Menoman

Some interesting facts about Satan, "The Prince of Darkness"

First of all, Satan, is in no way shape or form, his name. Satan is merelya hebrew word for "advarsary". The devil, is not his name, it is a Abrahamic word for, "Advarsary" also. Lastly, Lucifer, is not his name... this came about through a misinterpretation of Isaiah, which I won't get into... completely different story.

Names that The dark lord should go by? Well, first of all, there is his true name, the name given to him by god when he was created. The name "Azezel". This name was given to him when god created the 7 angels who were to rule over earth, in direction from god. God would look over the heavens.

So far, thats 1 name. There are 2 more you can call him. The other, more of a title, "The Prince of Darkness".

The 3rd name, (which sounds hypocritical but isnt), You can call him Lucifer. But not in the sense that Isaiah was speaking of, Lucifer as in "The Bearer of Light". Strange sounding for the almighty evil in the world? Well I'll explain a bit later.




Now that we know what we can call him. I'll be calling him Azezel when I use his name for the rest of this post.

What does he look like? Well, the pictures you see of him, Red skinned, horned, cloven hooves. Chances are......They are actually correct! You see, before Azezel was banished to hell, he was normally pictured as a Man, with Goat Head, and Hooves like a goat. So thats where the horns and the hooves come from. He is normally red as that is the color of blood, which is what christians want you to think he is all about.


Ok, so we can call him Azezel, and he probably does have horns and hooves, but isnt technically red.

Azezel, is given credit for taking the appearance of a serpeant (Snake) in order to fool adam and eve into eatting the forbidden fruit. I say given credit, because this may have been a good thing you see! If you have read the bible, when Adam and Eve bite from the Forbidden Apple, god is unhappy, and in order to show them the difference between right and wrong, he casts them from the garden of eden!

In the act of telling them to eat the apple, at that very moment, it gave Adam and Eve, the ability to understand, they have their own will! Also, that event led to adam and eve, gaining understanding of right and wrong!

Christians often label Azezel as "Evil" but can you honestly label something evil? It's impossible to do so, the definition depends vastly on who you are. You see, to a mouse, a cat is evil. But to a human, the cat may be a perfect pet. But in protestant fundamentalist christianity, the definition of "good" and "evil" is based soley on the humans attitude toward the christian god. Humans are said to have been created for the purpose of glorifying god. Therefore, total subservience is "Good" whereas anything else is "evil" no matter how beneficial to humans it may be.


There are some people who see Azezel as a being who exclaims the idea of not ignorantly submitting yourself to any orthodoxy. Rather, Azezel is often times the impression of humans with individuality and independant thought process!

Now to understand being completely independant, Yes, Satan DOES in fact influence us to think forbidden thoughts, in order to be a true independant being you must be able to think these thoughts. Does this mean to follow through with the forbidden thoughts? Absolutely NOT. After you question the validity of why the thought is forbidden in yourself, you may fine that the thought/action is forbidden for good reason, or perhaps you'll find that this is not so bad a thought (in a human improvement sense).


Many many news stations, christian programming, try to use Scare Tactics, to point out hate crimes, done by those who think satan is not the almighty evil in this world. On the other hand, you almost never see news about christians killing people for their god. (honestly just look in a history book for that ^^) You don't see how people die every day for being gay, and christians kill them for being like that.


Azezel, Lucifer, The prince of darkness... is not about hatred and bloodshed, he is about free thinking, independant thought, and individuality.

The truth is, before you say your a christian, a jew, a buddhist, a satanist even, You need to fully question the orthodoxy, even after you decide what you feel is right for you, you need to continue questioning sin, "good", "evil", and everything about your decision, until the day that you die, and all is revealed to you.

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martinguerre

see...here's my problem with the premise of your arguement. why is it that you need a force in opposition or tension with God to produce independant thought?

unthinking subservience is not a Christian value...we have been given the image of God, and share the responsbility to be co-creators with God. Satan, imo, is anti-creation. To tear down, to accuse, to divide, to unmake, to isolate...that is the action of evil. And so while good and evil have no concord...it is not as if there are some folks who are all good and all evil. We have free will...and the garden of eden is a wonderful way of expressing the beginnings of our understandings of that gift. what we do with that is up to us...and it doesn't take being evil to be creative and free-thinking. quite the opposite.

