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Today, in a symbolic act, Iranians set fire to the flags of Israel and the United States, as well as an obelisk and a statue of Baal—which they described as a symbol of Satan—in various cities across Iran in response to the release of the Epstein documents.
Oh that explains it, thank you! I wonder why Baal was singled out instead of just building a statue of satan himself? There's a cultural aspect here I'm missing.
Baal is actually in the Bible of Christians and Hebrews
Yeah, but... why go after baal for being satanic, instead of going after satan directly? I don't quite understand why baal is taking the spotlight when you could have simply made a statue of satan, but I'm sure there's a reason.
Muslims don't generally don't have a representation of what Satan looks like, Baal is an idol, already has a shape
Not an unreasonable explanation, thank you!
Because Baal is actually in the religious texts
If you're going for textual literalism sure fair enough, but what's confusing me is that they then go outside the bounds of that to invoke satan anyways. And aside from that, it's not like (figures that you can reasonably call a satan/devil analog if you dont want to start a fight) aren't in the Torah, Koran and Bible - why not build a statue of Iblis, the progenitor of devils? And why describe Baal as a symbol of satan instead of just going after satan directly, since that means you already believe satan exists?
I guess I'm just trying to figure out the symbolism here. Burning the flags is pretty clear, but the statue and the obelisk seem more like they're an act aimed at worshiping false idols (what Baal is primarily used for in the various texts) which... is that what they're accusing the US/Israel of? Because that seems like a largely semantic question given they're all worshiping the same god, and just burning a satan-analog would be a much clearer message about opposition to evil than the sorta abstract concept presented by Baal in any of the texts.