Imagine There's No Satan

Should we take Santorum’s word about Satan being real?

2012-02-24T18:50:00.000-06:00

Should we take Santorum’s word about Satan being real?

``Satan has his sights on the United States of America,''

Is Senator Rick Santorum's mantra good enough to settle the issue of what Satan is up to?

Should folks be given a fighting chance to decide if Santorum should be believed about Satan or not?

Generally, it is good to let the people decide for themselves if an entity is real or not. And this is a healthy axiom to adhere to when all sides of a concept are readily served up to the massed. As far as this concerns the question about the existence of God, we pretty much are in the place where enough commentary is available on both sides of the discussion.

Content and conjecture has been widely broadcast so folks today can draw from the resources and begin to make an informed choice. But perhaps the question of Satan's existence is different than the God question for one simple reason. The media consuming masses have long been exposed to the rhetoric, opinion, and conjecture about the reality or non-reality of a God. Most conscious folk today, even have a handle on the theological arguments that percolate around this issue. That is to say, the discussion of “God” has resonated through media and into culture for centuries. But can the same be said for the notorious Satan? Every issue, especially ones that involve morality and biblical doctrine have more than one side. And even a cursory survey of media reveals culture has only been exposed to one side of the Satan pancake.

Most of us are only familiar with the position that says Satan is real. That side of this issue has been well cemented in the collective consciousness of culture. But what about the underside of that pancake, the side with no syrup on it? What about the other side of this story? The discussion that examines why Satan might not be real is rarely if ever served up to the masses. Maybe the argument that displays the option that there is no devil has been poorly represented in culture. I'm not trying to be obtuse here, I am just hoping to give people the information to begin the discussion. Because even though it seems to be a bit of an intellectual secret, facts are, it is only when we are given both sides of a story that we are able to make an informed decision.

Considering that, we can find that Santorum’s quotes are loud and oblique as delivered to our culture. No conjecture there just “InSanitorum” fact that Satan is real. But is Senator Rick right? Who is going to push back on his statement? Does Santorum just get his quote thrown out to the mindless masses and no one exerts effort to confront his thinking? Sure, he looks crazy to millions but there are still other millions who say, "Oh my, Satan is after us, the devil is trying to dismantle our country." And who is going to lend a hand in getting info out to even the playing field of the battle to decide what one is to believe? No one is responding with an opposing statement. Has most of Santorum's audience ever even heard that Lucifer is not a fallen angel? Or are they victim to the historical one-sided pancake? Have most of us been programmed to not even stick a fork under the edge of that pancake to peek at the other side? Has Santorum and his audience ever even been told the context of the passage shows us the Latin word refers to a brilliant King? The language of the Lucifer passage in the Bible simply infers this once powerful, arrogant, and self-deifying King “fell from heaven”, meaning he lost his lofty place of power because of pride? Seems to me the audience has not had the privilege of flipping that pancake over to see how a belief in Satan starts with the Lucifer story but that story is clearly about a man.

The question to ask here though is; Is it an important thing to consider if Santorum’s Satan is real or not? Should we even bother to involve our thoughts in who or what Santorum's Satan is? Well, in light of unsettling comments about an advancing cosmic force by a national leader, I would suggest discussion is important. In the wake of being told by a potential Presidential candidate that Satan is on the hunt for America, I would have to say the value in examining this concept can’t be overstated. Finding the facts in this area is important. It’s about the potential to reduce unnecessary fear. Attempting to discover what's real about Santorum's Satan is about comforting the American people. Many of whom are readily accepting Santorum’s gospel that claims winning comes by fighting Satan. Comfort, peace, and prosperity will result when a nation is release of an unrealistic fear. Is it too much to suggest that we need to spread our underinformed wings a little in this area? I don't think it is. And the message of freedom that results from dismantling a traditional mantra about the Lord of the Underworld is immeasurably beneficial. In fact I found it is pretty clear how liberating re-understanding Satan can be in how one single mom put it to me recently. She said, “When I stopped believing in Satan demons stopped chasing me and my kids stopped having nightmares.”

Let’s extrapolate that realization to measure the value of fact finding to the Satan-believing Americans out there like Rick Santorum. If Americans stop believing in Satan, they can focus on what is holding them back and deal with the real issues…Without misplaced fear, progress will be made in every level of society. I know how challenging it is for the ardent religious person to question their belief in Satan; but many have been brave enough to imagine there’s no Satan. And when they have, they saw a much more balanced, accountable, and intelligent political system. Seeing a world without Satan left then filled with hope for world that they can work with.

So perhaps in time, enough of the mainstream buffet of Devil’s food will contain well prepared dishes of balance and nutrient dense information on the possibility that Satan is not real. As that happens, the masses will flip that pancake over and have a good look before they dig in. The sweet syrup of the Satan pancake won't be as palatable when we all realize we should never eat a flapjack without looking at the other side first. Who is gonna decide for you if Santorum’s Satan is real or not? Let’s be responsible enough to find both sides of the Satan pancake before we fill ourselves up on the syrupy fare that prevents us from hungering for more than what’s on one side.

The How and Why Of A Demonless World

2012-01-15T21:58:00.001-06:00

When I listen to the chatter in spiritual forums and circles it sounds like some of you have had difficult experiences with what many would call demonic activity. Those who tell of these experiences often request I prove to them there is no Satan or demons. I would love to prove that to these poor tormented souls, and I wish that could happen in a brief email response but it can’t. That is one of the reasons I have written a four volume book series that fully treats the topic of Satan, devils, demons and Hell. I assure you, the topic is vast and ancient so it requires a lot of explaining to place the ideas of demons and Satan back into their cultural context and understanding. That said, here is a short synopsis of why Satan and demons are not real.

Prior to the captivity of the Hebrew people in Babylon in about 586 BCE, it was the plan that they have a strict monotheism. This means they were not to believe any other Gods existed but Yahweh. After all, this almighty God supposedly declared he is God, there is none else in all the earth, and there is none like Him. That pre-captivity period involved contact with many pagan cultures. Those cultures believed in multiple good and evil Gods. So the God of the Scriptures addressed this by informing His people that He was the only God. The take on it from the ancient Hebrew perspective was that there is one God and it is that God who does good and evil. In fact, looking at the Hebrew Scriptures we find the word sawtawn, which has become the English word Satan, was never a name for a supernatural entity. Rather, it is simply a noun that in most cases means adversary. Always referring to a human adversary. Therefore, it is humans who are the satan in biblical cases. Humans are typically the adversary to other humans. It is a little known fact that the Lord is also the sawtawn in one sense when Balaam attempts to curse Israel in Number 23. And of demons and devils in the Old Testament, well they never were supernatural spirits, rather when we look at the Hebrew words in the places devil and demon are used we find they are just man-made goat idols. Goat idols were a common worship icon of the ancient pagans. Upon inspection, we find there are no spirit demons at all in the Old Testament. As for evil spirits and lying spirits, they are said to come from Yahweh, which is to say, these things do not come as evil entities from Satan. One place we see this is in 1 Kings when an evil spirit from the Lord comes upon Saul.

Let’s back up a bit and talk about that captivity in Babylon. In time the Persians went to war with Babylon and the Persians took over the entire culture. Now the Hebrews became captives of Persia. The Persians were very tolerant of other religions and the “Jews” in Persia were assimilating nicely to the Persian lifestyle and beliefs. One of the predominant beliefs that came out of the Persian contact was that of a Persian prophet named Zoroaster. This belief developed when Zoroaster had a vision. As a man who despised polytheism, he envisioned the existence of two great gods at battle. There was one good God and there was an evil god who was attempting to thwart the Good God. His vision seemed to take steps toward reducing the number of false gods but effectively he introduced a dualism that can be found in today’s version of Christianity. The bad god of Zoroaster’s vision was the sawtawn (the adversary) of the good God and as assimilation and mystical thinking became more pervasive, this bad god evolved in the thinking of assimilated Jewish leaders. Now the adversary was the sawtawn and began moving out of Persia. The Pharisees carried this idea with them because of their connection to Persian religious men and their authority to teach the masses. As they were beginning to leave Persia, the repatriated Jews did not want to believe their good God could have brought evil on them so they found it convenient to blame the Persian bad God. Evil and adversarial situations were no longer personified, the sawtaw became Satan; and Christianity’s demonology was born.

