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New Thought Says No...and Yes!
(Part I)
Do you believe in a literal devil? The one known as Lucifer or Satan or Beelzebub? The Dragon? The Serpent? Universal Evil? God's Opposite? A minister's job (and I am a minister) is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable; to shake up our certainties. I hope to do that in this article. In times past, it was as important for Christians to believe in Lucifer as it was for them to believe in Christ. You could be excommunicated or worse if you claimed to disbelieve in the Devil. There are those today who would not mind if disbelievers could once again be put to the Inquisitional rack. But how did this creature, this Lucifer, come to be so necessary a part of Western religion? I intend to demonstrate that, in Christianity, it is more important to believe in Lucifer than it is to believe in Jesus, or even God Himself! And, I will show how important it is to drop that belief once and for all. Now, I love and pay heed to the following quote by that famous author, Anonymous: Never give advice; the ignorant won't heed it, the wise don't need it. This message is not advice; it's simply information that I share with enthusiasm, and my opinion. Take it as you will. Accept it or reject it. Either way, I believe you'll be touched by it in some way. In the Bible, the 14th chapter of Isaiah has been used to proclaim the following story: Lucifer, which means 'Lightbearer' or 'Bringer of Dawn,' is not only an angel, but the most beautiful angel in heaven. Somewhere along the line, he decides in his arrogance that he can rise above the 'Most High,' or God Himself. This decision gets him booted out of Paradise and dashed down to Earth, where, in his perpetual anger and need for revenge, seeks to corrupt as many of God's created innocent humans as he can. The first step is to appear to Adam and Eve as the infamous serpent in the Garden of Eden. He tempts the woman, who in turn tempts the man, thus setting the scene for the doctrine of Original Sin. Humanity is sent meekly from the Garden to begin a long journey of toil, heartache, suffering, death, and, depending upon your loyalties, heaven or hell. So goes the myth... I grew up believing that myth. I was raised fundamentalist Pentecostal, or I should say, I raised myself that way. My parents took me to church when I was five, told me that, if I liked it, I could come back, or not. I chose to return. I stayed on that path until I was 37. Interestingly enough, for most of that time, I had an inner nagging doubt about the truth of that path. By the time I was 30, I had started to seriously question, not only the path, but my participation in it. I began investigating other life paths, including Buddhism, Sufiism, and some of the New Age beliefs.
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