So this more or less supports the point-of-view that Satan didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he rebelled and that the prophecy in Revelation was shared AFTER the rebellion? That God made the decision on the course of humanity after the rebellion? Does this mean Satan’s fall was not originally part of God’s plan?
If you’re talking about the God that I’m thinking of, then this God is usually assumed to be omnipotent. Now if there were some “war in Heaven”, the omnipotent God would have to be choosing to allow the war to occur since God has the power to end it in a way he could choose. Plenty of reasons he might want to do this - if only to add drama to the book he was planning to write one day.
Or God and his rival Satan could both be… equally omnipotent?
Either way, if you want to ponder this Satan character’s motives you should look to all the times we encounter him in the story. He is said to have visited the Christ out in the desert and they had a private argument. From his point of view, this temptation or testing scene is to show to God that his human pet project is not as special as God things he is. It appears that here in the desert Satan thinks he has a chance to change history by giving Jesus some choices - unless they plan these things to further Christ’s education. His case is apparently stated in pieces here and there. It usually looks like a power play among competitive rivals.
There will be no hammer shots from this Atheist, I never have a problem with anyone of any Faith who uses reason and a clear sense of History instead of dogma and knee jerkieness(made up word). A reasonable person, as you seem to be, is welcome to discuss maters of Faith with me any day
CAPT
Well then, it should be a small step for you to realise that it was written by prideful, arrogant, stupid, short-lived humans who were mucking about in a world they knew nothing about and just made stuff up to explain it all.
Just like you are doing now.
(Christian) God gives authority to Satan? I thought they didn’t like each other. Condemning each other and such.
“…his favourite angel, Jesus”? Not in any branch of Christianity that professes the Nicene Creed, for a start, and that’s Catholicism, Orthodoxy and nearly all Protestants of whatever flavour. The NC’s quite explicit that Jesus is “the only-begotten Son of God… begotten, not made; being of one Substance with the Father”.
Not to nitpick, but how do you know there were any babies, or whether they were innocent? It’s certainly possible that they had already killed all the children, and that went into God’s decision. There’s nothing said either way, so we can only assume.
I don’t know if he recreated all those people he spanked - nothing’s said either way. It’s possible that he did. It’s also possible he didn’t. He was certainly under no obligation to, any more than we as a society are under an obligation to provide death row inmates last meals of their choosing. We decide to do it for moral reasons, not because of any obligation.
As for the spanking issue, I was worried that would become a major point and it would derail this thread into a debate on spanking, so I’ll just say now I was only using it as an analogy. Something that we can do to children to correct what we perceive to be their bad behavior in a way that ends up without them being dead. Killing someone is bad because it can’t be undone - in online games, friends can team kill all the time, but it’s no big deal because they just respawn and it doesn’t involve physical pain. It’s sort of like that - except God chooses if and when they respawn, not the player.
Or blocking someone from a chat room. You can unblock them at any time, so it’s not a big deal. But if that blocking were completely irreversible and had no flexibility (it’s either a block, or nothing), even for the admin, it wouldn’t be used as often - there would be more leeway and more warnings.
That’s what I meant to convey with the spanking analogy, nothing more.
That’s true, we only have God’s word. But this is a God who, in the framework of this argument, never lies. It’s said by theologians that God is perfect and all that, so he can do no wrong, and lying is condemned in the bible. Therefore God, as a perfect being can’t lie.
If you take the infallibility of the bible out of the equation, then the argument fails, this is just working under those common assumptions.
I think I’ll post when and where I want with or without your permission, thanks. If you don’t like what I have to say, I apologize, but you’re just as free to stop reading and responding.
And no, I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian God. I don’t believe in the biblical flood, Noah, pairs of animals, etc. I guess now no one will ever be able to tell our arguments apart, unless people are intelligent enough to, you know, tell us apart.
My point is that people forget the level that God - by his very definition - works on. He is not limited by human morality, or even the laws he sets on humanity any more than a father telling his kids not to play with the car is barred from driving anywhere. The biblical God is a complete and utter despot, and just like the despots of humanity, it’s just a question of how enlightened (Friedrich II) or cruel (Stalin) a despot he is, or would be.
