How REAL is Satan?

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Forget drenching her holy water, I would banded my family members together, held her and perform an exorcism! :sad_yes:
 
Satan is definitely for real. He just simply wants you to believe that he is not for real so he can more easily deceive you and trip you up.
 
Forget drenching her holy water, I would banded my family members together, held her and perform an exorcism! :sad_yes:
Perhaps one would have had to have been there, and viewing all of this, before believing that it could just be rectified by 2 people. No other family members living nearby either.
It was extremely terrifying to even my husband. He is 6’ and built like a bull.

What she projected to us, would in my mind not be something to be dealt with by just us two.
A professional exorcist Catholic Priest, or two is my thought. She had weapon’s with her, and showed absolutely no conscience about anything.
This story that I chose to share is not exaggerated in the least. I pray for her soul daily, and her conversion to come back to Holy Mother Church.
 
What he said :sad_yes: Jesus warns about Satan. Jesus wouldn’t warn us about something that didn’t exist unless He was a liar or insane, and from what we know, He wasn’t. Unless you think Jesus is a myth? Or Hell? Or God for that matter?

Satan is very real, I sure he wasn’t :sad_yes: but he :sad_yes:

God bless :byzsoc:

David
Exactly!
 
What he said :sad_yes: Jesus warns about Satan. Jesus wouldn’t warn us about something that didn’t exist unless He was a liar or insane, and from what we know, He wasn’t. Unless you think Jesus is a myth? Or Hell? Or God for that matter?

Satan is very real, I sure he wasn’t :sad_yes: but he :sad_yes:

God bless :byzsoc:

David
I mean “I sure wish he wasn’t but he is”
Thanks Nicea 👍
 
Genesis doesn’t say the serpent in Eden was the devil, only a beast of the field. The devil attribution came senturies later, after the Babylonian exile had permeated Jewish thought with the figure of Satan. In the Book of Job, Satan is presented as strolling into the court of God, even though wer are told that nothing evil can enter His presence. Unless job is a parable (which I suspect it is), how does one account for this? And if Satan is the father of lies, where did the lying spirit come from that God sent to fool the false prophets in 2 Chronicles 18:21? Are God and the father of lies in cahoots? God himself told Moses to lie in Ex. 3:3:18 ans Samuel to lie in 1 Sam. 16:2.

My chief puzzlement about Satan (aside from his seeming to be superfluous…isn’t human nature evil enough without a satanic scapegoat? – is why he would fall in the first place. If he was as exalted as tradition says – one of the Archangels closest to God’s throne – surely he would know that God is omnipotent, and that no rebellion against him could succeed. Plus, there Lucifer is in Heaven, filled wioth bliss, exalted beyond our imagination, privileged to serve at the very throne of the Almighty – what could he possibly hope to gain by rebellion? The whole tale seems improbable to me. I suspect humanity was looking for someone to blame besides God for the inexplicable evil of the universe, and so invented Satan.
  1. It doesn’t actually matter when we realized that the snake was the devil.
  2. I don’t recall Satan being said to be strolling in the court of God, as though he were honored somehow. But in any case, he does not (and does not want to) behold the beatific vision, and that is what evil cannot do. Insofar as God is omnipresent, everything is in the presence of God in some sense, including evil.
  3. Father of lies is a title, we don’t think that all lies are necessarily caused directly by Satan.
  4. Satan is not in league with God, however Satan cannot do anything without God permitting it (neither can anyone else for that matter).
  5. We do not know what exactly caused Satan to fall, though there are theories (one of which is that God revealed that He would take on human nature and that Satan in his pride refused to serve Him afterwards), but in any case he would have fallen for the same basic reasons we do - valuing self over God.
And finally 6) We humans are perfectly capable of doing evil ourselves, we have will. Our fall at the beginning is due to the sin of Adam, not the sin of the serpent - even though the serpent did sin in his deception. The serpent is believed to be a factor there because he actually was a factor there, not because we need a scapegoat.

Satan is real, and opposes God at every turn - this is an article of the Catholic faith and known for certain. What evil he does not cause he rejoices in and facilitates in any way he can. But despite this, our own evil acts are very much our own. We make our choices, Satan just makes them harder.
 