Menoman

The entire point is that "evil" cannot exist. It's merely a word. It's what people have labeled Satan due to him inspiring free will.

If neccessary to choose, would you say that Satan is "Evil" or that satan is merely a "disgruntled employee"?

Can you answer "If Azezel had not taken the form of a serpeant and shown what free will is to Adam/Eve, would we even have it today?"

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Xell101

I've always thought of it as being god had plopped us in the greatest end we could possibly attain without taking the journey to get there and Satan decided that wasn't right so he, being as disgruntled as he was, decided to trick us into having enough knowledge that would be obtained from said journey that we ejected ourselves from god's bliss and subsequently god ejected us from Eden.

I've also always thought of Satan as viewing it like Plato's cave, and the apple put our views somewhere outside the cave resulting in our ejection.

Menoman

So if this theory is true, it also just points out that it was Azezel that gave us knowledge of free will. If I'm understanding what your saying correctly.

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asaris

Actually, there are four beings in the Old Testament, three of which usually get conflated into 'Satan', correctly or incorrectly, and the fourth of which you add to the soup. The first is the serpent. We are only told that the serpent tempted Adam and Eve -- no mention of Satan in the passage, and, AFAIK, no identification of him with Satan in the Old Testament. The second is Satan, whose most prominent appearance is in Job, though he appears in some Psalms and some of the prophets. As you point out, Satan simply means 'adversary', and in fact, in Job we see him playing more the role of a prosecuting attorney or devil's advocate (if you'll pardon the pun) than that of some primordial evil. The third is Lucifer, which, as far as I can tell, only appears in Isaiah. Azazel is the fourth, and is the odd man out. The other three are identified with each other in the NT, but Azazel is not mentioned outside of Leviticus[1].

Menoman's position, if we take scripture to be a guide to who Satan is, doesn't have much to recommend. The NT is pretty clear that he is an enemy of the human race. Even if you look at the OT, he isn't portrayed at all in a positive light. He is a lying spirit and prince of the air, neither of which are exactly recommendations. In fact, his deceitful nature counts against Menoman's Promethean spin. If he was interested in our 'free will and independence', why would he lie to us? Of course, this might all be propaganda put out by the opposing party.

But Menoman also suggests that evil is an equiprimordial force to good, and this is not only religiously, but also philosophically problematic. Evil cannot be ontologically prior to good, since it requires good to exist. Firstly, we need good things in order to do evil actions; power, intelligence, and even existence are all goods when taken in themselves. Secondly, no one ever does evil solely for the sake of doing evil, but for the sake of obtaining some good.

Finally, Menoman writes First of all, this is false. Consider first the story of Jacob. Jacob spent a night wrestling with God; however you understand this passage, it's difficult to read it as total subservience. And yet, for his trouble, God names him Israel and makes him the father of His people. Job questions God after being afflicted by him, and yet God tells his friends "You have not spoken of me rightly, as my servant Job has." Doesn't sound like total subservience to me. Secondly, doesn't it seem proper that, if Christianity is right and we were created by God, that we somehow have an obligation to Him? Think of this in analogy to our parents; just like we have obligations to our parents, we have obligations towards God. Thirdly, total subsevience to God is impossible. I'm not talking about sin. I mean, total subservience implies that in all circumstances God tells us what to do. Yet he doesn't tell us when to get up in the morning or what to have for breakfast. He usually doesn't even tell us where we should live, or what sort of job we should pursue. He actually leaves these decisions up to us! And you say he wants total subservience?

[1]Tthe passage has got to be one of the top ten most mysterious passages in scripture -- the Israelites are told to put aside a goat for 'Azazel'. Whether Azazel is a person or simply the purpose of the goat can only be a matter for idle speculation.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

xepherys

Frankly, I have to go with my standard religious argument here regarding the existance of God (Jehovah, or JHVH) and Azezel in the first place. Here, then, are my argumetns against:

Religion has existed for much, much longer than Christianity. Even the most ancient religions we have written or pictoral history of are probably not the first and most primitive religions to grace humanity. The Babylonians, the Egyptians... and far older than those cultures. Then the concept of religion in other cultures elsewhere in the world (seemingly unconnected) like the Mayans and Aztec, native Americans, ancient Chinese...

