XPost: alt.paranet.ufo, alt.conspiracy.spy, alt.alien.visitors   
   XPost: alt.magick, alt.usenet.kooks, alt.fan.art-bell   
   From: askpermission@comcast.net   
      
   "igd"  wrote in message   
   news:11ni3ccip6ht088@corp.supernews.com...   
   >   
   > He may be reffering to the passage in the gospels where JC is spending 40   
   > days in the desert and "Old Nick" offers him the cities of the world,   
   > Matthew 4, 1-11 for instance.  This business led at least some of the   
   > Gnostics to consider "Satan" as a guise of the demi-urge who is "the Lord   
   > of this world".   
      
   I find it somewhat amusing when people think of this verse of scripture as   
   proof of the devil's dominion over the earth.  What if he were simply lying   
   about his ability to deliver on such a promise?  Isn't this guy also known   
   as "the father of lies"?  Why on earth (or in heaven, for that matter) would   
   anybody presume the devil was being truthful?  Wouldn't it be much more   
   likely that he was lying, making a false promise?  Yet, there go these   
   supposedly aware Christians, believing exactly what the devil tells them to   
   believe, despite the fact that God tells them quite explicitly that he's a   
   liar.   
      
   > Actually the whole notion of "Satan" as the priciple of evil is relatively   
   > new and almost certainly evolves out of Persian Dualist notions prevelant   
   > in the Hellenic milleiu of the times of the composition of the NT.   
      
   I don;t see that as a big jump.  It's in line with any dualistic system to   
   regard everything as having an opposite.  If God and what God wants are   
   "good", then there must be someone or something who is and wants "evil".   
      
   > Look at the opening of the book of Job for a more originally Hebrew view   
   > of Lucifer as God's attorney general, that is to say the prosecuter or   
   > accuser before the "court of Heaven".   
      
   The Catholics recently did away with an office of "Devil's Advocate" who   
   served exactly that function.  The job of the Devil's Advocate was to   
   produce as much evidence as possible against the hypothesis that this or   
   that candidate for sainthood was sufficiently saintly.  Since that office   
   was abolished, the Catholics have been promoting every St. Tom, St. Dick,   
   and St. Harry.  They're even trying to dredge up testimony of a "miracle"   
   supposedly performed by John Paul 2 so that they can make a saint out of   
   him, too.  Lacking any sort of skeptical oversight, the saint-mill will just   
   keep cranking them out.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)