Could Jesus be Satan?

[Zzyzx]

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According to the bible Satan was "cast down to Earth" – and later a "messiah" shows up claiming to know a great deal about "god", doing "miracles" (supernatural forms of magic), calling himself by the common name Jesus, and is accepted as being "god" (or "son of god") by followers.

Satan, according to lore, is credited with supernatural powers AND a lust for power, a great ego, a deceptive nature, and with being the epitome of evil. As such "he" could easily arrange a "virgin birth", could he not? With supernatural powers couldn't he also walk on water, feed multitudes from a lunchbox, turn water into wine, preach convincingly, and even arrange a "resurrection"?

Since all of that could be done by any competent supernatural being of great power, what is there to insure that Jesus and Satan are not the same being?

One might cite a bible story about Jesus and Satan being in the same place (atop a high mountain), but there were no known witnesses and there is no such mountain (from which all kingdoms of the Earth can be seen from a single point on a sphere). Thus, Satan could well have made up such a story (and in the role of Jesus, tell followers that it had happened – or have them informed by another source).

Couldn't ALL the events attributed to Jesus or God be the actions of a "Satan"? How can one tell for sure which supernatural entity produced what effects?

Couldn't "Satan" arrange for the bible to be written by worshipers / followers / believers? How can anyone be certain that they are not worshiping Satan.

What would be Satan's motivation to create a Jesus character and play the role of "the son of god"? EGO and a desire to be worshipped.

[TheoCurious]

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According to the bible Satan was "cast down to Earth" – and later a "messiah" shows up claiming to know a great deal about "god", doing "miracles" (supernatural forms of magic), calling himself by the common name Jesus, and is accepted as being "god" (or "son of god") by followers.

Satan, according to lore, is credited with supernatural powers AND a lust for power, a great ego, a deceptive nature, and with being the epitome of evil. As such "he" could easily arrange a "virgin birth", could he not? With supernatural powers couldn't he also walk on water, feed multitudes from a lunchbox, turn water into wine, preach convincingly, and even arrange a "resurrection"?

Since all of that could be done by any competent supernatural being of great power, what is there to insure that Jesus and Satan are not the same being?

One might cite a bible story about Jesus and Satan being in the same place (atop a high mountain), but there were no known witnesses and there is no such mountain (from which all kingdoms of the Earth can be seen from a single point on a sphere). Thus, Satan could well have made up such a story (and in the role of Jesus, tell followers that it had happened – or have them informed by another source).

Couldn't ALL the events attributed to Jesus or God be the actions of a "Satan"? How can one tell for sure which supernatural entity produced what effects?

Couldn't "Satan" arrange for the bible to be written by worshipers / followers / believers? How can anyone be certain that they are not worshiping Satan.

What would be Satan's motivation to create a Jesus character and play the role of "the son of god"? EGO and a desire to be worshipped.

That's an intriguing idea. Although for practical debate purposes I've a feeling it's the rough equivalent of saying, "Hey, Christians. How'd ya like to quote me a whole mess of scriptures!?"

[ravenssong]

I don't think Jesus and Satan could be one in the same entity, In the only Jesus stories I am familiar with Jesus never claimed to be God, he only ever referred to himself as "The son of man" and God as his father, most prayers refer to God as father. The stories surrounding Satan/ Lucifer all indicate a desire to be recognized and worshiped as God's equivalent I don't think it would be in his character to mask those desires with the humility that Jesus is said to have.

Although, that said it would have worked out nicely for him if it was true, imagine the carnage he could wreak on the world for millenia with absolute dogma and more than a few good men...erm.. followers. :2gun:

[melodious]

I don't think Jesus and Satan could be one in the same entity, In the only Jesus stories I am familiar with Jesus never claimed to be God, he only ever referred to himself as "The son of man" and God as his father, most prayers refer to God as father. The stories surrounding Satan/ Lucifer all indicate a desire to be recognized and worshiped as God's equivalent I don't think it would be in his character to mask those desires with the humility that Jesus is said to have.

Although, that said it would have worked out nicely for him if it was true, imagine the carnage he could wreak on the world for millenia with absolute dogma and more than a few good men...erm.. followers.

Here's an interesting bit of legendary myth from the Gnostic end of things. Jesus and Mary Magdalene are said to have had a son who was named Michael. The name is significant because there's also an archangel with that name, and according to some qabalisitc and gnostic teachings, the four archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael are the same consciousness-forces as the four arch demons, Satan, Leviathan, Belial, and Lucifer. So according to this teaching Michael and Satan are two different sides of the same coin, so to speak.