Chrisitianity would have one believe that without accepting Jesus Christ as your savior, you are doomed to be placed outside of Paradise/Heaven. Though there are billions of people who have lived and died SINCE Jesus that have had no exposure to Christianity. So there's the backup plan of, you are only disallowed from Heaven if you KNOW of Jesus and do not believe. Well, well... what murky waters we tread in now.

Next... there have historically been very few monotheistic religions (only one god). Polytheism has reigned the VAST majority of human history. Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Native Americans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Celts/Druids, most modern-day Neo-Pagans. Even today, while monotheism may be a majority bag, that's still a relatively new development.

Next next... the Holy Bible, in it's current and previous forms have been a great learning tool for the people for the last several thousand years. Especially the teachings of the Old Testament. The stories outlined therein teach right and wrong, good and evil. They teach the benefits of helping your fellow man. Of giving being more important than receiving. When kosherite law is concerned they teach about the packing of meat in salt (to keep in fresh when you don't have coolant-driven refrigeration devices), to stay away from pork (historically the "dirtiest" of meats, most prone to cause illness), and other such laws that help instill health and well being into the community. This is a good thing, but has less to do with a single god, and more to do with just being decent people.

Next again... Christianity tends to foresake the Old Testament. The scowling, critical God of the Hebrews turns into the jolly loving, self-sacrificing God of the Christians, seemingly overnight (or at least with the turn of a crisp thin page).

So, with my (very few compared to what I have in stock) points layed out I say this... there is no good and evil outside of human interpretation. The concept of Azezel as Satan is the nessecary opposition to the Holy God because without a balance, a single god cannot easily exist in human understanding. For those of you that are staunchly Christian, answer then this... can God exist without the Christian Satan? Can "good" have a concept without a concept of "evil"? Things that have no opposite are much harder for people to comprehend. Even children can understand good/evil, night/day, sunny/cloudy, yes/no, stop/move, heaven/hell. Give a child a concept that has no opposite. When the "how?" and "why?" questions start to turn up, the explanations are not so easy.

"What does cloudy mean?"
"It means that those white puffy things are blocking the sun"
"Oh"

"What is the chemical composition of glass?"
*blank stare*
"Daddy?"

Sure, that may be the two extremes, but it IS generally true.

martinguerre

Nope. Overgeneralized.

That's very innacurate. http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=34

As for your last point...your best btw...construction can exisit without destruction. It's the other way around that doesn't work. frankly, i think that our imaginations are used to the stories of violence and death is one of the huge problems we face. it's hard to tell stories that confront our violence, our self-servedness, our evil...but i think it can be done...and that those stories are the ones that are capable of being told beyond evil.

tiberry

I think the real point of, and further the whole reason for constructing an evil being in the first place is that you cannot know or conceive of an "ultimate good" without an "ultimate evil" to contrast it by. Without evil, you cannot know good. Without black, there would be no white. Taken a step further: If God was or is "all (or everything) there is"; as most religious texts describe him or in which he describes himself this way - how could he even realize that he existed? To know myself, I must also know that which is NOT me. IMO - Humans have imposed the personification of "God" and Devil" onto the two major themes of "good" and "evil" so that they can further rationalize each beyond just the conceptual.

My beliefs are such that I do not need to personify either, thus - I don't ascribe to any religion that conceives of or attempts to personify either as something separate from ourselves. The whole notion of personification seems to me, the root of all the confusion that stems from interpreting individual passages or contextual examples from the bible or any other "holy book".

In short - Do I think God exists? Sure. In all of us - not some separate, supreme being...same for "the devil". That which we call "evil" exists in all of us as well. If you need to assign a name to it to rationalize it, fine.

