Well, Satan was supposedly an angel at one time. Apparently he was one of God's favorites. Satan ended up being a little rebellious and went against God's commands. That is strange to me, because angels are supposed to be incapable of sin... so how did Satan manage to do it?
Anyways, the modern interpretation of Satan was inspired by many different things, but the physical characteristics we associate with him are mostly from Roman polytheism.
When Christianity started taking over, they did what they could to make paganism appear evil. For example, Satan's pitchfork is actually Neptune's (Poseidon in Greek tradition) Trident. Satan is often portrayed as having goat legs and horns, those come from a Satyr (I believe they're called Faun's in Roman tradition).
Certain details from Roman polytheism were also adopted by Christianity and used in a positive light as well. For example, the sun often appears behind the heads of holy figures in Christian art and an important Roman and Greek god was adopted as the image for the Christian god... Zeus.
You remember how I brought up Venus in my earlier argument? Well, Venus has multiple symbols that represent her. One is still used today as the symbol for female, which is a circle with a cross underneath it. Her other symbol is the pentacle, also known as the five-pointed star, which is a symbol that is now associated with Satanism (there's is usually upside down). Also, in case you're interested, many astronomers say that every eight years the planet Venus forms a pentacle in the sky (each cycle stops at a different location, which when the dots are connected, forms the pentacle... or so they say). Apparently the ancients noticed that and that may be the origin of the symbol. The Greeks went off of Venus' eight year cycle for the Olympics, today we go off the half cycle (every four years). The five-pointed star was going to be the symbol for the Olympics, but due to it building up a reputation as a symbol for evil, they chose five rings instead.
Anyways, Venus had another symbol that is still important. Her sacred animal was the dove... which in Christianity, usually represents the holy spirit. It can be found above Jesus in thousands of Christian paintings.
Maybe the dove is actually "the Morning Star" watching over Jesus...
Maybe that's why we have serial killers. No one wants to blame the mom. She gets on TV and says "Oh, he was such a nice boy.
Well, there are exceptions... but ultimately the serial killer is to blame. Maybe a better analogy would have been the mother of someone who killed only one person. Think of Casey Anthony. Her parents seem like decent people, but Casey is pretty screwed up.
If she is such a great mom, how come she doesn't know?
It's not rare to see a good mom with an asshole child. Once that child grows into an adult, there's really not much she can do.
Oh, good grief... just look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe underNazi_domination.png
Didn't Italy's fall have more to do with Mussolini being hung in the streets? After they switched sides, the Italian Social Republic still remained allies with Nazi Germany though.
Hitler was an utter failure and his strategy of war was pathetic.
Uhhh... have you ever learned about WWII? The Nazi's and their allies took over most of Europe. Just about the only European countries that didn't fall to the Nazi's were the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.
He ended up with only one loyal ally; an Asian Island that got nuked by emotionally damaged Americans who don't understand the concept of negotiation.
He had multiple allies, but the two who were most involved were Japan and Italy.
God evolves throughout the Bible. He goes from being visible to humans (Adam and Eve) to eventually just becoming pure spirit or without form. In polytheistic religions, the gods were obviously more powerful than humans, but they also had flaws. When polytheism started to die out and monotheism began to take it's place, all of a sudden, God changed. He became less flawed, as well as omniscient and omnipotent. Basically, an all-loving, all-powerful god was more likely to draw in followers than a religion with flawed gods.
Lucifer probably isn't Satan either. The name "Lucifer" is only mentioned once throughout the entire Bible.
Isaiah 14:12 "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"
In many translations, it says "Lucifer, son of the morning star!" The morning star, if you don't already know, is the planet Venus. Why is that significant? Well, because the planet Venus was named after the Roman goddess (she's called Aphrodite in Greek tradition). Roman polytheism played a big role in that time period. In the Roman tradition, Venus had a son. That son looked a lot like an angel... his name was Cupid. We still use him as a symbol for love today.
Anyways, getting back to the "morning star" aka Venus... take a look at this verse found in Revelations 22:16: "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
So now we have Lucifer and Jesus connected through a bloodline... pretty crazy stuff, right?
Firstly, I don't think this is what exactly happened
Genesis 3:9 "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"
and even if it did happen and he genuinely asked 'Where are you?' it was merely as a symbolic test to see if Adam would reply immediately or hesitate indicating a lack of obedience to the almighty ruler and perhaps a deviance to the way of the devil
The Bible is full of verses that suggest that God is not omniscient. Here's another example:
Genesis 18:21 "I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
Also, most people assume that the serpent who tempted Eve was Satan, but in the Bible, God specifically says to the serpent, "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life".
What you just read is the Bible's way of explaining the creation of the snake, not the punishment of Satan.
Anything can, in hindsight, be deemed to have been a succeeded plan form the beginning.
You can't deem something a success before you've accomplished it.
Hitler's plan was world domination, his plan utterly failed.
His ultimate goal was world domination, but he had smaller objectives within it. A checklist to lead to world domination. He successfully accomplished many of his objectives, as cruel as they may be.
Killing off non-Aryans was just something he left his minions to do to stir fear.
So what? They couldn't have shared objectives? He was their leader.
If you genuinely consider that a success then I hope you get skinned alive.
Uhh... who ever said that a success has to be a good thing? Hitler succeeded in killing Jews. Do you disagree?
If you are just trolling, which I hope you are, then at least you can just quietly admit defeat.
The least you can do is admit the flaws in your comprehension of the word, "succeed".
Creating something or someone doesn't make you responsible for their actions. Would you blame the mother of a serial killer?
Do you think life is bad? Assuming God is real, he did plenty of good. Plus, the tree of knowledge of good and evil suggests that evil existed prior to humans... and angels are supposedly incapable of sin (except for Satan, for some reason)... so who was evil? You can't have knowledge of something that doesn't exist. Maybe God didn't actually create evil.
