Is Satan Unemployed? On vacation? retired?

I've noticed that more americans are beginning to take satan literally. Now being a supporter of penn and tellers "bullshit" (www.sho.com) i find this sad. I never understood the hold this hell myth has over people. With people like bush, hitler and osama going from youth to extremism, who needs satan? Religion is the number one irony of humanity, because the most "religious people" are the antithesis to what they are supposed to be. Even though my psychology experiance fell short of a degree, i can tell you religion is a nuerological disorder. If you replace everything christians say with aliens (the raelians believe they exact same things as christians almost) people will look at you like you are fucking nuts.

Well anyway, i know christians (fundamentalists,extremists) lack the ability to reason. Is this page to complicated for them to understand? i even let my nephew (11yr) read it, so he would stop being afraid of myths.



http://www.geocities.com/forbidden_area/hell.html

"Satan" is shorthand for Bush, Hilter, Saddam, or any person like them. Do you assume people are speaking literally everytime they use names like Satan or Jesus or God?

"Even though my psychology experiance fell short of a degree, i can tell you religion is a nuerological disorder."

Finish the degree and get back to us, thanks.

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/3_3/pages/devil.html


Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe in the devil, while 20 percent do not and 12 percent are unsure, according to the May 2001 poll that was released Feb. 25. In 1999, 85.5 percent of Americans told Gallup they believe in God.
___Seventy percent of Catholics believe in the devil, compared to 79 percent of Protestants and 83 percent of self-identified members of the Religious Right.
___Republicans, at 79 percent, are the most likely to believe in the devil, compared with 67 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents.
___Southerners are the most likely to believe, at 79 percent, followed by Westerners at 69 percent, Midwesterners at 64 percent and East Coast residents at 56 percent. The devil has found the strongest belief among rural Americans--78 percent--compared to 64 percent of suburbanites and 66 percent of urban dwellers.

an understanding of Christian cosmology and myth.

Very few Christians actually believe in Satan or hell as actual entities, but all undersand them, in some way, to be the Christian terms for the dualities that most religions and philosophies acknowledge. Feud and Darwin would be very comfortable with the ideas underlying the myths.

Very simply, good is meaningless without evil, and we have both natures within us, as does the universe. Without the dual nature, we would just be bees in the hive.

Perhaps reading Milton would help. Or Buddha. They both explain it very well.

Bill Gates bought out Satan and his entire stock of Evil.

insult or degrade other peoples' sincerely held beliefs? While the majority of the leaders in the field of psychology would not subscribe to the notion of a devil with a long red tail and a pitch fork, most have wrestled with the concepts of good and evil in human nature. And human beings communicate in symbolic forms (language, the written word, etc). "Satan" is symbolic. And, at the same time, satan is very real. You mention Hitler. Isn't Hitler one potential in all of us? Just as Jesus is a potential we all share? And how do psychiatrists and psychologists teach that people are able to tap the good potential? By no coincidence, in almost exactly the same way as did all of the great teachers in all of the cultures around the globe, through out human history. And, in all cases, without any significant exception, they all use symbolic language to communicate the great truths .... because, my friend, the great truths can NEVER be communicated in ANY other way! And, yes, many people are not able to grasp the higher meaning of these symbolic truths. But one person's shortcomings are not reason to insult or degrade, unless they pose a serious threat to another. Look to the examples of the great teachers, and you will see that they do not insult other peoples' sincerely held beliefs.

We are in a democracy, a persons beliefs will oppress anyone who can't oppose. You can't be that far out as to not notice virtually all criticism of homoxsexuality comes from religious beliefs. There are a few scientific theories but most of the people to adhere to that are pre-1971dsm or the type of psychiatrists who work with focus on the family




------------------------------
Two out of three Americans believe in the existence of Satan with 85 percent of the Evangelical Protestants taking that position, a Newsweek magazine poll shows.

More than one out of three people polled, 37 percent, said they had been tempted by the devil while 61 percent of the evangelical Protestants said they had, according to the magazine, which will reach newsstands Monday.

Among the general population, 27 percent said they did not believe in Satan, while only 13 percent of the evangelical Protestants did not.


A new study being published this month by a leading political scientist shows that Americans have a significantly stronger belief in the idea of divine creation than Europeans or citizens of other advanced countries. University of Cincinnati professor George Bishop conducted an extensive cross-national study of attitudes, and initially presented his findings at the May conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. His complete report will be published in the new issue of Public Perspective, a journal of the Roper Center. He noted, "Nearly a third of college graduates in recent Gallup polls still believe in the biblical account of creation," and that about 45 percent believe that God created human beings "pretty much in (their) present form at one time or another within the last 10,000."

About 39 percent believe in a form of so-called "theistic evolution," where evolutionary processes developed over millions of years but were "guided" by God.
Only about 10 percent subscribe to evolution without any form of divine guidance or intervention as an explanation of how life began.

