Magus55

Satan did, what your point? Angels have free will too. And actually, Adam was third, Eve rebelled before him


Here is a simple explanation on Satan. Satan, formerly known is Archangel Lucifer, decided he didn't like serving God, he want the angels to bow down to him, so he rebelled and started war between Good and Evil. God of course won and created Hell for Lucifer and his fallen angels to reside in. Satan however has influence and power over the mortal world, he isn't confined to just Hell ( yet), he was only banished from Heaven. He is the prince of darkness and of the sinful earth. Since Satan hates God, he does everything in his power to bring God's people to destruction and make them rebell against God. Satan has MANY tools at his disposal to do so. Atheism for example is one, even though you don't realize it. Humans sin on their own without Satan, but Satan is the fuel that keeps the fire burning so to speak. The world will get progressively worse and more evil until Jesus defeats Satan and brings the Earth back to peace.

Mageth

Evil exists because God gave man free will.

So god is responsible for evil, then.

Aethari

But Satan *can't* be evil, if we accept the standard crap from the apologists:

P1) God will only allow evil where that evil allows a greater good.
P2) God could have destroyed Satan.
P3) God allowed Satan (the greatest of all evils) to exist.
P4) Therefore through Satan a greater good must be accomplished.
P5) Satan is the only possible way in which this greater good could be realized.
P6) Evil, by definition, implies something undesirable.
P7) Satan is not undesirable, since without him, this greater good is not possible.
P8) Satan is therefore desirable in our universe.
C) Therefore, by 6+8, Satan is not evil.

Voila. It all follows from the necessity of Christian apologists to assume with P1 that we're living in the best of all possible worlds. To label anything in the best logically possible world 'evil' is absurd, because without that thing, the world would be worse off than it was before.

~Aethari

Magus55

No God is responsible for allowing the possibility of Evil by giving us Free will. Free will and only being able to do what is good is contradictory.

Mageth

No God is responsible for allowing the possibility of Evil by giving us Free will.

Right, so god is responsible for evil. If god didn't do what he did, there would be no evil. "First Cause" and all...

Free will and only being able to do what is good is contradictory.

Is it? A being who could do only what is good could still have choice in what it does, couldn't it? And isn't this tightly tied to what is defined as "evil"?

Will there be free will in heaven? By your argument, either there will be no free will in heaven or the occupants thereof will be capable of performing evil.

Invader Tak

Satan *invented* not believing in him???

BTW what are Satan's other tools? Wait a minute, I think I have an idea!

Grand Theft Auto - Vice City
Dungeons and Dragons
Led Zeppelin (but only played backwards)
Ozzy
Yoga

spacedOut

Couple of questions...

1) how do spiritual beings make war? (bows/arrows, guns/tanks, thermonuclear devices?)

2) if God created hell for Satan and his buddies, why does He let them wander the earth and mess with his (supposed) beloved humans? (I mean, would you throw an evil dude like Satan out of your presence, but let him continue to terrorize your kids?)

Jamie_L

You misunderstand. God created hell for Satan and his buddies - like low-income housing. It's just a place for Satan and his buddies to hang out, play some hoops, and all that. You know, their 'hood.

Jamie

xsquid

Okay, how about if He says He is?

"I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam..." (1 Kings 14:10)

One of many examples of God's demonstrated acts of evil. Or take the book of Job--the poor man suffers because of a stupid bet between God and Satan, and the only reason Satan does all that nasty business is because God gave him permission to.
That's Satan's real role--to do God's dirty work. In the OT God mostly did it himself, but in the NT we had a kinder, gentler God, one who wouldn't dream of drowning the world; so someone else had to get that duty. And Satan had experience--look what he did with Job! So Satan got press-ganged into it, because evil couldn't possibly come from a good-guy God.

Wyz_sub10

you forgot:

- evolution
- Communism
- social welfare
- cosmology