To give you a question to ask?

think about what ur asking! the question does not go w/reason! God created Angels with freewill just like he did humans. this particular angel wanted glory for himself and went against God!just as Adam went against God and suffered the consequences which was death. Satan only has a short time left he will never be as powerful, glorious or anything more than God PERIOD!!!when u have a child the child does not know more than the parent does he?

To answer the first part of the question... Because that's the way real, true love works. Free will equals true love. To control your creation's every thought is manipulation and mind control. To give him/her the choice to love you in return is extravagent and selfless.... To answer the second part of the question.... The Judeo-Christian viewpoint is that Satan never had enough power to overthrow God, and so Lucifer (as he was still called then) never succeeded in his attempt to take the throne. So his dominion is earth (hence the name "Prince and Power of the Air") for the time being...

I dont think either physically exist, rather they are the manifestations of each individuals minds. The subconscious mind is more powerful then most tend to think

Who says Satan has the power to overthrow God?

Freewill. As an example to us (humans), to see how we would choose. Basically, do you want to force someone to love you, or have them love you of their own freewill? CJ's answer was spot on.

God creates beings and gives them a choice of being good or bad. god doesn't want to control us and be a god that "if you don't do this i will strike you down" sorta thing. its also a lesson to the universe that he created. he is showing us the downfall of choosing the wrong path. God has a tendacy to do things that are just unexplainble.

Satan can never OVER POWER God..he has challenged GOD, but in the end, satan will be done away with..God is just letting us choose who's side we are on, we have free will... I don't think HE actually knew satan would rebel...I don't think HE would have made man if HE thought that they would of disobeyed so fast...even the angels have free will..same as Adam and Eve..and GOD does not want anyone that does not come to HIM of their own free will...you can not force or buy FAITH...Barbara

Everything in the universe has originated from the One God. The God principle permeates everything in the universe and also exists beyond it. From this perspective both good and evil have originated from the God principle. They have both existed since the creation of the universe. However the evil was in seed or latent form at that time. According to a spiritual law ‘everything has originated from the God principle. It will be sustained and then undergo dissolution back into the God principle’. This happens as per an inherent absolute plan. Thus the universe has come into existence, it will be sustained for a predefined period of time and then it will undergo dissolution. As a part of this divine plan, the evil that was in seed form at the origin of the universe steadily grows. It manifests in the form of evil elements and persons. With the passage of time, the evil element will keep on growing until it reaches 100%, at which point the universe will cease to exist. There is more about it in this article http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/spiritualresearch/spiritualscience/goodversusevil

Satan is not real. He was created by human beings who wanted to control people and take all of their money. Only God is real and he is in us and us in him. He is everywhere. He is telling me to type these words. Do not fear...all is well!!! Evil is not real. There is only the APPEARANCE of evil. Everything that happens is a perfect part of the divine plan. God is mysterious. Our finite brains cannot comprehend his infinite ways. Religion is stupid. You either believe in God or you don't. In other words, he is obvious to you or he's not. Religion has been used by greedy people to control those seeking a relationship with God. It's easy to find people who feel guilty about not being perfect and scare them into believing that they are going to be punished in hell for eternity. I am so grateful to know that I know the truth.

It is blasphemous to believe in satan, evil or hell. Why is it so difficult to accept God's love without fear? It is freely given. We don't have to do ANYTHING. The price has been paid. The debt cleared. You will never die and you will live a spiritual eternity with your God if you believe in him. It is that simple. Ask yourself why do you concentrate on the devil so much? Do you accept God's unconditional love or are you just running from Satan? God has ALL POWER. Think about it. If you think the bible is so great read Leviticus. It states that God told Moses that it's perfectly ok to burn a human being alive for certain crimes. Does it sound like someone was trying to control someone else? True faith is accepting what God wants you to have and that is himself. False faith is concentrating on hell and so called Satan without sharing the joy of God with others. The bible is a fairy tale. God is real.

didnt satan start of as a snake or have i got that confused with something else?

Exactly!! There is no power greater than God! No satan, no hell etc. God loves you no matter what you do!!

God created evil because it is part of the same 'coin' as good. Yes, He knew that Satan would choose to rebel, but He also knew that the end result would be better than the original option. And He NEVER gave Satan the power to overthrow Him.

