The church is all about right and wrong. Without evil there can be no good. Doesn't Satan get tired of bugging people all the time? What joy does he get out of it? I thought he couldn't feel happiness?

If he wanted to mess up God's plan, wouldn't he just do nothing? Then there wouldn't be any wrong temptations so no right choices.

I also thought when I was young when they would tell the story in Heaven about Satan and Jesus and which plan to follow. Satan's plan always seemed better to me haha Since I'm an evil ExMo, I was probably a soul who was on the fence about which side to join. haha

But what would of happened if Satan would of swallowed his pride and said "Ok, Jesus, we'll do it your way." Then who or what would of 'tempted' us, or what negative force would give us a reason to choose wrong. It seemed like Satan was screwed even before threw a fit and left heaven. We need someone bad to 'tempt' us.

Maybe I think to much about it, but every time I mention this to TBM's they tell me "God knows all and that's the way it is"

Good points. Problem is, despite his preeminent position amongst the spirit children of Heavenly Father, Satan isn't any smarter than your average true believing Mormon. Neither is Heavenly Father for that matter.

When I was a Mormon, I never ever felt that "evil presence" that was supposedly from Satan. When something undesirable happened, I never thought to myself that Satan was trying to tempt me, or the other side of the coin, God was trying to test me.

I believed in God as a TBM, and I guess I accepted the idea of there being a Satan as part of the package deal, but the Satan thing always seemed to be more of a fairy tale to me than God at the time.

Now, after evaluating the [lack of] evidence, I have assigned a probability of 1 x 10 raised to the -1,000,000,000,000 power to the claim that the supernatural exists including a god or a devil/Satan.

I can't remember which version of the Satan-believing religions thinks the devil is just doing his assigned job, not that he's evil. That would be one crappy, boring job.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

Epicurus

I once read in an on-line class or seminar (which is apparetlyu no longer on-line) that the origianl conflict in ancient Hebrew religion was between willfull man who may not have wanted to conform to the will of God. Lucifer played a different sort of role - more as the prosecutor arguing against humans when they refused to follow God's will and not a temptor for men to do evil (we were capable of evil all on our own). As I understand it, this is the role Lucifer originally played in the story of Job who was very compliant to God's will. Lucifer said he wouldn't be if he did not have God's blessings.

The role of Lucifer was recast to that of a temptor for evil with the influence of Persian Zoroastrianism which is much more dichotomous in nature as a religion than was the ancient Judaism. The Supreme Zoroastrian God created two other - one to promote goodness among men and the other to encourage evil. The supreme God eventually became identified with the one to encourage goodness among men. Several other aspects of Zoroastrianism influenced Judeism as well. The idea that the world would come to an end in a cataclysmic battle between good and evil, and the idea that men will be judged and sentenced to either rternal reward or eternal punishment are Zoroastrian concepts.

I was always of the opinion that it was in bad judgement for god to add grief onto grief exponentially by allowing Satan to also tempt us here on earth and somehow be responsible for our sins. I was always bothered by the story in the book of Mormon of laman and lemuel being responsible for the dissent of future generations. Made me never want to have kids for fear of future generations being apostate. It seemed like god set us up just to damn us. Think of the early "apostates" like the apostles that dissented from the church. I found out the truth not too long ago that they left for legitimate reasons. But the church is always quick to point a finger and even goes as far as saying that they were sons of perdition. Now I know that it's just spin to make us stay in line. It's all a bunch of bull. Fear tactics...

I have to say that I never really bought the whole idea of Satan...maybe that is why I am an agnostic. Darn you SATAN :)

As far as mormons go they are totally obsessed with him. Jews don't even believe in Satan ya know. He's not in the Old Testament. They believe in hasatan or the satan, which is the guy in the book of Job, but that is someone different, it is someone working for God not against God. When he sees that Job is so righteous he is suspiscious because that is his job, he is like a prosecuting eterny and so he asks God if Job is only righteous because God has blessed him and so God gives him leave to afflict him. Anyways I never really understood the whole demons and Satan stuff...but that's just me...