Comments by "craxd1" (@craxd1) on "Satanic memorial sparks free speech debate in Minnesota" video.

  1. When one looks at what the Hebrew word, "satan," actually means, then one finds that there is no such thing as an anti-God creating sin and evil, named Satan, (see Isaiah 45:5-8, Lamentations 3:37-38, Deuteronomy 30:15, Amos 3:6, and Exodus 9:14). Man becomes a satan by sinning (breaking the ancient moral laws, being a criminal), or blocking mans progress. For the truth, ask any Rabbi. Thus, those who would worship or promote an anti-God named Satan, (which is polytheism originating from Persian Zoroastrianism and Greco-Roman paganism), through a monument, are only making fools of themselves. Also, since they have erected this monument, then they should have no qualms about the Ten Commandments being placed at the courts, which, in reality, originates from the ancient moral laws written by kings, and are older than Judaism. See the Assyrian laws / Code of the Assura (c. 1075 BC), to Cuneiform law (2,350-1,400 BC), which are where the Ten Commandments actually came from. The Law of Moses, The Torah, is from the 9th-5th century BC.
    3
  2. Below, I quote Elaine Pagels, PhD, from her book, “The Origin of Satan,” 1995: "In biblical sources, the Hebrew term, “the satan” [ha-satan], describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers, as early as the sixth century B.C.E., occasionally introduced a supernatural character, whom they called “the satan”; what they meant, was any one of the angels sent by God, for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity." Pagels PhD in religion is from Harvard, and she teaches it at Princeton. Next, I quote Rabbi Tovia Singer, on the subject of satan: "Although this well-known Christian doctrine has much in common with the pagan Zoroastrian Persian dualism from which it spawned, it is completely alien to the teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. In fact, this Christian notion that [the] Satan, in an act of outright defiance, ceased to function as God had intended him to, suggests that God created something imperfect or defective". In Job, it is written as the satan, (ha-satan), it was not the name of the angel, but his temporary job title, to obstruct Job, and play an adversary. The angel's name is unknown. That is why Jesus called Peter a satan and a stumbling block over an argument. Next, I quote Rabbi Dr. Raymond Apple: "The word Satan figures in the Hebrew Bible, but not as a proper name. As a noun it denotes an adversary; as a denominative verb, to oppose or obstruct or be hostile. It is sometimes used in a human sense; in Psalm 109:6, for instance, it suggests the counsel for the prosecution in a court of law. "It does not begin to have a superhuman sense until late in the Biblical period; in Zechariah 3 and the Book of Job it is applied to the prosecutor in the heavenly court. But even in this sense, Satan is not a demon. At best, he is one of the celestial beings, but it may be that the word is merely a colorful metaphor and does not imply that there is any actual being with that name. Nor is Satan opposed to God. At worst, he is simply a devil’s advocate drawing God’s attention to things that appear to be wrong. "Kaufmann Kohler’s theory, in his “Jewish Theology”, chapter 31, is that just as the serpent in the creation story “represents the evil inclination which arises in man with his first consciousness of freedom”, so Satan is an allegorical [fictional] figure “representing the evil of the world, both physical and moral”. "In post-Biblical Jewish sources there are very few references to Satan, and those that are found have no dogmatic or authoritative significance. Satan continues to represent the impersonal force of evil; thus, the Tosefta Shabbat advises that one should “not go on a journey with a wicked man, because Satan accompanies him”. In Jewish liturgy the few references to Satan are all impersonal, for instance the evening prayer that God may remove the adversary “from before us and behind us”, and the morning prayer for protection from “the destroying adversary”. "Popular lore has a far stronger notion of Satan deriving from the New Testament. There he not only personifies the spirit of evil but assumes an independent personality hostile to Jesus and to God. As a result, Milton, writing in an age when people regarded Satan as the presiding demon in stark opposition to God, was able, at least in the first two or three books of “Paradise Lost”, to draw a sympathetic picture of Satan and turn him into almost an epic hero. "For Judaism, all this goes much too far." Also, from Dr. Helen Bond: "There's no kind of prince of darkness; somebody who stands in opposites to God. Throughout most of the texts, there's no concept at all of an evil force." Dr. Helen Bond, MTheol PhD, Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland. Quote from "The History Of The Devil".
    1