Lucifer's Role in Redemption

[slavereeno]

DW had a conversation with a friend who's husband left her to have an affair with his secretary. She was waiting for him to come back to her, her words to DW were that "Satan is very real."

I was just realizing Lucifer's role in redemption, and how important it is in Mormon/Judeo-Christian theology.

Jehovah is the perfect paragon. Because of his goodness and divinity, when he forgives, others are obliged to follow suit.

Lucifer is the perfect renegade. Because he is pure evil, and the universal dislike towards him, when he gets the blame, others are obliged to credit him with the bad decisions, the failures and the weaknesses.

My parents cope with my disaffection by blaming it on Lucifer's deceptions. That way their son isn't actually responsible for the pain in their lives. I guess, in a way, at least they don't directly blame me, they blame a demigod from a mythical pantheon?

Is DW's friend willing to acknowledge the issues that need to be addressed in her marriage? Her solution was to get Hubby back to church and the temple and that would fix the marriage. I don't know the real issues with their marriage, but the guy was a Bishop when he bolted, so I find it unlikely that a few temple trips is going to address the real issues in the marriage.

So, is this symbolism helpful? Harmful?

[blazerb]

I think it can be either helpful or harmful. Maybe even both at the same time. I have been around people who constantly talked about the devil. It did actually give them a scapegoat that was not an actual person, but I think it can be abusive to tell people they are in "Satan's grasp." Overall, I think it is usually a negative. I'd like to see the world stop blaming imaginary entities, but at the same time we need to have empathy for those who have hurt us. Well, empathy to a point. I think the woman whose husband ran off with the secretary should look realistically at her marriage. If it can be saved, fine. However, she may be better off moving on.

[jfro18]

Man that's such an awful situation... I think in a lot of ways it helps people to cope when they can deflect blame away.

And I wouldn't want to project myself into that situation, but I would imagine if my wife did that to me... I'd either blame her for doing it, blame myself for not seeing it coming/not doing more, or blame outside sources (the other person or satan?). For me it would be blaming DW and then possibly wondering what I did wrong, but I think in some way it's easier to blame (or reward) a supernatural force than accept that people you love ultimately make those decisions.

I'm rambling a bit, but I agree with you that I think families use that as a way to cope with church issues for sure. DW ultimately feels like I was deceived by Satan on church stuff. She told me early on that if I read the BoM more it would've changed things, and the missionaries told me that the adversary had a hold on me and that's why I couldn't get answers to my questions.

What's easier -- admitting there are some legitimate issues with the church or blaming Satan for driving someone away? The former forces you to look at what those problems are while the latter allows you to continue blissfully unaware of why people are leaving in larger #s than before.

[achilles]

I dislike the role of Satan in Mormon theology and culture for three reasons:

1-It actually prevents people from taking responsibility for their own desires and actions. Kind of a variation on "the devil made me do it"

2-It prevents people from accepting and dealing with the fact that it's not Satan, but man who brings evil to the world. It makes them more likely to outsource responsibility for changing the world for the better

3-It makes God into a monster. A Satan is required to make the Plan work? Baloney. And if true, how is it that one of His children is required to be consigned to OUTER DARKNESS to make it work for all the others?

Frankly, I think all the evil in the world can be explained by mankind and entropy. The rest is complete garbage, if you ask me.

[achilles]

I think in a lot of ways it helps people to cope when they can deflect blame away.

it's easier to blame (or reward) a supernatural force than accept that people you love ultimately make those decisions.

that the adversary had a hold on me and that's why I couldn't get answers to my questions.

Yep. It's all garbage.

[Hagoth]

"Satan is very real."

It seems to be a common thing to comment on how real metaphysical are. I have also heard "Satan is SO real," "the church is SO true," etc. It always seemed odd to me. Can one thing or being be more real than another?

[wtfluff]

So, is this symbolism helpful? Harmful?

I have this silly belief that believing in things which are real is better than believing in things which are fake/made up.

So... Lucifer isn't real, so that makes the symbolism harmful.

[felixfabulous]

I learned about the development of the theology of Satan in the Hebrew Bible and found it fascinating. The earlier views on God had him as both kind and benevolent at times and angry and vengeful at other times. Eventually they peeled more and more of the bad stuff off and put it on Satan, who started as a sort of advisor in God's court in the story of Job and evolved into the diety we have now (for which there is not a lot of biblical support). We've jumped to all kinds of conclusions, like that the talking serpent in the Eden story was really Satan.

One confusing thing in Mormon theology is that Satan leads people astray, but is inadvertently fulfilling God's plan by helping them prove their mettle. If Satan is so smart, why doesn't he realize this and try to change it? I grew up in the 80s terrified about all of the folklore surrounding Satan, Satan worship and all of the powers of Satan. I can't tell you how many lessons I sat through that were meant to scare people about how strong Satan was and then ended with saying that Jesus was even stronger---if only we obeyed all the commandments.

My view is that humans have the capacity for doing real good and real evil in the world. I'm fine with Satan being an archetype of evil and succumbing to our evil tendencies. Humans have done and continue to do horrible things to each other, because they have the capacity of evil. But, like others have pointed out, I don't think it's useful to assign blame to him for all kinds of things that are natural results, especially when people avoid thinking through real root causes and realistic solutions. It's easier to blame Satan for leading people astray than it is to look at problems with the Church. It's easier to blame Satan than to look at some of the root causes of the end of a marriage.

[RubinHighlander]

I dislike the role of Satan in Mormon theology and culture for three reasons:

1-It actually prevents people from taking responsibility for their own desires and actions. Kind of a variation on "the devil made me do it"

2-It prevents people from accepting and dealing with the fact that it's not Satan, but man who brings evil to the world. It makes them more likely to outsource responsibility for changing the world for the better

3-It makes God into a monster. A Satan is required to make the Plan work? Baloney. And if true, how is it that one of His children is required to be consigned to OUTER DARKNESS to make it work for all the others?

Frankly, I think all the evil in the world can be explained by mankind and entropy. The rest is complete garbage, if you ask me.

Agreed! Very unhealthy. It's another man made invention to use as a tool of fear and guilt in order to control followers. It's not just Satan, but Mormon theology rhetoric that there's 100s or 1000s of Satan's followers for every true believer, fighting against us. A lot of this stems back to the later modification of the JS first...er, third or fourth vision. Then later we have Heber C. Kimball (on his first mission to England) boasting a vision of seeing the army of Satan, coming at them in droves with gnashing teeth. Heber spun Satan into something more grandiose than what JS had invented. I think those boys ate some moldy wheat and were tripping out on a bad psychedelic trip.

I proved to myself that the angle and devil on my shoulders do not exists and when I thought they were real my mental state was not healthy. It's no way to live life with a belief that these made up beings exists and are having a big influence on every waking moment. When I finally said "F that!" I was liberated to simply live my life and realize good and bad is probability, it's just life and all the molecules bouncing around on the planet and universe.