I’m not even saying I agree with everything the bible says he did, that’s not the point. The point is that you cannot assume evil intent because he does something you consider to be evil… Even if it is slaughtering millions of people for vague reasons. You need to know the full context before you can reasonably consider the act’s status of justification, and the bible doesn’t provide us with nearly enough context to reach any informed conclusion.. At the end of the day, it’s an argument hardly worth having - not because it’s clear God is evil, but because it’s clear there’s no way to truly determine intent from what we know. If you take that to mean I like killing innocent babies, ok, but that’s on you.
And most religious people in the US aren’t as willing to rationalize God’s wrath perhaps, but in the more theologically active areas and time periods like Medieval Rome, this was accepted dogma. Hence the basis for all the fire and brimstone evangelists. Hell, Aquinas made a lot of these same arguments about 750 years ago applying logic to God. These arguments aren’t new, and used to be quite commonly held.
It certainly was a badly broken design, hence why he wanted to undo it. You can use that to argue against free will or against an omnipotent God, whichever you prefer. I strongly suspect that the Judeo-Christian God, were he real, would be quite far from omnipotent, but that’s another thread altogether.
I don’t know of any scriptural support for the idea that Satan did or did not know that his course of action would work out in any particular way, we can only really guess at that. I’m inclined to believe that he was aware of what consequences were on the table, but his pride and arrogance blinded him to their likelihood. I think Satan’s really just like that one kid in class who thinks he knows better than teacher.
The prophecy in Revelation about the war in heaven was shared in around 90(ish) c.e. and revealed through John, when he was stuck in a cave on a prison island. It refers to events that would take place after a certain period of time had passed, and since both the writing of it and the intended time of its playing out were well after the original Adam and Eve thing, yes the prophecy was shared long after the rebellion took place. Look at Genesis 3:15 - God says that there would be emnity, or struggle, between Satan’s seed and “the woman’s” seed. This struggle would result in Satan being bruised in the head, and “the woman’s” seed being bruised in the heel. One gets a nasty headblow, the other gets a little tripped up. This is the original prophecy where God says that there would be a long struggle between Satan and “the woman” (at this point in the Bible undefined) and that Satan was gonna lose out in the long run, but he’s real vague about it all. As the Bible is written over the centuries, more and more details are given as to the “seed”, and what the “bruise” is, as well as what the “enmity” is. By the time you get to Revelation, it’s all spelled out, but definitely not like a coffee-maker manual. It takes a lot of effort and the right heart motive to find the details.
God had an intended course for humanity to follow before the rebellion was an issue, and the rebellion is more or less a really nasty pothole in the road. He has a plan for us to get back to that, and we’re right on schedule, so far. He laid out this plan to Adam and Eve, when he said “Become many, fill the Earth, and subdue it, have in subjection the plant, animals, sealife, and birds.” (paraphrase of Gensis) Basically, God wanted humans to make the entire planet just like the Garden of Eden that he provided Adam with at the start. What He wanted for after that we don’t know, because we never go there, but I like to look to the starry night sky and imagine 
Since all creatures were made with free will, God did not plan that the rebellion would take place. There’s no scriptural support for the idea that God pre-ordained everything that ever has or ever will take place. Like I said earlier, without free-will we’re all just slaves incapable of expressing genuine love, and nobody likes that. God included. God is capable of knowing what may or may not happen, much the way a scientist can predict the path of a particle or the presence of a boson. That doesn’t mean that he always knows everything all the time. Just because he can, doesn’t mean he does. What kind of fun would that be? And it also would completely defeat the concept of free will. If everything that will ever happen is already known by God, or worse, decided by God, then there’s no free will and we’re stuck on the worst roller coaster ever invented. That’s unpleasant to think about for me, and runs contrary to the qualities that God is described as having in the Bible.
No, Jesus didn’t return in is father’s glory with his angels, so if any of his followers said they saw him it was delusion. Keeping in mind that there is NOTHING, READ, TAUGHT, SAiD or THOUGHT that wasn’t of some other human. One can believe as they wish but belief isn’t fact. John could well have been delusional. If he was in his 90’s his mind could have well been sick. If what he predicted is true then the God he claimed to be love was a terrible being, who loved some of his children and despised the others!