Mystically and esoterically speaking it is said by gnostics and qabalists that there will one day be a superior generation of humans, and they call this the Sethian Generation. Seth, as many know, was the third son of Adam, and according to scripture, a more perfect image of his father. In Gnosticism Jesus has many titles and one of them is "The Great Seth." Jesus represented the gateway between the old and new spiritual generations of humans - the Arian vs. the Piscean - and his son, Michael, would then be the gateway between the Piscean and Aquarian generations of humans.

The Egyptians had a god known as Set, Sut, or Seth, and this deity is often associated with the Christians' Satan, being etymologically justified because one of this god's titles was "Set-hen." Christians now see the modern era as an evil Satanic age because of the freedom of people to no longer be bound by religion, and in the Christians' eyes, free to do all kinds of sinful stuff. However, if we see that there's another side of the coin and understand the dual nature of things, we will realize that in truth this is the time of Michael-Satan, being it a natural progression of human society and culture. We are living in the Sethian Generation. We are the Sons and Daughters of the "Great Seth" (Jesus), Set, or Satan and our ancestors were the Sons and Daughters of Adam. Jesus is the archetypal "Son of Man" or "Son of Adam" who leads us to the next generation of human evolution.

So in this sense, Jesus is, or has become, Satan, or at least the father of Michael-Satan - i.e. our generation! In many ways it is because of religious ignorance and fettered minds that we have manifested this great resistance and desire in society to be free from it. In other words, religion has brought about this new generation of the "devil" that they seem to fear and condemn so greatly.

In the spirit of the serpent of gnosis - M

[C-Nub]

Ah. That made me smile so much.

Satan isn't the equivalent of God in any Biblical proportion, being an archangel at best, according at least to the Catholic dogma I had growing up. (Weeee) Angels definitely have "powers" of a miraculous nature, just read how they usually appear. One could almost certainly recreate convincingly the miracles or illusions-of-miracles in line with that which JC reportedly managed. I mean, even if not, Satan can and has appeared on Earth, according to the Bible, and he's certainly, as the "Prince of Lies" pull a David Blaine on the primitive people of ancient... yore? How long is yore?

Sarcasm aside, if one were to look at some of the things done in the name of Christ, the scale of the atrocities compared to, well, everything else. The number of horrible things done in the name of Christianity over the years is pretty awful, though I can't say honestly I'm sure it's by-the-numbers worse than any other religion, I sure hope it is, because otherwise... yikes. If you were the Devil, and you wanted to wreak a lasting and horrible blight on mankind, one that can arguably (mighty concessionary, that. Oh wow, that's a word!) be linked to millions of deaths, child molestation, wars of every variety, cultural rape and forced conversion, witch hangings (no witches actually burned at Salem, I read in an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader once... Ok, that's a lame source. I'm going with it, though.) Crusades, and etc, etc, etc. I'm cutting the length of the usual rhetoric short on that front, but you get the picture.

It's a tough sell, I think, because of the scope and.. uh... success of it all from that point of view. I mean, there are arguments for Christianity's success as a force for good in the world, but in terms of really horrible plans, couldn't that be one?


Of course, so too could be atheism, which would damn the millions of souls repeatedly and unrepentantly rejecting the not-at-all strict dogma(s, no sense denying that there are multiple dogmas in contentions) of Christ's church(es).

[Flail]

Jesus could be whatever you want to make him out to be, since we know very little of him.

On the other hand, I have often contended that Paul's visitation on the Road to Damascus was from a devil and not from God. I say this because from Paul's visitation arose the very evil that Jesus reapeatedly predicted to his actual disciples.
Perhaps it is Paul who is the anti-Christ.

[ravenssong]

It would appear for literary purposes that Satan/Lucifer is the shadow side of Jesus. Jesus having achieved everything Satan strove for and failed to achieve. If you look at the stories of Jesus and Satan as a story, legend, myth whatever it makes a complete and profound statement. If you look at the Jesus/ Satan stories as absolute fact and unquestionable dogma, then the thought that Jesus and Satan have anything remotely resembling common characteristics is abhorrent.
As for being one in the same physical being, no, I think they are separate sides of the same story. In order for Jesus' story to be told there had to be an absolute evil to put him up against, likewise in order for Satan's story to be told he had to have an absolute holy to oppose him. Every Superhero needs a Villain, the superhero is not the villain.

on a lighter side here's a link:
http://www.godandscience.org/humor/jesusvssatan.html

[melodious]

It would appear for literary purposes that Satan/Lucifer is the shadow side of Jesus.

