Angels of God and Angels of Satan

[Disturbed]

Millions of people believe in Angels. They believe that invisible beings vist here on this planet and intervene in human activities. Most people talk about these Angels performing good deeds. One doesn't hear stories about Satan's Angels doing anything. Now I am not refering to the biker gang, The Hell's Angels.

Your thoughts on this ?

BTW, I don't believe in invissible Angels.I do believe there are visible ones, those Hell's Angels. In fact, I have met a few and they were nice guys.

[Extend a Hand]

1. I think most religions

refer to Satan's Angels as Demons. You know, they do the exorcist stuff to make them leave.

[YOY]

2. I think some people really are Angels and Devils of the mortal kind

You just have to know where to look for them...usually in the least likely places where you need help most...

Just a bit of a Leonard Cohen song that reminds me of my theories of this:

"Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning"

[Xeric]

3. The Watchers

According to various texts (i.e. Book of Enoch and dead sea scroll fragments) certain fallen angels described as "The Watchers" interbred with human females and spawned a race of giants called the Nephilim, who were pretty bad dudes. They are mentioned in Genesis. It's only in later Judaism that Satan becomes a separate evil entity not under G*d's control. He becomes the full fledged prince of evil with pitchfork and horns in the New Testament, a conglomeration of other religion's gods and anti-gods.
Zany stuff.
Believe it or not.





Hail Xenu

[Ecumenist]

4. Yes, Xeric... we believe in the "Watchers" as well..

They were cursed for leaving their place, first estate, I believe it was called, to come down to earth. It is the reason for the flood...
Welcome, Xeric, to DU:hi:

By we, I meant REAL CHRISTIANS....

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. How do you define a 'real Christian'? (n/t)

[Solon]

5. Actually, you are correct and incorrect at the same time...

OK, as far as I could tell the Watchers were down on Earth, and saw that Human Women were beautiful and interbred with them, creating the Nephilim. This, in turn, forced God's hand and the Great Flood then occurred, however, those angels, the watchers, were down on Earth on GOD's orders, as far as I remember, look but don't touch, supposed to report their findings, basically. The idea of "Fallen" Angels didn't occur until the Book of Tobit was written, though now it is considered old testament apocrypha. This book describes Satan and his followers defying God and being kicked out of heaven. Oddly enough, everyone knows the story, in general, but doesn't know that it isn't in the "Standard" Bible at all, but was itself "kicked" out of the current Bibles. Satan(The Adversary) was first mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Job, he did God's dirty work in testing Job's faith, acting as God's persecutor or prosecutor if you will. That's probably why the Book of Job is so confusing, the word God and Satan are used at the same time for many of the same acts, most likely Satan is simply an agent of God.

BTW: the Current view that Angels protect people, etc. are most likely transplants from Greco-Roman and other Paganistic beliefs of "household Gods" that watched over a specific family or individual. Though the very image of the Angel itself is Babylonian in origin, and Angels themselves, in the Bible, are NOT nice, the most accurate depictions of Angels that I can see, from a Hollywood perspective, would be in either "The Prophecy" Trilogy or in "Dogma" oddly enough. In fact, an Angel supposedly brought down both Sodom and Gomorrah, in addition to that, Matt Damon's character, Loki, named after the Norse God of Mischief, which is a close proximity of His personality, is also close to the personality of the Angel of Death and Retribution in the Bible.

[moose65]

11. thanks for enlightening me!

I have always wondered where we got the story of Lucifer falling from heaven and then morphing into Satan. It's not in the bible at all. In fact, Satan hardly shows up in the Old Testament. That's how I came to realize he's a myth... if Satan is really God's sworn enemy, then certainly he would have been after the Hebrews at every turn. Yet, Satan is never mentioned as causing any of the Israelite's troubles. Oh, and another thing I've always wondered about: if heaven is so perfect and we'll all be sitting up there on clouds playing the harp and worshipping God all day, then how could Satan and his angels "rebel" against God? Do we still have a choice to leave heaven once we get there?? That was never talked about in my Sunday school class, either!

[nemo137]

17. Fun comic book based on this idea

"Light Brigade," by Peter Tomasi and Peter Snejbjerg. A very exciting World War II meets horror series about a war in heaven that a squad of American soldiers get mixed up in. Some very cool characters in there, and an overall good read.

[LaurenG]

6. I think there are angels

I think they exist visibly and invisibly. I know that most religions speak of them even if they call them different names. I'm comfortable with their existence even if they are just ET's (with cloaking skills)lol. In any case are there bad guys who are angels? I don't know, there probably are. There are things that appear to be evil discarnates, we've all seen those scary movies based on real occurrences. I can't prove them or disprove them so I'm open.

[Odin2005]

7. Angles are the relics of when the Hebrews were polytheistic.

The earliest Hebrews worshiped the same gods as thier fellow Canaanites in Phoenicia. Satan also started out as part of the Hebrew pantheon and only reached his present form untill the Zoroasterians influence came.

[Nihil]

9. And in a similar fashion ...

... saints are the relics of when the "converted" Christians retained
some of their previous polytheism ... instead of worshipping a minor
god of "something" they found a patron saint of that "something" and
prayed at a shrine to him/her. Quite a neat compromise really.

[moose65]

10. Interesting...

I'd never heard that before, but it makes perfect sense! Also, the Hebrews seemed to have many different names that they used for 'God'... perhaps another relic of an earlier polytheistic age?

