why? The Bible depicts him as a snake. Other places he's described as a fire breathing dragon. Though still more confusion gets brought about is... the end of days and/or biblical apocalypse. He's supposed to rise and strike against all Humanity and try to make a march on Heaven, where as he's stopped.. and blah blah blah.

Though main thing is why all the negativism in the first place? Is it because of a scape goat mechanism in the bible? Think about this.. a similar son who was misunderstood, leaves his father, and when he comes back.. he is called given a huge feast and embraced with loving arms.

Though with God and Luscifer, God created Lusicifer, no? So God is Luscifer's Father. So why the contradiction? Are Angels different than Humans? Do they get different treatment.

What if Luscifer was misunderstood? What if the fire breathing dragon, was actually a Son that was made into a Bastard by god. Satanism, is a perversion of Luscifer, in which depicts worshiping him for his bad deeds. So that's.. not what I'm here to focus on.

If God created Luscifer, then God is Luscifer in a sense, no? So what if.. Luscifer is just a "part" of god.

So is Luscifer good then? God is good, no?

 

[Sepalcure]

Originally, if we were to take a look into the theological origins of Lucifer, we would note that originally he was an Archangel. Theoretically since all angels were "birthed" by God then one can only surmise that Lucifer himself is a facet and/or part of God himself. I once thought of it as being a construct of dualism. God would represent our better half and Lucifer would be the "evil" or "malicious" half of ourselves--the one that is steeped in Sin and iniquities. I wouldn't really consider God to be the father of Lucifer and as for the whole conceptualization of the fallen angel--that is something that was never directly touched upon in the Biblical text. You will not find it in either the Old Testament or the New Testament, rather, this concept was based around the minds of Christians whom interpreted a portion of the Book of Revelations, which in itself, is full of symbolism. If this is okay with you Shu, I plan to go into this in much more detail and to have textual evidence to support my theories and my own ideologies about this discussion. But as for now, I'll leave this unfinished. I have studying to attend to sadly.

But I'll be back ...

 

[Richard B Riddick]

Posing these questions is akin to asking why Roosevelt is considered a benevolent leader and Kim Jong Il is not.

Roosevelt has a mentality that is considered positive. God has a certain mentality that is generally considered positive.

Kim Jong Il has different ideas of how things should be, just as Satan(in whatever sense one may wish to address him) does.

Considering the hardships, poverty and suffering Kim Jong Il has inflicted upon north koreans, it may not be farfetched to suggest that had he met his father in the afterlife his father would have disowned him rather than welcome him with open arms. The ideal standard of love doesn't necessarily parallel infinite permissiveness. Just as a person who loves and cares about their kids won't necessarily allow them to do whatever they want. Punishment is a necessary thing, sometimes. And, those who commit crimes like Kim Jong and Satan may well merit whatever negativity they receive, in which case it would be justified.

The conditional aspects of it all don't necessarily differ in scaling from worldly to supernatural matters.

As for teh devil being a son of God. A person can assemble an automobile or create a chicken salad. That doesn't make a car someone's son or daughter or a chicken salad a relative.

In terms of precedents... God doesn't force context. If someone decides to swear or tell a lie, they won't necessarily be censored by divine intervention. If Kim Jong can be a bastard in life, there isn't necessarily a reason why teh devil couldn't be a bastard in his own existence.

It invokes free will and the right to make ones own decisions & bear the consequences for them.

That would seem to be the precedent and observed norm as opposed to the polar opposite of micro-management and control freakdom whereby context and choice would be diluted or dissolved in favor of some set standard or ideal....

........................

 

[CassinoChips]

Lucifer isn't The Devil. He got absorbed into that role by 4th century Christians who bastardized things, as they had a tendency to do. Satan, Satan-Sataniel, or Samael is generally the name associated with The Devil.

As to the question though, he's cast in a negative light simply because he is adversarial. Not only to God, but to the followers of God as well. For there to be a good for the flock to strive for, there has to be a bad for them to fight against/avoid/whatever. So yeah, I guess you could say it's a bit of a scapegoating mechanism. Or a Batman/Joker situation, two sides of the same coin, each necessary to give the other purpose.