Cool, that last bit was awesome! i want electrons! You got interested now...

Man created god so that god, in turn, could create man and the rest of his fantasies

Eeeeerrrr....let me guess, because he’s not real and was just made up by superstitious Middle Eastern tribesmen. Either that or he’s just a dick!

because Satan in the Hebrew bible was essentially a accuser/tester of spirits. He was made to test people to strengthen them before God. Similar to the grim reaper today was vilified, as was Satan.

first things first, i want to make it very clear that Satan doesn't even have half the power he needs to overthrow God and secondly God has a big master plan. he knew it had to be this way. i really don't spend a lot of time questioning, i already know his right.

just remember god knowingly created future suffering by creating us all. he knew all our choices and still he banises us to hell even though he created us knowing what we were going to do. he doomed us to hell. the free will is a lie, god cant make humans with freewill who can surprise him.

There is no evil. There is only the absence of good. At least, that's how the reasoning goes, I hear.

Satan does not have anything close to the power required to overthrow God. "But deliver us from evil." The last petition to our Father is also included in Jesus' prayer: "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one." (Jn 17:15) In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God. The devil is the one who "throws himself across" God's plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ. The Bible teaches that Satan is a fallen angel. Scripture sees in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil". (Cf. Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9) Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing." Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. (2 Pet 2:4) This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. The devil "has sinned from the beginning"; he is "a liar and the father of lies." (1 Jn 3:8; Jn 8:44) It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death." Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning," who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. (Jn 8:44; cf. Mt 4:1-11) "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 Jn 3:8) The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign. For more information, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 391-395: http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt1art1p7.shtml#391 With love in Christ.

Without evil. Good can't exist.

Why do people see it as GOD "punishing" people. This mean, nasty, old guy, etc... "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Genesis 1:31 God created perfection and that perfection had rules, bounds, laws, etc... Physical and spiritual, etc... When we choose not to follow God we fall outside of those rules, laws, etc... God does not force us out of those boundaries, we choose to go outside of them. So it is not like God casting us into burning hell fire, it is more like we throw ourselves into it. God truly does love all of His creation and people are above all the greatest of His creation and we are as the apple of His eye. God, through His loving wisdom and grace sent His one and only son Jesus to earth to help us though. That meant that Jesus had to die on the cross and shed His blood for our sins. He had to die in our place so that we could then go to heaven and be part of eternity. God sent His own SON to die in our place and He is not the mean nasty old man in heaven who judges everything you do and will punish you for ever in hell. Nope! If YOU CHOOSE to walk outside of those laws of science, math, physics, the senses, the metaphysical, spiritual, etc... and all the things that we have no idea about (and cannot even begin to understand how they are all linked) then you choose your destination. That walking off the path ultimately sends us to a place where you will have eternal SEPARATION from God. This will be a place where: Matthew 13:42 "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Mark 9:46 "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Revelation 21:8 "But the fearful, and UNBELIEVING, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." As to exactly what hell is like we cannot say for certain. We have some idea here that it is not a very nice place. Never-the-less it is we who choose to ignore God and go our own way instead of following the path He has set out for us, a path which ensures us eternal life. It is not God doing it "IT IS US - WE WHO DO IT - TO OURSELVES. God is only following the laws of nature, etc... which He created from the beginning.

