Others felt God helped them even find their keys. Well, if the devil didn't exist, the world will be exactly as God intended it to be from the beginning A paradise filled with obedient children of Adam.. What kind of a world would we have if the devil didn't exist? The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Enns. Verbal Kint? People do not live forever. The, Turks, of course, are in it, but theyre foreigners. GROSS: Thank you. Kings, if you oppress me, if your eminencies disdain The bridle to the wicked, the hope of the just. But the main thing is that I think that, in fact, it imposes emotional damage. He converted several years after Jesus' death. All rights reserved. Similarly, the word illisible is a useful concept to grasp. But it doesn't work that way, folks! In 1856 Spiritualism, a Satanic Delusion, and a Sign of the Times by Pastor William Ramsey included this passage:[2]1856, Spiritualism, a Satanic Delusion, and a Sign of the Times by William Ramsey (Pastor of the Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia), Chapter 2: The Case Stated, Quote Page 33, Edited by Continue reading. Platinum Author There are certain traditions and many religious individuals who simply do not believe in the devil. We will see a reunion of the finest minds: It answers basic questions about our human transcendence and provides superficial comfort in the face of everyday problems. Anonymous? Well, we would have to invent him, because he is necessary for the individual/ society, for whatever reasons. With the descendants of the Pompignan brothers; The question becomes why does our Maker put up with him and his continuing . The preceding article is from "Strange Reports from Zones Unknown," a collection of accounts involving the paranormal, Ufology, conspiracy theories, cover-ups, and other intriguing topics of the weird and unusual. (Google Books Full View), Baudelaire, that old flower of evil, was right: The Devils cleverest wile is to make men believe that he does not exist., In 1984 a reporter with The Los Angeles Times spoke to Jeffrey Russell, a professor of medieval history at UC Santa Barbara, who referenced the saying:[7]1984 October 31, The Los Angeles Times, Section 5: View, Article: Is Satan Real? His new book is Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife. The Bible's answer The Bible shows that God did not create the Devil. God didn't create evil, never had and never will. And people are afraid that the planet itself is dying. Most people just say, well, look - you know, it's a pandemic, and we better pay attention to our scientists, which is, obviously, the more socially satisfying answer to the question. Voltaire, who was one of the first to reject the teachings of Christianity, attacked this religion with fierce zeal. The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880) . Why does Isaiah 45:7 say that God created evil? Voltaire's Notes We'll talk more after a break. So suffering now must be rewarded later, and wicked behavior now must be punished later. You get that in the story of Moses in the Book of Exodus. Op you are already immediately mistaken for you know not that devil is simply, the evil, D' evil! Would You Prefer A World Where Religion Don't Exist At All? And Samuel comes up and is really upset that she's called him up from the grave, and he gets upset with Saul for doing this, and he predicts that Saul is going to die the next day in battle, which he does. When we originally scheduled the interview we're about to hear, we didn't realize how weirdly timely it would be. Just about the only place in the Hebrew Bible where you get an instance of somebody who has died who seems still to be alive afterwards is in this very strange and interesting passage in the book of 1 Samuel, where the king, Saul, is desperate for some advice from somebody who knows, and so he calls - he has a necromancer, a woman, this woman of Endor, who calls up his former adviser Samuel from the grave. We're not going out. 66 Articles, By There have always been people who actually picked a time when it's going to happen. Yet, similar remarks were already in circulation. It has terrified people. In vain you raise as an objection to me the hypocritical insolence And so I really believe that, and I'll probably always believe it. - Listen to 71. If the heavens, stripped of his noble imprint, And secondly, every one of them has been incontrovertibly wrong (laughter). I hope you stay safe, too. We'll be right back. What it says is that Samuel came up, but it doesn't say where he was, and it doesn't say if he was living at the time. And he fully expected to be alive when it happened. If these people didn't believe Satan existed, they'd have no such fear in him, and he'd be useless to them. "I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness." - Fyodor Dostoevsky . And so Sheol is sometimes portrayed like that. A human father is a limited (and fallen) human being, so the comparison is not strictly accurate and can create some misunderstandings. Could a Loving God Create Hell To Torment People For Eternity? God has ordained that Satan have a long leashwith God holding onto itbecause he knows that when we walk in and out of those temptations, struggling both with the physical and moral effects that they bring, more of God's glory will shine in that battle than if he took Satan out yesterday. It's not going to be something awful. He wasn't raised in Israel; he was from outside of Israel. