Carcassonne Central

In OT Satan is God's handyman - not his enemy. It is on God's order that Satan (not his actual name - but I do not know what it is in english) destroys Job etc. Also be sure to actually read the texts: there is no devil in Genesis, but there is a snake. :-p

I respectfully disagree.

Oh boy... would it be possible to keep the off-topic theological chatter to the "Anything Else" forum or to PM please?

I'd much prefer a "red dress" expansion though :)

Discussing theme is not off topic? To put a Devil in AotC is an anachronism, since the devil was not invented back then. But, it is a minor detail since people (want to) believe otherwise. One might however argue that the devil will work just fine in a religious theme (and I can fully agree with that :) )

Think of it as a discussion about steam boats and the River expansions.

Ok, the AotC is primarily aimed at religious folk. These people will disagree that there is no devil in the OT. Most definately Satan is mentioned in the OT, so to say he wasn't 'invented' back then is simply wrong. It is generally agreed that Job is the oldest book in the Bible (I mean when wrote, not record of history), and Satan is there, although he did not destroy Job at all, and he did not do his 'work' at God's command. Of course, you might mean back in the days of Moses/Joshua. Using the Bible, the religious folk (primarily playing AotC) will use the NT to cross reference the OT and come to the conclusion that the devil (Satan) is found in the time of Moses/Joshua (and in the Garden of Eden).
Anyway, all this aside, you are correct, the devil fits in just fine with AotC.

No, Job is considered to be from around 400 BC and is generally viewed to be a play. And - no, there is no "devil" (neither by name or as an opponent to God) in OT. I challange you to give me just *one* quote mentioning him :)

I am not doing this to be a jerk or anything, I just want to point out that one can view themes in different ways.

Though - religion usually is about good and evil (surprisingly) so even though I do not particualry view AotC as religiously themed, a devil would fit right in. But, okay - now I probably am OT ...

No, Job is considered to be from around 400 BC and is generally viewed to be a play. And - no, there is no "devil" (neither by name or as an opponent to God) in OT. I challange you to give me just *one* quote mentioning him :)

I am not doing this to be a jerk or anything, I just want to point out that one can view themes in different ways.

Though - religion usually is about good and evil (surprisingly) so even though I do not particualry view AotC as religiously themed, a devil would fit right in. But, okay - now I probably am OT ...
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I found *one* quote:
"One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with him."
Job 1:6 NIV.
While this verse (and, in fact, 6-12) mentions the name Satan, it does not explicity mention that he is the devil, although doesn't the NT mention that Satan is the Devil? And even if he isn't exactly the devil that turns people away as is said in the NT, what's to stop him doing to the meeples what he did to Job?

As I said, I can not really judge english translations. I do know that in Swedish translations the name (title, whatever) "Satan" or "devil" is not used in OT. The term that is used .. I could translate it into english but I do not really see the point. I do not know anything about what different verions of the bible exist in english either, but I am sure there are plenty. :)

Still - there exists no devil as adversary to God in OT. Handyman? Sure.

And I suppose the 'snake' in Genesis was working for God?

Mind you, Genesis was't written as a textbook, it was written as some form of poetry(?) to explain the true creation of the world, and most things were probably metaphors...

The snake is not the devil, but still takes a vital part of human history according to religious people.

"Genesis" and "true" are not two words I would put in the same sentence without a negation. But, yeah, metaphores - no doubt.

What makes you say the snake isn't the devil?

Two evil powers?

As a religious person, I am offended by certain remarks in here which I believe to be false. I don't think it is appropriate to get into this discussion, but I feel obligated to state my position lest I be held accountable for doing nothing.

Satan is the Devil, and he took the form of a snake in Genesis chapter 3 to trick the human race into sinning against God. This is well-accepted by millions of people around the world. To deny that Genesis is narrative is to deny the authenticity of the entire Bible. It's not metaphorical. If there are some aspects which you find difficult to believe, that's why it's called faith. If there was indisputable proof, there could not be faith. Some things must remain unexplained.

If you actually read the first two chapters of Job, you will see that although God initiates the discussion about Job, it was Satan's idea to ruin Job's life. Also notice that God does not tell Satan to ruin Job's life, but gives him permission. However, Satan is still limited by God in that he may not kill Job.