1) There are many interpretations of these beliefs. These things have been debated for centuries and have also be the reason of various divisions of the original Church. Please notice that we cannot talk about facts, here, because whether the existence of a God nor that of a Satan can be proven. We are just talking about how diverse Churches or Religions explain those concepts. 2) "In most Christian traditions, a fallen angel is an angel who has been exiled or banished from Heaven. Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God. The best-known fallen angel is Lucifer. Lucifer is a name frequently given to Satan in Christian belief. This usage stems from a particular interpretation, as a reference to a fallen angel, of a passage in the Bible (Isaiah 14:3-20) that speaks of someone who is given the name of "Day Star" or "Morning Star" (in Latin, Lucifer) as fallen from heaven. The Greek etymological synonym of Lucifer, ΕωσφÏŒρος (Eosphoros, "light-bearer") is used of the morning star in 2 Peter 1:19 and elsewhere with no relation to Satan. But Satan is called Lucifer in many writings later than the Bible, notably in Milton's Paradise Lost (7.131-134, among others), because, according to Milton, Satan was "brighter once amidst the host/Of Angels, than that star the stars among." In Islam, the fallen angel is referred to the devil himself who was once an angel. In Islam, the specific angel disobeyed Allahs command to bow down to Adam who was the first being made by soil. The angel stated that he will not bow to Adam as he is made of mud and the angel is made of fire. He did state he will bow down to God as he is his creator. The devil was vanished to hell and the devil now tries to persuade mankind to do wrong in order to compete with God himself." "According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, angels were all created good but some turned bad on their own. Angels don't need faith as they already have the knowledge of celestial things, so their rebellion against God constituted unforgivable sin. Matthew 12:32 qualifies unforgivable sin as being unforgivable in "this age or the age to come." Although most Christians do not interpret this to mean that those who have committed this sin may be redeemed after the passage of two ages, a tradition stretching back as far as Gregory of Nyssa and Origen has taught that the devil and fallen angels will eventually be saved." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_angel 3) "Evil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe intentional negative moral acts or thoughts that are cruel, unjust, or selfish. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are kind, just, or unselfish. In some religions, evil is an active force, often personified as an entity such as Satan or Ahriman." "Christian theology: Christian theology draws its concept of evil from the Old testament and New Testament. Generally in the Old Testament evil is understood to be an opposition to God as well as something unsuitable or inferior. In the New Testament the Greek word poneros is used to indicate unsuitability while kakos is used to refer to opposition to God in the human realm. French-American theologian Henri Blocher describes evil, when viewed as a theological concept, as an "unjustifiable reality. In common parlance, evil is 'something' that occurs in experience that ought not to be." Jewish theology: In Judaism, evil is the result of forsaking God. (Deuteronomy 28:20) Judaism stresses obedience to God's laws as written in the Torah (see also Tanakh) and the laws and rituals laid down in the Mishnah and the Talmud. Some doctrines others emphasize the idea that humanity is, within itself, irremediably evil, and in need of forgiveness. (see Original Sin) While some forms of Judaism, do not personify evil in Satan; these instead consider the human heart to be inherently bent toward deceit, although human beings are responsible for their choices, whereas in Judaism, there is no prejudice in one's becoming good or evil at time of birth. In Judaism, Satan is viewed as one who tests us for God rather than one who works against God, and evil, as in the Christian denominations above, is a matter of choice." "Some cultures or philosophies believe that evil can arise without meaning or reason (in neo-Platonic philosophy this is called absurd evil). Christianity in general does not adhere to this belief, but the prophet Isaiah implied that God is ultimately responsible for everything including evil (Isa.45:7). “The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.” —Isaiah 45:7, NAS" Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil

Ah Fenchurch! It's like this you see. You are right God does know all. Yes and He does know what we are going to do and how we are going to choose before we do, but being the loving Father that He is, He still blesses us anyways. Everything you see, everything you have, every ability you possess, every thing you are, ever thought, every feeling, every memory, etc... is a blessing to you and me and we receive it from God even when we sin against Him and others. There are a countless number of times when we have been blessed and we don't even know it. Without God limiting the power of satan who presently holds the title deed to the earth (but not for long)this world would be like a hell on earth. God created the earth perfect and satan has been busy destroying it ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. God did not create suffering and sin. Suffering comes about through satan's activities and influence in people. Also, just think of all the suffering that man has caused to his fellow man. War, poverty, sickness, violence, murder, rape, death, killing, destruction, etc... Just think of all the suffering that continues because most people will not help their fellow human beings. We are often the perpetuators of the suffering that we create one way or another. A viscious cycle. Millions of people starving in our day and age is unacceptable with the technology, resources, and finances the world. There is no need for it to be happening, but because most people are too apathetic to care then of course we still have this problem occuring and even increasing (I believe) as time goes on. God didn't create it! What was the perfect religion? I'm not aware that one existed and that it split into sects. Have you read the Bible Fenchurch? God's word I believe does not teach to go out and war or kill others or rape, etc... In the New Testament in Matthew 22:36-40 a lawyer asked Jesus this question: "Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Jesus summed up the whole Bible, in a way, by these two commandments or laws. Jesus talks nothing about killing, murder, rape, etc... unto others. It is people and sometimes churches (so called) who distort the teachings of the Bible, satan who uses people for his evil works, people who are not truly converted, people who take the name of God and His word for their own purposes, etc... who are the ones who have and are causing the sin, murder, rape, and killing. Sometimes Christians do slip, backslide, fall, etc... and make huge mistakes. We are only human and will not be perfect until we get to heaven. But by no means does this latter group of people cause any great amount of sin and evil in this world. I'd like to know which religion or church you are talking about. I have an inkling, but would like to hear it from you. It may play a major role in alot of what has and is happening in our world. Hoping to hear from you Fenchurch and may God bless you.

