The Devil: no atheists please!

[Huwy]

How about george w bush, he could be the devil.
Although he is the most powerful man in the world, he is

A: a moron
B: a liar
C: a warmonger who has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
D: a greedy man who is concerned with his own financial wealth at the expense of others.

And this is from a man who claims to be religious, morally sound, and on a mission from god.

 

[duendy]

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[Woody]

Devil inside,

You requested no atheists and look what you got.

Didn't you know that "no" means "yes" in the atheist vocabulary?

 

[mario]

Since no one is breaking any laws by responding then no sin has been commited. At least not in the eye of the great watcher of this message board. I have to agree that evil has to be already existing for one to freely choose it. There is no "natural byproduct" of creation. It either has to be created or not.

What I can't understand is why did god create such a cruel place of punishment? Ok maybe for the hitlers and diabolical killers I can see it. But just because you don't believe because you have too many outstanding questions that are not sufficiently answered? Is that reason to burn in agony for all eternity?

 

[Qiothus II]

Going back to the original question of the thread (which I find very interesting):
The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, evilness are not all the same thing, or so I've heard. Satan was one of the angels cast down to earth for punishment and for other purposes which I will get to later. Lucifer was another angel who like Satan rebelled, but was sent to hell. As for the devil, I suppose that is the title given to both Satan and Lucifer because people think that they are one in the same.

By the way, if you ask me where this is coming from, I'll just say a devine penguin told me.

As for God and the Devil from my point of view...Hell is hell and they don't like God, but evil is something completely independant of Satan and Lucifer. I am coming to believe that Satan was sent to earth rather than hell to learn a lesson and not so much to torment us poor little human folk. After all, why would someone as loving as God put a snake in a baby's crib if he didn't think there would be some benefit? My point is, I think Satan was put on earth for two reasons. Punishment: he's got to be surrounded by the things he hates most. Redemption: if God has the infinite faith in us as he asks of us to have for him, why not let Satan see just how worthy we are firsthand? In the book of Job, the whole story is God proving the worth humans to the devil. God is a generally nice guy who wants all the best for his children. So, since God and Satan got along so well before that whole rebellion thing, God decided to teach both us humans and Satan a little bit about how things work in His kingdom by sticking the two of us together until we finally get along. (How's that for a long sentence? Ha!)

Oh, and Huwy, George Dubbya isn't the devil. I'm startin to think that I am though...

 

[mario]

God, being all knowing, would already know how faithful we are to him. There would be no need of testing it. And why does he value lucifer's satisfaction of "seeing for himself" more than his children's pain? Apparently lucifer isn't going to learn his lesson any time soon either...he's sticking around for armageddon.

 

[Qiothus II]

Mario,

Thanks for the reply.

"God, being all knowing, would already know how faithful we are to him. There would be no need of testing it. "

Yes God does know how faithful we are to him, he also knows how unfaithful we are. He is not testing our faith, but challenging us to strengthen it.

"And why does he value lucifer's satisfaction of "seeing for himself" more than his children's pain?"

God values all of his children and there is a little saying I know of that goes: no pain, no gain.

"Apparently lucifer isn't going to learn his lesson any time soon either...he's sticking around for armageddon."

Satan likely won't learn his lesson any time soon, but the fact is, neither will we. The longer it takes us to learn, the longer it will take him, and vice versa. I believe that we each get a chance at redemption, and that God loves us with such intensity that He would rather us struggle through life and learn a lesson than take up space here in insipid bliss. Think of it this way, if you were filthy rich, would you want your kids to get a job (like Bill Gates' kids), or absorb all of your money and be useless retards (like Paris Hilton).

 

[mario]

Insipid bliss. I like that. Kinda sounds like heaven. Well if I was filthy rich I wouldn't ket my kids (if I had any) work. Why do you automatically assume that everyone with quickly gained riches becomes corrupted or dumb like that bimbo on tv? People can learn self restraint and right from wrong without burning their fingers first. Sure I wouldn't want to see children drop out of school before they can learn to read and write because of their unlimited wealth...but to actually work at a job that they didn't like???? What's the point of that when the only reason of that job is to make money? If someone has skills that they want to pursue (like painting or writing or music) then being rich allows the freedom to work on those skills. If someone just wants to lay around and play video games because of their unlimited wealth then I see no harm in that either. You can't force a person to do something they don't want to do after a certain age anyway. Whether they are rich or poor.

Ok if god wants us to learn "the hard way" that he was right and we should have listened to him in the first place then why are people, like atheists, happy without god? And what makes matters worse, if we DON'T learn our lesson before we die we get penalized by going to hell. Like it was some sort of game and we lost. Hell makes the whole aspect of learning in life somehow conditional and unforgiving. Which doesn't seem right for a parental-like god.