I don't expect to convince everyone, or even anyone. I wish to discourage people from making remarks about things which they do not understand. I recommend that further discussion in this thread be restricted to the mechanics of the AotC expansion and that all biblical debate end right now.

Maybe Gantry is correct... there should be some place to discuss things out of public view...

I was taught at a young age to avoid three areas of conversion in polite company:
1. Sex
2. Politics
3. Religion

I think these are even more valid on an internet forum, where misunderstandings and bad feelings can easily arise.

I have read the bible quite a lot. I mean - a lot. There is no devil in Genesis, but there is a snake. It is on God's order that Satan (or whatever name he carries) destorys Job's life, it's not even satan that brings Job up. It is all God's work. If you read books about it (for example God - A biography by Jack Miles (http://www.amazon.com/God-Biography-Jack-Miles/dp/0679743685)) it might become clear.

As I said - I am not trying to be a jerk, and feel free to believe whatever. But placing a devil in OT is like placing steam boats on River I, ask any (unbiased) teacher in literature at any (unbiased) university.

The bible is (whether or not you believe in something) a piece of text, and can thus be read. If something is written or not in the text can also be read. The rest is interpretation. You choose to interpret it as if the snake is the devil - but you can not read it anywhere. If you are offended by that - by simply stating the facts; well, that is also up to you. I would never get offended by someone who gave me knowledge.

You could start by reading the article about Satan on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan). Even though I do not agree with it fully, it is still a rather good compilation. You should note what judaism says about Satan, since, well, it is judaism we are talking about (no christians in OT). Satan (as God's opponent) and hell (as the buring inferno we know it) was invented by the catholic church in order to sell indulgence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence).  Well, maybe not invented, but made into pop culture.

1. we now have an Anything Else (off topic) board, it could be considered a final resting place for this (I'll leave that up to the mods)
2. as long as this conversation stays civil, and I mean family-friendly civil, I don't mind it being in the public forums
3. don't forget, no one wins when arguing on the internet! being recognized for getting your points across with grace and humility wins you far more respect than blunt trauma.

 :)

First off, I will join Scott and nail my colours to the mast. I agree with him :)

I agree that the topic for the AotC expansion veered a little off course and turned into a religious discussion... I personally don't mind religious discussions, however, perhaps CC is not the place and I would sooner concentrate on the expansion.

I am basing expansions to AotC on the general concensus of the persons playing the game, which for the most part, will be of religious persuations.


They might well not be two words that you would group together in the same sentence, but they are definately two words that I would group together. Genesis is written as historical narrative, not poetry, nor metaphorical language.


Christians (and i'm singling them out, as I know more about them ;) ) will use the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture (on the whole), which is why the 'serpent' in Genesis, is interpreted to be Satan, and why Satan in Job is the devil.


Job is considered to be the oldest written book in the Bible (with the exception of the first 11 chapters of Genesis).

You will not find 'devil', but you will find 'Satan' in Job. I suppose it hinges on semantics. Should we use Åklagaren instead of Satan? (Sorry, I don't know much Swedish, but this seems the general name for Satan in a Swedish Bible).


I understand that you are not trying to offend. No problem. However, my challenge to you is: try and find an unbiased teacher ;)

Edit: BTW, that last remark was meant to be a joke ;)

God is known by even more names. I don't expect you would say that anywhere a different name is given, that it's some other god. Likewise, it is well known and well accepted that Satan = the Devil = the Serpent/Snake. There's even two verses to prove it.



I skimmed the Wikipedia article and what I read looks right to me. I invite you to read the article on Hell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell#Abrahamic). It wasn't invented by the Roman Catholic church. They did, however, invent purgatory, based on a passage in the second book of Maccabees which refers to saying a prayer for the dead. I don't know what a modern Roman Catholic would say about purgatory; too bad this discussion didn't come up a month ago because I was partying with some Catholic priests at a cathedral two weekends ago and could have asked them. Indulgences were supposed to get your dead relatives out of purgatory and into heaven faster. The people eventually figured out that the bishops were just using it as a scam to get rich and I'm pretty sure you can't buy indulgences anymore.

Religious discussions are hard enough in person; the Internet is probably the worst place for them. As long as this stays civilized, I'm happy to continue.

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png)

Sorry if I have offended anyone... I am just trying to state my interpretation of the Bible...