My chief puzzlement about Satan (aside from his seeming to be superfluous…isn’t human nature evil enough without a satanic scapegoat? – is why he would fall in the first place. If he was as exalted as tradition says – one of the Archangels closest to God’s throne – surely he would know that God is omnipotent, and that no rebellion against him could succeed. Plus, there Lucifer is in Heaven, filled with bliss, exalted beyond our imagination, privileged to serve at the very throne of the Almighty – what could he possibly hope to gain by rebellion?
Here’s some interesting stuff from St. Thomas Aquinas about the nature of the fallen angel’s sin:

newadvent.org/summa/1063.htm
 
Genesis doesn’t say the serpent in Eden was the devil, only a beast of the field. The devil attribution came senturies later, after the Babylonian exile had permeated Jewish thought with the figure of Satan. In the Book of Job, Satan is presented as strolling into the court of God, even though wer are told that nothing evil can enter His presence. Unless job is a parable (which I suspect it is), how does one account for this? And if Satan is the father of lies, where did the lying spirit come from that God sent to fool the false prophets in 2 Chronicles 18:21? Are God and the father of lies in cahoots? God himself told Moses to lie in Ex. 3:3:18 ans Samuel to lie in 1 Sam. 16:2.

My chief puzzlement about Satan (aside from his seeming to be superfluous…isn’t human nature evil enough without a satanic scapegoat? – is why he would fall in the first place. If he was as exalted as tradition says – one of the Archangels closest to God’s throne – surely he would know that God is omnipotent, and that no rebellion against him could succeed. Plus, there Lucifer is in Heaven, filled wioth bliss, exalted beyond our imagination, privileged to serve at the very throne of the Almighty – what could he possibly hope to gain by rebellion? The whole tale seems improbable to me. I suspect humanity was looking for someone to blame besides God for the inexplicable evil of the universe, and so invented Satan.
This is along the lines of the Jewish perspective, and you do ref exclusively Old Testament sources.

You bring in some valid points on a matter I’m prodding myself. Exactly what was the serpent? Were angels created with free will, or are they only able to behold the glory of God and do his will? If this is indeed the Old Testament reckoning of Satan, why do we have a different picture of him in the New Testament?

However, I don’t agree Satan is a cop-out theory. Furthermore, as I look at the world, I’m not sure if human beings can are capable of such debauchery alone.
 
Read the book of Revelation,it tells you he is real, and it tells you he does not win!😃
It also tells you that a star fell from the heavens and only dried up a third of the rivers (8:10) instead of incinerating the whole earth as any star would do; it includes talking eagles (8:13) and says that a third of the light of the sun went out, which darkened a third of the day(8:12), which is astronomically absurd. If the sun lost a third of its light, the earth would freeze and all day would be darkened by a third. And that’s just the absurdities in three verses of one chapter. If we take all of Revelation literally, there is no end of the absurdities that could be pointed out in it.
Plus we never get to hear Satan’s side of the story; all we know is what’s written about him by his enemies. Of course, that’s true of a lot of Christianity’s enemies. Wonder why that is…
 
This is along the lines of the Jewish perspective, and you do ref exclusively Old Testament sources.

You bring in some valid points on a matter I’m prodding myself. Exactly what was the serpent? Were angels created with free will, or are they only able to behold the glory of God and do his will? If this is indeed the Old Testament reckoning of Satan, why do we have a different picture of him in the New Testament?

However, I don’t agree Satan is a cop-out theory. Furthermore, as I look at the world, I’m not sure if human beings can are capable of such debauchery alone.
We have a different picture in the NT because the theology changed, having been influenced by Babylonian and other influences. But that’s a long and complicated history.Another useful feature of believing in Satan is for tarnishing your enemies, which is pretty Satanic in itself, but very common in Christianity (and Islam as well, as we know to our cost).

The debauchery originating in human nature is the only one we have evidence of. You must be a better person than I am, because my vision of my own heart is enough to convict human nature without any outside help.
 
  1. It doesn’t actually matter when we realized that the snake was the devil.
  2. I don’t recall Satan being said to be strolling in the court of God, as though he were honored somehow. But in any case, he does not (and does not want to) behold the beatific vision, and that is what evil cannot do. Insofar as God is omnipresent, everything is in the presence of God in some sense, including evil.
  3. Father of lies is a title, we don’t think that all lies are necessarily caused directly by Satan.
  4. Satan is not in league with God, however Satan cannot do anything without God permitting it (neither can anyone else for that matter).
  5. We do not know what exactly caused Satan to fall, though there are theories (one of which is that God revealed that He would take on human nature and that Satan in his pride refused to serve Him afterwards), but in any case he would have fallen for the same basic reasons we do - valuing self over God.
And finally 6) We humans are perfectly capable of doing evil ourselves, we have will. Our fall at the beginning is due to the sin of Adam, not the sin of the serpent - even though the serpent did sin in his deception. The serpent is believed to be a factor there because he actually was a factor there, not because we need a scapegoat.

