Don’t question Him! He’ll send us to Hell!
You fucking atheist liberals!
Buddhist.
This is what happens when parents let their boys play Dungeons and Dragons and wear their hair long!
My brother already posts on this board. Are you my other brother? Or has the deity made his li’l fifth columnist psychic.
And then we’ve got Genesis 3:
And cross-apply with Genesis 11:
Taken at face value, it sounds like (a) he needs to actively step in and deal with such power-ups before it’s too late, and (b) while he’s been able to head people off in the past, folks have also been able to catch him by surprise.
Oh, sure, you could say he knew the answers to the questions he posed, but there’s no indication of that in the text. There is indication, however, that he genuinely rested after six days of work – so maybe he’s not omnipotent and omniscient so much as he’s just impressively powerful and pretty well-informed?
That’s how I’d describe Czarcasm.
But the Bible says that humans have the same knowledge of right and wrong as God.
Fuck it, I don’t know anymore.
I just hope he doesn’t send any more earthquakes our way!
As I said, I’d try as best I could to come to understand how this is possible. And I predict that I’ll fail, and I’ll stop believing in the existence of the being in question as a result.
“It’s wrong to cause eternal suffering” is about as axiomatic as it gets, as far as I can tell.
Well… that doesn’t mean that every system of morality that’s expressed is the same as God’s understanding of right and wrong. After all, most of us might simply be lying about what’s right and wrong…
Curtis – what would YOUR reaction be if the God of the Bible was false – and that Christianity was found to be false? That there was a different God altogether?
Would YOU hate that God?
*Note: for this exercise, let’s not get into the “what if you found out God didn’t exist.” I’m more interested in finding how he’d react to a DIFFERENT RELIGION being the “true” one.
Well, whoever wrote all that fanfiction about him tried to make out like he was. But as others have demonstrated in this thread, and in the other countless other threads on the subject, he does appear to be rather fallible. I mean, if he really was omnipotent and all that jazz, he’d be able to create a perfect world with no death, no sin, none of that crap and also give us freewill, paradox that it is. Paradoxes shouldn’t be a problem for all powering beings though, right?
And besides, that’s the deal Christians get in heaven anyway, so obviously he’s capable of creating a world like that or heaven would have the same problems Earth does. Unless heaven actually removes our freewill.
But I digress. He’s obviously not as powerful as certain over-excited writers say he is, and it does seem to be possible to screw up his plans (since we have freewill and everything).
So vive la resistance. 
I can understand taking the position that one should resist the traditional Christian god. But in this thread, if you’re trying to be responsive to the OP, it isn’t legitimate to say one should resist because the god in question can be resisted. By stipulation, as stated in the OP when he describes it as the god of “traditional Christian theology,” this entity can’t be resisted. The struggle is hopeless.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t resist. But let’s be clear: we’re talking about a hopeless struggle that is sure to end in eternal torment. That’s just a given in the thread.
You know, all this talk of resistance action would make a good book or three. This time, throw out all the alternate universe fantasy, narrow it down–here, now, devil, demons, angels, god. From the point of view of the sinners. Left Behind, but from the opposite perspective.
I’d read it.
Actually… yes.
Set in this world, in this time. A group of people somehow find evidence that the Christian God is real and alive, actively watching and judging all of us. They attempt to devise a plan to destroy him.
If it was well written I’d read the fuck out of it.
“Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
Remember, Heaven seems to be an eternity of boot-licking in the presence of someone who, if he were human, could aptly be described as a mass-murdering psychopath.
Humanity also seems to have at least some power of the God of the Bible, who is described at various times as jealous and angry - the worst thing you can do is worship another god. Why would he possibly care? Unless our worship of him gives him some power, or ego-trip. Or both. So this implies that we can manipulate the emotions of God, which means at some level we have power over him. In Genesis he seems downright fearful of humanity’s potential, in the story of the Tower of Babel;
" 5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. "
He is a strongman, whose only claim to ultimate morality is ‘might makes right’, unchallengeable, unappealable. And in this vein he claims that in his book, he is the good one and that Satan, who before man was even created rebelled against him, is the bad one - who at least had the balls to stand up to the tyrant. An all powerful God surely would just will this rebel out of existence, but doesn’t. In Revelation, ‘the dragon’ actually musters the power to stage a war in heaven;
" 7And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him."
Not strong enough, but at least he puts up a fight - and why does God need Michael? Can’t he just annihilate Satan’s forces with a thought?
This requires a separate thread, something like:*** How would you go about knocking off a god. ***
The difference between me and God? I’m still willing to learn from my mistakes.
I’ll get into the continua buggy, pop on over to the world of the Subtle Knife, and grab it for you just before Will breaks it. Check you sock drawer Monday morning; I should have teleported the Knife there by then.
After that you’re on your own.
I note that AClockworkMelon [thread=561663]has already started the thread about deicide[/thread]. Way to hustle.