Talk:Devil

Nick Scratch

Ok so a while back i added Nick Scratch to the other names section but now its been removed. it is a combination of Old Nick and Old Scratch. --Nick Scratch 03:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's 'god's idea to screw with Job, not Satan's

From the article... "In the book of Job (Iyov), ha-satan is the title, not the proper name, of an angel submitted to God; he is the divine court's chief prosecutor...After God points out Job's piety, ha-satan asks for permission to test the faith of Job."

That is not true. Satan asks "Doth Job fear 'god' for nought?...But put forth "thine hand" now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face." "And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath [is] in thy power" (Job 1:10-12). The Dhampire LOGOS (talk • contribs) 17:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

devil in art/Satan in literature

I have altered the links that claim to be about the "Devil in art" to reflect that they are actually links to an article merely listing his appearances in literature. This is not a splitting of hairs; I followed the "devil in art" link with the reasonable expectation to be able to read about his appearances in painting, cinema, etc. The linked article is instead much more specific and limiting than the links originally implied.Minaker 15:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"demonize enemies"

an anonymous user deleted these two lines from the demonize enemies section, calling them "biased" and "unreferenced."

white devil: a term used by the Nation of Islam to refer to white Americans

Great Satan: a term used by Iran to refer to the US.

I can't see what's biased about reporting the facts that these terms have been used and by whom. Also, the wikilinks in the lines take you to pages where you can see this information for yourself. So I reverted the deletion. Jonathan Tweet 16:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Khemet

I can't see the point of calling the section on Ancient Egypt 'Khemet'. That is the country's name in Ancient Egyptian. The other sections are not called by their names in languages other than English - the 'Islam' section is titled 'Islam' not whatever Islam is in Arabic. Likewise, references to 'Ancient Khemet' are a contradiction in terms. Hut 8.5 18:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Smells

Someone keeps editing in 'the devil smells.' I've changed it back twice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chaosman (talk • contribs) 03:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC).

Thanks, you've just reverted vandalism! You've done Wikipedia a good service, well done. We need vandalism fighters urgently, so help if you can! You can find some useful stuff to help you at WP:TOOLS. Before you start reverting vandalism on a big scale though, make sure you're familiar with the policies (a list) and guidelines of Wikipedia. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 18:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Page protection?

Due to the number of vandals I'm wondering whether we should get this page protected from editing by non-wikipedians? Zerokitsune 02:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean semi-protection? Might be a good idea. I have it in my watchlist anyway, so I keep tabs on any vandalism. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 09:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

*sigh* Vanderdecken, where were you when this happened? :(

DarkFalls reverted (correctly), and then re-reverted, leaving the cruft in place.

-- Fullstop 01:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalised big time.

Uh, considering I cannot do anything because of not having an account here. Could someone fix this page?

~~Wikipediauser 03/29/07~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.211.2.2 (talk) 15:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

disambiguation?

What about all the other devils - Devil's Island, Devil's cake, Tassy devil, etc? Myles325a 14:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Query

Why are Satan and Devil two different articles seeing as they are both exactly the same thing?

Anon

I was wondering the same thing. Alpheus (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

They're not. Satan is a specific incarnation in Judeo-Christian and Islamic theology. The Devil is a much more broad concept, as similar figures have developed in many religions and myths. -- Kesh (talk) 04:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Editing the intro

I think the following should be deleted from the introduction: "In humour, concept of something as evil as Satan is often mocked." I don't think the concept of the Devil is so tied to humor that it needs to be mentioned, it seems only to be in the article to insult believers in this concept. Even if it was added innocently it still seems out of context and silly. Comments? Jirt 16:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

"Other Relgions"

is it just me does that sound wrong, as if there is a 'right religion' and oh yeah there are these OTHER religions called buddhism and hindusim (that about a quarter of the WORLD believe in) that have concepts that are KINDA like our CORRECT religion! Obviously this article was written by christian biggots that should be reading up on some of those OTHER relgions.... because maybe they have something good to say! Change the title from OTHER relgions!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.119.116 (talk) 00:38, June 24, 2007

First, please remain civil. Second, try to assume good faith. Accusing people of being bigoted and intentionally misleading is a bad foot to start out on.

That said, do you have a suggestion for what to change it to? The concept of "The Devil" is rather skewed towards Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths in the Western hemisphere, so it's best documented in that context. The concept of a singular evil, and a foil for a singular god, is not as common in other faiths. I don't see an issue with the article as-is, but I'm open to other suggestions if you have any. -- Kesh 01:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Sir, I am uniquely placed to furnish a deep insight into the subject of this article. I encountered same and cast him out.Mgr.James Horan Decd. 12:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The Fallen Angel

Hi, I want to know if this picture of a fallen angel (Lucifer) statue would be appropriate here. --Andersmusician VOTE 02:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

El Diablo means Devil —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.66.69.41 (talk • contribs) 15:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC).

