Satan and the Supernatural Blame Game | Renegade Cut 

Bad thing happens to bad person: "GOD IS PUNISHING YOU!!" Bad thing happens to good person: "God is testing your faith." You can't win with these people.

Honestly, the whole Satan thing with the way modern Christians consider it (not to be confused with previous uses of the term throughout history) seems really illogical. How would any entity be able to potentially thwart God's plan? And if no one can, then that just means anything that Satan did would be part of God's plan, right?

Something I always found interesting is that Dante’s depiction of Satan is actually the least powerful. In the poem, Satan is massive and monstrous, but he’s just another victim being tortured in hell (while also torturing others, the three greatest traitors, in Dante’s view). Lucifer is found frozen in ice from the waist down, uselessly beating his wings to try to escape (the cold wind only freezing the ice all the more, so he can never escape) Virgil doesn’t even draw much attention to him, doesn’t describe who he is or what he did, and doesn’t even mark Satan as a threat or something to fear. In Dante, Lucifer is nothing more than a ladder to get out of the Inferno. Also Lucifer’s dick is the center of the universe, in Dante’s cosmology.

An interesting note on Catholicism: historically, when they church is trying to determine if someone is worthy of sainthood, they hold what is essentially a trial. One side is the defense and they try to prove that the person live a holy life and competed miracles. Another is the prosecutor who argues that the person may have been good but was not holy and did not perform miracles. That prosecutor is called the Devil's Advocate.

Satan is my favorite fanfiction character

Like that episode from Moral Orel, a song about how Jesus sucks becomes a hit, and the reverend says that "everything bad that happened in Town was because of that song" one character points out that "The bad Things happened before the song was a hit" and the reverend tells him that "God can see the future"

My joke is that Satan is two things in the bible, God's drinking buddy who he plays the Job game with, and Jesus' weird uncle who took him camping one time.

My mother is a weird mix of Roman Catholic/Southern Protestant and we've had many arguments about religion over the years. One was about Satan and, after personally going through all of the verses in the Old Testament and their history, I thought she would be happy to see that there was no 'ultimate evil'. She never refuted any of the evidence that the word was used differently, but still wanted t hold onto the concept of the devil. I believe that's because the world is an incredibly complex and messy place where bad things happen from good intentions (or no intentions at all) and the devil simplifies that all.

The Devil was a retcon and is not cannon. - I need this on a t-shirt

The Book of Job is just like the movie Trading Places except God and Satan are even more petty than me Duke brothers. They didn't wager the $1.

As a Satanist, I’m incredibly pleased that you did your research, academics & all. I was pleasantly surprised you even mentioned different branches of Satanism - a lot of people tend to ignore that and lump us all into one ideal. Thank you so much, this is incredibly informative, and really good to show to my religious friends who’re lacking on the history side of things.

I love how shocked people are when they try to witness to you and act like you are crazy for not believing in anything supernatural, especially god.

I love this. "God meets with the Heavenly court, who are angels who assist god with various things" God is all knowing and all powerful. What the hell does he need assistance with?

anyone using s8tan as a morality weapon knows what they're doing; playing a supernatural ace up their hole against anyone they don't like. i'd personally question the ones who keep seeing demons in everything/everyone, as if they're more in tune with that side of the force

Great video! One little addition I'd note is that the fringe of the fringe of the fringe of Satanism also has a weird connection with far-right politics. There's been more than a few neo-Nazis who theistically worship Satan and there's weird sects like the 'Order of Nine Angles' which has been active for decades and been linked to terrorist groups like Atomwaffen. I found a site that linked vast chunks of their internal documents and it's the most unhinged shit. Advice for Satanist names, the correct way to hold Satanist rituals (which includes things like a copy of Mein Kampf and portraits of Osama bin Laden), Satanist views of Covid-19 and other nonsense. Not exactly a mainstream group, but it's an interesting insight on how elements of the far-right actively want to be seen as the bad guy.

Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy are the most influential fanfiction works in history

The older I get, the more I actively hate the story of Job, even as a parable. The only relatable parts are the parts where Job calls out those who claim he's actually a sinner for all the catastrophe that's come upon him (rain falls on sinner and saint alike), and the parts where he talks to God directly and says some form of "Dude, what the fuck?" Unfortunately, it's all undone by God going "Look, I made everything; trust me and you'll get everything back plus more, and better than what you had." And Job just goes along with that, resigning himself to being no more than a divine plaything. Thus, as an exploration of why bad things happen to good people, I feel like it fails because the answer is "you can't do a god-damned thing about it, pun intended, so suffer and maybe God'll make it up to you in the end." I think people suffer quite enough, thank you very much. And we should do something about it, especially if some divine power not only won't but actively allows or encourages it.

