Sympathy for the Devil

What's the point of being the most malevolent Bible character when you have to miss out on all the fun?

numbered killings
God : 2,476,633 [99.9996%]
Satan : 10 [0.0004%]

estimated total killings
God : 25 million [99.9998%]
Satan : 60 [0.0002%]
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/who-has-killed-more-satan-or-god.html

Originally posted by SwissGambit
What's the point of being the most malevolent Bible character when you have to miss out on all the fun?

numbered killings
God : 2,476,633 [99.9996%]
Satan : 10 [0.0004%]

estimated total killings
God : 25 million [99.9998%]
Satan : 60 [0.0002%]
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/who-has-killed-more-satan-or-god.html

So according to your figures, although God sets the time to die, he doesn't actually 'kill' us. He just sets the time, then we die?
Also, surely Satan can be blamed indirectly for any killing not sanctioned by God?

Originally posted by twhitehead
So according to your figures, although God sets the time to die, he doesn't actually 'kill' us. He just sets the time, then we die?
Also, surely Satan can be blamed indirectly for any killing not sanctioned by God?

Where did you get that? The stats are on reported killings in the Bible.

It's true that the author included people killed on God's orders. Perhaps that should be a separate category. I'm interested in knowing the number of direct godly killings - like the times when he smote people with plagues, or burned them with fire from heaven, or made the earth swallow them up, or drowned them in the Red Sea, etc. etc.

I don't see how we can blame Satan for indirect killing if we can't blame god because it's supposedly 'unsanctioned'. OK, God may not have specifically ordered a certain killing, but he allegedly knows about it in advance, has the power to stop it, and lets it happen anyway - a sort of passive sanction.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
What's the point of being the most malevolent Bible character when you have to miss out on all the fun?

numbered killings
God : 2,476,633 [99.9996%]
Satan : 10 [0.0004%]

estimated total killings
God : 25 million [99.9998%]
Satan : 60 [0.0002%]
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/who-has-killed-more-satan-or-god.html

These figures are bogus. 😏

Originally posted by SwissGambit
The stats are on reported killings in the Bible.

And I am wondering whether such stats have any relevance to the actual number of killings. After all, some Christians say that plagues in general are because the earth was cursed by God. So cant we attribute all plague deaths to God? Why only those specifically mentioned in the Bible?

The reason whey Satan doesn't go around wiping every one out is that it would not benefit him. His job is to whisper in peoples ears so that the person does something bad, then after he dies, then Satan gets to have his fun.
After all, what's one little murder compared to torturing the poor soul for all eternity?

Finally a thread in which one can play devils advocate - literally!

Originally posted by RJHinds
These figures are bogus. 😏

Well, they are from the bible so I can see why you would think that 😉

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
Well, they are from the bible so I can see why you would think that 😉

Scripture verse or verses please?

Originally posted by twhitehead
And I am wondering whether such stats have any relevance to the actual number of killings. After all, some Christians say that plagues in general are because the earth was cursed by God. So cant we attribute all plague deaths to God? Why only those specifically mentioned in the Bible?

The reason whey Satan doesn't go around wiping every one out is that soul for all eternity?

Finally a thread in which one can play devils advocate - literally!

Except you seem to be playing Gods advocate, by making more prodigious than His own claims.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And I am wondering whether such stats have any relevance to the actual number of killings. After all, some Christians say that plagues in general are because the earth was cursed by God. So cant we attribute all plague deaths to God? Why only those specifically mentioned in the Bible?

The reason whey Satan doesn't go around wiping every one out is that ...[text shortened]... soul for all eternity?

Finally a thread in which one can play devils advocate - literally!

Yes, but if he kills them before they are saved, he gets to have his murder and torment.

You're new at this whole Devil thing, aren't you?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Yes, but if he kills them before they are saved, he gets to have his murder and torment.

You're new at this whole Devil thing, aren't you?

actually seeing that he instigated the rebellion in Eden and as a consequence
introduced sin and death into the word, Satan is responsible for every death since
Adam and Eve, except those directly executed by God, which would make him the
worlds greatest serial Killer, with billions of kills on his hands. No sympathy for him

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
actually seeing that he instigated the rebellion in Eden and as a consequence
introduced sin and death into the word, Satan is responsible for every death since
Adam and Eve, except those directly executed by God, which would make him the
worlds greatest serial Killer, with billions of kills on his hands. No sympathy for him

Actually, seeing as "G"od supposedly instigated the introduction of a talking snake (Satan) into the magic garden (such that it would, as "G"od knew it would, talk Adam and Eve into eating a naughty apple) it would appear "G"od is responsible for every death since Adam and Eve.

Satan looks like he got the shaft here!

Originally posted by Agerg
Actually, seeing as "G"od supposedly instigated the introduction of a talking snake (Satan) into the magic garden (such that it would, as "G"od knew it would, talk Adam and Eve into eating a naughty apple) it would appear "G"od is responsible for every death since Adam and Eve.

Satan looks like he got the shaft here!

God did nothing of the sort, you are havering AGAIN. It wasn't magical, it was a
paradise, the word using meaning a park like environment. There is no indication that
snakes talk, it was simply used by Satan as a ventriloquist uses a dummy,

sigh, its no wonder you have lost your way Agers,

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
actually seeing that he instigated the rebellion in Eden and as a consequence
introduced sin and death into the word, Satan is responsible for every death since
Adam and Eve, except those directly executed by God, which would make him the
worlds greatest serial Killer, with billions of kills on his hands. No sympathy for him

I'm going to say those are neutral. Satan may have done the tempting, but it was God's idea to make the wages of sin death, and God's design to place the forbidden fruit within reach.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
God did nothing of the sort, you are havering AGAIN. It wasn't magical, it was a
paradise, the word using meaning a park like environment. There is no indication that
snakes talk, it was simply used by Satan as a ventriloquist uses a dummy,

sigh, its no wonder you have lost your way Agers,

It wasn't magical?? Oh my mistake...so what's the natural explanation for trees of knowledge then?

Disagree with your claim about ventriloquist Satan too - indeed your interpretation of the Bible does not say anything like:

[i]Now the fake or at the very least, non-talkative serpent controlled by Satan proved to be [controlled by] the most cautious of all the [fallen angels who control things looking like] wild beasts of the field that Jehova God had made. So Satan made it look like it began to say to the woman: "Is it really so that God said YOU must not eat from every tree of the garden?" At this the woman said to serpent: "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden wee may eat. But as for [eating]Reveal Hidden Contentof the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'YOU must not eat from it, no, YOU must not touch it that YOU die.'" At this [Satan throwing his voice towards] the serpent [puppet it was controlling] said to the woman: "YOU positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad"[i]

http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/genesis/3

Looks like it is you who is gibbering Robbie Carrobie :]

Originally posted by SwissGambit
I'm going to say those are neutral. Satan may have done the tempting, but it was God's idea to make the wages of sin death, and God's design to place the forbidden fruit within reach.

mmm, grumble grumble, i could contest this and probably will.