exactly..in fact if god is all-knowing, omnipotent and all that jazz, he knows all from beginning to end and made it knowing exactly what would happen from satan to the garden of eden to the end times...so how is that freedom of choice? IT's all bull, just like when people say god gave you free will, then turn right around and say, "oh it's in god's plan"...I mean come on religious people...which one is it?! could you just pick a delusion and stick with it?

this almost centers around the whole concept of the light and dark. Light does not come without shadow, so good cannot come without evil. God made humans a combination of both (if he made them at all) and without satan we would not be human, able to know good and evil and to choose between them. Satan only has as much power as humans give him.

Satan “did not stand fast in the truth,” Jesus revealed that this spirit creature was once a faithful servant of God but deviated from that right course. Why did Satan rebel against God? Because he nurtured feelings of self-importance to the point that he coveted worship that belongs only to God.—Matthew 4:8, 9. Satan’s rebellion found expression in the garden of Eden when he deceived Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. By uttering the first lie ever spoken and by slandering God, Satan made himself “the father of the lie.” Furthermore, by luring Adam and Eve into disobedience, he caused sin to rule over them, leading ultimately to their death and the death And of future generations. Thus, Satan also made himself “a manslayer”—indeed, the most monstrous murderer of all time!—Genesis 3:1-6; Romans 5:12 The extent of Satan’s evil influence is revealed at 1 John 5:19, which states: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” The Devil is maneuvering mankind into a tempest of increasing woes. In fact, he is more determined than ever to do harm. Why? Because he and the demons were evicted from heaven after God’s Kingdom was established ” (Revelation 12:7-12) We are free moral agents, thank God for that. We are not puppets with strings attached and which God sits around and pulls to suit his whim. He made us men, not puppets, not machines. Instead of fretting over it, quibbling with God about it, we should busy ourselves in using it rightly, in harmony with divine requirements, and thereby assure ourselves of everlasting life,Hope this helps

ImaCatholic2 is the only one who knows what they're talking about. Im surprised someone on here actually does. Revelation 12 talks aout Satan's rebellion and demise and Revelation 20 speaks of his final fate.

Satan is scared of God , I heard that from somewhere.

well to your first part of your argument (perhaps GOD did not know satan would rebel) follow me on this one. you can bounce a ball with your hands right, it is something you can do and are probably good at doing. now put your hands behind your back and bounce the ball...nothing happens, even though you wanted to bounce the ball you forbade and restricted yourself from doing the act. well if you can do it on the minor level that you are at how much more can GOD do it on his level. we see this in a Biblical account when Jesus says (jesus who is GOD) "not even I know the day nor the hour but only my father in heaven" and "Through him all things were made" speaking of Jesus. this shows the seperateness of Jesus who created the cosmos and all creation. this gives the whole information of how we can have free will and how God can allow bad and how satan could revolt. secondly it is like creating hydrogen and oxygen, if you have these chemicals by themselves they are wonderful and if you combine them they can make one of the most wonderful things on earth Water but before you combine them if you put a spark between them they become explosive and burn extremely hot.this is similar to what happened with Satan, satan took the emotion pride (which is good if we have pride in the Lord(proverbs)) and he took self(which is good when doing for others) and put them together with a spark of want. this makes for an explosive combination.(BOOOOOOOOOMMM). thus GOD did not create evil, evil is a manipulation of good things. +2