Excellent work. There's barely anyone making this kind of non-sensationalized heavily researched videos on the internet. I'm so happy that you're doing this and I hope this work keeps you happy too. Definitely one of the best channels on RU-vid and one of my favourite places on the internet.

So you can’t deny the possibility that recent inflation is the result of someone offending the Chupacabra.

Great video! I've been trying to deconstruct my faith, or more the religion I was raised in, for a while now and it is really helpful to listen to people like yourself explain how parts of my religion came about instead of simply saying all religion is for idiots. Learning to look at parts of the bible as metaphors or ways of explaining the world in a time where scientific knowledge wasn't as advanced has really helped me figure out how to discern what to read with a grain of salt in terms of accuracy and what to read in the same way someone would read something like Animal Farm for the metaphor and not because they believe there was an actual farm with talking animals who reinvented socialism.

As a leftist theology major: this is why you are my favourite video essay channel. Thank you for your work, I may now spam this in my classmate groupchat.

Your thorough research and considerate handling of Judaism always impresses me. It's such a rare thing to see, I am very appreciative for it. כל הכבוד! ❤

This puts that one lady screaming about "accusers" in Walmart into a whole new context for me lol

Only thing I would disagree with would be the assertion that spirituality was always used in the maintenance of vertical hierarchies of cultures historically. While I do think this assessment is acceptable in regards to Christianity, I don't think it would necessarily apply to many indigenous peoples traditional practices of spirituality.

It's easy to blame disasters on sin. Sin is a nebulous concept with easily moved goalposts to ensure its existence and disasters are, by their nature, a statistical certainty. To that end it's trivial to assign sin as the cause of a disaster, even before it happens, thus giving false legitimacy to the doomsayers who leech off of paranoia.

Hey! The chubacabra is way more likely to be real than the sa tan

As an Olde, this brings up Dana Carvey as "The Church Lady" in "Church Chat" SNL sketches... "Could it be...... SATAN!!!!!!"

I love Renegade Cut Satan Lessons! Anyway, as someone who watched like every murder documentary on tv in my early teens I kind of figured out on my own that satanists killing people wasn't a thing, because every time cops suspected a crime was ritualistic it turned out to be like a guy who killed his wife and tried to make it look like satanists did it. Then I got into buzzfeed unsolved and such and the host are always like "rumor says this site is used for satanic rituals" and they're like legit scared of satanists lurking in the dark ready to sacrifice anyone when that shit does not happen and never did!

Wait, why was Jesus dragging a cross across a field with no Roman presence or other prisoners or procession or onlookers? Doing a dry run? Just working out? Was crucifixion reliant on the honor system?

Happy Halloween 🎃 💀👺

As an atheistic satanist (member of TST) and an avid D&D player for decades, I shall never tire of your videos about satan. If you have more to say, I for one am happy to keep listening.

A friendly periodical reminder that more of Christianity happens outside of the US than inside of it. As a theologian I highly respect your exegetically honest representation of historically critical view on scripture. Although I'm not that comfortable with lines like "simple as that" as with the segment on the Revelation of John (which wasn't a bad take overall). I do have notes though. Hardly any ecumenical functions between recognized churches consider Satan a persona or him to be more than methaphor for impersonal evil as a general perceived faultyness of human existence. Which, to be clear, is a subject of criticism on its own and has to do with ideas like original sin and such (like wether or not it is constructive to think there's something fundamentally and unavoidably ruined in human morale which sould be repented. Left leaning Nordic lutheran's for example (and other episcopal "mainline" protestants) would rather stress the structural nature of evil and failures in shared responsibilities, something that can and should be worked on even though human interaction has a tendency to produce these structures of evil especially in power dynamics, inhospitality, lack of compassion and communal care and short sightedness.) Generally I'd wish more and more nuanced takes of this direction, but with transparency about which church or denomnination in talked about and at least a clear understanding that no religion is a monolith and few claims of christian theology can be fairly generalized. Protestantism is not a denomination, it only refers to everything that is not Catholic (under the Catholic church of Rome) or Orthodox (so called "eastern christianity"). I respect the notion on early colonial protestantism of North America and it's legacy on modern American evangelicalism. It's also to be noted that as modern religions the ralations and histories between Judaism and Christianity are far more complex than just what can be reduced to claims of historical misinterpretations of scripture to one way or another. The lines of reception, interpretation and edition histories are millenias deep for both and they also overlap. Nothing huge to criticize though, just thought to leave these few points. A great video as always!