 

[MagicMasher]

To be honest, Riddick hit sort of the nail on the head here. Asking these kinds of questions is akin to trying to discern why anyone is viewed in a certain light. Since there is no possible way of travelling back in time to see if what The Bible accounts is true or not, or even having some sort of vision as to the fall of "Lucifer the Archangel", we will never truly know if Lucifer is a completely evil being or not.

If we take what little evidence we have, it seems that Lucifer is given the name of "Satan" or "The Devil" simply because early Christians needed someone to attribute ultimate evil to. Since God was the ultimate good, and Lucifer was seen as blatantly disobeying God, and Christians devoutly follow God, it only makes sense that Lucifer is seen as evil because he disobeyed God. However, something to think about: why would Lucifer disobey God?

Was it truly because he wanted to be God and have more power, which is taught vehemently in the Southern Baptist denomination? Was he just looking to be higher than God, and was simply ambitious? To be honest, I grew up being fed that line. And I can't say that I don't totally discount it. However, I think it is more than that. Maybe he was just a son who felt abandoned by his own father, because his father found a new "plaything" in the human race. If you were an angel (who, since God created them, are technically this kids), how would you feel if you were the cornerstone of Dad's existence, and then another "baby" came along? In any normal human household, a jealousy would take hold. Maybe Lucifer was simply jealous of how much God doted on the human race, and, since he didn't understand his pity and love for them, that misunderstanding turned into rage and hatred. When Lucifer spoke out against God on his love for the human race, he was cast down.

Modern media has taken to exploring this possibility, portraying Lucifer as the son that his only crime was "loving his father too much" (the show Supernatural, forgive me for using it, has explored this).

Then again, we come back to the original question: is Lucifer evil? If what I said above is true and he is angry at the human race for being loved by God more, should he be considered evil for his want to taint and destroy us? The obvious answer would be yes, but is it as simple as that?

Sigh. I'm horrible at theological debates.

 

[Shu]

P

The conditional aspects of it all don't necessarily differ in scaling from worldly to supernatural matters.

In terms of precedents... God doesn't force context. If someone decides to swear or tell a lie, they won't necessarily be censored by divine intervention. If Kim Jong can be a bastard in life, there isn't necessarily a reason why teh devil couldn't be a bastard in his own existence.

It invokes free will and the right to make ones own decisions & bear the consequences for them.

That would seem to be the precedent and observed norm as opposed to the polar opposite of micro-management and control freakdom whereby context and choice would be diluted or dissolved in favor of some set standard or ideal....

........................

I will try to make it so you have a point, the only thing I could actually make sense of is that you are comparing an archangel to someone in life.

That's like comparing me to you, at the end of the day, different person, different details, which don't equal at all the same thing.

Luscifer was known as the "light-bringer" if you recall, so what about the light bringer should be evil in fact? If you recall God gave context all the time, that's why most atheists are in fact atheists and not just agnostics.

Again, I believe Luscifer was a scape goat. Peter denied Christ 3 times, and yet nothing bad happened to him. The supernatural can not relate to real people, due to real people in the Bible did bad all the time (saul was a jack ass, and was later renamed paul, and was a nice person), where as one angel fucks up, and grows bitter, and or acts out.. and boom one way trip to his own little world, according to any bible you suggest.

I think in religion Evil had to have a form, so they suggested that it was a father/son reference in symbolism. You screw up, and you get cast out of heaven, which is paradise. Can relate that to any son getting kicked out of his house for doing drugs or being a homosexual or doing anything considered "socially bad".

You have Luscifer "the light-bringer".. established so that if you question god, you earn a hotseat to hell. (non christian view, due to you can still accept christ as your savior and be accepted into heaven). Blind faith and no questioning that's the lesson with Luscifer and the symbolism.

 

[Richard B Riddick]

I will try to make it so you have a point, the only thing I could actually make sense of is that you are comparing an archangel to someone in life.

That's like comparing me to you, at the end of the day, different person, different details, which don't equal at all the same thing.

Luscifer was known as the "light-bringer" if you recall, so what about the light bringer should be evil in fact? If you recall God gave context all the time, that's why most atheists are in fact atheists and not just agnostics.