Satan is real, and opposes God at every turn - this is an article of the Catholic faith and known for certain. What evil he does not cause he rejoices in and facilitates in any way he can. But despite this, our own evil acts are very much our own. We make our choices, Satan just makes them harder.
  1. It “doesn’t matter” when Genesis only says it was a serpent, when all scripture is breathed out by God (2 Tim. 3:16). I’ll remember that next time I want to brush aside one of God’s inconvenient, though inerrant, revelations. Nevertheless, it does matter when Genesis says “our” fall is due to the sin of somebody else, namely Adam. What about the Bible teaching that everyone will be punished for his own sins?
  2. “Now there was a day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan [Heb. “the adversary”] also came among them.” Job 1:6, RSV-CE. I think Job is a parable, but for all you literalists out there, note that “Sons” of God is plural, that they had to come from somewhere to present themselves before the Lord (who also says several times in Genesis [1:17, 18:21] that he will go somewhere and see something, implying that there is some sense in which he is more present there than elsewhere…that’s for you guys to explain; to me, it’s just a muddle). There is nothing in Job about the “beatific vision,” only that Satan is no less in God’s presence than the “Sons of God” are, which contradicts Scripture. You have yet to answer this.
  3. Point taken. We can sin on our own without needing the prompting of invisible beings. That doesn’t change the fact that some lies are caused by God, according to the verses I mentioned. How do you explain that?
  4. God permits every horrendous evil ever committed, yet Christians have to invent some hypothetical good reason for it all to justify believing that a God of infinite love can permit evils he could easily prevent without interfering with our free will in the least (such as floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes). W wouldn’t let a mere man get away with that.
  5. Yes, you have theories about all sorts of things you don’t know. Theories aren’t evidence.
  6. If you’re going to believe this absurd fable, you have to believe all of it. You can’t pick and choose. By what standard would you do so? Isn’t everything the Bible asserts authorized by the Holy Spirit? What is “on the day you eat of it, you shall die” supposed to mean to someone who has no knowledge of death nor any possible concept of what it might mean? Not to mention the fact that Adam supposedly lived on earth for 930 years after the day he died (Gen. 5:5). So you have to invent a “spiritual death” about which the Bible says nothing, to wish away the contradiction. I’ve read a lot of Christian apologetics, and this sort of thing is typical. It’s why “tradition” gives you Catholics such an advantage over Protestants; it affords some divine authority for your makeshift inventions.
    Also, if something is “known for certain,” it cannot be part of faith, which is believed without knowing.
 
=Desertmesa;8281377]Well, I can appreciate your question about the “Evil One”.
A year-or-so ago, a family member was invited to visit us and stay awhile.
Until she arrived with her suitcase we did not know what a _atanist really is, and did not know
she was one.
We soon found out, and it was not a pretty picture. Even my big dog’s ran with their tails between their leg’s whenever she came out of her guest room. She would laugh at seeing them frightened, and say: “Oh, they just can see the giant Snake following me.”:eek:
It actually was difficult to breathe deeply, to think clearly when she was around, or to sleep.
It was even hard to complete a paragraph verbally when trying to speak to her(kind of felt like you were being choked). I then knew, for the first time ever, what that dark spirit can do, and what it feels like.
Needless to say we were quite happy when she ended her stay a week later. Plus the bottle of Holy Water had to be replenished.:o
This is a very true, and tragic story.
WOW! Thanks for sharing! :eek:

God’s continued blessing on you, yourfamily and your guest,
Pat
 
We have a different picture in the NT because the theology changed, having been influenced by Babylonian and other influences. But that’s a long and complicated history.
Another useful feature of believing in Satan is for tarnishing your enemies, which is pretty Satanic in itself, but very common in Christianity (and Islam as well, as we know to our cost).
So what, IYO, is Satan? Is it clear to you that he’s God’s “prosecutor”?
– The debauchery originating in human nature is the only one we have evidence of.

– You must be a better person than I am, because my vision of my own heart is enough to convict human nature without any outside help.
– It is certainly the most apparent: Stalin did X because he was bad.

– Certainly not. 🙂 It’s not that we’re not responsible for our sins, but how does someone freely commit something so inconcieveably wicked, it’s beyond the “usual” evil?
 
Well, I can appreciate your question about the “Evil One”.