"Jay", of Jay's Journal, went to my high school long before I attended. But I did have one of his teachers! And she loathed that book with every fiber of her being. So did his family. He wasn't a satanist, he just also wasn't Mormon (it takes place in Utah). He'd settled on a form of Buddhism, from what our teacher said. He couldn't even handle ketchup because it looked too much like blood. Actual blood rituals would be right out. He also wasn't demon possessed; he struggled with mental illness. Depression is extremely common in that part of Utah. Unsurprisingly, "not Christian" immediately equals "Satanic", and the book preyed on the depression and suicide of a teenager for fame and profit.

So, we're going to bake a cake to detect Satan? The best they could come up with is baking dessert to find evil? (Even with nasty ingredients, their option was still BAKING to detect evil.) I guess that explains why some people are so afraid of baking cakes for certain people...the bakers might like the taste of that sweet, sweet cake, and thus be E-VIL!

I always learn something new when you discussed theology on here. Cool Halloween video! 🎃

I have nothing to add except that I am delighted by the choice of a David S. Pumpkins clip when Tom Hanks' supposed demonic posession is mentioned

I love your videos, Leon, and your intro music and imagery are my favorite of any RU-vid channel! Thanks, as always, for being such a well-informed, humane, and calm voice of reason in this fascinating but troubled world.

Great voicework this time around RC. Nuanced, objective, and precise. Thank you!

It's so frustrating that most of what modern Christians think of Satan and Devil came from fan fiction (Dante). And they just accept it without question. It's one of the reasons I left the faith. You could tell me my faith wasn't strong in the first place, but that is a cop-out. It was strong, stronger than yours (whoever you are to doubt it). But I was told that faith grows stronger under scrutiny. I was told, the more questions you ask, the deeper your faith will be as you will find nothing but confirmations and proof. I was told this, I think, with the hope that I'd just "take their word for it". But I read the Bible, I read the apocryphal books, I read apologia, I read books about other religions and why Christianity was the "right" one. All I found were logical fallacies and conjecture and people unwilling to ask one more question, the question that would undo the foundation of the belief.

THIS! This is why I'm subscribed to your channel! Excellent, concise, easy to share with folks that need to hear it. Great work.

Funny how you brought up Job, and how it’s all allegorical. In a poll that I saw a few months ago asking if humans and dinosaurs coexisted, more than a few comments referred to the vague description of Behemoth in Job 40:15-18 as proof that they did.

i just put Pazuzu statuettes on the corners of my dwelling to keep out satans, and i have yet to have a satan problem. what i like about Job is that it's a transition *away* from the idea of suffering as divine punishment. Yahweh's answer to Job is that his suffering is arbitrary, that the world is large and mostly unknown and sometimes just kills humans. sometimes you get a satan. which is why Pazuzu statuettes aren't an expense, they're an investment.

"Don't get me started on Revelations" Oh please, please record a video about Revelations 🙏🙏 there is so much you could say about it

The recent conjuring movie is literally about the devil made me do it case, and takes the side of the guy who blamed the devil for making him stab his landlord 22 times.

Personally, I've always more resonated with the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge, a false god who is the architect of the material world in order to create a world which he can dominate and control and establish a restrictive order of no free will, only blind obedience, but is eventually overthrown with the help of a demonic or dark trickster figure, allowing mankind to pursue enlightenment through their own will and freeing them from restrictive order and paradigms.

I remember the Mt Kinabalu thing! A friend posted a tasteful picture of himself from the back clothesless on top of a mountain to troll. It was a different mountain, taken months before, but people were still mad at him, thinking it was their mountain.

As a native hebrew speaker I really appreciate your pronunciation. However, you did screw up the names of the angels. For example, Malakim is the plural form of Mal'akh and should also be pronounced as Mal'akhim. That being said, I love this video, and it's thorough and engaging as always.

i love your videos, i wish i knew more uploaders that every single video is so high quality and on point, keep going. happy hallow

18:47 He finally said the thing

Your editing continues to be a delight.

EVERYBODY SHUTUP, THERE'S A NEW RENEGADE CUT OUT. I NEED TO WATCH THIS.