As an examination of my post will reveal (bring a lunch, there are a lot of them) I’m flippant about nearly everything. I wish I knew a tenth as much about the history of religion as Dio does. As for me, I don’t get mad, I get flippant.
I’ve been having on-line religion discussions for almost 40 years - that’s right, long before there was an internet. Until I was in high school I was a believer. Not particularly devout, but I did finish five years of Hebrew school even after my bar mitzvah when it wasn’t necessary, and I went to shul on my own. I changed my opinion already, and based on logic and history. Have you changed yours?
So I know very well that what I was taught was wrong, though I’m happy to say that my teachers had enough respect for our intelligence to not teach us that the very beginning of Genesis actually happened.
My professional training, and my continuing work in reviewing technical papers means that I am used to finding holes in arguments. No body submits a paper to a journal and expects no pushback. If you don’t want me to find holes in your arguments, you are in the wrong place. Of course when I submit a paper I get the same treatment. I don’t mind at all you doing your best to find holes in my arguments.
I write a lot of software, and no one who does that can possibly believe they are inerrant. No matter how sincere and smart I am, my computer says “you nitwit, you screwed it up!”
As for religion, science tells us that we must test our hypotheses, and be willing to abandon them. Religious people who reject all evidence against a worldwide flood because the Bible says it happened don’t get my respect. The Dalai Lama, who said that if science contradicts Buddhism Buddhism must change does get my respect.
Never fear. I was on Usenet since near the beginning (back when there was a single, low volume, alt.sex group) and I’ve been flamed many times, and my feelings have never been hurt.
So, not only were they evil they were insane. They killed all their kids but paid no attention to Noah? Not to mention that, if they did, got could have waited fifty or sixty years until they all died out without issue, and saved the animals and on his water bill. I’m not a Talmudic scholar (my great grandfather was) but I wonder if this ahem interesting theory is even in there.
I can just see the evil ones, after they kill the last kid, slap themselves on their foreheads and say “Oh crap, who is going to pay my Social Security now?”<Yes I’m being flippant. But really …>
So, you’re making this up also. In Jewish law souls don’t get reincarnated. The body is supposed to rise up again some day. That’s why no cremation and no tattoos.
Broken arms heal as good as new - but that isn’t an excuse for a parent breaking a kid’s arm due to disobedience. And, from the OT perspective, “respawning” is a tad unBiblical. After all, the Messiah is to be a descendant of David, not David reborn.
Sending a kid to her room without telephone or computer or TV is a perfectly legitimate punishment. And a tad less extreme than drowning.
So, if you find an untruth in the Bible, or a contradiction, what then? You have a few choices, all poor.
- God didn’t really say that, some guy put it in. Okay, why did God allow this guy to put it in, and how do you determine what God really said?
- No matter how false it is, it is true. The fossil record argues strongly for evolution, not the Bible story? Well, God put it there to test us.
- Distort the meaning so that God didn’t really say what he said, but what he would say if it were true. The people who say a day of creation is actually a zillion years use this one.
- Make stuff up, like you seem to be doing.
My religious instructors never told me once that the Bible was infallible. But I’m Jewish, and so can’t be expected to have any connection to the Bible.
That was a joke, son.
If you are doing this in the sense of a Baker Street Irregular explaining how the Holmes stories are really true, I’m all for it. But I think maybe you could do a better job. I don’t think they introduce the supernatural or aliens in their justifications.
I quite agree, but religious people often throw in some sense of benevolence. They claim to go to church to revel in God’s love, not out of fear of getting boils.
God obviously does nothing unintended. If you say what he did was evil, then he did it with evil intent. In fact there are no unforeseen consequences either.
Now, as for evil there are two possibilities. First, there is some absolute good and evil, which makes God evil in this case. Second, there isn’t, and good and evil are whatever God defines them to be. Then we really have no clue. A religious opponent of SSM must be wiling to admit that God can make gay marriage a sacrament tomorrow if he wished to. And, since we don’t really know what God really said, we are stuck guessing which commandments are real and which are phoney.