We even find Isaiah trying to help the Jews to see they are wrong to blame evil on something else with supernatural abilities. He tells the Jews in Isaiah 45:5-7 that Yahweh is the only God and there is none else… that is to say there is no supernatural entity who foists evil upon people.

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

As the Jews were leaving Persia, the idea of a second god-like entity that opposes not only Yahweh but the people of God was deeply entrenched in their belief system. AS briefly mentions it was because one of the main religious leadership groups actually adopted a serious philosophical view of the Persians. If we consider the Pharisees, we find they come from the area of Farsi in Persia where the Persian Magi hailed from. It was these groups who vibrantly developed the idea of a mystical, supernatural evil entity in opposition to God and then brought it out of Persia.

As the Pharisees headed back with the Jews to Jerusalem, they took this powerfully deceptive teaching along with them. They then proceeded to sew their “new” understanding into the religious fabric of the rebuilt Jerusalem. Perhaps the teaching could have fizzled out in that pivotal doctrine-defining era because only a few generations were messed up in Persia. However, we now find these confused folk are soon impacted by the next religion-altering powerhouse. It is at this time the Greek period of influence enters.

Hellenization was the next problem facing the Jews and the mystically minded Pharisees had already imparted their view to the commoners. The ball was rolling and it was gathering speed and size as it rolled down the Greek mountain of Zeus. As you may know, the Greeks had already developed a very complicated and deep structure of Gods and demi-gods. This did a lot for furthering the belief in a secondary god-like being of evil. The unwitting Jewish culture, at least many of the influential ones like the Pharisees and those who were taught by them, now fully embraced the idea that a supernatural opposition to God existed. It once was that only God existed in the Hebrew believer’s thinking and evil happened because of man’s choices or in some cases when Yahweh decided to allow an unseemly situation to develop upon the people. But the clear history shows no evil was attributed to a creature who fell from heaven. And in fact, the famous story about a fallen angel is simply about a king who fell from context. This fact is indisputable in light of a critical examination of the context and the history that unfolds in that story found in Isaiah 14.

The timing of this development places us in the apocalyptic period. Many of the gnostic writings and apocalyptic books were penned during this era. Some find reason to believe in demons and Satan due to what is found in these works. However, the fact is these works were not influenced by Scripture or a Hebraic understanding of God and evil; they were influenced by Greek thinking. None of the Apostles, apostolic fathers, nor Christ ever considered these writings to be Scripture or good for doctrine. As a method to fill in the blanks that were not understood about God and evil by the Hellenized thinker, many mystical and mythical suggestions were applied to Biblical statements. Yet they were statements that were never intended to be mythical, nor mystical.

One of the more potent influences on this topic after the Persian and Greek developments began to be cemented in culture, was the influence of Plato. Plato had a philosophy of demons that did not come from the Scriptures rather it came from the imaginations of the Greek thinker. In a world of major and minor Gods and deities, the Greek philosopher Plato thought many of them that possess god-like attributes and abilities. This, according to Plato, allowed the daimons/demons to enter the realms of the humans. The role of these lesser deities was to affect nature, health, wealth, sleep, love, war, agriculture and pretty much anything that was part of the human world. The minor deities, called daimons, were intermediaries between God and man. Veritable conduits to mediate between the two worlds; little gods themselves. They were in fact both good and evil in the Platonic thinking. A student of Plato has advanced the thinking. Xenocrates furthered the belief that good daimons and evil daimons (called eudaimons and kakodaimons) were present in and around almost every aspect of human life. In time, the Hellenised Jews adopted yet more of the Grecian thinking and began to do more than personify evil, illness, and harm filled circumstances. These Hellenised ones began to point at the sawtawn of their pre-release Persian experience as the source of all evil. God was real to them but the evil being and his demons also became real due to the intricate weaving of mystical thinking, with circumstances that were difficult to accept and situations that were hard to explain or understand. This view of demonology is readily identified by scholars as flowing out of Persian thinking.

The outworking of such a profoundly spiritualised instruction was one that caused demonology to grow even more potent. The creative mind of the first century un-critical peoples, adopted in its entirety the demon-think of ancient Greece and Persia. Then as the Christ operated in the first half of the first century, we see how deliverances were performed and often misunderstood. A removal of a sickness, false doctrine, harmful thought, or mental illness was in fact what was occurring when we hear of casting out demons. The Aramaic understanding of this Aramaic practice provides evidence that shows demons were not supernatural entities. At times when devils were verbally subjecting themselves to Christ or the Apostles, we find a “devil” in that instance to be the person with an insanity or the false teacher who taught demon (false teachings) .

However, because of the proliferation of the false idea of supernatural demons, people all over Christendom are compelled to miss-explain their experiences. As is found in an article about the anointed cherub, one error requires others to support it.

An inaccurate assumption often requires other inaccuracies to support it. As a result, the real truth becomes obscure. Scripture is supposed to be the basis for doctrine, but much of what is being taught should really be considered theory, because many doctrines taught in the Modern Churches of Christianity are in fact false, and others, have over many years, become corrupted.

As for the belief that demons manifest in various ways and effect the peaceful existence of humans, there is a lot to understood in that area. The power of the mind to sense and feel what it believes has led to many demonic experiences. I would suggest the experience is real and what the person feels is real but the source of that experience and feeling is not what they suppose it to be. Either the seeming presence of demonic forces is explained by some natural or physical cause or it is little more than the human psyche, the indoctrinated mind at work. What is to blame for demonic encounters? It is solely a false doctrine that corrupts the thinking. If this doctrine gets corrected, demonic activity ceases to exist.

In realizing that all demonology begins with the foundational doctrine of Lucifer, then what is provable in that foundational doctrine? The answer is revealed, that clearly based on literary context, Lucifer is only a human king, a man and not a cosmic entity. Knowing the foundation of Satan and demons is not there but is a story about a man, we then can begin to rebuild the doctrine of Satan and demons in a correct manner. We then are led to a demonless world that reveals our experiential understanding of demons is baseless. We no longer force the Bible to fit our experiences rather we learn to see how our experiences fit the Bible. The English language and the present day meanings of satan, devils, and demons betrays the truth of the terms that underlies the English. Our only response should be to point to us as the problem for sin and evil and to recognize how our mind manifests our beliefs. No child should ever be led to believe an unbeatable, supernatural opponent waits under the bed or in hell for them and when that ideal comes to pass…we will find all who were once harassed by demons, will no longer be chased by these devilish minions. As one woman put it not long ago in response to my work, “When I stopped believing in demons they stopped chasing me.”

The true exorcism is not performed to remove a supernatural being in a room, closet, or person; it is the removal of the false beliefs that control the person. When true exorcism occurs, freedom can truly be had.

Please consider reviewing some of my work through www.imaginenosatan.com of via my internet radio show at www.blogtalkradio.com/jrbrayshaw

All the Best

JimJr

Does A Lie Told Long Enough Become The Truth?

2011-12-28T10:25:00.000-06:00

Does A Lie Told Long Enough Become The Truth?

Do you like lies? Lies are all around us and come in many forms and sizes. There are white lies and then of course there must be black lies, the really big lies. Children lie to their parents, parents to their children, employees to bosses and husbands to wives. But what is the most powerful of lies? I would have to say it is the lie we perpetuate by retelling something untrue to each other. This happens when an idea or belief has migrated to the substructures of collective consciousness. We trap ourselves in the lie by retelling it over and over and failing to explore if that idea or belief is true or not. If we consider the power that comes from repeating a lie long enough so that it is believed as a truth, then perhaps some of what forms us as individuals might be lies. And when it comes to our beliefs, some of the most basic Christian teachings may really be lies. They sound good in casual conversation but when taken to task, some of these ideas could just be cleverly designed theology that has become equivalent to a mantra. By mantra, I mean a theological positions that has been taught and preached so regularly, that it is cemented in the mind of the believer. These mantras are firmly cemented not because of diligent searching on your part or the part of the hearer. They are now concrete beliefs for you and I because of the inexorable repetition with which they have been heard throughout life. They are brainwashing material simply due to the persistence with which the message has been repeated in your hearing. It is these untruths, lies in fact, that have been told long enough, that they are truth as far as most people can tell.

