Unfortunately this doesn't really faze Christians at all because many of them believe that God is the source of all that is good, and so by default anyone who worships God is also good by default, and of course this logic follows that anyone that doesn't worship God is evil by default.

Also, barring that, just because Satan punishes bad people doesn't make him good. He punishes bad people because he's jealous of God's love for Humans, and he hates them for it. He's more of an antihero I guess if you really wanted to paint him in a somewhat good light.

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except that's a horrible distortion of Satan's real role in Abrahamic religion - he was once understood as YHWH's most loyal angel, willing to inflict eternal torture against his will for the sake of cleansing sin or whatever the fuck his torture was supposed to achieve. If the Christian god stopped being a massive piece of shit and went "yo, I don't think all this torture stuff is actually helpful", Satan would immediately stop his business.

[–] DesolateMood@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be upfront, I am not religious and never have been, but my understanding is that Satan isn't the one doing the actual punishing? He is being punished by God himself, as is everyone else in Hell

[–] Gabu@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is a common misconception. Lucifer was punished and had his holy light removed, but Satan was always supposed to stay in hell and govern it.

[–] king_link1@feddit.dk 1 points 1 year ago

Well, he was banished for being proud. But it all depends how you interpret the Bible

[–] AEsheron@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

There isn't really much about eternal torture or damnation back when Satan was still an agent of God, and he certainly wasn't in charge of Hell. All the talk of gnashing teeth and lakes of fire was originally metaphor for how much it sucked, not literal.

Hell isn't a place, it's a state of complete lack of Grace. The idea is that everyone has a 2 way connection to God, and all good feelings and emotions must come from it. People are free to reject that connection by committing mortal sin, but "the line stays open," as long as someone lives. Honest repentance is accepting the connection back. If one dies before accepting grace again, God shrugs and accepts they aren't interested, and cuts his side of the line. This leaves an existence with zero positive thoughts or feelings, best case scenario is eternal meh. Of course, it was hyped up to be awful to help convert and maintain control. And, ofcourse, Satan did do a bit of torture here and there, but it was generally all on living folk to test them.