There is Biblical evidence in support of your point. The Israelites lost one battle because their opponents had iron chariots, which God seemed to have a problem with.
See Job 1:12, Job 2:6 also Luke 4:6
Satan is also God’s child, and God loves all of His children, even the little naughty ones, the little demons and devils. They are still His children and God’s plan is perfect so God will not lose a single child.
Well I’m glad to hear that flippancy is just a product of you engaging yourself with the topic at hand, as opposed to being dismissive of it entirely, as it is with most people.
I’m glad to hear you’ve had a lot of training, and a lot of time to get to your current set of ideas and have seen a lot of different sides of the various arguments.
Personally, I was raised in a religious cacophony by an unguided father who knew there was some good stuff in the Bible but didn’t trust most religious groups he got involved with. I ignored every bit of it until my early twenties, when I was shown some things that made me start thinking about it. My opinion has certainly changed, much like the pendulum of a clock that swings far to one side, then back far to the other side, but one day will rest in the middle somewhere.
It’s obvious to anyone with half a good neuron that the flood as described in the Bible couldn’t have happened. But it’s also obvious to those same people that if nearly every cultural system on earth has a flood story, maybe there’s a big event way back when that’s worth investigating.
Religion can be much like music, where personal taste and perception play a large role. Also, nobody can say they really have a “guided” faith unless they’re intelligent enough to understand multiple sides of the issue. I currently choose to ascribe to the ideas in the Bible because I see a narrative that makes the most sense for the world we live in, and presents a future hope that is the most realistic and achievable of any I’ve heard of. This is of course predicated by an absolute belief in a God. Since I think there’s one up there, I’d have to say that I think he’d do things exactly as the Bible I understand lays them out. I also think he’d be fine with the humans he had record his thoughts and ideas making things a bit harder to understand than they absolutely needed to be, because that’s what you get when you work with people, especially people being constantly waylaid by Satanic influence.
If they got a bunch of the details wrong, or embellished some things, but managed to get the overlying theme correct, that’s ok with me. Hint: it’s poked at a bit by Matthew 6:9,10.
Thank you monavis, this is just perfect, right out of the scripture that I put forth:
[QUOTE=Acts 7]
56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
[/QUOTE]
And your reply:
Is exactly the next verse:
I did get a great laugh out of this, thanks 
It’s not a theory. It’s a suggestion. I’m not trying to prove this is the way it happened. I’m saying it could have happened this way.
You seem to be misinterpreting my posts, so let me clarify. I am not arguing that this is what happened, I am arguing that there are theoretically possible circumstances that would reconcile God’s status as a being of love and forgiveness, and his use of Wrath.
I never said reincarnation was true. I said it is within God’s power to reincarnate.
It’s another analogy to help bring such an advanced concept as immortality of the soul into a perspective people can more readily understand.
For people. How does it translate to the scale of a heavenly government, maintaining order over all humanity, or at least all Christians?
If I see an untruth in the bible, I chalk it up to another inconsistency in a book unfortunately filled with them. If I were trying to analyze it in perspective of accepting God as real, then I would attempt to rationlize any inconsistency like God’s Wrath.
It is a commonly taught assertion in many Christian traditions. I’m not sure if it’s more common in catholic or reformed doctrines.
I didn’t know that, thanks for clarifying.
Sort of like that. You could say I’m playing the devil’s advocate, or in this case, God’s advocate. And the supernatural is by definition part of any explanation about God, so of course there are going to be certain stretches or detachments from the material world.
That’s true. I may be going out on a limb, but I would guess that the majority of those who went to Church throughout history did so at least partly out of fear.
One thing I cannot and make no attempt to rationalize is the story of Job. And I think that story and what it represents to the layman plays a big part in such fear.
In the context of this argument, good and evil are what God defines them to be, which is very convenient from my position, I admit. One would assume (or at least hope) that he is consistent and develop a pattern that allows us humans to live our lives without unintentionally committing horrible crimes against Him, and that’s the concept I’m attempting to defend. But as an absolute despot, anything goes. Vae Victus, and God is the one with the flaming sword.