Oh So Subtle..

In some areas, you and I have not chosen our beliefs with sound decision-making and critical scrutiny. Our beliefs have been programmed for us. We have been the victims of a grand and subtle programming scheme. More confusing than a skilled shell game, we are victims in a sense to a scheme that has gone unrecognized because our beliefs are so deeply a part of us that we don’t even question them. One such shell game is the recurring theme that claims there is a fallen angel called “Satan.” This lie has had the effect of programming the beliefs of many individuals. We see indicators that many people in Christianity today have accepted the concept without question. Many of the followers of Christianity make casual use of terms that pin the blame on “Satan” for so many things. Many Christians who think they understand who and what “Satan” is, readily make statements about people or situations that attribute activities or incidents to “Satan.” With seeming certainty, Satan is at the root of many issues, believers will candidly comment on how an activity or situation is guided by demonic forces. Satan or the devil is blamed where in fact, we should see the blame ought to fall on a person who has made choices that were not the best choices to make in a situation.

I once dealt with a family who was having trouble with their teenager. Typical teenager stuff really. Rebellion, odd behaviors, drinking, drugs, irrational outbursts. But this family felt their 15 year old’s experimental drug and alcohol use was a direct result of Satan influencing their child. No child of theirs would voluntarily pursue such atrocities on his own, so indeed the child must be influenced by a satanic force. Or at least that was their conclusion. The result of this belief was to take the responsibility for the child’s actions out of the hands of the child and parents and into the hands of an external source they believed to be Satan.

This belief takes form in yet another less than cavalier musing of many followers of the Catholic and Protestant versions of Christianity. A popular scapegoat character is often identified as a spirit of the anti-Christ. Although I won’t go into detail here, but this idea submits there exists a coercive, malevolent force, compelling a person to engage in sin or an evil act. A force that toils in the spirit realm to thwart the One good God and distort the truth in order to remove precious souls from God’s Kingdom. The ingrained acceptance of a cosmic “Satan” that has worked its way into the psyche of religious culture today has grown to epidemic proportions. A belief in Satan’s worldwide influence has become so prevalent, that according to the “faithful” there is a constant battle, seemingly an unwinnable one from today’s perspective, against the Satan who is responsible for all evil. One example of this thinking was seen when the World Trade Towers collapsed from aircraft being crashed into them on September 11^th, 2001. Some who witnessed this catastrophe claimed they actually saw an image of “Satan” in the smoke of the burning structure. And who was responsible for such an atrocity? Well, to many it was obviously Satan.

The belief Muslim terrorists serving Satan had performed the vicious attacks was underneath the statement that “Satan” could be seen that day in the flames. But was it Satan? Did a supernatural evil entity have anything at all to do with these events? Is there a side of supposed satanic activities that we are not seeing? Who or what is this Satan and who is working for him anyway? To God-fearing people in North America it is clear that our enemies are in league with Satan. But that is up to debate if you talk to folks from other countries. If it were Muslims who orchestrated the attack then what is their view on whose side Satan is on. Let’s not forget, the gods of one religion have always become the demons of opposing religions. And that is the way it has always played out in history. So even though “we” believe Satan inspires radical Islam to acts of terror, radical Islam typically holds the belief it is “we” who are inspired by Satan. The contrasting view is that any government or military organization that opposes their culture, particularly America, is being led by “Satan” or is “The Great Satan.” If both the Americans and the Muslims claim Satan inspires the other side, then I guess Satan must be busy on both sides of the fence.

Whose Side Is Satan On Anyway?

Satan cannot be guiding both sides of a conflict. If Satan opposes what Satan is doing to annihilate the other side, his kingdom will fall. It is more likely both sides are operating out of their own collective heart of wickedness and are driven by their own desires for power and money. Nonetheless, all who seem to adhere to a Satan doctrine typically acquired their belief in a Satan through being told again and again that “Satan” is out there. Quite simply, the repeated false teachings we hear eventually become our reality and what we believe as truth is rarely, if ever, truly investigated to determine if it is the whole truth or not. The phenomenon of being sensitized, or perhaps you might say it is a process of being desensitized, to a specific thought, statement, or idea that is constantly at work in our lives, plays a huge part in being unable to accept anything that is different from the truth we already have accepted. Our beliefs have become part of us on so many levels. We are so entrenched in our behaviors and beliefs that the only way to combat the brainwashing we have undergone is to embark on a serious exploration of a belief. For some of us, in order to move away from a lifelong entrenched belief in Satan, it is almost to the point of submitting to a de-programming. Therefore, I would have to say the reader who quickly rejects my theories without questioning their own is brainwashed already. It seems what is likely to be accomplished by honestly exploring the idea of Satan and the Devil, is that you and I will eventually be de-programmed. In the healthiest sense, we are then free from the oppressive chains of our entrenched thoughts and beliefs that have been erroneously planted in our minds. We will find that in letting go of a belief in Satan and demons, we have effectively been exorcised. Not because the belief is from demons; rather the belief itself is the demon.

How Can Anyone Think Satan Is A God?

2011-12-02T13:29:00.000-06:00

"How do you come to the conclusion that Satan or the devil is either a God, or he doesn't exist?"

I'm afraid that after almost 2000 years of Catholic and Roman influence on interpreting the Bible, there is no short answer to the question. At least not one that addresses the necessary elements of the issue.

Don’t get your onion pages all balled up in a knot, I have never said that the Devil of Christianity is equal to God. I am saying that if the devil is real he is a God according the Biblical definition of a God. Here is how it rolls out in this view. But before I get into this question I offer a few thoughts.

I know we are engaged in a really intriguing discussion here but I just want to ask you to consider that there are hundreds of resources available that deal with the origin of Hell, Satan, and how a belief that Satan is real is to believe in two Gods. Especially in the sense that many believe Satan can thwart the good God, So please continue researching and I am happy to help if you would like. I challenge you to use the same powers of deductive reasoning and inductive study to explore yet another doctrine that may or may not be erroneous. I and many others have been on the “dark” side of the Satan fence before. I was once a staunch defender of a literal satan and experienced hundreds of “manifestations” of dark evil power.

I am certain; correct me if I am wrong, that you and your faith group have found doctrines of mainstream Christianity that you do not agree with. So why not explore this doctrine to see if it is agreeable to the rest of Christendom and if it is agreeable to the Bible. I know you have a lot of questions, after all, most of us have been spoon fed Satan since we were old enough to be afraid of the dark. I am happy to answer any questions you have. I do find however, many Christians, make statements with absolute resolve and put forth questions expecting they already have the right answers. So then, upon being given another possible answer for the statement or question that claims The Devil is real, he or she simply ignores the point and throws out another "Well what about this Jim?

I assure you, when one takes the time to set their Greco-Roman view of the Scriptures on the shelf and peer at the ancient writings through the cultural, historical, literary, social, and religious lens of the first century Aramaic culture, he or she will see how it is possible. It is possible that the idea of Satan being what Christendom asserts he is today, was not the understanding of the speakers or authors of the New Testament. Jesus in fact, had a very different view of this Satan than we have been given today. I deal with this extensively in Volume 3 of my work, “Who's The Devil Jesus Knew?”

Throwing Scripture Around Doesn’t Prove Satan is Real

Now, one can throw bible verses at this all day thinking the English reading of those verses settles the matter, but those verses can be explained. When we take English words and find the Greek definition, but neglect to trace it back to the Hebraic thinking of the first century Jewish Apostles and Messiah, we miss the original authorial intent. I agree this is serious if I am "deceived" but there is something extremely emotionally difficult for folks to accept I am explaining that The God of creation and His Messiah are the only God. I am not discrediting the Creator, the Messiah, or the Bible in any way, this is simply explaining how there is only One God. And it is not the Bible that becomes unreliable in all this, it is man who has been unreliable in understanding and interpreting a 2000 year old idea that was filtered through many languages and cultures and is now positioned as one of the major doctrines of the religious sects. Now on to the original question I quoted above.

How can I say the devil is a God if you believe he is real?

