re the problem of satan used to be islamic authority over women in article apr news unomaha edu trajan cwis unomaha edu stephen mcintyre writes of course bobby then states that satan has no free will that he does as god wants him to this brings up a host of paradoxes is god therefore evil do i have free will or is god directing me also if god is evil which part of his infinite self is good and which is evil etc i would like for once a solid answer not a run about i hope i gave you a fairly solid answer to this one i simply don t agree with the embodied version of a satan who is a separate creation or a force i wrote the belief to which i ascribe is that evil is not a creation rather it is the absence of good this fits with all the logic about things having dual use e g a knife can be used to sculpt and it can be used to kill like entropy evil is seen in this view as neither force nor entity satan is therefore metaphorical in fact there are several verses of the holy qur an which appear to support this view and several traditions as well for example there is a tradition that food should never be left open on a shelf or table overnight lest satan enter it it appears that this is a reference to as yet undiscovered germs thus the evil effect of spoiled food is described as satan but there are many examples of satan personified which am i to believe and there are quite physical descriptions of heaven and hell in the holy qur an the bible etc there have been times in the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the modern human when these physical descriptions of heaven hell and satan were taken quite literally and that worked for the time as i mentioned in the tradition cited above for example it was sufficient in the absence of a theory about germs and disease spread by worms to simply describe the evil which was passed to a consumer of spoiled food as satanic which begs the question if satan in this case is metaphorical how can you be certain allah is not the same way the bottom line here however is that describing a spiritual plane in human language is something like describing color to a person who has been blind from birth you may want to read the book flatland if you haven t already or the dragon s egg the first is intended as a light hearted description of a mathematical con cept some deleted for space saving when language fails because it cannot be used to adequately describe another dimension which cannot be experienced by the speakers then such conventions as metaphor allegory and the like come to be necessary the unseen is described in terms which have reference and meaning for the reader listener but like all models a compro mise must be made when speaking metaphorically clarity and directness of meaning equivalence of perception and the like are all crippled but what else can you do this is why i asked the above how would you then know god exists as a spirit or being rather than just being metaphorical i mean it s okay to say well satan is just metaphorical but then you have to justify this belief and justify that god is not some metaphor for something else i say this because there are many many instances of satan described as a being such as the tormentor in the old testament book of job or the temptor in the new testament gospels in the same way god too is described as a being or spirit how am i to know one is metaphorical and not the other further belief in god isn t a bar to evil let s consider the case of satanists even if satan were metaphorical the satanist would have to believe in god to justify this belief again we have a case where someone does believe in god but by religious standards they are evil if bobby does see this let him address this question also deleted some more on metaphor obviously more philosophizing on this issue is possible but i m not sure that the readers of this newsgroup would want to delve into religious interpretation further however if anyone wishes to discuss this i m certainly willing either off line e mail or on line posting stephen atheist libertarian pro individuality pro responsibility jr and all that jazz