 {up love the cartoon Scott :)  ;D


I think that is what it boils down to at the end of the day; how we view the Bible is the way we will 'interpret' it. We are not all going to agree on such an emotive subject... but we can all still be friends :) 
{gh

Dangerous ground. The one sure way to divide people (and therefore a forum) is Religion. I will site a small planet named Earth as evidence. I'm now keeping well away from this.

I think for all concerned, it would be better to leave religious arguments away from CC.

Amen!

I will never understand this. I will never understand how anyone can be offended by another person's opinion. I will never understand the need to hide nor the ignorance that follows. I know no one who consider themselves a believer will read the book I linked to earlier. Which is a pity.

However - my argument was not religious - it was borne from litterature studies. The bible is a text, and can thus be read. It is up to you how you read it though - if you consider it the truth (in which case you will have to ignore all the different passages which talks against eachother) or if you consider it to be metaphorical (in which case Jesus probably was not a real person but rather a manifest of ideas - so to speak). Or if you read it as a historical document. Or - whatever.

For me, and most of my colleagues, the bible is a work of fiction. It tells the tales of myths (just as many other cultural documents, written or otherwise, do). In one of the tales of creation, the god tells people to spread over the earth. In the other it goes into detail. In one the first two people are just made into man and women, and their firstborn is named Set. In the other man is made from .. um, earth, and later the female is made from parts of him; their firstborn is named Cain (who - interestingly enough one of my previous teacher viewed as the origin of the devil).

Now. If one does not allow one's beliefs to be scrutinised, (which surely was not my intent from the beginning) ... well, that tells me that they are rather shallow. Faith is one thing - (faith is probably good in the long run). Blind faith which means that you will be offended every time someone has a different view upon something, well, that can not be healty.


It does not really matter why it was written, what is important is why it was selected to be included in the bible (see Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha). That however is rather obvious. Genesis is an attempt to consolidate various myths and themes into one. To make a monothesis out of a polythesis, simply said (point of note here: I am not saying anyone did this deliberately, or from malice. Rather that the same thing happened there as what happened when the nordic countries abandoned their believes in the Æsir. It is easier to control people who only believes in one god, as opposed to many). You can read for yourself though - here (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Study_of_Genesis) is a good start. Keep following the links. In case you feel overwhelmed - these links will come in handy: 1 (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Study_of_Genesis/Genesis_as_a_Myth),2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis) and 3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentateuchal_criticism). And, well, of course: theodicy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy) (which might be outside the scoope of this discourse).


Åklagaren is what he is called in swedish translations (well, it used to be at least, I have not read the newest translation). It is equivalent to The adversary (or rather the accuser) which is what he is called in the english bible (satan, the adversary (or Accuser?). Unless I am missinformed). This does not mean he is the devil. All satan does in the poem is doing the god's will. Job (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job) is written around 4-500 BC, while most of the septaguint (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint) is older. Some parts much older.

The point is that the devil as an opponent to the god is not present in the old testament. God obviously uses someone as handyman to carry out his (sometimes dirty) work, but that entity never does anything by his own accord.


Many names for the god, but also a lot of names for other gods, ie Baal. If there is only one god how can anyone else claim to be a god (this might belong to the teodicy tough). One text can not be used to prove that what is written inside itself is truth; the circular reasoning does not really work. But then again Revelation is not Old Testament - right?


Hell and Purgatory could as well be the same. You bought indulgence to "go direct to salvation" so to speak. Being in hell or purgatory could as well be the same.

Who is evil and not is also an interesting topic. Please read: 1. Chronicles (I have no idea how to abbrivate these) 21. And tell me why it would upset the god to have the people counted? Or Psalm 137:9 and tell me why the god would want me to crack babies' skulls open against rocks? Ackording to judaism, an evil force separated from the god is kind of secondary, from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan): "The Talmud mentions the Satan in many places. In all of these places, the Satan is merely an agent of God, and has no independent existence. " which, in context, seems pretty agreeable.

In Judaism they are told to read and question, and to question what others have questioned. In Chrisitianity they are told to read (if that) and accept. Old T was part of Judaism for a long time before being part of Christianity. In Judaism they see (well, or saw, maybe) that if the god is omnipotent, then evil will also come from him, so it matters not who is personifying it.