I would say you're correct to a certain degree, with exception of the equation of Satan and Lucifer. Now come on, ravenssong, most good pagans know that the Roman god Lucifer is the "light-bearer" and Satan, the "adversary," or "opposition." On the other hand, in many ways I don't have a problem with their equation, because though they are not truly the same mythically, they could be considered complementary. For if Lucifer is the "light-bearer," like the Greek Prometheus who stole the fire (knowledge) of the gods to give to humans, then the Hebrew god (or any "god" as far as that matters) is the very thing that represents keeping humans in ignorance and darkness (there's a good reason why we call it "the dark ages" and it's not because it was dark outside all the time ). In Gnosticism this is called the demiurge (god of ignorance). So if Satan is the "adversary" or "opposition" of God, then he could be in this sense equated with Lucifer the Light-bearer. So it's not so much that I disagree as much as I just felt the need to clarify, and also express that, in my opinion, these two are the good-guys, or superheroes of the story, and not the villains.

Jesus having achieved everything Satan strove for and failed to achieve.

I would have to disagree with that. I feel Satan has achieved a great deal since the ole' garden. I mean, he inspired humans to build cities and civilizations, gave us the power to make weapons to protect ourselves against those crazy religionists, and even the Christians say that the Devil is the ruler of this world. I would say all that stuff is pretty big, not to mention, he actually had the balls enough to stand up to God in the first place - this ranks high on my list of achievments for Satan, much the same as Prometheus.

If you look at the stories of Jesus and Satan as a story, legend, myth whatever it makes a complete and profound statement.

I agree, it does. For it makes the same profound statement as the Osiris/Horus myth does from Egypt, and the Dionysus and Orpheus myths from Greece, and the... etc. - the list goes on. Of course, if one was to actually dig in a bit to the symbolic meaning of the myths, they would see truly a profound statement being made: God sacrifices himself, or his Spirit, on the Cross (physical world) so that humans may all have a spinther of God within them (the casting of lots to divide the "seamless garment") and have the possibility of redemption/salvation (achieving our own godhood) through the knowledge of this cosmic sacrifice. This is where fundamental and Gnostic views of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension part ways. The fundamentalists see it as a time-line event that actually happened. Gnostics see it as a symbolic allegory that expresses the ever-coming Spirit of God into the world and the spiritual evolution of humans; not a one-time historical event, but rather an ever-coming spiritual event, which only in a collective sense would be considered historical.

In order for Jesus' story to be told there had to be an absolute evil to put him up against, likewise in order for Satan's story to be told he had to have an absolute holy to oppose him. Every Superhero needs a Villain, the superhero is not the villain.

I agree with you completely, and I don't think Christians really think about that factor too much. As Anton LaVey said, "The devil is the best friend the church has ever had, for he has kept it in business all these years."

In the spirit of the serpent of gnosis - M

[ravenssong]

It would appear for literary purposes that Satan/Lucifer is the shadow side of Jesus.

I would say you're correct to a certain degree, with exception of the equation of Satan and Lucifer. Now come on, ravenssong, most good pagans know that the Roman god Lucifer is the "light-bearer" and Satan, the "adversary," or "opposition."

Ya, I know, I was going off the Christian concept of Lucifer (inherited from the Greek authors and adapted to Christianity)

Jesus having achieved everything Satan strove for and failed to achieve.

I would have to disagree with that. I feel Satan has achieved a great deal since the ole' garden. I mean, he inspired humans to build cities and civilizations, gave us the power to make weapons to protect ourselves against those crazy religionists, and even the Christians say that the Devil is the ruler of this world. I would say all that stuff is pretty big, not to mention, he actually had the balls enough to stand up to God in the first place - this ranks high on my list of achievments for Satan, much the same as Prometheus.

It would seem that no matter the origin of the theory, theologically speaking knowledge is in principle a gift from the gods when taken without the permission of the "most high god" is a ,most grievous sin, Prometheus is an excellent example. - maybe a good new topic.-

[OnceConvinced]

I'm surprised that no Christian has yet come in and quoted this scripture:

Matt 12:25
He knew what they were thinking and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

It's usually the scripture used to argue that Jesus cannot be Satan, because that would mean Christianity would no longer exist as it would have destroyed itself years ago. They further argue that Satan only wants evil so nobody would be doing good works in his name.

Of course that argument is easily refuted if you consider that maybe Satan only wants us to think Christianiy is good. It may be that the real God is another God and that by following Christianity you might be condemning yourself. I'm sure Muslims would agree on that one.