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TechnoratiWhen Annie Lobert was being abused, raped and constantly facing death during her years as a Las Vegas escort, she knew the devil was real. And he almost got her life.
Only then when she realized Satan and his legion of demons existed, she was able to cry out to God and be saved.
"[God] exists and the devil exists. I know that God's in my heart and the only way I could see God was to know that the devil was real," Lobert, who founded Hookers for Jesus, said in an ABC Nightline debate, which aired Thursday.
The anticipated debate was around the existence of Satan and was the third installment of Nightline's "Face-Off" series. Moderated by Dan Harris, the Face-Off was hosted at Mars Hill Church in Seattle where hundreds from both sides of the debate came out to watch and participate.
While some Christians were disappointed that no apologists were on stage to argue that Satan does exist, Lobert and Mars Hill preaching pastor Mark Driscoll provided heart-felt testimonies and rebuttals that garnered much applause.
So "why would a loving God create Satan?" Harris posed.
"I think He created angels and people and He gave us the capacity to have free will," Driscoll responded. "For there to be virtue, there must be the possibility of vice and that's (having free will) what distinguishes those of us – people and angels – from other forms of creation (trees, animals)."
"God didn't create evil ... He created free will. And Satan and the demons and human beings have chosen to disobey, to rebel and that's the source of the trouble, according to the teaching of the Bible," said Driscoll who argued that Satan was an angel but walked away from God's intention for him.
Then why did God create choice? Harris followed up.
"If you don't allow choice, the theologians will say you don't have love," Driscoll stated. "Love requires volition and that God does not want automatons; He wants persons. The argument is made that if God were not allowing choice, you wouldn't have evil but you also would not have love."
Driscoll's argument opened debate to other widely contentious issues. Arguing against the existence of Satan, philosopher Deepak Chopra, author of Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment, said he found it difficult to respond to Driscoll because "everything he says is in contradiction to what we know about the physical universe that began about 13.8 billion years ago in something called the Big Bang."
"The Bible that he quotes as authority is totally in contradiction with everything that we know about cosmology, about evolution, about biology, mathematics, physics and about everything that allows us to understand who we are," Chopra said, adding that he doesn't deny that there may be a "divine intelligence."
Back on the main topic, Chopra said he doesn't believe there is an external Satan figure, or what he described as the "boogie man." He argued that people unnecessarily project their shame and guilt onto a mythical figure they call Satan when they should be confronting their own "shadows" (fear, shame, guilt, sin) and moving toward enlightenment (understanding, revelation, insight).
"Healthy people do not have any need for Satan," Chopra argued. "I don't need the devil because I don't have the guilt and shame that you people have."
"We are part of an ineffable mystery that the moment we label that mystery as 'good and evil,' 'right and wrong' then we create conflict in the world and ... all the trouble in the world today is between religious ideologies," he added.
"So I'd say be done with Satan and confront your own issues." Continue »
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