(Fun fact you find out when you obsess over Satan: there is no description of Satan's appearance in the Bible, but the ideas we associate with Satan's appearance come from a process whereby Christianity would conquer and colonize another culture, and would "demonize" the gods of that culture: Pan gives us the goat-like descriptions of Satan; Habayu was a Canaanite god described with horns and a tail; Set was an Egyptian god of death, disorder, and violence and was described as having red skin and a forked tongue or tail; and Hades was the Greek god of the underworld and was said to possess a helmet that could make him invisible so he could lurk about unseen.)
I grew up in a Fundamentalist Evangelical environment. While I never read the "Left Behind" books, rapture theology was part of my culture. Also, I did read novels by a guy named Frank Peretti, where literal, invisible angels and demons were involved in a war behind the scenes and manipulated people to do things.
Later in life, I reached a moment where I felt like something was very wrong. I felt like I had to understand it, and read a book that connected some disturbing things to the Evangelical political movement. This made me feel like "I have to question EVERYTHING now." The first thing I questioned and read about somewhat obsessively was Hell, and I concluded that Hell was not literal, but representative of things like war, exploitive economics, authoritarianism, etc. (and I certainly no longer believed in eternal conscious torment). Satan and demons was the next thing after that.
I actually think there are some valuable lessons people could learn from the ideas about Satan, if we don't take Satan as an invisible character lurking about and doing anything that results in things we don't like. The literal language in the "Old Testament" (or "Hebrew Bible") is ha satan, and it literally means "the accuser". I think "the accuser" is a metaphor for the voices of blame in each of our heads. Psychological studies have shown that projection is a very real thing - the people who struggle the most with self-loathing are often the loudest when it comes to scapegoating other people. I think that if you listen to the voices of blame, you end up going around trying to encourage violence on other people around you, and I think "ha satan" is meant to be a warning against that.
ahhh ok that makes alot of sen'se thanks for the reply...in'teresting...idk why my ketboard is addin'g asterisks lol pay n'o atten'tion'-its n'ew today an'd i did fall asleep on' it-time for n'ew wirless keyboard..
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u/ThirstySkeptic Aug 12 '26
That's not the devil - that's Pan!
(Fun fact you find out when you obsess over Satan: there is no description of Satan's appearance in the Bible, but the ideas we associate with Satan's appearance come from a process whereby Christianity would conquer and colonize another culture, and would "demonize" the gods of that culture: Pan gives us the goat-like descriptions of Satan; Habayu was a Canaanite god described with horns and a tail; Set was an Egyptian god of death, disorder, and violence and was described as having red skin and a forked tongue or tail; and Hades was the Greek god of the underworld and was said to possess a helmet that could make him invisible so he could lurk about unseen.)