Let's go back to the pre-Exodus time, after all, Paul said all the "Scriptures", the Old Testament in his view, is where we get doctrine from. Back before the Exodus, the Hebrew people had a father, Abraham. Abraham came from Mesopotamia, a place that was populated by many false Gods created by the hands of men. Then, Yahweh showed himself to Abraham. Abraham left town, went out on his own to go after this One True God. The interesting point here is that the many man-made gods of Abraham's father Terah, were void of any reality. They were believed to have powers but , as the Bible says, there were nothing. These imaginations were non-existent but because the people believed in them, the Creator called them “gods”. We find that even though they didn't exist as a supernatural force, the fact that the pagans ascribed God-like attributes to these things made them "gods". Many of them were worshipped by the masses and many of them weren't. This did not change the label the Creator gave to these non-entities; they were still gods in the people's thinking. Deuteronomy begins to address this, by stating these "gods" which are made up in the minds of people, do not literally exists;

Deu 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Anything that cannot hear, eat, or smell, is something that does not have any animated qualities. If we jump right to Revelations we find the same thing stated about the idols;

"Rev 9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: "

John lets us know that these things, which many felt possess power to affect this world, do not exist. Something that cannot walk, hear, or see does not exist.

So how does this relate to Satan?

Good question! The word for devil in John’s writing is the word daimonion...demon. And in this context it is a man-made concept that has no literal existence, power, or form. The idea of Satan came from a composite of ancient Egyptian lore, ie. Set. This is only one example that the idea of Satan was originally an idea of another God. The whole concept was built on throughout many other pagan cultures such as the Babylonia culture and the Persian religious teaching. A made of thinking that expressed there is One Good God and there is a second, weaker but very influential evil God. The adaptation of these myths flowed out of Persia and the Pharisees adopted the thinking of the Persian magi on this. It is in this period, Post Persia but Pre- Christian era, that the Apocalyptic writings started to flourish and an entire system of demonology was developed. Oddly enough, religion can’t even agree on everything about the Satan they claim is real. Today, there are various ideas and doctrinal differences on who and what Satan is and what exactly he can do. Some believe Satan can read thoughts and others assert that he can't. This is only one example of the divergent views.....................

‘Hell’-enisation Sure Helped The Cause Of Satan

As Hellenised Judaism developed, the thinking that the One Good God was not responsible for the evil that happened to His children proliferated. Due to this view it was thought therefore, the bad that has happened to God’s Sons and daughters must be this other evil God's doing. Eventually, Christianity began to develop, yet the influence of the Hellenised religious leaders was strong. The idea of this second, powerful, supernatural being, was embraced by a people who were completely disconnected from the Hebraic understanding. An understanding that was buried in hundreds of years of religious instruction under the watchful eye of Pharisaical teachers.

The word sawtawn, never meant a cosmic entity to the Pre-Persia people of God but soon the "adversary", always referring to either God or another Human, was given a capital “S” so to say. In taking personification of evil to the next level, sawtawn the noun became Satan the proper-noun. The personification of evil became a literal entity in the fecund minds of the commoners. Looking back on all this, we can see the idea of Satan blossomed out of other belief systems. Satan can be shown to be an idea of another God that developed in other non-Israelite nations. Now, when we see that the Hebrew people leaving Persia had an idea that there was another God who was responsible for evil, we can find the issue addressed by God's prophet Isaiah. It is at this pivotal time in the historical development of Satan that Isaiah tells the people repeatedly, there is one God and none else. This is when and why he says, “He (Yahweh) is God there is none else, and He creates evil;"

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. "

The people found another idea of a God to blame evil on but the Prophet told them no, there is no other God. In this context, Yahweh is responsible for all this "evil". Those awful things that happen Isaiah asserts, the Lord says He does them. Don’t blame an evil cosmic being for the evils that have occurred....

…So now, we have a people, believing a second lesser-God, not necessarily worshipping this entity, but ascribing the things God does to this man-imagined being. In response, the LORD tells them that this thing does not exist...and that he is the only God. We find that this Persian idea of a secondary evil entity was called a God by the Persians, it is called a God by the Prophet Isaiah and by Yahweh, the Only God. Just to be clear about how powerful or important they thought the evil God was, one would not hesitate to claim that God is “The God” and therefore either Satan himself or a Demon, are just lesser Gods. This is where we can use the full counsel of God to figure out how Satan is a God if he is real.

Who Knew That There Were Lots of False “Gods”?

Let's say everyone in the New Testament era had heard about these other lesser Gods. And let's say they heard some of them were supposedly good and some of them were evil. In that thought one must admit, they are gods. So in time, Paul found he needed to deal with this. even though the "Christians" didn't worship, or hold these other Gods as equal to Yahweh, Paul let them know what they really were. In their minds, they were literal gods, also called demons. But by having been ascribed powers like God, they were gods by definition. .... We learn from the Bible that the Gods of other nations were demons, we know that the character of satan, called by other names such as Beelzebub, was a god in other nations. And we are told that the prevailing attitude to oppose the Creator, is the god of this world. In the New Testament this anti-God attitude is called Satan. We then find that these man-made gods, which are demons and therefore includes Satan, are nothing, they cannot see, hear, and walk. Yet if the Satan of Christendom is real, he can do all those things. To say a false God is nothing is juxtaposed against the one true God who is living and can see, hear, and walk. …………….Notice in Psalms that the nation’s Gods are demons; therefore the demons, including Satan, are labelled as Gods for those who ascribe power to them. Remember, not al false Gods were worshipped by the Israelites or other nations, yet they are all called Gods by the Bible. You do not have to “worship” or “serve” Satan in the Christian sense of these words in order to be seen as believing in more than one God.

For all the gods of the nations are demons;... Psa 96:5

And notice aging that the demons, including Satan who is and was a "God" of the other nations, are said to be nothing…which means they do not exist in reality...Demons are gods, and idols are demons...therefore idols and demons are gods and that makes Satan a God. Now to recap what the Creator has to say on this…He says the other Gods do not exist, and that He is the only God…there is none else.

Although it is said Satan is a fallen angel, according to a misrepresentation of the word Lucifer and twisting the context of the Isaiah 14:12 passage; he is by definition a demon, a god , and an idol... And Paul says he does not exist in identifying the idols are devils and they are nothing …

....1Co 10:20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

Prior to this he makes the statement that there is only one entity that can ever interact with creation;

1Co 8:4 As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol [demon, false god such as Satan] is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

So the idols are demons, demons are gods and yet somehow they are nothing

So What Are The Other Gods?

In closing, the other gods were the ideas of real supernatural beings that were thought to be able to interact with and affect the world. With this in mind we cannot ignore the fact they "are not" which is taken to mean they do not exist. In the dangerous field of taking things one reads in the Bible literally, why don't we take God's statement about “Him only existing” as literal? I would submit that the words which show the idea of idols, devils, demons, and Satan to be Gods, and the words that come from Yahweh claiming He is the only God and there is none else, should be taken literally.......

......(Isa 45:6 KJV) That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Below is a brief quote to represent this is far from a new idea, it is just one that has been shelved by Christianity because we have thought our idea of satan to be correct up until recently.........

"Kimchi, from Saadiah Gaon, observes, that this is said against those that assert two gods, the one good, and the other evil; whereas the Lord is the Maker of good and evil, and therefore must be above all; and it is worthy of observation, that the Persian Magi, before Zoroastres, held two first causes, the one light, or the good god, the author of all good; and the other darkness, or the evil god, the author of all evil…"

LoveIt ....JimJr

What If I Told You There Is No Satan…Would You Believe Me?

