I was thinking about it the other day...
- Thread starter TroutBum
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Considering the stuff that Craig has brought up, your idea has just as good of a possibility as any other. It doesn't explain the movies Poltergeist and The Ammityville Horror, not to mention The Exorcist, but it's an interesting thing to think about.
RJF
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My understanding, from what I was taught as a youth, is that Satan had the same choice you and I did before we came to be on earth. That choice bore consequences. Consequences that were fully disclosed. By making the choice he made, he knew he'd be cast out, never to return to God's presence.
Archie Moses
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The weird thing is, Satan is just as important to God's plan as anyone else. In fact, without him, it would not work. There must be an opposition in all things.
Trout, it doesn't explain the movies?
I'll help you out. Movies have scripts. The actors read the scripts. That explains the movies.
The really weird thing is that Liberals don't think so.
But satan often comes as an angel in white, or in my case, blue. Maybe you've been praying for satan without even knowing it.
Not sure if you posted twice on purpose, or wanted further explanation. . . . .lol. . . . I always assume the latter. Looking at your avatar, perhaps you are one of those angels either with a confused loyalty or a misrepresented allegiance, who knows. . . .
Since I've seen no angels, in white or any other color of garb, I'd consider this risk inconsiderable. According to scriptures, which may or may not have been written by servants of God, Satan is represented as possibly posing as an angel of light. No one has described the color of the usual vestments he wears.
I usually work through some of the various logical branches of possibilities, to some shallow depth. It occurs to me that we can pretty much pick our chosen point of view. Perhaps the Bible is one of the bigger lies Satan has invented. That might explain the whole medieval dark age and the various atrocities of supposedly "Christian" nations throughout history, and the whole utility of Church-State combinations. Under that view, perhaps the millions of crucifix ornaments worn by the deceived are indeed false crutches of hope.
However, I would rather think that "Casting out Jesus" just won't really work when invoking the name of Lucifer.
Liberal media is however attempting to cast out Christians wholesale on our national stage, with negative success, generally, though on this site it's been a while since I saw Pearl Watson in here.
LogGrad98
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I think of this in terms of personal salvation. Lucifer is like a force of nature. If he is truly the one you feel you must forgive or come to peace with to attain the blessings of the atonement, then by all means do so, and pray for him directly. Even just thinking about this may be a prompting that you need to do so, even if just in your own personal prayers. But for me I know there are bigger fish to fry, and they are in my life right now. I never really viewed it as Lucifer is the Almighty Evil Force without which we would all be angels dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts wandering around doing good to others all day. I also never viewed him as God's "muscle", who steps in to torture us because God with his white cotton gloves could never get his hands dirty that way, but hey, someone has to do it, right? I don't buy into that.
Rather I always viewed him as more symbolic, an example of what happens if we don't reconcile the natural man with the spiritual man and let pride run rampant in our lives. I am not sure I believe there is any real whispering occurring from his side to us, I think that again is more symbolism, and it really is about the inherent natural man in everyone that is predisposed to follow our passions, which we have been commanded to keep in check. It is about self-control, which is important in this life whether you adhere to a spiritual philosophy or not.
Learning self-control is, in whatever aspect you choose to view it, completely separate from religion, the toughest thing anyone will learn in this life. It is hard to tell yourself no, to tell yourself you can't have what you want right this moment, or even just to learn new things, and it's even harder to be open with yourself about things you need to change, which is why the vast majority of people won't ever really change, and why most people are depressed in one way or another at times in their lives, because it is depressing to realize that you are not controlling your life, or rather to know deep down you are not taking control of your life. But at the same time it is truly hard to take the kind of control, or exercise the self-discipline needed to take control. And sometimes other things are against us in this regard, some of us deal with chemical changes in our brains that make it harder to exercise self-control, or we make decisions that introduce outside influences, like alcoholism or drug addiction, or other things more subtle than that. The end result is we are buffeted by the prevailing winds of change, having no firm grasp on our natural inclinations, until we feel lost.