Again, I believe Luscifer was a scape goat. Peter denied Christ 3 times, and yet nothing bad happened to him. The supernatural can not relate to real people, due to real people in the Bible did bad all the time (saul was a jack ass, and was later renamed paul, and was a nice person), where as one angel fucks up, and grows bitter, and or acts out.. and boom one way trip to his own little world, according to any bible you suggest.

I think in religion Evil had to have a form, so they suggested that it was a father/son reference in symbolism. You screw up, and you get cast out of heaven, which is paradise. Can relate that to any son getting kicked out of his house for doing drugs or being a homosexual or doing anything considered "socially bad".

You have Luscifer "the light-bringer".. established so that if you question god, you earn a hotseat to hell. (non christian view, due to you can still accept christ as your savior and be accepted into heaven). Blind faith and no questioning that's the lesson with Luscifer and the symbolism.

1. Remember, biblically speaking, man was created in God's image. There may be enough similarity that we can compare some conditional aspects of supernatural religious figures to circumstantial aspects of people. In say a Presidential Election, voters generally compare candidates as people in terms of deciding who they should vote for. I don't think its necessarily rocket science nor something that should be considered beyond the realm of possibility.

2. Have you seen the movie The Matrix(the decent first movie, not the crappy 2nd or 3rd ones)? There's a line where Morpheus says something like: "Fate it seems, is not without a sense of irony". Lucifer being named 'Light Bringer' may be exactly that, irony. It may show that true evil often bears false names and false appearances. The evilest person isn't the one who deliberately looks or sounds evil. Its the person who falsely bears the guise of goodness.

3. Saul was the person on planet Earth who hated christianity the most. He converted to christianity and became its most devout follower. In modern day terms, it would be like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens(RIP) converting to christianity. To accomplish something like that, and for it to be historically accurate(?), its supposed to be evidence that religion and God is real.

4. I'm not sure about Lucifer being a scapegoat. Biblically, it says that Lucifer led a rebellion with 1/3rd of the angels against God + heaven and a war ensued. Its not a case where he swore or didn't take a bath for a few months and smelled bad. It was more a civil war.

5. Lucifer being named 'light bringer' is like John McCain's internet act being named: "Internet Freedom Act"(that act was a precursor to SOPA and deprived people of their internet freedoms, btw).

Its like... if I started referring to myself as...... "The grandmaster of sexy". There might actually be some people who believed it. But, that doesn't necessarily mean it would be true?

 

[seddy-0]

lucifer means light.. the lucifer, satan, devil and what not angelicly is known as samael the morning star. his fall from grace was not that he was upset over god pittying humans..

so to clarify who samael is lemme quote straight from my book of angels

Lucifer was the first, most beautiful, and mightiest of the arc angels, with intellect and pride the primary traits of his creation. given the samael originally, he was not known as lucifer until after his fall from grace. The name lucifer translates to "morning star" in a more direct sense, "the bringer of light" both definitions serve as a reflection of his original standing and a reminder of what he lost.

Samael is sumarian and means the bright and poisonous one. aka the venom of god. his titles as an arc angel was viceroy of heaven and regentof god, he was ruler of the seventh heaven, araboth and one of the seven regentsof the world, wher he was served by his own angles. he was also the original angel of death, the kabbalah names him the severityof god. his place was almost equal to god. all this power he was given by god led him to lead a revolt against heaven and god's will. his reason was narrowed down to his pride and his wanting to be considered equal to god. he didn't want to supplant god, but to be considered an equal.

the battle ended when michale casted lucifer down into hell.

summing it up. lucifer , satan samael or what ever you wanna call him is the opposite of god.. god is bright, he is dark. he is portrayed to be evil and deceptive, the yang to the yin. some people may not see him as evil based on his reasoning to confront god. and they worship him based on that. satanism is not hating heaven, but worshiping the darker side of life, the negative energy.. true satanists don't murder and sacrifice people. they endulge in the 7 deadly sins as practice of their religion.


so to say is lucifer evil.. that all sits within who you are. i as an indigo. see him as the opposite of light.. the one who can bring darkness and the drainer of all creativity in this world. as i see god as bright and colorful and sense of muse in the world. so so yeah.. i do see him as evil..