2011-11-07T21:38:00.001-06:00

On the Imagine There’s No Satan Show and in my books we take a good hard look at a number of inconsistent and contrived doctrines. The primary one we deal with is the question of Satan’s reality. Is Satan real? For some of us the answer is no for others the answer is I don’t know and still for others the answer is Satan definitely does exist. Folks, if you have not taken more than a few moments to think about the existence or non-existence of Satan then I want to invite you to keep searching. On our internet radio show we cover a ton of proofs about Satan’s non-existence so consider clicking through our archives and do explore other resources on this topic. The fact is you will not get all your answers nor be convinced that Satan is not real from listening to one or two broadcasts or from reading one or two articles about Satan. The idea that Satan is real is so entrenched in culture and religion that it is not possible to convince someone in a thought or two or even in an hour or two. But millions have found that one by one the lessons about Satan that have been propagated for centuries can be dismantled and lead to showing why Satan is not real.And if your questions or beliefs about Satan are not answered in the a brief show or two, then a good place for you to get some compelling answers is my lates book, "Who's The Devil Jesus Knew - Explaining Satan In The Gospels"

There are dozens, even hundreds of proofs I could share with you but you might still want to find more, hear more, or understand more than one or two proofs that are talked about in a short article or broadcast. You are smart people and I don’t expect to convince you in any way in a short time….after all it took months of exploring to even begin to see that my belief about Satan was mistaken. So is there one thing I could tell you that would change your mind? I doubt it. But the claim that Satan is not real has been backed up by hundreds of biblical scholars and a litany of proofs that find there support in the Bible.

Even if I tell you that Lucifer is not an angel who fell from heaven; rather the word Lucifer was referring to a great Babylonian King. This ancient Biblical king became so wealthy and powerful that he neglected the Creator and decidedly pursued even more greatness on his own and for his own ego…. This Lucifer, this king who thought he was a god, fell from his lofty position, a position we see in Isaiah written as “fallen from heaven.”

Even if I tell you that the satan in Job is not a supernatural angel who fell from the skies many years before, rather it is an adversarial group of men, sons of God. Saying they came “before the LORD” means these are men who showed up at the Temple. These men showed up at the temple and talked about wanting to see Job destroyed because of their jealousy….We can find this agrees with the proverb that anger is cruel but jealousy who can withstand says the Proverbs. even if your heard this, would you believ there is no Satan?

Even if I tell you that Zechariah had a vision of a Satan but the context of his vision reveals that his satan was also was a group of jealous men who did not want Joshua, a sinner in their eyes, to be installed as the high priest. The Temple was being reconstructed after they left the Babylonian captivity and the sinister satans of this vision didn't like the choice for new management. Because the word sawtawn just means adversary, we are able to learn the vision is about the adversarial men who judged another man’s worthiness to act as a priest.

Even if I tell you that the anointed cherub in Ezekiel 28 is not an angel who was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, rather that the subject of that label again is a man. In fact the passage says repeatedly you are a man. The subject of the anointed cherub passage is but a human King who like the King in Isaiah who fell from heaven, thought himself to be a god and was then destroyed by men sent by God…just as the promise by Yahweh said would occur.

Even if I told you one writer in the bible says god caused David to count the tribes the Israel while another writer claims it was Satan. Would you beleive Satan is not real? Even if I explained how this is not a contradiction because the word satan in Hebrew, sawtawn, simply means adversary and God was the sawtawn who was making things adverse for David. Would you consider the possibility that we might be wrong on who ro what Satan has traditioanlly said to be? That story can be found in 2nd Samuel 24 and 1st Chronicles 21.

Even if I told you;

• God sends evil spirits into people such as we see in the story of King Saul,

• and the devil that the Israelites wrongly constructed and worshipped in the wilderness were simply manufactured goat idols like the nations around them ,

• and if I told you the ancient Hebrew believers did not believe in a literal Satan,

• and the Aramaic understanding of such words as satan and demon spoke of adversarial people, ideas, health conditions, or mental conditions.

You still might find a need to explore further the idea that Satan is not real.

Or even if I explained how;

• Yeshua taught that the heart is where evil comes from,

• and that Peter was called Satan with a capital S in the English versions but to be a Satan according to the Messiah simply meant you are not for the things of God but are for the things of man……

• And even if I explained how the Temptation in the Wilderness, the testing if you will, was actually a typical process that any messianic candidate would undergo at the hands of the Pharisees. These Pharisees were an official arm of the religious leaders who were responsible to test Messianic candidates. This is shown in history that there was a group of religious men who were called the Sicariote Priests or the "Demon Priests."

Even in the face of being shown all these things that are mentioned above, you still may decide to continue your inquiry about who and what Satan is.

I could tell you about the terms devil, satan , old serpent ,beast, and dragon in the Revelation. I might explain how those who had ears to hear understood the coded language of the exiled apostle John. The old serpent is the ancient false religious mindset that started in ancient Babylon or even refers back to Adam and Eve’s agreement with their evil inclination in the Garden…The beast is the oppressive Roman regime of John’s day, the satanas is the adverse religo-politco system of Judaism in the first century and the dragon is another reference to the anti-God religious systems that we found in the Pharaoh of Egypt…a man who was even called a dragon.

Even if I showed you that the Greek idea of devil, hell, demons, and Satan was imposed on the concepts that the people of the bible believed would you reconsider your Christain view on Satan? Or waht if it is true that the ancient pre-cursor religion to Christianity, grabbed hold of a Persian idea in the 6th century before Christ. The fruit of adopting an ancient Persian philosophy was the unwitting development of the second god that you and I are told is Satan today…

Even if I told you that by believing in Satan and also believing in God you and I are not a monotheistic people, rather we are then dualistic at best, according to the Bible, I don’t blame you for still needing to figure things out as to whether Satan is real.

I say all that to say this… a single show an hour or so long, or a single statement cannot convince a seeker that Satan is a construct of human minds and culture. A single article that speaks to one or two points in the dilemma of who Satan is will not likely be the ballot that swings the vote. What I will say though is that we have the privilege of hearing an argument and then searching to see if there are other reasons to add to the info. Each time you bring yourself to search out the solution to one of your questions you will be getting yet another reason, another proof if you will, that displays how this could be possible. You will take hold of one more piece of the puzzle as to how it is possible that Satan is not real. In time, we ought to be able to add together all the individual proofs and come to a final solution as to the reality or non-reality of Satan. Once we find the possibility that no Satan exists, we are then able to hear some interesting instruction from the Apostles that points to evil and wickedness as coming from inside of us. Instruction that leads us to understand Satan is not real and has no influence on humanity. We will see the Apostles teach us to battle the fleshly lusts that come from within. Lusts and desires that when concieved lead to death according James 1:14.We will hear the Apostles tell us that sin dwells within and our lusts and our own desires, not satanic influence, lead to sin. We will hear the Messiah speak the truth about our heart as the seat of wickedness. And in hearing that, we will find even the writers of the New Testament letters did not recognize that Satan was real and is the cause of sin and wickedness.

After all, we will find that sin entered the world through a man and not through an angel that went rogue. And in so seeing, it is then possible to begin to accept that Satan is not literal and evil is not an external spirit force that cajoles, persuades, justifies, and deceives. RATHER, evil is always inside of you and me and we need to accept it, embrace it, learn how to manage it, and pursue overcoming it?

When we are dealing with the Satan, we are dealing with the adversarial inclination, the internal potential to choose evil….inside of us. And that my friends will leave us with a solid grasp on who God is and who we are to Him as well as displaying that this entire journey, the entire human position, condition, and constitution…is only influenced by man, the Creator and you…You and I do not have to contend with a supernatural beast who knows everything about your portfolio and can perform feats that will disrupt your life and steal your freedom to be human. We do not contend with a cosmic evil force who has supernatural powers and abilities. An adversary who has resources that will make our head spin and is so far and above anything you or I as mere humans might be able to contend with. No folks! We contend with only ourselves and choose to submit either to the good in us or to the evil in us.

If you want to get rid of Satan perhaps you can start by finding the satan…and a quick look in the mirror will reveal the satan is us.

Judgment Day…The Signs Are Everywhere BUT It’s Not Happening on May 21st

2011-05-11T20:22:00.000-06:00

Judgment Day…The Signs Are Everywhere

Saskatoon, Chile, New Mexico, New Jersey. The signs of the end day are everywhere, but they just happen to be billboards placed all over the world by a para-church group who claim Judgment Day is on May 21^st, 2011.

Is it possible that the end is on our doorstep? Is it likely the return of the Messiah with the rapture of millions and the resurrection of the dead could be just days away? If not now then when is this day of dread going to happen?

Aside from the obvious lack of magnitudinous end-time events and with barely a trickle of people “coming to Jesus” these days, there are a few very simple reasons why doomsday is not going to happen on May 21^st.

We can get into the many inaccuracies of the Harold Camping and Family Bible Radio Camp, the founders of this move to ring in the judgment day, another time but let’s talk about one of the simple reasons why we will all wake up to a beautiful sunny May 22^nd.