So back to a religious viewpoint, I think I have plenty of people right here right now I need to forgive, or learn to love as the savior commanded, and just don't have the time to waste worrying about whether the symbol of the resistance is just a misunderstood soul. Maybe when I have advanced sufficiently he will enter the picture again, if I ever reach that level. For now I am too focused on removing beams beyond measure from my own eye to worry much about Lucifer's eternal progression.
So that makes me wonder if maybe the Apostles do include him in their prayers to some degree. If nothing else at least to ask to soften his heart in our behalf to help us make it through this mortal sphere.
The extent to which we do already pray for Lucifer, as taught by the savior, is to ask for Heavenly Father's protection from his temptations. Well in a way that is asking for a blessing on Lucifer. After all we know that God does his work through love and patience and kindness, I mean it's not like when we pray for that God goes a gets a whip and 10 million strong angels to go whip Lucifer's *** into leaving you alone. As it says in D&C 121:
So when we ask Heavenly Father to protect us from Lucifer's influence how does he do that? I would think he has to do it by showing Lucifer more love, by sending him H.F.'s spirit and softening his heart to help him not feel like he has to tempt us at that moment. To get a temporary stay he intercedes on our behalf in love and compassion.
Like if you have ever prayed for H.F. to soften someone's heart in your behalf, to help get a job, or a promotion, or get selected to a team, or get out of going to jail (I remembered this was trout posing the question =), when you generally pray to be protected from temptation you are asking H.F. to soften Lucifer's heart toward you.
But like Laman and Lemuel, Lucifer is not so easily swayed. He has lived among the angels and rejected the Spirit to God's own face, and fought with very real consequences (eternal damnation for 1/3 of God's children) and been cast out for so doing. His heart is pretty well hardened at this point. This is not a heart that softens easily. So the reprieve is temporary.
But still, in that prayer, you have prayed for Lucifer, in a way.
Rather I always viewed him as more symbolic, an example of what happens if we don't reconcile the natural man with the spiritual man and let pride run rampant in our lives. I am not sure I believe there is any real whispering occurring from his side to us, I think that again is more symbolism, and it really is about the inherent natural man in everyone that is predisposed to follow our passions, which we have been commanded to keep in check. It is about self-control, which is important in this life whether you adhere to a spiritual philosophy or not.
Learning self-control is, in whatever aspect you choose to view it, completely separate from religion, the toughest thing anyone will learn in this life. It is hard to tell yourself no, to tell yourself you can't have what you want right this moment, or even just to learn new things, and it's even harder to be open with yourself about things you need to change, which is why the vast majority of people won't ever really change, and why most people are depressed in one way or another at times in their lives, because it is depressing to realize that you are not controlling your life, or rather to know deep down you are not taking control of your life. But at the same time it is truly hard to take the kind of control, or exercise the self-discipline needed to take control. And sometimes other things are against us in this regard, some of us deal with chemical changes in our brains that make it harder to exercise self-control, or we make decisions that introduce outside influences, like alcoholism or drug addiction, or other things more subtle than that. The end result is we are buffeted by the prevailing winds of change, having no firm grasp on our natural inclinations, until we feel lost.
So back to a religious viewpoint, I think I have plenty of people right here right now I need to forgive, or learn to love as the savior commanded, and just don't have the time to waste worrying about whether the symbol of the resistance is just a misunderstood soul. Maybe when I have advanced sufficiently he will enter the picture again, if I ever reach that level. For now I am too focused on removing beams beyond measure from my own eye to worry much about Lucifer's eternal progression.
So that makes me wonder if maybe the Apostles do include him in their prayers to some degree. If nothing else at least to ask to soften his heart in our behalf to help us make it through this mortal sphere.
The extent to which we do already pray for Lucifer, as taught by the savior, is to ask for Heavenly Father's protection from his temptations. Well in a way that is asking for a blessing on Lucifer. After all we know that God does his work through love and patience and kindness, I mean it's not like when we pray for that God goes a gets a whip and 10 million strong angels to go whip Lucifer's *** into leaving you alone. As it says in D&C 121:
So when we ask Heavenly Father to protect us from Lucifer's influence how does he do that? I would think he has to do it by showing Lucifer more love, by sending him H.F.'s spirit and softening his heart to help him not feel like he has to tempt us at that moment. To get a temporary stay he intercedes on our behalf in love and compassion.