So, I feel that it is worth bringing up that there *is* a Jewish tradition of a malevolent entity who opposes God, but even when it was "popular" it was generally considered a weird, fringe heresy brought about by Jews getting too friendly with Zoroastrians in Babylon. Among various backstories for this Anti-God was the narrative of them being a fallen angel, and among various names given to them were Ha'Satan and Lucifer (although to my understanding, Belial was the most popular name for this figure). You can see a chunk of this tradition show up in the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance. It also makes sense that given that this weird cult to this Joshua guy spent a hundred or so years also being a weird, fringe heresy that it would intermingle with other fringe beliefs and occult practices in the area, such that when it re-emerges in the historical record in the late first and second century it has undergone transformations and appropriations. So, while I understand the urge to dunk on Christians and go "haha, they can't translate Hebrew/Greek or understand the Torah," there is a decent chance there was a bit more than that going on under the surface.

Given the violent history of Christianity, it really is not surprising that Satan has become such an intriguing symbol of rebellion and defiance. Satanists wouldn't exist if it weren't for the hierarchies and dogma of the Church that created them.

In the words of the late great David Wong, mankind did not create witch-hunts because it believed in witches, it created witches so it could have witch-hunts.

Fitting video for the occasion

Leon, you always do such a great job breaking down religious things. As a theologian, I applaud any effort to bring reasonable, critical analysis of religious texts to public forums. Though I'm sure we may disagree theologically, I greatly value your insight. If there is a devil, it is an idea, more like the "evil inclination" of Jewish mysticism. Greed, pride, malevolent hoarding, authoritarian domination-- these are the real demons of our world, and worth opposing, not some cartoon goat man.

HAIL SATAN

Thanks for the wonderful video as always. Happy Halloween!

Never clicked faster on a video lol

you could say satan was being the devils advocate

Videos like this make me feel more sane

Funny thing is. The descriptions of Angel's are like eldritch horrors. The idea of angels being beautiful people is really a narrative device. As to lay your eyes upon their true form would render you anywhere from blind, to dead. So it's funny to me that historically Satan is portrayed as this horrific figure yet when you dig tou find out the angels themselves were MUCH more horrific.

Your stuff is great. Sorry I use you comment section to express my views so much; but, I keep it respectful and is a testament to the effectiveness of your presentations to spark intellectual thoughts and conversation. Love your stuff!

It's pretty easy to debunk the idea of Satan as a literal character that stands against God. In the Bible, 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 detail the same event: David is directed to take a census. The former says God directed David while the latter says Satan directed David. The only way to reconcile the two is to understand that Satan doesn't mean God's enemy, but ha-satan, God's agent, prosecutor, etc. a being carrying out God's commands.

now I have 2 find Dana Carvey's Church Lady skit. Its all I could think of 1/2 way thru.

10:45 Off topic but Holy shit that’s why those weapons are called “bolos” lmao. You throw them at someone’s feet to stop them, fuck.

Keep up the good work. Love hearing from you.

I just wanted to comment to state that I love every time you biblical based content. I grew up in an evangelical household and church, and it's so nice to hear a more realistic approach to all these things.

I have an ma in theology from a Catholic grad school. My profs we're pretty open minded and usually incorporated religious study methods as a base. Some really excellent info here. I do recall asking one professor, who was a priest about demonology. He laughed and said people are bad enough, but followed up to say he doesn't believe in the realm of demons, or Satan. I beleive there's evil, and can buy into some intentionality, however, had to grapple with the facts of religious development and that beliefs such as in a "Satan" as modern fundamentalist christians see it, doesn't exist as such in the very texts they hold dear. Thank you for a great video.

One issue I had with the video: TST is not a progressive organization. Their founder and leader is a known racist who has spoken in defense of fascists (and even made an appearance on a fascist talk-show under his real name to discuss a proto-fascist book he still openly agrees with), they donate to a "charity" that defends people accused of abusing children because they think the children are delusional or being fed a story by the prosecution, and they've made legal claims to both being a for-profit and a non-profit in a way that would let them both dodge taxes and make tons of money that isn't used to expand services. Oh, and on the topic of services, their "Satanic Abortion" defense has yet to win a lawsuit in any of the states it's been tried in, meaning their big claim that they've "protected reproductive rights" isn't actually true. And on the subject of lawsuits, they also filed a SLAPP suit against former members who've spoken out about abusive practices in the organization. So, yeah, TST is an absolute shitshow of an organization, and does not deserve anyone's support. They can't help you get an abortion, and what percentage of any "donations" they receive gets funneled directly into the pockets of their all-but-certainly fascist leader is completely undisclosed, so you're all but guaranteed to be giving money directly to a probable fascist.