 

[Omegadruid]

The problem about religion is that it is very hard to find something clear and consistent to the "Ultimate book" which you cant contradict.. In the bible there are constant mentions of god having some kind of predicting power (correct me if Im wrong) .. If he has the predicting power of even forseeing what those who were given free will are going to do wouldn't it be a little sadistic to have created Lucifer in the first place. I don't mean to disrespect the faithful ones but to me things like this are dealbreakers when it comes to religion, it seems like a flawed man written fantasy book intended to impress and captivate the minds of the simple in the past. That "knowledge" was then "completed" and taken as fact across the generations with supposedly visions of god himself or god speaking through other people, the belief was spread through the ignorance of the faithful. If men found something they could not explain in the past they would most likely attribute it to divine causes thus strengthening the legions of the holy.(Im just trying not to repeat words)

Sorry for the little offtopic. Now regarding Lucifer symbolism. If he indeed was questioning god for having pity for the human race..Well thats funny apparently there was something called the big flood so this is a bit contradictory. Nevertheless whatever it was I believe it was for pure scapegoatism motives.

Now imagine this scenario.. It is a personal theory but comes purely from thought, Its nothing to be taken too seriously just my vision of the world but it is kind of a reasonable scenario to me. If god exists(which I believe doesn't) could it be that religion was created to force morality through fear? Could it be that God himself does not trust his creation to live on its own..If so why even create us? What is the purpose? Why give us free will and then impose blind faith upon us? If god just appears out of nothing why couldnt the universe? Why cant we educate people that morality and ethics come from human reasoning? If we all acted for our own selfish reasons extinction would be quick, we wouldnt develop our minds, we wouldnt have time to discover the secrets of the universe..the beauty of everything. I dont see why people lose faith in the meaning of life if our origins were random causes of the phenomena happening in the universe itself.. there is a huge world outside to discover and appreciate it is not necessary to search for the the divine for our lifes to have meaning.

Edit: Maybe the reason why the Lucifer tale in the bible was given the scapegoat purpose was because people couldnt deal with the fact that people have the potential of being literally repulsive animals or very impressive in a positive manner. If someone accomplishes great achievements and are great believers they become saints.. The repulsive murderers and other people that did unspeakable crimes are apparently "worshippers of the devil himself" or possessed to some religious people.

 

[Shinra Executive]

"Lucifer the Archangel", we will never truly know if Lucifer is a completely evil being or not.

Lucifer the Archangel is based on a literary fiction called "Paradise Lost". It is not actually biblical.

In the Book of Isaiah, Lucifer is actually referring to "the Morning Star". It only shows up in the King James Version. The Latin Vulgate was used to transcribe the KJV, and literally, it would not have come out to what we know as Venus, but rather the old Greek interpretation "Lucifer".

The name you are looking for is Satan.

 

[Katie Kool-eyes]

Neither, he doesn't exist

 

[Stoic Hero]

There's a difference between the Prodigal Son story and the Lucifer story. Well, many differences, really.

The son was not evil, for one. He did not lie, deceive, or let his pride destroy his entire relationship with his family. He was lost and misguided, but certainly not evil. That's why, when he finally realized that he had been vain and had lost everything he once loved, he dropped everything and decided he would go apologize to his father and request to become one of his slaves in order to live with him again. In this way, the son showed both remorse (he felt bad for throwing away his inheritance) and repentance (he was going back to his father as a slave, not to demand his father take him back). When he arrived, the son was shocked because his father welcomed him back with open arms, forgiving everything and even celebrating his return by slaughtering their fattest calf. This story is meant to represent our relationship with God. We screw up. We spend all our inheritance on foolish, petty, and finite things. It's when we finally take a step back and realize our errors and meet God with repentance that he forgives us and lifts us up. God is always willing to forgive and forget our sins. The only requirement is that we actually want to be forgiven, and that starts with the realization that you do, in fact, sin, and that you're sorry for your sins.

Lucifer, or Satan, on the other hand, is too proud to repent. He despises God, he thinks himself above God, and so he would never give God the chance to forgive him. I would be willing to stake everything that if Satan went to God, truly apologized, and honestly wanted to be forgiven, God would have no problem doing so. But that will never happen, due to Satan's pride. Everything he does, from now until the end, is against God and everyone who serves him. He is the greatest enemy.