Like if you have ever prayed for H.F. to soften someone's heart in your behalf, to help get a job, or a promotion, or get selected to a team, or get out of going to jail (I remembered this was trout posing the question =), when you generally pray to be protected from temptation you are asking H.F. to soften Lucifer's heart toward you.
But like Laman and Lemuel, Lucifer is not so easily swayed. He has lived among the angels and rejected the Spirit to God's own face, and fought with very real consequences (eternal damnation for 1/3 of God's children) and been cast out for so doing. His heart is pretty well hardened at this point. This is not a heart that softens easily. So the reprieve is temporary.
But still, in that prayer, you have prayed for Lucifer, in a way.
So, Log, though I sorta get yer drift and can see a lot of intelligence working within that point of view. . . .
there's still this:
The "War in Heaven" isn't over, yet. The Enemy is in retreat, and we are advancing through this world in a sort of "mop up" operation. Jesus won the deciding battle here with the Atonement, and like a non-MacArthurian general, will arrive soon in glory to review the battlefield and pass out the medals. (I had to say "non-MacArthurian", didn't I? MacArthur with his corn cob pipe made a show of actually going to the front lines sometimes) But the war isn't over until Lucifer is out of the picture, out of the whole realm, and thrown back into the furnace of elemental existence, somehow.
The Book of Mormon sometimes strikes me a philosophical work that could only have been produced in one time and place in the history of mankind. . . . the American Frontier of the 1820s. . . . . ., and could have been written only by one sort of man in that time and place. An Amherst graduate with a theology degree trying to start a new branch of Campbellite Baptist sect sporting a "scientific" explanation of how people came to be in the New World before Columbus. . . .. not that I can actually prove this theory or anything. . . .
But in this context I can "see" some of the doctrinal discourses being trundeled out to explain the contemporary issues people were then discussing, like why there's still Satan, and such. "opposition in all things" was not provision of the theology of the Old Testament, and God never needed to "win" anything, He was the uncontested supreme sovereign.
hmmm. . . . there was still this serpent in the Garden, though, so maybe I just don't really know.
still, I've always been a little suspicious of finely-got-up intellectual explanations of anything religious, which has always struck me as a whole different approach to life than "intellect". Well, not that I'm clearly resolved, intellectually, on that question. . . .
But anyway, the way I read the First Commandment, of the Ten, is that it is advisable, if not required, for us to focus on God and not dawdle in the tangled bogs of confusion about every other hypothetical or imaginary, let alone, real contestant for our devotion. . . .
So, I'm just not going to pray for Lucifer, Satan, or any purported servant of the Devil. Not my duty. Not something I care for. The Devil be Damned.
But Mormonism does sport some speculations from early leaders like Brigham Young, pondering the implications of eternity, in Mormon terms of eternal "intelligences", spirit births, physical bodies, death and resurrection, judgment, hell-fires and such. . . .that there may be a class of spirits or even humans so evil that in the end they must be cast into an elemental destruction or disorganization that essentially means they have to start over at the first stage somehow, in a consuming fire that reduces identity to the most fundamental level of existence. A "black hole" might do that, or the interior of a Sun, where even an atom, say of hydrogen, is disorganized into some fundamental physical descriptors like heat, light, or wave equations of some kind. . . .
In that scenario, perhaps the kernel identity that is the person/spirit of Lucifer, can be "born again" in some future existence. . . . . and maybe, in some sense, that fundamental "evil" choice sequence will be either statistically-possible or stat-probable to have a similar sort of will, and make similar choices, and with similarly-unproductive results, who knows. . . . .