A year-or-so ago, a family member was invited to visit us and stay awhile.
Until she arrived with her suitcase we did not know what a _atanist really is, and did not know
she was one.
We soon found out, and it was not a pretty picture. Even my big dog’s ran with their tails between their leg’s whenever she came out of her guest room. She would laugh at seeing them frightened, and say: “Oh, they just can see the giant Snake following me.”:eek:
It actually was difficult to breathe deeply, to think clearly when she was around, or to sleep.
It was even hard to complete a paragraph verbally when trying to speak to her(kind of felt like you were being choked). I then knew, for the first time ever, what that dark spirit can do, and what it feels like.
Needless to say we were quite happy when she ended her stay a week later. Plus the bottle of Holy Water had to be replenished.:o
This is a very true, and tragic story.
This is a real good post and goes along with what I ponder and a similar subject and that is being possessed. If one believes there is demonic possession and I do believe it does exist generally speaking, there certainly is something out there. Also, the reflections of this in our culture such as music, etc. makes me wonder.
 
Satan is real. Satan is lethal. Our Jesus wouldn’t lead us astray by warning us against something of nonexistance. Christ is real. Christ is life.
 
WOW! Thanks for sharing! :eek:

God’s continued blessing on you, yourfamily and your guest,
Pat
Hello PJM!
Before I read your kind words today, I actually regretted sharing this difficult, and very true story. Especially on a international forum. At the time of writing some of what occurred , I felt that perhaps some people would be able to better realize the serious nature, and validity of The Evil One.
Your post has taken away my feeling of regret for posting on this subject.
Thank you also for your prayer’s.
God Bless You and Your’s.

P.S. That is a really neat harp emotican!😃
 
This is a real good post and goes along with what I ponder and a similar subject and that is being possessed. If one believes there is demonic possession and I do believe it does exist generally speaking, there certainly is something out there. Also, the reflections of this in our culture such as music, etc. makes me wonder.
Hello Road 2Damascus!

Appreciate your positive (name removed by moderator)ut also in regards to the story I chose to share on here.
Although I have had a great love and admiration of Padre Pio for over 30 years, when this incident occurred in our home, not too long ago, it gave me a better understanding of what Padre Pio experienced himself, even in his cell, as he was attacked by The Evil One.
Before the incident’s we experienced first hand, we were like most folks in our belief of the validity of S., but not fully comprehending the true, evil powers, and effects that can occur.
Yes, you are correct in questioning some of the newer music that is out there now.
Found out not long ago, that the woman in this true story, became attracted first to “innocent” (not) Tarot Cards and Wicca. After several years she ventured into dark Vamp. music and then got sucked into the Sat. worship thing. We found out that the last phase began over 9 years ago.
She was a lovely young lady, and a practicing Catholic before her introductions into the Occult at a fairly young age.
FYI: Notice that I do not type the full name of the Evil One. I no longer even say the name, unless it is in a prayer.
Thank you to anyone who offers up prayer’s for her conversion.
 
We cannot know. If we believe in God then we believe Satan to be true, and we have plenty of reasons to believe in God. I think that we also have some reasons to believe that the devil does exist but that does not imply knowledge.
Yes we can know!

We don’t have to deduce the existence of Lucifer from what we know of God. Jesus himself said that He saw Lucifer fall as lightning when he was expelled from heaven.

What is wrong with us?! Don’t we believe what Jesus said in scripture?

Jesus Christ is God! He reveals so many things to us in scripture that we just mill around on this CAF as if the Bible didn’t exist or as if the Bible wasn’t true.

C’mon catholics.
 
Hello Road 2Damascus!

Appreciate your positive (name removed by moderator)ut also in regards to the story I chose to share on here.
Although I have had a great love and admiration of Padre Pio for over 30 years, when this incident occurred in our home, not too long ago, it gave me a better understanding of what Padre Pio experienced himself, even in his cell, as he was attacked by The Evil One.
Before the incident’s we experienced first hand, we were like most folks in our belief of the validity of S., but not fully comprehending the true, evil powers, and effects that can occur.
Yes, you are correct in questioning some of the newer music that is out there now.
Found out not long ago, that the woman in this true story, became attracted first to “innocent” (not) Tarot Cards and Wicca. After several years she ventured into dark Vamp. music and then got sucked into the Sat. worship thing. We found out that the last phase began over 9 years ago.
She was a lovely young lady, and a practicing Catholic before her introductions into the Occult at a fairly young age.
FYI: Notice that I do not type the full name of the Evil One. I no longer even say the name, unless it is in a prayer.
Thank you to anyone who offers up prayer’s for her conversion.
Thank you for having the confidence to tell us that. Prayer surely keeps this evl in check.

I just heard a man the other day he felt he was attacked by demons once, I have read people say they’ve seen angels. A person usually doesn’t know how serious to take these things when they hear them, however, once I had a long drive and I stopped and prayed at a little Catholic shrine outside of a church, about 2 hours later, I arrived to the apartment where I was living and no one else was there, I really do think there was a bit of a spiritual struggle that night once I had turned the lights out. Something beyond dreams, a bit more real but at the same time, not positive as to what was occurring.
 
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