Do I believe this prophesied end-time activity is yet to come? Well that is neither here nor there, but I am about to let you in on the biggest and most simple secret to help you see why it’s not May 21^st.And I’ll give you a heads up to help you see it before it comes…without the help of the end time fanatics sewing curiosity and confusion throughout the world. What is indisputable about the Day of Judgment is when this unique day in the history of the world will be. Judgement Day will take place on a certain day that is definitely not in May of 2011. To get info on when that “day” is we need look no further than first century Israel to find out what the believers of that period knew of the coming “Great and terrible day of the Lord.”

Have you ever heard a trumpet sound? Not the tantalizing rifs of the amazing Louis Armstrong, I mean the kind of a blast that gets the hair on the back of your neck to stand at attention. The kind of infrasound note that makes you feel like your heart could explode if you got any closer to it. This trumpet blast I am talking about is no common toot on a brass horn; rather it is a blast of intention and a blast to signal a momentous occasion. Okay, so I think we understand what kind of a blast I am talking about, but why does it matter you ask? Well to put it simply, the Bible shows us that this crazy day of future mayhem will take place when the trumpet sounds. Don’t take my word for it; look at how it is put in the New Testament;

Matthew 24:31 KJVA And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

1Corinthians 15:52 KJVA In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Now I know everyone has their own interpretation for the words of the bible and I’m no different, but the clue to figuring out when this Judgement Day is, comes by figuring out what the trumpet in the above verses is. Before I go on let me show you one more verse that identifies how the first century apostles thought Judgment Day would be on a day with an astounding trumpet blast;

1Th 4:16 KJVA For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Trumpets weren’t blown willy-nilly in ancient Israel and I assure you the May 21^st suggestion for a day of judgment is miles off from the day when the all-important Last Trump is blown, that day happens to be in early fall every year. Here’s the gist of this special day of trumpet blasts that is thought to be a big closer for God at some point in the future…

Trumpets Reveal the End and The Beginning

In ancient Israel the year ended with the sound of a trumpet being blown. This was known as the Last Trump. And it came to be the one clarion call to let all the nations know that the festival for the New Year was starting. It’s called Rosh Hashanah (called The Feast of Trumpets if we translate the Hebrew language). This trumpet was based on an ancient calendar we no longer use and it was blown at the end of the year when the Crescent New Moon was first witnessed by priests in Israel. The fact is, no one knew the day or the hour that the crescent moon might appear so special protocols and signals for announcing it to the nation were implemented.

This special day on the ancient biblical calendar held a litany of profound themes for the observant. Rosh Hashanah was the day of the coronation of Kings for Israel and other nations, it was the day of remembrance, the day of the creation of the world, and it was to be the day where the righteous were written in the book of life and the wicked were assigned their place in death. All these things and many more were said to occur on the day of the last trump, including the day of the resurrection of the dead that so many Christian groups speak about.

Now this is only one reason why we aint goin’ skyward on the 21^st of May but it’s a biggee. The return of Christ, at least according to a correct historical understanding of the Bible, has to take place on the day of the Last Trump, the Biblical festival of Trumpets. If we see the clues in the Bible in the way a first century hearer would see them then there is no question, May 21^st of this year is not even a candidate for Judgement Day because it is not Rosh Hashanah on any calendar. All we have to do is hang on until some future Rosh Hashanah to get our share of the famous Judgement Day trumpet blast. So if you are packing your bags to head to the clouds on May 21^st, you’ll only be deafened by the silence. That day is not Judgment day any more than it is Rosh Hashanah. So don’t be surprised when there is no trumpet sounding to let you know you’ve made it to glory…or not.

What If I Told You There Is No Satan…Would You Believe Me?

2011-03-26T22:23:00.000-06:00

Listen to internet radio with James R Brayshaw on Blog Talk Radio

On the Imagine There’s No Satan Show and in my books we take a good hard look at a number of inconsistent and contrived doctrines.

The primary one we deal with is the question of Satan’s reality. Is Satan real? For some of us the answer is no for others the answer is I don’t know and still for others the answer is Satan definitely does exist. Folks, if you have not taken more than a few moments to think about the existence or non-existence of Satan then I want to invite you to keep searching. On our internet radio show we cover a ton of the proofs about Satan’s non-existence so consider clicking through our archives and do explore other resources on this topic. The fact is you will not get all your answers nor be convinced that Satan is not real from listening to one or two broadcasts or from reading one or two articles about Satan. The idea that Satan is real is so entrenched in culture and religion that it is not possible to convince someone in a thought or two or even in an hour or two. But millions have found that one by one the lessons about Satan that have been propagated for centuries can be dismantled and lead to showing why Satan is not real.

There are dozens even hundreds of proofs I could share with you but you might still want to find more, hear more, or understand more than one or two proofs that are talked about in a short article or broadcast. You are smart people and I don’t expect to convince you in any way in a short time….after all it took months of exploring to even begin to see that my belief about Satan was mistaken. So is there one thing I could tell you that would change your mind? I doubt it.

Even if I tell you that Lucifer is not an angel who fell from heaven rather the word Lucifer was referring to a great Babylonian King who became so wealthy and powerful that he neglected the Creator and decidedly pursued even more greatness on his own and for his own ego…. This Lucifer, this king who thought he was a god, fell from his lofty position a position we see in Isaiah written as “fallen from heaven.” Even if I tell you that the satan in Job is not a supernatural angel who fell from the skies many years before, rather it is an adversarial group of men, sons of God. Saying they came “before the LORD” means these are men who showed up at the Temple. When these men showed up at the temple talked about wanting to see Job destroyed because of their jealousy….anger is cruel but jealousy who can withstand says the Proverbs.

Even if I tell you that Zechariah had a vision of a Satan but the context of his vision reveals that his satan was also was a group of jealous men who did not want Joshua, a sinner in their eyes, to be installed as the high priest when the Temple was reconstructed after they left the Babylonian captivity. Because the word sawtawn just means adversary we are able to learn the vision is about the adversarial men who judged another man’s worthiness to act as a priest.

Even if I tell you that the anointed cherub in Ezekiel 28 is not an angel who was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, rather that the subject of that label there again is a man. In fact the passage says repeatedly you are a man. The subject of the anointed cherub passage is but a human King who like the King in Isaiah who fell from heaven, thought himself to be a god and was then destroyed by men sent by God…just as the promise by Yahweh said would occur.

Even if I told you one writer in the bible says god caused David to count the tribes the Israel while another writer claims it was Satan and I explained how this is not a contradiction because the word satan in Hebrew, sawtawn, simply means adversary and God was the sawtawn who was making things adverse for David. That story can be found in 2nd ssamuel24 and 1st Chronicles 21.

Even if I told you;

• God sends evil spirits into people such as we see in the story of King Saul,

• and the devil that the Israelites wrongly constructed and worshipped in the wilderness were simply manufactured goat idols like the nations around them ,

• and If I told you the ancient Hebrew believers did not believe in a literal Satan,

• and the Aramaic understanding of such words as satan and demon spoke of adversarial people, ideas, health conditions, or mental conditions.

You still might find a need to explore further the idea that Satan is not real.

Or even if I explained how;

• Yeshua taught that the heart is where evil comes from,

• and that Peter was called Satan with a capital S in the English versions but to be a Satan according to the Messiah simply meant you are not for the things of God but are for the things of man……

• And even if I explained how the Temptation in the wilderness, the testing if you will, was actually a typical process that any messianic candidate would undergo at the hands of the Pharisees. An official arm of the religious leaders who were responsible to test Messianic candidates. This is shown in history that there was a group of religious men who were called the Sicariote Priests or the Demon Priests.

You still may decide to extend your inquiry about who and what Satan is.

I could tell you about the terms devil, satan , old serpent ,beast, and dragon in the Revelation. I might explain how those who had ears to hear understood the coded language of the exiled apostle John. The old serpent is the ancient false religious mindset that started in ancient Babylon or even refers back to Adam and Eve’s agreement with their evil inclination in the Garden…The beast is the oppressive Roman regime of John’s day, the satanas is the adverse religo-politco system of Judaism in the first century and the dragon is another reference to the anti-God religious systems that we found in the Pharaoh of Egypt…a man who was even called a dragon.