Not even an element can exist without some intrinsically, if only mathematical, opposite characteristics. . . .
there's still this:
The "War in Heaven" isn't over, yet. The Enemy is in retreat, and we are advancing through this world in a sort of "mop up" operation. Jesus won the deciding battle here with the Atonement, and like a non-MacArthurian general, will arrive soon in glory to review the battlefield and pass out the medals. (I had to say "non-MacArthurian", didn't I? MacArthur with his corn cob pipe made a show of actually going to the front lines sometimes) But the war isn't over until Lucifer is out of the picture, out of the whole realm, and thrown back into the furnace of elemental existence, somehow.
The Book of Mormon sometimes strikes me a philosophical work that could only have been produced in one time and place in the history of mankind. . . . the American Frontier of the 1820s. . . . . ., and could have been written only by one sort of man in that time and place. An Amherst graduate with a theology degree trying to start a new branch of Campbellite Baptist sect sporting a "scientific" explanation of how people came to be in the New World before Columbus. . . .. not that I can actually prove this theory or anything. . . .
But in this context I can "see" some of the doctrinal discourses being trundeled out to explain the contemporary issues people were then discussing, like why there's still Satan, and such. "opposition in all things" was not provision of the theology of the Old Testament, and God never needed to "win" anything, He was the uncontested supreme sovereign.
hmmm. . . . there was still this serpent in the Garden, though, so maybe I just don't really know.
still, I've always been a little suspicious of finely-got-up intellectual explanations of anything religious, which has always struck me as a whole different approach to life than "intellect". Well, not that I'm clearly resolved, intellectually, on that question. . . .
But anyway, the way I read the First Commandment, of the Ten, is that it is advisable, if not required, for us to focus on God and not dawdle in the tangled bogs of confusion about every other hypothetical or imaginary, let alone, real contestant for our devotion. . . .
So, I'm just not going to pray for Lucifer, Satan, or any purported servant of the Devil. Not my duty. Not something I care for. The Devil be Damned.
But Mormonism does sport some speculations from early leaders like Brigham Young, pondering the implications of eternity, in Mormon terms of eternal "intelligences", spirit births, physical bodies, death and resurrection, judgment, hell-fires and such. . . .that there may be a class of spirits or even humans so evil that in the end they must be cast into an elemental destruction or disorganization that essentially means they have to start over at the first stage somehow, in a consuming fire that reduces identity to the most fundamental level of existence. A "black hole" might do that, or the interior of a Sun, where even an atom, say of hydrogen, is disorganized into some fundamental physical descriptors like heat, light, or wave equations of some kind. . . .
In that scenario, perhaps the kernel identity that is the person/spirit of Lucifer, can be "born again" in some future existence. . . . . and maybe, in some sense, that fundamental "evil" choice sequence will be either statistically-possible or stat-probable to have a similar sort of will, and make similar choices, and with similarly-unproductive results, who knows. . . . .
Not even an element can exist without some intrinsically, if only mathematical, opposite characteristics. . . .
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RandyForRubio
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Log, if you think God is gonna strike out with kindness at Satan, perhaps you should read Revelations. Or the Old Testament. Or the New Testament.
First time reader.
The Bible very clearly states that the devil is in eternal damnation and will be tormented forever.
It seems, to me, that praying for him would be to defy God's ultimate wisdom and judgement.
I don't need to understand anything more than that.
Just say no to the devil, resist his temptations, and leave him to God to judge and deal with.
The Bible very clearly states that the devil is in eternal damnation and will be tormented forever.
It seems, to me, that praying for him would be to defy God's ultimate wisdom and judgement.
I don't need to understand anything more than that.
Just say no to the devil, resist his temptations, and leave him to God to judge and deal with.
LogGrad98
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I have read all of it. Multiple times. I take about 25% of it at face value, the rest with pillars of salt.
Take this for example:
So if you are ugly, GTFO.
Far more of the bible is symbolic or cautionary than is meant to be taken literally, IMO.
RandyForRubio
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That was a law for the High Priests, those who entered the Holy of Holies. Context matters.