And, for the record, no, I am not jewish :)

What offends me is when people state their opinion as fact. Especially because your opinions can be verified as false but you persist in them regardless.

Genesis was not an attempt to consolidate various myths and themes. It's a compilation of various other documents describing the history of the beginning of the world. Genesis was written by Moses. He had access to the great libraries in Egypt. There is only no tale of creation where the firstborn is named Seth. Go read your Bible. The fourth chapter of Genesis clearly states that Cain is born first, then Abel. Cain kills Abel and becomes an outcast. Seth is born later. Just because Cain is the first murderer doesn't make him the origin of the Devil. Satan became the Devil before Creation and has been God's adversary the whole time.


God doesn't have dirty work and doesn't need a handyman. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah all by himself. Satan does everything by his own accord, but is limited by God because God is sovereign over all things. It's no different from how God lets everyone else sin. Punishment will come in the end of days.


The Bible consists of the Old Testament AND the New Testament. Even without the New Testament, millions of Jewish people knew that Satan was the Devil was the Serpent. How you can sit here and deny it, even after I gave scriptural proof, amazes me. Just because you believe the Bible to be a work of fiction does not mean that you can isolate parts of it from each other. We call that: taking things out of context.

In 1 Chronicles 21, which is also described in 2 Samuel 24, God is angry because David's census represents an unwarranted glorying in and dependence on human power rather than God. There is no immediate external threat, so no reason to have a census except his own personal pride.

In Psalm 137:9, it is not saying that God wants to crack babies skulls open against the rocks. Classic example of taking something out of context. If you read the whole thing, in context, it is describing the actions of enemy invaders. War was just as cruel then as it is now.

I am closely monitoring this, to keep it civil.


Everyone's opinion is fact for them. In fact Tobias acknowledges this by saying:

emphasis mine.

Scott, he is only stating what he has learned from his studies. You are stating what you learned from your studies.  If you take offense, may I suggest that all those involved in this thread reconsider your goals: do you want to (A) state your position and rationale or (B) convince others they are wrong? If it is (B), this will only lead to me locking this thread before it gets out of hand. My indulgence on this is wearing thin.

Some people have the opinion that the world is flat, but that doesn't make it fact. The concept of individual truths is a result of post-modernism.

I'm not trying to convert anybody here. People can believe in whatever religion they want, but they shouldn't presume to know things about someone else's religion. I don't presume to know the contents of the Book of Mormon or the Quran. If I read something in one of those books, I still wouldn't presume to be knowledgeable on what I read because I haven't extensively studied the whole book. I would perhaps ask questions about what I read, but I wouldn't feel comfortable drawing firm conclusions.

Just like any religious discussion on the Internet, I don't think anything will get accomplished here, so I'm done with this thread.

Or you can dig deeper and find answers to those alleged contradictions. The alleged contradictions of the Bible have long been answered. All alleged contradictions can be reasonably answered. Sure, there are difficult passages, but no contradictions. You might not accept those answers, but that, of course, is up to you :)

Hopefully you guys have come to an amicable end to this interesting discussion. I will point out that while the internet is a great thing it can also be a real pain, for example I just typed in Angel Satan and Wiki tells of a fallen Arch-angel called Satan...

So make of that what you will discuss it if you wish (I for one am not saying if it is right or wrong) but remember it is all peoples personal conjecture of a topic.

I will ask you one simple question: If the god gave man free will, how come Er and Onan was killed? (These brothers are just two of many (http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-many-has-god-killed.html) it has killed.) To say that the bible has no contradictions simply proves that you have not read it; I can spend all night finding passages which are contradictory. And, no, Scripture interpreting Scripture is not a legal method - you can ready one reason why here (http://aboulet.com/2008/04/24/the-infallible-rule-interpreting-scripture-by-scripture/).

anyway, either god/satan exists, all religions are created by humans who fails to face their own problems! & to sabotate the harmony in the whole world!

R.A.V.A.G.E.!

Religion is obviously created by man, but I am not sure I agree with the reasons you give. Faith is probably rather harmonic in itself - and I am sure faith helps a lot of people daily.

partially agreed but, the man have everything in his own fate to fight and overpass all the torments he suffers, he do not have to have faith in a such thing, but just in himself.


(aargh, me and my 2nd language! sorry to search the exact points)