Even if I showed you that the Greek idea of devil, hell, demons, and Satan was imposed on the true concepts that the people of the bible believed or that the ancient pre-cursor religion to Christianity grabbed hold of a Persian idea in the 6th century before Christ and unwittingly developed the second god that you and I are told is Satan today…

Even if I told you that by believing in Satan and also believing in God you and I are not a monotheistic people, rather we are then dualistic at best according to the Bible, I don’t blame you for still needing to figure things out as to whether Satan is real.

I say all that to say this… a single show an hour or so long cannot convince a seeker that Satan is a construct of human minds and culture. A single article that speaks to one or two points in the dilemma of who Satan is will not likely be the ballot that swings the vote. What I will say though is that we have the privilege of hearing an argument and then searching to see if there are other reasons to add to the info. Each time you bring yourself to search out the solution to one of your questions you will be getting yet another reason, another proof if you will, that displays how this could be possible. And a piece of the puzzle as to how it is possible that Satan is not real. Then we ought to be able to add together all the individual proofs and come to a final solution as to the reality or non-reality of Satan. Once we find the possibility of no Satan exists, we are then able to hear some interesting instruction from the Apostles that points to sin and wickedness as coming from inside of us. Instruction that leads us to understand Satan is not real and has no influence on humanity. We will see the Apostles teach us to kill the flesh, crucify the Old Man and deny the body of sin. We will hear the Apostles tell us that sin dwells within and our lusts and our own desires, not satanic influence, lead to sin. We will hear the Messiah speak the truth about our heart as the seat of wickedness and in hearing that we will find even the writers of the New Testament letters did not recognize that Satan was real and is the cause of sin and wickedness.

After all, we will find that sin entered the world through a man and not through an angel that went rogue. And in so seeing, it is then possible to begin to accept that Satan is not literal and evil is not an external spirit force that cajoles, persuades, justifies, and deceives, RATHER, evil is always inside of you and me and we need to accept it, embrace it, learn how to manage it, and pursue overcoming it?

When we are dealing with the Satan, we are dealing with the adversarial inclination, the internal potential to choose evil….inside of us. And that my friends will leave us with a solid grasp on who God is and who we are to Him as well as displaying that this entire journey, the entire human position, condition, and constitution…is only between the creator and you…You and I do not have to contend with a supernatural beast who knows everything about your portfolio and can perform feats that will disrupt your life and steal your freedom to be human. We do not contend with a cosmic evil force who has supernatural powers an abilities. An adversary who has resources that will make our head spin and is so far and above anything you or I as mere humans might be able to contend with. No folks! We contend with only ourselves and choose to submit either to the good in us or to the evil in us.

If you want to get rid of Satan perhaps you can start by finding the satan…and a quick look in the mirror will reveal the satan is us.

2011-03-26T22:08:00.001-06:00

Resist The Devil But Know What The Devil Is When You DO

2011-02-13T23:16:00.000-06:00

Resist The Devil But Know What You’re Resisting?
Do we believe the truth or do we believe our emotions? Do our emotions always lead us to truth? Is it possible when we are being told something different than what we have always believed that we have an emotional response before we can assess the logic of what’s being said? When it comes to reading about Satan and the devil in the New Testament it is hard for most of us to not make decisions based on our emotions. Especially if we have been trained by a church or religious system to believe Satan is actually a real being who wants to get you into his Kingdom. Emotional interpretations of biblical writings will almost always cause a mental blockage. Reacting to information from our emotions invariably short circuits our ability to hear reason and logic. Believe it or not, many of us have an emotional connection to any of the words associated with Satan. It is because of our emotional connection to terms such as devil , demon, satan, and unclean spirit, most religious folk have serious difficulty seeing the words for what the writer intended them to be. Perhaps the people in our lives with the mental blockage might benefit from exploring the first century Hebraic thinking of the speakers in the New Testament. I assure you; a first century understanding of Satan, devil, and demons is monumentally less ominous and mystical than the supernatural application that has been applied to the terms by Christianity today.
There are so many passages that lead us to seeing who and what Satan is. Getting the emotional believer to explore some of these passages can go a long way toward the transition to critical analysis of the topic. For instance, I will often ask the party I am visiting with to explain why God and Satan are both said to influence David’s choice to count his military personnel. The story of King David numbering his tribes is told in two places and the influencing force is called God in one place and called Satan in the other. Read the passages below to get the gist of this apparent contradiction.
1Chronicles 21:1-2 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.

2Sa 24:1-2 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number you the people, that I may know the number of the people.
Apparently one writer thought Satan ‘moved” David to number the tribes while the other writer thought The LORD “moved” David. Which was it? Well, I am not going to answer that here, rather I just want to make the point that Satan is spoken of in the above verses and finding out why the contradiction appears can provide a huge clue to understanding what a satan is. Unless one commits to figure out why the inconsistent telling exists one is going to remain trapped by his or her emotional connection to the term “Satan”. Putting emotions on the shelf and exploring the truth of these verses is guaranteed to yield truth as a result. We are focusing on resisting the devil in this article but as for the above mentioned apparent contradiction, I will say that the term “Satan” is simply the Hebrew word “Sawtawn” and means an adversary. Sawtawn is not a name now nor was it ever a name to the Hebrew users of the word…that is users of the word in both the Old and the New Testaments. So let’s move on to the issue of blaming Satan for evil and decidedly resisting ‘him’ to encourage his reluctant retreat from tempting or pursuing the believer.

What about the claim that the “devil” will flee from us if we resist him and submit to God. Well, according to what is seen in Christian practice this verse must be a lie. How many folks resist the devil continually yet the devil is always after them? Consider the many spiritual types who renounce or do spiritual warfare against the satanic enemy daily. There is no fleeing going on. Why would James lie about getting the devil to flee? James said resist him and he will flee. Was James deluded to think we could simply resist this Satan and look to God in order to be insulated against the onslaught of the enemy of our soul? And if James was trying to impart this gem of an instruction then where is the formula to put this spiritual axiom into motion? Is there a formulaic process or prayer, perhaps a holy water dousing that holds the mystical power of forcing this devil to flee? Maybe there is but it just isn’t available to most of the world who would love the troubles in their life they believe are caused by the devil to vanish into the ionosphere. Or maybe, James meant what he said but the problem is we don’t really understand the word diabolos. I guarantee we will understand what we are resisting when we better understand the word diabolos as it was intended by the writer instead of holding onto our emotional understanding of the English word “devil”.
IF THE DEVIL WILL FLEE THEN MAYBE WE SHOULD FIGURE OUT WHAT THE ‘DEVIL’ IS

Contemporary dictionaries claim correctly that diabolos means traducer but many of these bible dictionaries add to that definition and claim it means Satan. Why the Satan tag was added to the meaning of diabolos is debateable but the most logical reason for this executive decision is because the lexicographers (the guys who write dictionaries) thought satan was real. By starting from the place where they believed Satan was real they forced their belief about the supernatural onto the Greek word diabolos. Historically this word never meant a Satan character.
Diabolos means traducer and a traducer is one who maligns or slanders another, one who attacks the reputation of another by slander or libel. In some uses of the word diabolos, our own character is our traducer.

DO YOU LIKE TO BE QUOTED OUT OF CONTEXT?

How important is it that we hear the words of any ancient document in the literary context they were written and spoken in? Without question every religious scholar or teacher will say that context is the most important aspect in the hierarchy of bible study skills. Knowing this, that is knowing we have to read everything in context including uses if the word diabolos and satan, and knowing diabolos is a traducer, it is easy to see James was talking about the desires and inherent lusts of humans when we read his words carefully. What must be resisted according to James? It is the lusts and desires that often possess us that must be resisted. Our own desires steer us in an unhealthy spiritual direction …kinda like resisting that piece of chocolate cake on the counter because I am trying to slim down a bit. My desire to eat the cake needs to be resisted then the desire will “flee” from me, if only until tomorrow. Look at the context of James words quoted below but remember, this passage must be understood by keeping in mind where James says sin and death comes from. It is from our own lusts…evil comes from within from the heart according to Christ. And this is how James puts it;

Jas 1:14-15 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.