What is interesting about this requirement of Priests for altar service handling holy sacrifices, is the symbolism. Those sacrifices were, imo, symbols of Atonement which required the ultimate sacrifice by someone who was without sin in Himself, or in his life. The symbolism evokes respect for the laws of God and for God as being perfect in the relevant respects, and suggests to us that since we are not perfect in those ways, we need someone to "stand in" for us who is perfect, in restoring us to the presence of God.
The symbolism here is an impressive sort of teaching tool. . . . .
I agree, though I have the fault of loving vain and foolish chatter about stuff, endlessly.
It's actually pretty simple.
LogGrad98
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Yes it does. It means that only people who were not born deformed get to enter the Holy of Holies. Glad you cleared that up. Ugly people are allowed to pay tithing but not be holy. Gotcha. Makes a world of difference.
RandyForRubio
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If you're going to quote the Bible, it generally helps to know what you're talking about. No need for you to be so condescending about something you don't understand or don't have knowledge about.
You're still getting it wrong btw. If you'd like to have a decent conversation and ask about it, then I will, but if you're going to be like this, there really is no point.
LogGrad98
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Be like what? If you mean somewhat sarcastic well I am not sure anyone can accommodate that. If you think there is a point to be made there by all means make it. Your labeling my sarcasm as condescension without providing any counterpoint, is in itself condescending. Not to mention the bolded above.
In the end they put a physical appearance requirement on entering the holy of holies, unless you feel this was meant symbolically. I started this off with commentary that I feel the vast majority of the bible is meant symbolically and not literally. You responded, which implies you feel it is more literal. If so then what is the interpretation?
Also, if you want to play this game there are thousands of verses that are debatable in this regards, everything from population estimates being orders of magnitude off of archealogical records, to floods and original origin. It is virtually impossible to defend the bible based entirely on it's pure and undisputed accuracy.
The funny thing about it all is that I believe the bible to be divinely inspired, I just don't believe we are meant to take every single word in its exactly literal context.
We can't defend religion on historical or scientific grounds, imo. Because the "rules of the game" are just different. "Religion" is an extrapolation, if anything, from undisputable knowledge, pointing us off into the unknown. Well, not that we don't all use our own definitions of it. So it can be anything, really.
I agreed with Howard on the point about the requirements stated in the Law of Moses for priests. I don't think that law was applied to the Apostles or anyone else in the Christian era/tradition. Paul, for example, is believed by some to have been physically deformed somehow because of what he said about his health and hardships in life. I would disagree with that assessment, as he was apparently able to haul Christians out of their homes and get them stoned for their beliefs, before the intervention of Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Nevertheless, the Law of Moses, or the Pentateuch did have the provision about the priests needing to be without blemish when doing certain sacrifices, and generally could not serve when in any way "unclean" as judged by specific statements of requirements. True, there were ritual "purifications" they could do to become "clean", but still certain disfigurements would have disqualified a priest. You also had to be of a specific patriarchal lineage coming from the tribe of Levi, and you could not marry a foreign, or forbidden, wife. Lots of stuff like that. It was not referring to what the Mormons deem a "universal priesthood" requirement for some degree of exaltation, either. As far as I've found, there was no "universal priesthood ordinance" in the Old Testament, or even the Book of Mormon. You were a priest if you were a Levite. Nobody else was. You could be "Israel" without being a Levite, or a priest of any kind. But, however inconsistent with the arrangement of things in Israel, there was not a Levite that traveled with Lehi's family to the New World, that was mentioned in the text. So I'm not sure they still lived the Law of Moses or did a Mosaic sort of temple with a holy of holies or whatever. Just another nagging question for the mind of a logical zealot. . . .
There also was no general priesthood ordinance in early Christianity.
True there were a couple of statements in the scripture that generally meant it would be a good thing if everyone was holy somehow, but, as you say, it was a symbolic ideal.
Logical Zealots is not recognized religion yet, as it seems, even someone like me cannot adequately explain what that religion might be, from any scriptural texts extant, or any self-consistent development of faith.
The LogGrades of Mormonism are merely modestly advanced thoughtful believers who somehow have made peace between good reason and good faith, and a lot of inconsistent scripture, and maybe a lot of divergent Leadership injunctions.
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