Well, here’s your problem. All men are mortal. That means that every human being on Earth dies. Now, if you believe that God is omnipotent, that means that everything happens according to the will of God. That means that humans are mortal because God wants it that way, which is another way of saying that God kills everyone. Every human being who ever lived was killed by God, and every human being who ever will live will be killed by God in their turn.
God doesn’t just destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he doesn’t just order the Canaanites to be slaughtered by the Israelites, he doesn’t just send a flood to wipe out all flesh. He kills everyone. He kills hundreds of babies all day every day.
So what’s the difference between wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah, and the human deaths that happen every day? Either every death is unfair, or no deaths are unfair.
Of course, the real answer is that there is no such thing as God, and therefore all deaths are only fair or unfair from a human perspective, and from a universal perspective are neither fair nor unfair. Complaining about the unfairness of God giving a little baby cancer is misguided, since God was going to kill that baby someday, it might take him 90 years to get around to it, but that baby is going to get old and die someday. Why is dying of old age at 95 less unfair then dying as a baby of cancer, or being in a city wiped out by fire and brimstone?
Correct in mood but not in particulars. The notion of Satan as the author of evil and identical to the serpent in Eden isn’t basic to Christian mythology.
It’s a basic (or nearly basic) tenet of many Christians’ theology, but not the stories. In fact, it comes from a misreading – often a lazy reading – of the stories.
I’m mostly being picky, of course. Saying that Satan is identical to the Serpent in Eden and thus is responsible for fall of man is like saying that, in the Iliad, Achilles dies when Paris, assisted by Apollo, shoots him in the ankle.
Sorry guys. Apparently I’m a moron. Truly. I’m not being sarcastic. How about we continue this discussion without calling him “Lucifer”, “Lucifer Morningstar”, or “Morningstar”. That was nitpicking and had absolutely nothing to do with the original post. I mean, really. Thank you for teaching me I had the name wrong.
Now, replace anything that says Lucifer or Morningstar with SATAN, and then I would like to hear some reasons.
God created Satan as an adversary for mankind – that is, an accuser or prosecutor, tasked with bringing formal charges in trials. Satan held this role for thousands of years, but over time grew corrupt and is now man’s enemy.
Satan is altogether evil, and God is currently altogether good, because God created Satan by removing the malevolent parts of His own self. Those parts were indestructible but could be reduced in power by making them into a separate entity.
God is evil but wishes to seem good in the eyes of man; he created Satan so He would have a plausible scapegoat for his darker acts & impulses.
That doesn’t answer James’s question, though, which was why a presumably-benevolent God would create the spirit of evil responsible for man’s fall. It just splits the question into two parts.
As well it should be. If that question had been asked of the Satan described in the Old Testament, would it even make sense? There is no gradual decline from one aspect to the other-it’s as if, sometime in between the Old and New Testament, someone slapped Satan alongside the head with a cast iron skillet causing a major personality sift.
Let’s grant that the Satan in Job (obviously God’s agent) and the Satan who tempted Jesus during his 40-day fast (clearly evil) are separate entities, and further that neither is identical with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I’ve got no problem with that; it’s the simplest interpretation of the text. The question would still remain “Why did God create an evil, powerful being who would act in opposition to his designs?” just as if the Serpent/Job’s Satan/Matthew’s Satan were all the same person.
‘God’ didn’t create any of them - the writers of the pieces in question did as they needed both a protaganist and an antagonist in order to sell the story/lesson at hand.
when you realize that its all ‘people trying to explain crap they can’t yet explain’ - its so much easier to fathom how this stuff managed to survive.
I don’t believe in any gods but Athena, Thor, Bailey Quarters, and Gibbs, and even them only metaphorically. But I can engage in a discussion in the spirit intended by the OP. Or, if the subject is really intolerable to me – say football – I can stay out of the discussion. Tis called “courtesy.”
