Monday, October 24, 2005 Posted: 0543 GMT (00:43 EST)
(Note: Article outdated, see bottom)
| In our many diverse cultures and many traditions we have many stories. Those stories deal with how life started, how people are where they are now, and where the people are going. Along the way many of those stories focus on beings outside of our immediate awareness, and how those beings affect our daily lives. Of major focus is the Christian concept of Satan, which has been the excuse for many executions of many innocent people. The purpose of this article is to break down the idea of Satan being an individual, and convert it into a concept that hopefully explains some things in the world. | No Image Available |
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Within
the Christian faith, Satan is considered to have been created by god as
the "Angel of Light", but when god created humans Satan
believed his position and power to be under threat, so he deceived the
first humans to disobey god and to be brought down a few levels. Satan
later gets cast out of heaven in the form of some monster, usually
viewed a dragon or something that most people are afraid of. We will focus on the idea of Satan being the "Angel of Light" for the moment. To note is that, in the story, god is originally a will in a void. Nothing fancy, definitely not pretty to the eyes, simply sentience. The appearance of light may signify the distraction from truth, as light is only a necessity for the eye, and not the conscious mind, or the soul. The next point to go over is that Satan is considered to appear as something hideous, which hardly seems the truth if so many people are supposedly committing sin, being tempted, and generally being unpleasant to others. People's fascination of destruction of their own creation, their desire to crush down those that oppose them, and the idea of being the greatest above anybody else are all extremes and usually easily recognizable, though the issue is when those ideas are formed through smaller and less unattractive ideas form together, triggering reactions out of the person who is affected. Example includes somebody who desires the best for their family or country. Somebody generates a situation where the family or country suffers a loss, either economically, socially, or structurally, and the head of the group decides to seek out to remove the cause of the problem. When the cause of the problem is technical or natural, usually the solution is simple, but when it is a person a lot of hate is generated, murder may be considered in extremes, and all reason/logic is gone from the head in their attempts to solve the problem. More commonly, the problem being an individual results in more frustration than dealing with a technical or natural problem.
In the
above example, the desire to do something seemingly good may be carried
a bit too far, to the point of obsession, and results in the end being
harm unto oneself, or onto others. Linking this back to Satan is to
point out that the first three angels can be just as omnipresent as god,
and not limited to the confines of a physical existence. This allows
them to see and affect everything at once, which directors may only
dream of. Under the assumption that communication from higher planes of existence
is possible unto lower planes (ours), it permits the opportunity for
these beings to manipulate the goings on of people as desired, although
only through communicative means. The situation in the above paragraphs can occur in under 5 seconds, and repeat as fast as the mind can change things to think about. There also appears to be a difference in effectiveness between the individuals who have the "Chattering Monkey" thought process and the "Deep Thinker" thought process, having lots of random thoughts whizzing by, only taking those of interest, and the slower quality thinking that looks at each thought individually and gauges importance, respectively.
The
2nd style is to support an idea for a normally positive act, bring about
fears for not committing that act when the individual is isolated from
external input, usually before going to sleep, and have them do the act
improperly or abusively. The methods employed to get this are the same,
but the idea is less simple to brush off, and adapting to this usually
results in preoccupation with keeping the problems at bay. Example being
a father who wants their child to succeed so much they don't pay
attention to the emotional needs of the child. Focusing on the fears,
which are also brought up against desire but focused on willingly, may
result in paranoia.
The
entire purpose of describing the above is to point out the strong integration
between the thoughts and the people, which when followed create many of
the problems existent today. Greed is simply the idea that the self is
most important, and having a large quantity of something desirable will
protect the self. Goes between fear of loss, and idea that nobody else
is deserving or proper, while being distracted or unwilling to see the
contradictory ideas. Final notes are that demons are considered conflicted beings, having reached their status through committing some unspeakable act, and cast out of normal order by those who consider them demonic and in league with Satan, who is a standalone being. Many further examples exist, but it would need a lot more space to write out, and some of them can be considered simply the individual's desired method of expression within the world. Prevention of all this is to simply study oneself and one's own thoughts, knowing what you would really think and what is not your own thought. Understanding is key, and from there progress can be made. (Update May 26, 2007 - Due to new information being made available this article is considered in part, or in whole, outdated and incorrect in its views. The article shall remain on the site but will have this note.) |
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