Even further - and more in line with the topic of the thread: I think ALL things are of God. If he's as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, as most of you'd have me believe - how can this not be so? Therefore, to judge anything as "bad" would be God contradicting himself, wouldn't it?

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My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

Menoman

What is stopping the human race from being the contradictive "evil" in the world, and instead of blaming humans for evil, we blame an object/diety, which we see as "The Adversary" Satan.

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aRs3N1c42

Okay, I haven't had time to read all the posts in their entirety so forgive me if I say something that has already been mentioned. In merely want to point out one flaw in the argument that Satan, Lucifer, Azezel, the Serpent was the orriginator of free will. Read your Genesis chapter 3 again, my friend. Without free will, Adam and Eve would not have been able to listen to the suggestion of the serpent and thus choose to be disobedient to the command of God. The forbidden fruit gave them (us) the knowledge of good and evil, not free will. Free will is part of what makes human kind "created in the likeness of God". That's what distinguishes us from the angels. We have the ability to choose to be obedient. Satan did not give us this ability, we were created with it.

I'm sure I'll have more to say when I've got more time to read.

Until then...

Glory's Sun

here's something else for you to ponder in this debate.. you included satanist's needing to think about the orthodoxy in your closing argument.. however true satanists don't believe in a god or satan. just thought I'd throw that out there

asaris

So far I've seen two people assert that good cannot exist without evil, but no one has actually responded to the arguments that I gave against this position. If you'll excuse my quoting myself:

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

aRs3N1c42

I'll respond to the Good can't exist without Evil position. It's actually quite the opposite. Take the analogy of light and darkness. Darkness doesn't have any measurable qualities. It is merely the absence of light. Similarly Evil is the absence of goodness.

This is why is takes effort to be Good, to do good deeds, to be selfless and giving whereas to be selfish, mean, or Evil it actually comes frightfully easily. This goes along with theories on entropy. In any given system (chemical, physical, dare I say psycho-spiritual) without the input of energy, the system will tend to deteriorate into chaos. Without applying Goodness, a system (person, society, culture) with tend to deteriorate to Evil.

Read Lord of the Flies. Without the imposition of adult authority and structure, or Goodness, the children on the island turned into savages, killing each other.

It's not Good that depends on Evil. It's Evil that can't exist without Good.

The next logical question from this argument is, "If Evil is the absence of Good, can we ever get rid of Evil entirely?" Will there always be Evil?

I'l let someone else address this, though I have my own thoughts on the topic.

martinguerre

Check your logical form there...
I'll simplify:
A=good
B=evil

In order to perform B, we must have traits of A.
The motivations for doing B are to attain A.

Neither of those suggest that A must have B to exist. It suggests that B must have A. Which is what we're saying...good isn't depenant on evil, but that it is evil that depends on good.

cockmonger

i never imagined hell to be a bad place...i mean c'mon...Azezel's all about temptation

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Lovely party Geoffery, but theres a turd in the punch bowl.
-George Carlin

asaris

Ahem: I'm also saying that we don't need evil for good. Good is self-subsistent, evil is parasitic on good. That's what I was trying to prove. Sorry if I was unclear.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Lebell

You propose that there really is no *evil*, since it is all relative.

Then the only thing that matters is the right of might. In otherwords, if I have the might/cunning to achieve it, then it is "right".

This philosophy doesn't require anything like "mercy" or "justice", so those who are weaker are fodder for those that are stronger.

This means that ultimately, we of the earthly plane are whatever Satan wants us to be, including slaves or food.

That doesn't sound like a nice guy to me.

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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martinguerre

And, nevermind me! sorry 'bout that...

Meier_Link

Ironic, considering that Galileo was persecuted by the church and eventually sentenced to life in prison for exericising those abilities.

usrbinboy

All hail satan!

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I'm somebody's fetish.

Menoman

This is False.

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xepherys

Well, I suppose that depends on your particular flavor of Christianity.

Hmmm, the point wasn't to be that God was not caring in the old testament... but where in the new does he punish those who act against his name?

Construction can, in an infinite universe exist without destruction... in a finite universe it cannot (at some point). Theoretically, in an infinite universe, everything is possible somewhere.