Americans also fared poorly in their knowledge about the science behind evolutionary theory. Respondents in Norway, Russia, German and the Netherlands all showed a significantly lower rate of literalist belief than those in the U.S., and Americans lagged behind 21 other national groups in understanding the concepts behind Darwinian evolutionary theory. Bishop also found that those most likely to accept a scientific evolutionary explanation were white Americans, male, college graduates, Jews, political liberals and political independents, and young adults under 30. Conversely, his research showed that those most predisposed to believing in Biblical literalist accounts were "women, older Americans, the less well-educated Southerners, African Americans and fundamentalist Protestants," according to the Cincinnati Post. In addition, "A sizable negative relationship exists between knowing the scientific 'fact' of evolution and beliefs in God."

but I think the most important part of your message is in the first two sentences. The larger section appears to be "fill," of uncertain purpose. I'm well aware of the general patterns of religious beliefs in the country. And, not that it necessarily makes my opinion any more worthwhile, I am a retired psychiatric social worker, who taught MSW students at a state university.
Now, some/many people have strong beliefs about homosexuality, including the notion that an all-loving God will burn homosexuals in hell forever. Do I subscribe to that notion? Of course not. Do I respect that type of thinking? Again, of course not. However, not only do I recognize and respect peoples' right to religious beliefs that I think are only mildly more mature than a 6-year old's belief in Santa Claus, I know that attacking these beliefs with anger and insults will never -NEVER- bring about reconciliation. (And, my friend, if you were my student, I would try to impress upon you the great potential for human reconciliation .... for what other goal could there possibly be in psychology?)
Second sentence: "We are in a democracy, a persons (sic) beliefs will oppress anyone who can't oppose." I'm sure that you are trying to express a deeply-held belief, but your sentence fails to do that. Please take a minute and re-write it. Don't add a lot of "fill" that is so unnecessary. Let's just have a frank talk, as two people who are friends can.

religion is one way we arrive at, and express, certain truths.

The Enlightenment started us thinking that the supernatural is only what science hasn't explained yet, but science explains the "how" of things, while philosophy and religion attempt to explain "why."

Religion attempts to give some structure to our lives that science is unable to.

Is it all Christians, or only Christians, that lack the ability to reason?

Paul Tillich, Einstein, Martin Buber, Thomas Aquinas, John Adams, and the authors of the Upanishads were all bloody idiots?

The abject denial of religion is as ridiculous and unthinking as its simple acceptance is. The "belief" that there is no God is as absurd from a purely rational stance as the belief that there is one. Since there is no proof one way or the other, why would one want to argue the point?

All religions are philosophical schools with a dose of the supernatural thrown in. Any philosophical school can have holes punched in it, which is why we have so many of them. Argue to the specifics-- simple bashing and ridicule is the hallmark of the unthinking clods you seem to have so much contempt for.

Religion bashing is great sport lately, but it all tends to dwell on the more unsavory aspects of the religions being bashed, of which there are many. Rarely do the bashers attempt to understand the epistemology and ethics that underly these religions and see the positive results of these beliefs.

As bad as religions have acted over the years, it is largely because of human failure to live up to the ideals of those religions. Imagine how those people responsible would act without even the moral framework they have perverted.

(or perhaps already have) can be found in Joseph Cambell's book, Primitive Mythology. He quotes from studies that others had done, including a Rassmussen, if I remember correctly. And one of the interesting conclusions he reached was that the significant, or mature, religious/spiritual insights that humans have EXPERIENCED (and that ALL mythology is thus based upon) comes from suffering ... and that even "uneducated" and "unsophisticated" men & women from "remote" tribes, were just as capable of experiencing and then teaching these great truths, as were the Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi's. He used a quote from an Eskimo shaman, named Igjugarjuk, who said, "The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others." Cambell also quoted another archtic shaman, who said something about "a power we call Sila (God), one that can not be explained in so many words....His place of sojourn is so mysterious that he is with us and infinitely far away at the same time." I bring these to your attention for two reasons: first, the idea that true knowledge only comes from experiencing it - literally FEELING the goodness of the truth - and for reasons people do not know, there is a wide range of truth/knowledge that only comes through suffering. Hence, people fast, or do things like the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians, etc. Next, that insight "can not be explained in so many words (symbols)." And so we have myths, as teaching tools of religions, to convey the higher meaning that the few have seen, face to face, through suffering. And this is why I suggest that we not insult the symbols - or teachings - of others. I would applaud you if you suggested that our population suffers great confusion about issues such as homosexuality, because our culture relies on many symbols that no longer apply .... and that we need to up-date our mythology, with new symbols that make sense to people here and now. The essence of the message is constant. But the images should have flexibility. Do you agree, my friend? (Intended for Egal-Z, not my buddy Treason-B, who sees very clearly, indeed!)

...you are every bit as "fundamentalist" as those you condemn.

Sorry,
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