His goal before Jesus was born was to prevent the birth of Jesus. He tried to taint the royal blood by convincing other angels to impregnate human women, which led to the monsters of inhuman size like Goliath, the Philistine champion from the David and Goliath story, who was 6 1/2 cubits, or just shy of 10 feet. He would also try to kill all children around Jesus' age through King Herod in what was known as the "Massacre of the Innocents."

He obviously failed, and now his plan is different. Since Jesus already accomplished what he set out to do, Satan's new goal is to prevent as many people from reuniting with God as possible.

Once again, he's an enemy. Not to mention an angel/demon, so he's not human and definitely not someone you should think about getting in contact with or forgiving or anything like that.

 

[Subtle-sounds]

while katies post shows a multitude of deep thinking and wonderful reasoning i have to agree. Being Atheist i have to consider what christians and jews and so on dont see day to day. Im not going to tell you god doesnt exist thats for you to decide for yourself. But lets say for a minute that im christian and god really does exist, he is not what the bible portrays, You can blame it on free will if you want but GOD is NOT omnicient, omnipotent or forgiving. God made nature first, it is the part of the world that would be most akin to him his strength being its best at the beginning of creation. We all know that nature is a very destructive force and while it can be beautiful will remain dangerous at all times. that means that god is harsh and unforgiving, perhaps being shown the purity of his destructive tendencies made him think more when it came to subsequent creations like animals and men.

Who is to say what was really going on? NOONE because the only people who could tell you with certainty that heaven exists are dead people and i havent found a way to communicate with the deceased. The main problem that i see is that god predates writing of all forms, therefor how can anyone truly write gods words? he hasnt existed on this plain of existence since the beginning. So like i said God isnt what the bible says, and thats if you disbelieve the truth of him not existing anyway.

 

[Mr. Zombie]

Lucifer is not the same Satan, but I assume you're talking about the Devil... I think the Quran explains this ancient story better than the Bible. In the Quran, it's said that God created 3 main great races:

1. The Angels. They were created with air and have no free will. An angel can't rebel against God if God doesn't order it to do so.
2. The Jinn. They were created with fire and have free will, therefore they can choose to obey God or not (be good or bad if you will).
3. The Humans. They where created with earth and have free will too, and be good or bad also.

The story tells that when God created the first human, Adam, He ordered every other being to bow before what He considered His best creation. Iblis, the leader of the Jinn, refused to bow, along with other Jinns, for he considered himself and his race superior to that of humans, since he was created from fire, and not with earth/clay.

He couldn't stand the treatment the human race was receiving, and from this disagreement the tensions in Heaven began, and Iblis arrogance and stubbornness made God angry enough to punish him and cast him to Hell. Iblis asked God to be merciful with him, and God agreed to punish him later, after the Judgement Day, and sent Iblis (now called Shaytan/Satan) to Earth to test humans, that way Iblis can prove if humans are superior or not.

The Islamic depiction of this story is more complete. It show us that Iblis is the enemy of the human race, not of God, like how the Bible portrays him (which would be a suicidal position).

So yeah, Satan is a bad guy!

 

[The Master]

Shu, let me just start out by saying I am ashamed of you. His name is "Lucifer." There is no "S" in his name... Well... in his changed name "Satan" there is... That, however, is not the point. The point is, I am truly disgusted by your misspelling of the name of the Lord of Temptation, The Prince of Darkness, The Devil Himself, and so-on and so-forth. I expected a little more from a higher-up, but it looks like I was wrong.

Anyway... Lucifer... Lets talk about what I remember about him... His name had to do something with "Light." He renounced his God given name after trying to be better than God and then being kicked out of Heaven... This is what I remember being told. I'm not sure how much of it is 100% accurate.

I believe there are things that science cannot even explain. I believe there is a being greater than all of us. I also believe there are angels and fallen angels. Proof? Not physically. But then again, there are instances of miracles that science cant explain that are documented, but are discredited by the non-believers who only want to bring forth things that CAN be explained.