Freethought & Rationalism Archive

oriecat · 03-20-2003, 07:27 PM

Then why hasn't god throw him into the lake of fire already? Why does he allow Satan to continue deceiving?

Magus55 · 03-20-2003, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by oriecat
Then why hasn't god throw him into the lake of fire already? Why does he allow Satan to continue deceiving?

Well, right now we can never understand why God allows some things, its one of the things we take on faith.

Some ideas for the reason God lets Satan remain ( for now anyway). Satan isn't all-powerful and therefore can't force humans to committ evil, they do that on their own. Since humans choose to live in Sin, God is just letting them get what they deserve ( humans reap what they sow as pointed out on another board). God also allows evil to exist to increase faith and bring Christians to him. God also can use evil to bring about good for his glory. God can use evil to his benefit, so he lets Satan remain to bring about good from that evil ( unity in a nation, patriotism, support, donations etc etc. for events like 9/11). These are just some of the reasons we can guess as to why God allows Satan to influence the world.

This is an issue people without faith can't accept. We believe that God knows what he's doing and we can't comprehend why he allows some things to happen, but all will be revealed in time.

Obviously that answer isn't satisfactory to you, but since atheists think the God of the bible is a sadistic monster anyway, our opinions aren't gonna mean didly to you.

Hedwig · 03-20-2003, 07:56 PM

Chill out, Magus. No one's jumping down your throat on this thread.

Magus55 · 03-20-2003, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hedwig
Chill out, Magus. No one's jumping down your throat on this thread.

Its followed with every other thread i respond to, so was just getting a head start

Fiach · 03-20-2003, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus55
Um, if the God of the bible exists, Satan can't reward you with crap. Satan does not like you. He isn't trying to be friends with you, he WANTS you to suffer like him. Satan is not some nice person who just didn't approve of God. He turns people away from God because he wants them become lost. He is sadistic and enjoys the pain and suffering humans endure.

Remember Magus, I don't believe in God or Satan. They are just metaphors for me at best, and fictional myth figures at worst.

Second, fun plus hell in same sentence. Um wrong. You suffer, torment, burn for ever and ever and ever ad infinitum. Satan will not be having fun either, he will be right along side of you suffering forever too. Hell is not a party for God haters, its permanent punishment.

I figure that he/she believes as I do. There is no Heaven or Hell, no immortality, no gods or daemons. There only the natural world and universe. I discuss these ideas from a literary and even poetic point of view not as reality. And I am not a god hater anymore than I hate Mother Goose and Spiderman. I find enough reasons from study, critical thinking, and analysing the claims of religionists to reject all of Christian Mythology. I don't hate God. My anger is at those Israelites that slew babies and raped girls claiming that God ordered it. God was framed, by the Bible.

B][Hell is a separation from God. What else does God need to do to you? You chose to go to Hell by rejecting him, and your fate is eternal torment. There is nothing worse. And you seem to think God is hurting you? Satan is the one who hurts humans through evil. Satan is the Hitler of the spiritual existence.[/B]

When I die, I will be separated from existence itself. Only fragmenting tissue will be left behind and my words of wisdom on Internet Infidels.

What a disturbing view if God turns out to be real. Its sad how many people Satan has deceived

I am quite sure that the christian god is not real. I don't rule out the possibility of some kind of non-Anthropomorphic god. YHWH is just far too human, too much Saddam Husseine, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and King David to be a self-respecting God. He is clearly the product of a disturbed set of minds (Moses and the Prophets.)

Fiach

philechat · 03-20-2003, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus55
Um, if the God of the bible exists, Satan can't reward you with crap. Satan does not like you. He isn't trying to be friends with you, he WANTS you to suffer like him. Satan is not some nice person who just didn't approve of God. He turns people away from God because he wants them become lost. He is sadistic and enjoys the pain and suffering humans endure.

Second, fun plus hell in same sentence. Um wrong. You suffer, torment, burn for ever and ever and ever ad infinitum. Satan will not be having fun either, he will be right along side of you suffering forever too. Hell is not a party for God haters, its permanent punishment.

