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God asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?" [15] Satan thinks Job only loves God because he has been blessed, so he requests that God test the sincerity of Job's love for God through suffering, expecting Job to abandon his faith. [18] God consents; Satan destroys Job's family, health, servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn God. [18]
Most early Christians firmly believed that Satan and his demons had the power to possess humans, [142] and exorcisms were widely practiced by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike. [142] Belief in demonic possession continued through the Middle Ages into the early modern period. [143] [144] Exorcisms were seen as a display of God's power over ...
No serpent, no animal of any kind, is called Satan, or Belzebub, or Devil, in the Pentateuch." [18] 20th-century scholars such as W. O. E. Oesterley (1921) were cognizant of the differences between the role of the Edenic serpent in the Hebrew Bible and its connections with the "ancient serpent" in the New Testament. [19]
According to High Priest Peter H. Gilmore, Satan is "a name for the reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will" . [6] In LaVey's book, The Satanic Bible, the Satanist's concept of a God is described as the Satanist's true "self"— a projection of his or her own personality, not an external deity. [8]
Though The Satanic Bible is not considered to be sacred scripture in the way that the Christian Bible is to Christianity, LaVeyan Satanists regard it as an authoritative text [1] as it is a contemporary text that has attained for them scriptural status. [3] It extols the virtues of exploring one's nature and instincts.
Whereas in Christian doctrine Satan was an enemy of not only god but humanity, in the romantic portrayal he was a brave, noble, rebel against tyranny, a friend to other victims of the all powerful bully, i.e. humans. These writers saw Satan as a metaphor to criticize the power of churches and state and to champion the values of reason and liberty.
In his Commentary on Daniel, he noted, “Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form.” [44] Instead of rebuilding the Jewish Temple to reign from, Jerome thought the Antichrist sat in ...
The inverted pentagram is a widespread symbol of Satanism. [1]Theistic Satanism, otherwise referred to as traditional Satanism, religious Satanism, or spiritual Satanism, [2] is an umbrella term for religious groups that consider Satan, the Devil, to objectively exist as a deity, supernatural entity, or spiritual being worthy of worship or reverence, whom individuals may believe in, contact ...