Even beyond that, if God were truly omnipotent and perfect as we understand today, he could create something more omnipotent and perfect than himself, thus meaning he himself was never perfect in the first place, ending in infinite progression. But this I think actually has more to do with our rather modern definition of omnipotence as a complete lack of any conceivable limitations. The etymology simply suggest something is “all powerful”; lack of any theoretical limitations is a more modern extension that I would assume dates back to the age of Enlightenment, from the more rigorous scientific standards and analysis being applied to the concept.
See Proverbs 8:22-31
22“Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago. 23From time indefinite I was installed, from the start, from times earlier than the earth. 24When there were no watery deeps I was brought forth as with labor pains, when there were no springs heavily charged with water. 25Before the mountains themselves had been settled down, ahead of the hills, I was brought forth as with labor pains, 26when as yet he had not made the earth and the open spaces and the first part of the dust masses of the productive land. 27When he prepared the heavens I was there; when he decreed a circle upon the face of the watery deep, 28when he made firm the cloud masses above, when he caused the fountains of the watery deep to be strong, 29when he set for the sea his decree that the waters themselves should not pass beyond his order, when he decreed the foundations of the earth, 30then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time, 31being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men.
This is pretty universally understood by Christian “smart people” to refer to Jesus. Note the underlined portion. If you’re basically saying that what I said (Jesus is God’s favorite son) isn’t true because of the Trinity doctrine, or because of some other doctrine made by men, well I suppose that’s a different discussion entirely. But if you’re just looking for specific Biblical references to Jesus’s special position in relation to the Father…well those I have.
John 1:17,18
17Because the Law was given through Moses, the undeserved kindness and the truth came to be through Jesus Christ. 18No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is in the* bosom [position]** with the Father is the one that has explained him.
*
Bosom position here refers to an old-timey Jewish practice (maybe **Voyager **can correct me if needed here) of having a very close family member or some other person of special significance literally sit leaning slightly against the chest (bosom) of someone reclined at a meal table. This would put the two people in very close proximity for private conversation or whatever else you wanted to be near someone for.
1 Peter 2:4-6
*4Coming to him as to a living stone, rejected, it is true, by men, but chosen, precious, with God, 5YOU yourselves also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For it is contained in Scripture: “Look! I am laying in Zion a stone, chosen, a foundation cornerstone, precious; and no one exercising faith in it will by any means come to disappointment.” *
Here Jesus is called “precious” with God…and is referred to as a “foundation cornerstone”, and one to “exercise faith in”. Plus the fact that he was chosen by God for the whole salvation of humankind thing.
I’d have to say that Jesus being God’s favorite angel, his most precious son, his obvious bestest pal, and overall most reliable individual creation, is pretty well understood by most religious minded folks.
Is this just a pedantic thing about using the word “favorite” instead of something else?
So…Jesus is The Preciousss?
Scripture bomb incoming: try this website to look them up if you so desire. Just copy/paste the citations into the search box there.
The story of Job is there to show us a lot about the personality of God, give us a glimpse of the big question behind Satan’s rebellion, and helps us to view much of the tragedy germane to the human family today with the perspective God wants us to have.
It starts with a description of an ideal worshipper of God. (Job 1:1) Satan questions this guy’s motives, and claims that he only worships God due to the benefits he receives from God for doing so. (Job 1:9,10) God allows Satan to remove all of those benefits, limiting him to sparing Job’s life. (Job 1:12) When that’s not enough, He allows Satan to wrack Job with unimaginable physical ailments that have no discernible cause in an effort to make Job give up on God entirely and actually curse Him instead of looking to Him for guidance. (Job 2:6-8)
During Job’s many trials, he is visited by several friends, who give him a myriad of incorrect reasons for his predicament, and even suggest that clearly Job must have sinned if he’s being put through all this. Their claim was that God doesn’t care about the integrity-keeping man and that he has no trust in His servants, even in angels. Job was way off balance in his attempts at self-justification, knowing himself to be sinless. These guys were wrong, and were even called out by a young one of the bunch, who also helped in correcting Job’s viewpoint. (Job 32:1-5 is a good summary of these points, and the following verses give the youngin’s reply)
Job has directly questioned God now, and in his despair, said quite a few things that a child might say to a parent out of an uniformed frustration (how could you do this, it’s wrong, it’s not fair, yadda yadda, wins Captain Obvious award but takes a tone the Almighty rightly doesn’t like). God straightens Job out, and reminds him of his place in the grand scheme of things (Job 39,40,41).