Hell is a separation from God. What else does God need to do to you? You chose to go to Hell by rejecting him, and your fate is eternal torment. There is nothing worse. And you seem to think God is hurting you? Satan is the one who hurts humans through evil. Satan is the Hitler of the spiritual existence.

What a disturbing view if God turns out to be real. Its sad how many people Satan has deceived

I am very doubtful about this. It would turn out that Satan was a minion of God in a sense...almost like what has occurred in Job. Milton's (or Blake's) Satan appeared more convincing, especially with regards to God depicted in the Bible (unless Satan was really deceiving humans according to Biblegod's will). And Islam stated that Satan was thrown to Hell because of his excessive love for humanity.

Milton also asked the famous question of Adam in his Paradise Lost about the problem of justice--the fact that Adam exists not because he wanted to exist, but because God wanted him to exist. Why would Adam then be obliged to listen to God? God never did a favor for him by creating him, to suffer the exile he must suffer...while his existence was never his responsibility.

I raised the same question in a fiction piece I wrote:

So the gods create us by their will, and expect their creation to pay tribute to them because they create us. If they created us because they wanted to, why would we have to respond to them since it was their will to create, not our will to exist?

Entropic_Gnosis · 03-20-2003, 08:46 PM

Im going to side with hedwig here magus. There are so many inconsistancies between the old and new testiment that it does appear to be two seperate deities not one. If a consistant god were portraied in the canon then your arguments would be more sound.

In reguards to satan yes, Job,Milton and Blacke do provide a more compelling picture of him than any other source. And if you look at the origin of the name Satan: Advisary (spelling?). He seems to play, forgive the pun, the devil's advocate more than the prince of darkness. Orginally he seemed more like a divine quality control, tests the creation to find any kinks. Overtime though this posotion was made more and more evil, but of you look at the biblical text, God does more blatant evil than teh devil does.

Fiach · 03-20-2003, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus55
Well, right now we can never understand why God allows some things, its one of the things we take on faith.

That is not good enough for me. Acts that our brains are wired to intuitively see as evil cannot be explained by the tired old "the Lord works in strange ways." That is a cop out.

Some ideas for the reason God lets Satan remain ( for now anyway). Satan isn't all-powerful and therefore can't force humans to committ evil, they do that on their own. Since humans choose to live in Sin, God is just letting them get what they deserve ( humans reap what they sow as pointed out on another board). God also allows evil to exist to increase faith and bring Christians to him. God also can use evil to bring about good for his glory. God can use evil to his benefit, so he lets Satan remain to bring about good from that evil ( unity in a nation, patriotism, support, donations etc etc. for events like 9/11). These are just some of the reasons we can guess as to why God allows Satan to influence the world.

The gross injustice is that those who "choose" to live in sin can have the sins erased by catholic confession or fundy born-agains. A man who has abused 8 wifes, raped his own children, stolen from everyone he knows, killed several people to steal their money, is in Heave in he is born-again. An atheist who is a loving and caring father, good and faithful husband, gives his children good nutrition and the best education, works on several charitable boards, sees charity patients for free in his medical office on saturdays, never killed, never stolen, never abused anyone but just can't find a way to believe in your god, goes to hell. The born again wanker goes to heaven. The kind, decent unbeliever goes to hell. Where is the justice there?

This is an issue people without faith can't accept. We believe that God knows what he's doing and we can't comprehend why he allows some things to happen, but all will be revealed in time.

Again I see it as a cop out. It is an intellectual brain cramp, that overlooks the obvious and says that a hypothetical explanation will come when it is too late. That is terribly unconvincing, and I don't mean that to be disrespectful to you. It is just how I see it.

Obviously that answer isn't satisfactory to you, but since atheists think the God of the bible is a sadistic monster anyway, our opinions aren't gonna mean didly to you.

Well, I have to admit you are right there. I would not say that your opinions don't mean didly (American slang?) to me. I actually want to know your opinions. That is why I am here. The fact that I am unconvinced is less important than that we forge greater mutual understanding and less acrimony in discussion of such issues. And I think you and I are able to do that.