We can begin to see where sin comes from in the words of James. And we also know the wages of sin is death, therefore both sin and death come from a place inside of us not from a force to be running from or waging battle against in the spirit. (If you say this to some folks they often bring up the Ephesians 6 passage about spiritual warfare. That passage is easy to understand in context as well; and it is not about battling unseen supernatural beings (such as a fallen angel called Satan). What we do find when James chapter 4 is intelligently examined in context is that Satan is not battling God for our souls and we are not battling Satan for our souls; we are battling ourselves for our souls.

So as it goes we see James clearly identifies sin and death as coming from the desires that are within each of us. Paul says “sin is in my members,” which is to say; sin is an inherent problem that begins in man and does not come from outside of man. Man will always struggle against the “wrong” desires that each us of have daily.
That said we should look at the context of James’ “fleeing devil” statement. We will see the “devil” in James’ statement below is several things; but in no way does James claim the traducer is a supernatural Satan. The devil we are to resist is shown by this bible passage to be a few things. The diobolos is;
 our lusts that are warring in our members
 the spirit that dwells within us that sullies our reputation (diabolos)
 it is our pride
 and it is our hearts
Read it right here;
Jas 4:1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your lusts that war in your members?
Jas 4:2 You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not.
Jas 4:3 You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts.
Jas 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
Jas 4:5 Do you think that the scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy?
Jas 4:6 But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.
Jas 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.

If only teachers and students of the bible and could read these things in context then the biblical understanding of the diabolos would fit the writer’s intent. James only speaks of men and characteristics of man that are the devil. I might add as an aside, Paul’s teaching on the devil and Satan are virtually non-existent but Paul sure tells us to get our flesh to line up. Remember it was Paul who taught that sin is in his members and encouraged his audience to bring the flesh into agreement with righteous choices. So if one is inclined to use Paul’s teaching as a source to affirm the devil belief then perhaps a closer look at Paul’s work should be undertaken.

When looking at one or two verses such as the verse where James tells us to “resist the devil,” it would be a great benefit to poke our nose around a little. By doing so we will be able to see if the context of the passage is about a supernatural devil or if the writer was dealing with the issues of humanity that are so often the unseen devil in the life and lives of those trying to do right by their God. Even the individual passages about Satan or the devil in the New Testament are often connected to the passages that lead up to and around the passage in question. Looking at these without clinging to an entrenched emotional connection to the word Satan or devil will free us to hear the passage correctly. I hope to assist folks in making connections that are often missed because of attachment to wrong meanings of ancient terms and words like devil and satanas.
So let’s try to ask ourselves an important question when we are challenged to rethink a belief we have had about Satan or anything our whole life…Am I going to believe my emotions or am I willing to believe the truth?

This is a good History of The Devil video.

2011-02-10T23:32:00.000-06:00

Let me know what you think of this video from the UK. If you want to explore the topic more send me a note and I will email you a copy of my book...Imagine There's No Satan

Lucifer Is Not The God you Think He Is

2010-11-30T23:17:00.000-06:00

A lot of people have heard about Lucifer…Lucifer, the fallen angel, Lucifer the most brilliant of all angels in heaven who was kicked out for undisclosed reasons. Well, did you know, the word Lucifer is not a name. Lucifer is not the name of Satan. It is a Latin word that is only found once in the King James Bible. Most translations today don’t have the word Lucifer in it. They translate the word as it should be according to the Hebrew language…oh bright morning star son of the dawn, how you have fallen from heaven. So the fact is, the word Lucifer was never meant to be a name. The bright morning star had nothing to do with a supernatural being said to be Satan.
The word Lucifer was used to speak about an ancient king who became so powerful that his arrogance caused him to be brought to nothing. The fall from heaven of this king was nothing more than a dramatic reduction in the King’s power. If this were written today in plain English it might say:

Oh King Nebuchadnezzar, you believe you are a God, the planet Venus, the brightest star to rise before the morning sun. You have become so big for your britches that your arrogance will be your demise. Get ready arrogant king because here comes your fall.

Peodophile says Satan made him do it.

2010-04-10T14:26:00.000-06:00

href="http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Edmonton+offender+with+diaper+fetish+high+risk+reoffend/2783740/story.html">

The above story is about a man who abuses toddlers. Like a lot of abusers this guy blames Satan for his actions. Maybe it's time to take that option away from people like this. Satan can't make or influence anyone to do anything because Satan is not a literal being. Below is my response to the Edmonton journalist who wrote the article.

Greetings Ms. Kleiss,

Thank you for your article about this disturbed sex offender. Is there no end to the sick choices of humanity that are blamed on Satan? Bruce Donald Windsor has succumbed to his own desires and is now another offender who believes a malevolent being of manipulation has driven him to fulfill his twisted sexual lust at the expense of innocent children. I would like to offer a response to the oft used claim of “The devil made me do it.” For far too long (almost 3000 years in fact), religion has pinned evil on a being that simply does not exist. A simple study of the origins of Satan and the language and culture of the biblical writings shows there is no Satan. In fact, the Hebrew word that the name Satan comes from (sawtawn) simply means adversary and refers to forces of human origin. Had this sadly diseased man been shown the facts behind who and what Satan is perhaps he might have taken personal responsibility for the destruction he has brought into the lives of children. Just imagine for a moment that there is no Satan. How much more clearly could a person like this be shown the path to corrective action and healing from the abhorrent behaviours he has chosen. I wonder if the church of today began to truly investigate the origin of the Satan doctrine what might happen to our culture. Perhaps the outcome might be less insanity and sexual abuse, perhaps less deviance and less immorality, and even possibly more time to help people work on their own demons instead of hoping and praying that Satan would leave them alone. Who knows what might come if the church learns Satan is an ancient myth. A myth of epic proportions that was brought into Christianity because of an ancient connection the Hebrew people had with Persia. A connection that led to unmitigated Greek influence on Hellenized Jews and early Christianity. Perhaps, as is the case for myself and many people who were once in agreement with the common Christian beliefs on Satan, learning there is no Satan brings new freedom in many ways. When a person finds out that there is no Satan to fight against and to blame for evil, that person will find a new sense of strength to battle the urges they believe overtake them from time to time. As was told to me from one of the readers of my book, when they stopped believing in the devil, demons stopped chasing them. The only devil that is exists for Bruce Windsor is the evil inclination that entices him through his lust. His submission to these lusts results in the sexual abuse that destroys live.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you feel it might be a value to your readers to see how Satan can be shown to be an idea fabricated by man not a fallen angel created by God. And if you have a moment, check out my website or blogtalkradio show.

Best Regards

JimJr

James R. Brayshaw

jrbrayshaw@scog.ca

http://www.scog. ca/

Did Satan come from God or the Bible?

2008-05-21T22:29:00.000-06:00

Could it be possible that there is no God?

Could it be possible that there is no Satan"

The concept of God in religion can be traced back to the people who claim to have encountered God but the concept of Satan can only be traced to a period when the people of God were mingled with the people of myth. Peoples who fabricated a dualistic two-god philosophy and influenced a disenfranchised group of Hebrew people. The Hebrew peopel adopted the mythological idea and it migrated silently into the Hebrew faith, into the Pharisaic Judaism of the first century and into the Christianity of today.

How many of us truly discover where our beleifs came from and how the came to exist?

Most decide what they beleive by hearing it from parents, pastors, and propganda designed to convince those unwilling to search, search, search.

A plattitude becomes the truth for most people, particularly religious people. Hearing a religious plattitude repeatedly in life and history proves to cement the false beleif inot the mind and spirit of those who embrace it.Perhaps it would be better to defend what the Scriptures teach than to defend what the Pope, pastors, or pontificating, self proclaimed, parroting patriarchs teach. Much of which has evolved out of confusion, misunderstanding, convenience and desire to control whoever will blindly trust them and listen with ears closed.

Is it time to "reinvent" religion and remove major false doctrines like the doctrine of Satan? Especially when such a doctrine smacks of proclaiming that there are two Gods. Yes if Satan exists in a belief system then that beleif system is dualistic. Anything that we ascribe supernatural power to, be it a wooden stick, a cloud, a tree, a bronze statue, or an ancient Persian myth, is indeed a God.