Job says “Oh…you’re right, my bad.” (Job 42:1-6)
Throughout all of this, the fact that Job did maintain his integrity towards God (the minor setbacks of a ranting lunatic covered in malignant boils who just lost his whole family notwithstanding) proves that it is possible to serve God out of a pure motive, in tough times, and that doing so is in our best interest. (Job 42:10-17) If we don’t understand why some terrible thing is happening to us, it’s best to lean on God as we ride it out, knowing that he will either enable us to endure it in the present time or remedy the situation later in some way. (Hebrews 6:9,10) Even death can be fixed by God, and this was something Job hoped in as well. (Job 14:14,15)
A lot of the Bible basically says that nobody can rightly question God on why they are in the predicament they are in, whatever it may be, since God doesn’t directly put good people in bad situations (James 1:13) but does allow it, with a caveat - (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Our imitating Job’s integrity through tough times enables God to answer Satan’s challenge that humans won’t serve God in trying times, or that God isn’t the best one to be in charge. (Proverbs 27:11) Without the book of Job, I don’t know how all those concepts would have been introduced - but Job’s story does suffice in that regard.
Someone posted a very long compendium of flood legends in talk.origins. They were fascinating. Each had a different survival mechanism (many of us are familiar with the Greek version where they go to the top of a mountain). Several had the only survivors greeted by others from over the hill.
Since many early cultures lived on rivers, and rivers often flood randomly, it is not surprising that these exist. I don’t think the Egyptians had one, but they were very familiar with floods.
Each of us has a different favorite Beethoven symphony, but you gotta wonder about someone who says he like the Ninth because of the cool electric guitar part. If the Bible is to be considered as something other than literature (if influential literature) personal preferences are not enough.
What part do you think describes the future? Not Revelations I hope! And which God do you believe in? I understand default belief in God through the culture (adults don’t tell kids there is no Santa, when I was growing up hardly anyone would dare to say there was no God) but to me, in my upbringing, Jesus is just about as believable and realistic as Baal or Shiva. (If nicer).
And that still doesn’t answer many of the questions about Satanic influence people in this thread have pointed out.
hello, i joined just for this thread, i don’t know how to quote, so forgive my primitive reply.
there are some points some posters have made that i have thought about. fwiw i have only a peripheral knowledge of the bible/scripture - just general idea stuff that is probably wrong if i looked into it closely enough.
this maybe wrong, but it seems religion presents a binary choice of either God or Devil. one thing that strikes me when i think about it this way, is that everyone always assumes you are on God’s side. i guess it would be comparable to watching star wars and rooting for vader. announcing you are on the other team at the least makes you look like a kook, at worst could get you killed. afaik, the Devil has not issued an official testament, so we’re only getting one side of the story. i for one would like to hear what he has to say about what took place, what his plan is, etc.
then two posters make these points - forgive my inability to quote correctly:
adaher
God is not totally omnipotent and omniscient, he just is by the standards of man. He can be beaten, and Satan intends to beat him
Schrodinger’s Dog
Or God and his rival Satan could both be… equally omnipotent?
now i think the whether the Devil or Gabriel are gods or angels might be a matter of semantics, i.e., if the Devil does not age, cannot be killed by conventional means, cannot be captured, and lives in a different dimensional plane than i live on, i’d say he is a god too. since it seems God has had plenty of time to wish the Devil into the cornfield so to speak, i think it could stand that the Devil has a chance of winning this thing, whatever it is.
so i guess the two points i wanted to throw out are: one, this curious notion that everyone automatically assumes you are on God’s side when you are only getting one side of the story, and two, the notion that the Devil has chance of winning whatever this contest is supposed to be.