I'm writing an article about that sculpture in the Spanish language Wikipedia. It is inspired by the beginning of John Milton's Paradise Lost (Book I, 3rd and 4th stanzas). So it refers to the Devil (Milton calls him Satan). --Zaqarbal 15:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Shiva (and Kali)

In "other names of the devil" Shiva could be added. I am not saying it SHOULD be added, but in the Satanic Bible Shiva is listed as another name of Satan, or at least LaVey's version of Satan. Same counts for Kali, but not to be confused with the Kali already listed, but the Hindu godess of destruction. What do you people think?(N33 13:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

meow meow meow meow meow! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.21.164.251 (talk) 13:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hoping to avoid a revert-war

Before an edit war gets started, let's work from this diff. While the format of the anon's rewrite looks a little better to me, a lot of other information was lost in the prior version. We need to start working out what the differences are, and the best way to continue on this article, before folks start revert-warring. -- Kesh 23:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

hrm. The game started 26 August. That edit, to some extent valid, was under false pretenses and brought on a whole load of trouble.

As far as I can tell, we have several options:

1. go from here
2. rewind to the version prior to that 26 August edit and then see what's worthy of merit from that edit.
3. scrub the whole thing, notify scrub on various WProject religion noticeboards, and advise new section with proper citation.
4. same as #3 but simultaneously merging with Satan
5. same as #4 but merging into an all-encompassing "Epitome of Evil" or some such.

I'm going to ask for semi-protection as soon as I've finished writing this.

So folks, a show of hands please for a course of action that you'd prefer (or perhaps suggest a new one).

-- Fullstop 00:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Is the man on the picture St. Augustine or St. Wolfgang?

On the 20th of the October I modified the caption of the picture to "Saint Wolfgang and the Devil by Michael Pacher)." but user C.Logan reverted it bact to "Saint Augustine and the Devil". The picture is used to portray St. Wolfgang in articles: Green, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Wolfgang of Regensburg, Deal with the Devil, Michael Pacher. This is the only article in Wikipedia which says that the painting portrays St. Augustine. Theologist 16:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

As I'd noted in my edit summary, the name of the image is "Augustinus und der Teufel" (as listed in the image copyright information here and here, on Wikipedia), and I've found several other sources with slight variations of this name (such as "Teufel und Augustinus" here). As far as I can see, there is no reason beyond Wikipedian assumption as to why this is the listed title in these article spaces. The name of the painting does not support the idea that it depicts St. Wolfgang, and therefore I can assume that the captions listed on the article spaces you've mentioned are incorrect.--C.Logan 17:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The picture in question is on the door of an altarpiece. And doors have two sides. The outside of that particular door depicts St. Wolfgang and the devil, the inside depicts St. Augustine and the child. Hence the confusion of names for one-and-the-same piece of wood. -- Fullstop (talk) 12:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Spiritism

"Spiritists are very sure about their view of the Devil. God is the primal cause of everything, and He's intelligence and goodness Himself, so He couldn't have possibly created Satan and demons or that would be contrary to his absolute intelligence and justice, since we would have to assume that God didn't know what He was doing, or that He created beings destined to be eternally evil and not entitled to forgiveness. According to Spiritism, Satan is a metaphor, a personification of all the bad inclinations existing within the human kind - being His creation, he couldn't be possibly an adversary of God. Since God is absolutely perfect and powerful, He wouldn't have committed such a mistake, since he knew the future and also knew what Lucifer would become. This logic extends to what people call a "demon": it has to be understood as a simply evil spirit, that is, the spirit of someone that has died but hasn't reached the light yet, which means that there aren't creatures that will be eternally in that position or condened to Hell, since they are also able to restart over again if so he/she wishes. This happens after showing regret, realizing the bad things they have done and understanding the purposes of God and the Law of Evolution, reencarnating in a new body with the promise and perspective of doing things right this time."

I've removed this because of problems with original research and an absolute lack of sources. However, I think there may be some salvageable information here; in any case, it may be good to have a short section on the subject. I could see a revision starting with "According to Spiritism..." with (obviously) some sources provided.--C.Logan 19:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

An IP re-added the material and I have reverted accordingly. - Kesh 22:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Link

I would like to add this link Living with the Devil: a Meditation on Good and Evil or a reference to the book [1] somewhere within the article. Where does it fit best?

Austerlitz -- 88.72.29.72 (talk) 11:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

This article is largely about one entity or "The Devil", with ramifications from that premise, and I believe it would be better renamed/moved accordingly. Devil could be used as a disambiguation, including links to demon (that devil is equivalent to in many contexts; where an arbitrary distinction is questionable), to The Devil, and to any other pertinent things using/called "devil". As we know, an article like "the" is generally removed from a page's title, except where it forms part of the name. If I am not mistaken, that applies here, as we generally call Satan and the like The Devil and leave the article out in contexts where devil is more or less equivalent to demon. It already names the object of the article as The Devil at the start, contradicting the page title/placement. Who is like God? (talk) 07:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. The concept is a fairly universal one, and this article discusses it in various contexts. Satan is merely one incarnation of the concept of a Devil/Adversary figure. -- Kesh (talk) 16:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Titles

Resolved

Under titles there's the name "Brynjar Víkingsson" (?).. this is just a random Icelandic name. Needs to be removed but I don't have an account. The other name "Kölski" is the correct alternative title to Devil (Djöfull).194.144.18.16 (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. -- Kesh (talk) 00:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)