[Solon]

15. If you want a list...

OK, first, as far as I know, Satan is NOT in the Canaanite pantheon, the closest would be Baal, but that is somewhat iffy. Also, the Head of the Canaanite pantheon was named El, in a similar role as Zeus in the Greek pantheon, also YHWH(Yahweh) was also a member, but distinctly different God in the pantheon. The two separate kingdoms, Judea and Israel, each had one of these Gods as the HEAD of their nations. Many Middle Eastern religions at the time believed in Local Gods over specific territories and nations, this helped with cultural unity, but also served as a bragging point, you beat up one nation, you beat up its God as well. Also, another note, other Gods and Goddesses were worshiped at the same time, Asherah-of-the-Sea was the Consort to El, and even had a Shrine in Solomon's Temple. Eventually, the two Gods merged, becoming, at first, Yahweh-El. This God became universal when the Israelites were banished to Babylon, their nation and God defeated, they changed His aspect to become the God of all Nations, therefore cannot lose power, and became Omnipotent and Omnipresent as well. This change is also possibly influenced by Egyptian Monotheism, the Aten worshipers may have been banished to the nearest nation north of Egypt after Atenaken died and Tutankhamen ascended to the throne and restored the old Gods to power.

Now, another important point, in the Middle East, a God's name has power, and shouldn't be spoken lightly(Do not say my name in vain, etc.) So, instead, the name of God is never used, the -El part was dropped from the name, btw, but instead, El is now just the general title meaning God, similar to Allah today, though in Islam, Allah was never used as an actual name, whereas El is the proper name for the Supreme God of the Canaanite Pantheon. Instead of using his name, Jews today use words like "Adonai", which means Lord, another title. Another, lesser used title is Elohim, but that was technically a plural form, and used in the original text of Genesis(And the Gods created the Heavens and the Earth).

Another interesting piece of info, notice the names for many of the famous Angels, GabriEL, MichaEL, etc. These names usually mean things like "Sword of God", "Hand of God", or "Messenger of God". Its actually debatable as to whether or not they are even separate beings from God at all, or just extensions of His Will, similar to the Christian Holy Spirit in the Trinity.

ON EDIT: Christianity is even more complex, not only does it carry some of the beliefs of the Jews, they also mixed in the dualism of Zoasterism, Ahura Mazdah, a Good God, versus Ahriman, his sworn enemy. Zoasterism teaches that Ahura Mazdah will trimph over Ahriman, and a separate religion, Mithraism, about the Son of Ahura Mazdah, born a Mortal man, who suffered for mankind's sins and died for their salvation was a splinter group that predated but was quite popular by the time Christianity came onto the scene. Does it sound familiar? Also, while Zoasterism had a concept of Heaven and Hell, whereas ancient Judiasm did not, the Greco-Roman version of the afterlife was what became part of Christian Cosmology. Elysium, as the Romans called it, became Heaven, while Tartaros became Hell.

[beam me up scottie]

12. Guardian angels

[catbert836]

18. BWAHAHAHAHA!!

On a coffee break! :rofl:

[saltpoint]

13. My idea of an angel is Walt Whitman in his care for wounded soldiers

during the American Civil War.

[saltpoint]

14. My second idea of an angel is Emmylou Harris singing "Boulder to

Birmingham."

Can't beat it.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. weren't a third of the angels cast out of heaven along with lucifer?

The popular idea about the origin of Satan has been quite a story to say the least, even though Jesus said "he was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). It is said that he was the most majestic of all angelic beings. In all the universe there was not another like him in beauty. He also, as it is taught, had the honored position of being the great choir director of heaven's host. Everything went well in heaven until one fateful day back in eternity past, and all "hell" broke loose.

We have had this very graphic image painted for us which shows a terribly concerned and troubled God calling His archangel before Him and saying, "Michael, we've got a problem on our hands. Lucifer, My old confidant, has let his beauty go to his head. Your friend believes he should be the god of the universe, and He has plans of taking My throne. While in this tragic delusion of grandeur, he has persuaded about one-third of all My other angels to swear allegiance to him and to go to war against Me. Therefore, before he is able to deceive the rest of My trusted servants, and this whole mess gets totally out of hand, I want you to put a stop to this insurrection. Take the remaining two-thirds and cast him and his rebels out of heaven. Send them to planet Earth. This will be their prison until I decide what to do with the rebellious lot." At the end of this war in heaven, as it is commonly taught, Lucifer is defeated.



Lucifer is a name that is known all over the world. With it being so common, especially with Christians, it may be surprising to find that the word LUCIFER is used only ONCE in the entirety of the Bible. Other than the King James Version of the Bible, I have only found two others, the Living Bible, and the Goodspeed Bible which use the word "Lucifer." The King James reads, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O LUCIFER, son of the morning!" (Isa 14:12). This misused word comes from the Hebrew word (1)heylel which simply means SHINING ONE (Young's Concordance), MORNING STAR (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance), BRIGHT STAR or SPLENDID STAR (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon). Lucifer is the Latin word which was translated from heylel. Heylel is not a proper noun but is a descriptive word that tells us something about the one spoken of. The Hebrew word does not indicate this is a personal name, not in the remotest sense. It was the Latin speaking churches in the 2nd century in North Africa which first rendered the word as a personal name in their Latin version of the Bible. Since then, every Latin revision kept that one error intact. It was from the Latin that Martin Luther translated his German Bible, and from there the popularized name of Lucifer made its way into the minds and pens of the King James translators.