Incorrect. If God is, in fact, omnipotent and omnipresent, he would then, by default, understand of himself without something to contrast to. Omniscience is something that humans have a hard time (or cannot, perhaps, at all) understanding.

So do angels... that's why Azezel was cast down from heaven. Correct?

Disagreed! Some people are evil for the sake of evil. Others are evil due to insanity and not knwoing the difference between good and evil. Some people are bad without any regard to good at all.

martinguerre

Exactly...i want you to know that you're dealing with a partial strawman. if you want to claim that your argument fits all of christianity...then it's a false premise.

Revelations? The judgement in Mark? Matthew's judgement, too. Acts has a few smitings, too.

Edit...

i should say...i don't believe you can separate the judgement and the mercy. in God's involvement in our lives, that which is not holy is brought to judgement. this may hurt a bit...but it is the healing we need.

asaris

I very much doubt the first part of your proposition. People are evil for the sake of power, or pleasure, or some other good. Never just for the sake of evil. It's impossible to be morally evil through insanity, since the truly insane don't have any choice in the matter.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Robaggio

Although this is a bit off topic from where this thread is right now, the original post brought up some interesting thoughts that have been running around my head for a while.

I always thought of God and Satan as being good friends. I mean, there has to be some understanding between the two guys if souls are to be sorted correctly. In my head, I imagine an old man in a white robe shaking the hand of a red devil while saying "Hey dude, I'm going to take the good souls. You can have the bad ones." It's a bit ironic to think about really. I mean, God, and the Devil, agreeing about the distribution of souls- a deal if you will?

God... a deal... with the Devil.

Hillarious!

kd4

just thought I would say that not all ancient religions have strictly polytheistic ideas. Take the Greeks for example, yea there's a whole pantheon, but concerning the fates of mortals, which I think God is mostly concerned with, is controlled by one god and that's Zeus. My proof would be mostly from the Illiad by Homer. Homer says that there are 2 jars on Zeus' doorsill where the blessings and curses of men come from, or something along those lines. If you want to check it I'll give you an actual source later.

asaris

The Greek relationship to their gods, from what little I've been able to pick up, is at least a lot more complicated than a simple pantheon system. It's at least worth noting that several Greek philosophers postulated a single God (Plato and Aristotle in the classical age; Plotinus later), reasoning that if the gods were supposed to be, well, gods, they couldn't be like the gods of the Greeks. There was also a brief episode in Egyptian history when the pharaoh (Akhenaton, IIRC) was a monotheist. So in any case, it's a bit more complicated than simply "there have been historically very vew monotheistic religions".

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Glory's Sun

it is?? ok.. I was taking this from one of LaVey's books.. but what does he know?

asaris

From what little I know (and I'm hardly an expert on Satanism, though I've been told I look like LaVey with the right glasses and a goatee), some Satanists believe in a literal Satan and some don't.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Supersonic

Care to offfer any evidence to back this up? I always see good and evil as being on an axis, with Good on one end, and Evil on the other

Similarly, Good could just be said as being a lack of Evil (or sin?)

Menoman

Because catholics go through lent and don't eat meat, etc, etc... That means that all "christians" do?

Look up Theistic Satanism if you wish, also a true satanism as you put it and it's believed that Azezel is a being, with form.

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Glory's Sun

I was simply going by the doctrine of the COS(church of satan) the only reason it was even called Satanism is to be a direct opposite to christianity. There are different forms of Satanism just as there are different forms of christianity.

aRs3N1c42

This IS a sticky one, isn't it? The scriptures do not say specifically that Azezel/Lucifer/Satan was cast out for any particular action. It states that he said to himself ("in thine heart" Isa 14:13 KJV) that he will ascend into heaven, etc. Most commentaries on this passage would indicate that Lucifer's sin was to think too much of himself or to exalt himself above God. The question is, does one need free will in order to experience pride. Did Azezel/Lucifer/Satan make a choice against the will of God? Our understanding of his position was that he was the head worshiper in heaven. It seems that there was a slight shift in his perception that he began to worship himself instead of God. It is also indicated in scripture that one third of heaven fell with him. Were these angels? Did they also start worshiping Lucifer/Azezel/Satan instead of God?