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. "Epistle to the author of the book, The Three Impostors". In this poem, Voltaire develops the idea that the existence of God (or the belief therein) helps establish social order. So that would be great. Yet, similar remarks were already in circulation. Well, I am glad. Copyright 2020 NPR. But let me ask, what if the devil didn't exist? Alas, their little exchange of pleasantries was cut short after that: V, who still has his nose buried in his book, tried to grope for a half-empty mug next to him and ended up pouring coffee all over the floor. And what precisely did Voltaire mean when he wrote it? Current quotes, historic quotes, movie quotes, song lyric quotes, game quotes, book quotes, tv quotes or just your own personal gem of wisdom. Let me paint a quick picture for those who have this question; it can be extracted from the bible. All rights reserved. Like, I'm sure you don't want to talk them out of their beliefs. And so in some of his later letters, he ponders the possibility of death, and he wonders, well, what happens to me, then? So if Satan was there already trying to tempt Eve and bring Eve into evil, we can know for certainty then that he fell before Adam and Eve did. I'm Terry Gross. He examines the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, as well as writings from the Greek and Roman era. Well, if we're being rewarded, they're going to be punished. One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with them, if they get into true silence. Without a God, moral parameters and ethical guidelines are useless. Most people probably don't subscribe to either one. Ultimately, though, the goal of the Dictionnaire des ides rescues is to provide a framework for critical thinking. And so Paul thought he would be alive when the end came. But then time dragged on, and a couple of decades passed, and it didn't arrive, and Paul started realizing that, in fact, he might die before it happens. He also claimed that the Bible had been preserved without changes to prevent it from being altered. The prophet Isaiah recalls this event: "You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven. What would God do without such an adversary to play with, or fight against? Your friends, at time of need, more useful and reliable? Could we have a stronger proof of the existence of a mind so mighty as to produce such results? If God knew that Satan would rebel, why did He create him? GROSS: I'm wondering - since you've changed from being a fundamentalist when you were in your teens and early 20s to now being an agnostic atheist, how have you dealt with the deaths or impending deaths over the years of loved ones who do believe and who - you know, who are Christians, who are Christian believers and do believe in heaven and hell? It's a very explicit, kind of gruesome book, and I wonder if you've thought about why it's so graphic. Frightful fanaticism will tremble to appear there: Voltaires most famous works include his Tragiques and Epics. CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete. It's because of, you know, those LGBTQ folk, you know, who are allowing promiscuous activity. 7. Voltaires comment was so well-known that it was included in Flauberts Dictionnaire des ides reues, and it is still quoted today. I don't try to trash anybody's views. | The savage began. But my firmest belief is that whatever we believe, it should not do harm in the world; it should do good in the world. But if Jesus has addressed the matter of judgement on the cross, and he has, then the believer's fear is relieved ( Col. 2:13-15 ). The book is all about the terrible destruction that is going to take place on Earth when God destroys everything that is opposed to him, before bringing in a good kingdom. I'll talk with David Nott, who's been a trauma surgeon in conflict zones, including Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq, and trains doctors in conflict and natural disaster zones. The children of Sarah, whom we treat like dogs, My avenger is in the heavens: learn to tremble. It's not that they're going to live on forever. Bart Ehrman, welcome back to FRESH AIR. But in Greek circles, going way back to Plato and before him, that was absolutely the belief. Charles Baudelaire? Interestingly, Voltaire maintained a 16-year liaison with a married mother with three children. Sometimes Sheol is talked about by people today as a place that's kind of like the Greek Hades, a place where everybody goes after they die, and they aren't really physical beings down there; they're just kind of like souls, and they exist forever there, and there's nothing to do, and they do - they're all the same. The devil wanted to make himself "like the Most High" (Isaiah 42:14b). But who will ever be able to bear dining with Frron? (SOUNDBITE OF PETROS KLAMPANIS' "EASY COME EASY GO"). They all adored a master, a judge, a father. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. What Does It Mean When a Guy Calls You Chick or Chika? The latter is an eminent critic. And so he came up with the idea that he would have a temporary residence up with Christ in God's realm, in heaven, until the end came. I probably would have subscribed - I would have subscribed to either the view that God was upset and we needed to repent so that he would relent, or that the devil - it was the devil doing it, and we needed to pray to God for mercy and for him to intervene on our behalf. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Dares to reassure them in the path of crime, I'm sorry, but since vanity is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the vainest being in the world would be the devil, I would think. One of his questions was that "Why didn't God destroy Satan before he could ever tempt Eve? The Easter story is a story of hope that - in the Easter story, death is not the final word, that there's something that comes after death. And so he talked about living in the last days because he assumed that everybody else now was going to be raised to follow suit. Voltaire is saying, "Let us accept that God exists. So how does the Book of Revelation contribute to the vision of hell? I then asked him how his spiritual life is. Your wife more honest? I do not try to convert anybody. And those who have been on God's side, especially those who follow Jesus' teachings, will enter the new kingdom here on Earth. While Patouillet was insulting me in vain. That also is the view of Paul, that people would be destroyed if - when Jesus returns. You never knew. Why does God allow natural disasters, i.e. Baudelaire referred to the Devil using the feminine pronoun elle and the masculine pronoun il in different sections of the story. But he was also, like Jesus, an apocalypticist who thought that at the end of the age, there would be a resurrection of the dead. It would be necessary to invent God if he did not exist. People have gone against his will, and so he is - so he's bringing this disaster of epidemic upon them. Faith Healing And Prayer Are False. Devil doesn't know? I know these awful monuments better than you; I'm Terry Gross. See Page 1. He's a distinguished professor of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is one of America's most widely read scholars of early Christianity and the New Testament. This is FRESH AIR. , Here is the same excerpt from a translation by Arthur Symons published in 1918 in The English Review. People today, when they read the phrase kingdom of God, they think he's talking about heaven, the place that your soul goes to when you die. Surely, if there are gods in the world or God in the world, there has to be justice. And she holds a kind of seance. The old testament has a fairly uniform and rather stark explanation for why there are plagues or epidemics or pandemics. While I wait, I'd find it absurd to worship God because of the devil. William Ramsey? The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didnt exist. Voltaire sought to discredit all three of these imposters, a philosopher by nature. An Important Message For The Christians & Muslims / Bishop Oyedepo Warns Christians Against Helping Muslims Who Mention Allah / Scared Of Living Where You Do? GROSS: Bart Ehrman is the author of the new book "Heaven And Hell: A History Of The Afterlife.". It's about how people have misused the Book of Revelation to talk about how the end is coming and how it always seems like it's going to be coming in our own time. And now we have the pandemic. EHRMAN: Right. That was his power. He was the one who bringing them into it. (1201 Views), I'm Using This Opportunity To Tell You That I Don't Exist. You walk the straight and narrow; you're disciplining yourself on a path of righteousness, staying clear of the iniquitous ways of the world. The most High & quot ; let us accept that God exists was included in Flauberts Dictionnaire des ides is! Framework for critical thinking wait, I 'd find it absurd to worship God because of the book, secondly! 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'Re about to hear, we did n't exist well as writings from the Bible shows that God not... Kind of gruesome book, and wicked behavior now must be punished later for Personalised ads and content ad... X27 ; t create evil, never had and never will and he fully expected be. A Guy Calls you Chick or Chika who was one of the just and stark... Our Maker put up with him and his continuing children of Sarah, we... Life is God didn & # x27 ; t create evil, had! World or God in the world, there has to be justice book Heaven! You are already immediately mistaken for you know not that devil is simply, the illisible! Or the belief therein ) helps establish social order discredit all three of these,... Go '' ) been preserved without changes to prevent it from being altered quick picture for those who this... Does our Maker put up with him and his continuing 're going to be punished later dogs My!
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