You should have mentioned the Zorastian influence on Judiasm after the Babyloninain exile..I am a Christian bur after reading Gnostic texts have come to the conclusion the heaven ans he'll are state of mind

Not gonna lie, Satan and the Supernatural Blame sounds like a really cool band or a fun videogame, at worst a low effort YA novel

This is the first time I've ever heard my faith, theistic satanism, mentioned by someone who wasn't one. Usually people say that all Satanists are atheists and leave it at that lol Wonderful video! Keep up the good work!

I recently read an African author explaining that the Bible is a work of “magical realism”.

“Ignorance and fear create the gods, enthusiasm and deceit adorn them, and human weakness worships them.” Graham McNeill, False Gods (The Horus Heresy, #2) Ironically, that book is written in a setting where a very powerful man tries to free humanity from religion and superstition only to end up being worshiped as a God a few thousand years later after explicitly saying he’s not a god and not to worship him.

love the zoom in on Pacino..

Love the channel, have some engagement, sometimes I don't watch your vids in a timely manner because I like to use my whole brain on them whereas most of my youtube time is more of a head empty situation

Thanks, Leon. Nice video.

Nice one Leon!

Thank you so much for all of your work! You’re great! Love it!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

As a Christian, I always love the demystifying of the concept of Satan. Far too much fear mongering has been done by the fearful and dishonest. And it neither helps the cause of showing Christ's love, or makes a Christian worldview any more legit or appealing. To be fair though I think most Christians, who've studied scripture and it's origins won't find this video shocking. Hopefully it's common knowledge that: 1) The faith developed and our approach to the Bible is very different from the writers in antiquity. 2) Satan has taken on a monstrous appearance largely due to pop culture rather than scripture.

I was just thinking about this topic last night. Now I see this 👌🏻

Unchecked fear is the antithesis of a rolling stone.

The devil and Satan represented in the movie legend was the best and I like how you have the image here huge horns!

To play devil's advocate here, I once read a prayer meant to visit karmic justice upon others. I repeated it for an hour or so - The target was someone who hurt, me, I mean *really* *hurt* me, emotionally and physically. An hour after I finished a police officer came to my house, the person had died - walked into traffic swimmingly at random. Guess what I assign that to? Superstition isn't always searching for meaning, sometime people like myself assign it to rather immediate action. While I acknowledge it could be a coincidence, it is one hell of one. So I can understand others doing the same.

The fact that there are people in the 21st century who believe that we live in the end times and that anything featuring Satan, witches or demons in general as anything more complex than your generic villains (Little demon, Lucifer, Hazbin hotel, Supernatural etc.) is a part of some grand conspiracy is really sad.

Shout out to the Legend makeup team, for giving us the most iconic devil in cinema history.

It's odd if the term Enemy is enterchanged with the word Ego, it makes the New Testament make more sense especially in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, saying the most destructive part of a person is the Ego or Default mode of the human psyche. And the constant battle is nessicary for humility and growth as a person. Very much in the way of Jungian theory. And has been proven to be helpful through forms of cognitive therapy.

Good as always

Happy Halloween Leon, and Hail God's Prosecutor of course 🤘

Bangef as always thank you again for your content.

Another great presentation from Leon. I'd love to see Leon create a video presentation on the origins and progression of religion beginning with the pantheon of gods like El and Asherah from early Ugarit and Canaan, including Egypt and other Mesopotamian city-states, demonstrating how that many of their gods and beliefs were adopted and incorporated into Judaism and Christianity.

Happy Halloween 🎃

dont be so sure about that Tom Hanks point, Leon, i mean the man _was_ in Mazes and Monstera after all

Good video!

Learned more about satan lore from this video

yo the knowledge on the Satan origins ....had to sub lol

I clicked the upvote button. SATAN COMMANDED ME.

Periodically I've meant to tempt internet rabbit holes and discover the story behind Go Ask Alice. In Catholic school it was required reading and presented as non fiction. I figured out it was BS sometime after reading it in 8th or 9th grade but it's nice to finally get a name, Beatrice Sparks, to go w it. Though is this a pseudonym?