The question becomes, "What is free will?" Can arrogance and pride exist without free will? If we assume that angels don't have free will, the fact that Luficer/Azezel/Satan and a third of heaven were cast out would seem to indicate that they can have pride without free will. Would it not be possible that the same "rules" of psychology and spirituality that govern humans don't necessarily apply to Angels? What are Angels? They are spiritual beings created by God. They are different from humans, we know that, but how? They do not have a physical body but can appear as if they did. Scripture describes two types of angels, cherubim and seraphim; the warriors and the worshipers, respectively.

I tend to get long winded, so I'll stop here and let someone else reply.

aRs3N1c42

I come at this from a Judeo/Christian perspective. Jesus said that there is no one good except God (Mat 19:17). This would make God the definition of good. Therefore anything that is not God and not of God would be categorized as Evil. Translate "not God and not of God" to be the absence of God, or by definition the absence of good. That is where the concept of evil being the abscence of good came from.

adysav

The suggestion that there is some kind of absolute scale of good and evil is bizarre.
There is action and interpretation.

xepherys

Yes, but nearly all polytheistic religions have some sort o "father"-figure or head of the gods, Zeus and Odin come to mind quickest, but the majority of them have. The concept of the singular god, however, tries to embody all of the pantheon into a single creator that is responsible for everything, creation, weather, trees, animals, people, war, life, death, uncreation. That makes them vastly different while being quite similar at the same time. Quite the conundrum.


This IS a sticky one, isn't it? The scriptures do not say specifically that Azezel/Lucifer/Satan was cast out for any particular action. It states that he said to himself ("in thine heart" Isa 14:13 KJV) that he will ascend into heaven, etc. Most commentaries on this passage would indicate that Lucifer's sin was to think too much of himself or to exalt himself above God. The question is, does one need free will in order to experience pride. Did Azezel/Lucifer/Satan make a choice against the will of God? Our understanding of his position was that he was the head worshiper in heaven. It seems that there was a slight shift in his perception that he began to worship himself instead of God. It is also indicated in scripture that one third of heaven fell with him. Were these angels? Did they also start worshiping Lucifer/Azezel/Satan instead of God?

Hmmm... indeed! However, free will dictates that we control our will. Without free will, your will is dictated by another. In the case of angels, lack of free will would mean their will was dictated by God. So, in theory, God could have WILLED Azezel, et al, to commit the sin of pride, but who knows. Assuming God did no such thing, it would show the angels did indeed have free will. Most spiritual people, Christian or otherwise, would posit that will is part of the spirit rather than the physical body. If that is the case, then there is little reason to doubt that angels would be much different in regards to that specific.

aRs3N1c42

What you suggest is pure moral relativism. "What is good or evil for me is not necessarily good or evil for you." This world view lends to myriad problems in the face of criminal legislature. Suppose I kill your family. If I can prove that, for me, I was doing what I interpret to be good, how can you reply and say what I did was wrong or evil? If right and wrong are not ultimately based upon some standard of good and evil, what are they based upon? Societal standards tend to crumble in this world view. Upon what are your standards of right and wrong based? What do you do when your standards conflict with society's standards?

aRs3N1c42

If we define sin as opposition to the will of God, then it would follow that in order for Satan/Lucifer/Azezel to sin, he must have a will with which to oppose God's will. What then is keeping two thirds of heaven from also following Satan/Lucifer/Azezel in his sin? If the human condition of sinfulness started when Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, could angels perhaps not have knowledge of good and evil? Is it possible to oppose the will of God without this knowledge? Is it possible to be held accountable for sin without this knowledge?

wnker85

I would think that God gave humans free will to begin with. The "apple" was there and placed there by God. All he did was told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree. He gave them the choice to or not. If anything Eve did not have to eat from the tree. She choose to listen to the serpent than too God. That shows that she had free will before eating the from the tree. The snake did not tell her too, he talked her into it. Meaning that she had to beconvinced.

So, that makes Azezel no more responsible for our free will than God.