Fiach

Magus55 · 03-20-2003, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Remember Magus, I don't believe in God or Satan. They are just metaphors for me at best, and fictional myth figures at worst.

Just because you don't believe, doesn't mean its true. You make your statements from fact ( God DOES NOT exist) and neither one of us can know for sure. I could say God DOES exist, does that mean he does for a fact? No, its illogical to make factual claims about it.

Entropic, God is always the same. His righteous, wrath side is shown in the OT because he had to be forceful in those days to ensure his plan followed through. We weren't in the age of grace, God was active in the people of the OT's lives and because of it, rebellion and disobeyal was especially harsh and God made it very clear. Once Jesus died and was ressurected, God's plan for salvation, that the OT was leading up to, was fulfilled. He didn't need to execute wrath during the Age of Grace because he gave us the way to redemption and the choice of whether to accept it or not, is ours alone. The OT is his righteousness, and wrath, Jesus and the NT ( except Revelation) is his mercy and holiness, and then again in Revelation he executes his wrath, in his perfect righteousness for those that didn't accept his gift. He is the same God throughout the OT and NT, but the reasons for his actions are very different in each.

Fiach · 03-20-2003, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus55
Just because you don't believe, doesn't mean its true. You make your statements from fact ( God DOES NOT exist) and neither one of us can know for sure. I could say God DOES exist, does that mean he does for a fact? No, its illogical to make factual claims about it.

I didn't claim that I knew any god did not exist or that no gods exist. I can't know that. I just claim that YHWH/Trinity in my opinion cannot exist for the same reason as a cubical sphere, or a four sided triangle. YHWH just has too many incoherencies and contradictions, evil aspects, and the only evidence is the Bible which is badly flawed literally and morally.

Entropic, God is always the same.

You cannot prove that assumption.

His righteous, wrath side is shown in the OT because he had to be forceful in those days to ensure his plan followed through.

The end does not justify the means. Doing evil does not justify a postive result. It was not right for Hitler to kill Jews and Slavs (evil acts) for the good purpose of giving Germans Liebensraum (sp?) It was the same as justifying genocide of the Canaanites to take their land that Israelites coveted.

We weren't in the age of grace, God was active in the people of the OT's lives and because of it, rebellion and disobeyal was especially harsh and God made it very clear. Once Jesus died and was ressurected, God's plan for salvation, that the OT was leading up to, was fulfilled. He didn't need to execute wrath during the Age of Grace because he gave us the way to redemption and the choice of whether to accept it or not, is ours alone. The OT is his righteousness, and wrath, Jesus and the NT ( except Revelation) is his mercy and holiness, and then again in Revelation he executes his wrath, in his perfect righteousness for those that didn't accept his gift. He is the same God throughout the OT and NT, but the reasons for his actions are very different in each.

So right and wrong, or morality/immortality is relativistic in your system, totally at the whim and edict of God who could be quite capricious.

Fiach

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03-20-2003, 07:27 PM	#11
oriecat Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Portland OR USA Posts: 1,098	Then why hasn't god throw him into the lake of fire already? Why does he allow Satan to continue deceiving?

03-20-2003, 07:56 PM	#13
Hedwig Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 3,921	Chill out, Magus. No one's jumping down your throat on this thread.

03-20-2003, 08:46 PM	#17
Entropic_Gnosis Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The Library Posts: 372	Im going to side with hedwig here magus. There are so many inconsistancies between the old and new testiment that it does appear to be two seperate deities not one. If a consistant god were portraied in the canon then your arguments would be more sound. In reguards to satan yes, Job,Milton and Blacke do provide a more compelling picture of him than any other source. And if you look at the origin of the name Satan: Advisary (spelling?). He seems to play, forgive the pun, the devil's advocate more than the prince of darkness. Orginally he seemed more like a divine quality control, tests the creation to find any kinks. Overtime though this posotion was made more and more evil, but of you look at the biblical text, God does more blatant evil than teh devil does.

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