Who is the epitome of Evil, God or Satan?

[Greatest I am]

Who is the epitome of Evil, God or Satan?

 

Though shalt place no one above me. Satan did not as he followed God’s instructions with Job. He was firmly under God’s control.

 

Many have jumped through hoops to make anyone other than God the most evil in existence yet scripture says that God gets the Gold star in all categories. Even as the most evil. After all, he is said to have created the concept of law. The Word. All Goods and Evils. The first divisive tool for social manipulation and control.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh1qWZWNGGE

 

God is said to have just about all attributes that man has been able to imagine.

 

God has been reduced to our wish list. Including the creator of an everlasting hell to entertain our more hateful wishes.

 

God is still ashamed of what he has wrought as in the days of Noah.

 

Mythical Noah the is. Even after using genocide to reboot his systems. Strange. Another failure. God, if he were real, seems to have two messages for us.

 

Do as you are told and do not think too much. Hence faith to drive away logic and reason.

 

As the epitome of Evil, Satan runs a poor second place to God.

 

Have we put the blame for creations evils on the created, Satan, when it was God, who, as the epitome of Evil, shirked his duty of taking responsibility for what he as God sowed.

 

That also would mean that Bishop John Spong was right and God is guilty of child abuse by putting the responsibility for his works on Jesus.

 

Do as I say and not as I do is God’s policy.

 

I also would argue against his policy or rewarding what he calls rebellion. I E. Giving Satan dominion over mankind and rewarding Cain with a kingdom for murder.

 

Not a good thing for the law maker to do.

 

Two stains on his Gold star.

 

Is God the epitome of evil?

 

Is that the moral lesson of the flood myth?

 

What does that say of the literalists who follow Noah’s God and think that genocide is good justice?

 

 

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Fuzzwood]

Define good, define evil.

[Realitycheck]

God has been reduced to sensibility. When he storms out of his other dimension and defies all of the laws of physics like Galactus or something, then I'll believe that much more. Until then, why believe in anything more than a microscopic extropic force of organization, at best? The historical record, the law of physics, the very nature of reason are all going against you, even the Pope. What's your point? Defining morality over the ages is not that hard. What works? What doesn't? I thought they finished the job 2000 years ago. Why hang on to all of the obsolete fantasy? It's called evolution.

[Greatest I am]

Define good, define evil.

 

Do you not have a dictionary?

 

Regards

DL

 

God has been reduced to sensibility. When he storms out of his other dimension and defies all of the laws of physics like Galactus or something, then I'll believe that much more. Until then, why believe in anything more than a microscopic extropic force of organization, at best? The historical record, the law of physics, the very nature of reason are all going against you, even the Pope. What's your point? Defining morality over the ages is not that hard. What works? What doesn't? I thought they finished the job 2000 years ago. Why hang on to all of the obsolete fantasy? It's called evolution.

 

I agree.

Without proof of the supernatural, one should not believe in it.

 

Regards

DL

[Realitycheck]

Ok, maybe not 2000 years ago, but I think we've got a pretty good grip on it. It just seems kind of weird, all of the preaching to the choir, if you could call it that. There was once a time, not long ago, when there was no Religion forum. I'm thinking that maybe they opened it to attract more people, but if you don't believe in the supernatural, then your posts come across as quite insincere, or at least hardly comical. Not trying to chastise you, it's just the way it looks.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Realitycheck

[Kturbo]

God knows evil,he does not do evil there is a difference.Satan knows and does evil.God is the point of reference for ultimate righteousness,holiness,goodness,knowledge,wisdom,mercy... all that is good.The more we venture away from these attributes the more we venture into evil.If you don't believe in God,against what point of reference can you then measure goodness,mercy,righteousness? God gave every angel and man free will,but he gave him free will along with a point of reference(himself) by which to live.There has to be consequence to everything done.To attempt to suggest that God is evil is blasphemy in itself.

[Greatest I am]

Ok, maybe not 2000 years ago, but I think we've got a pretty good grip on it. It just seems kind of weird, all of the preaching to the choir, if you could call it that. There was once a time, not long ago, when there was no Religion forum. I'm thinking that maybe they opened it to attract more people, but if you don't believe in the supernatural, then your posts come across as quite insincere, or at least hardly comical. Not trying to chastise you, it's just the way it looks.

 

You will note that not all here are in your/our choir.

 

Regards

DL

 

God knows evil,he does not do evil there is a difference.Satan knows and does evil.God is the point of reference for ultimate righteousness,holiness,goodness,knowledge,wisdom,mercy... all that is good.The more we venture away from these attributes the more we venture into evil.If you don't believe in God,against what point of reference can you then measure goodness,mercy,righteousness? God gave every angel and man free will,but he gave him free will along with a point of reference(himself) by which to live.There has to be consequence to everything done.To attempt to suggest that God is evil is blasphemy in itself.

 

 

To say that God does not do evil would mean that you agree that Sodom and the genocide of Noah’s day were good justice. Not to mention all the other children and babies he had slaughtered along the way.

 

Do you?

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Kturbo]

I don't believe God has to explain himself to us.Even the bible says " who can say to God what have you done". Remember Abraham pleaded for Sodom and God said he would spare it if he found a certain number of righteous people there.Yet only Lot and his family were found to be righteous.We must remember that God is a loving God,but we must also remember that he is a just God too.Lot's wife came out safe but still disobeyed the instruction not to look back and had to bare the consequence.If God were unjust he would have let her live despite her disobedience,while destroying the people of Sodom.

 

Why would the creator of the ends of the universe need to sit us down and explain everything he does everytime he does them.We do things that our children view at the time as being unfair and many times we do these things without an explanation being given.Then later in life they realize that it was for their own good.

Think about God's love and mercy for minute,even when we hate him and curse him we still get a chance to repent and we even have life while we are cursing him.Satan and his angels hate God and yet they live because of Gods presence.God even restricts Satan from doing with us what he truly wants to do.The state of the world is just the tip of the ice berg compared to what satan would do to us if he were allowed to.If satan had full authority over all things,do you think he would ever allow you to even have a disagreement with him even in though? He would destroy you instantly.Yet our God allows us to disagree,curse him and do all manner of evil before him.Remember though,he is a just God and these things will come up for judgement one day if we do not repent of them.If there was no justice from God how could we define good from evil,don't you think Adolf Hitler should bare the consequences of his actions? Without God as our point of reference of what is good we could not differentiate between Hitler and Mother Teresa.

[Dekan]

Satan keeps tempting humans into evil. Yet God stands by, and lets Satan go on doing it.

 

If God doesn't want evil, why doesn't He destroy Satan now?

 

Is it because He can't - or does He approve of Satan?

[Greatest I am]

I don't believe God has to explain himself to us.Even the bible says " who can say to God what have you done". Remember Abraham pleaded for Sodom and God said he would spare it if he found a certain number of righteous people there.Yet only Lot and his family were found to be righteous.We must remember that God is a loving God,but we must also remember that he is a just God too.Lot's wife came out safe but still disobeyed the instruction not to look back and had to bare the consequence.If God were unjust he would have let her live despite her disobedience,while destroying the people of Sodom.

 

Why would the creator of the ends of the universe need to sit us down and explain everything he does everytime he does them.We do things that our children view at the time as being unfair and many times we do these things without an explanation being given.Then later in life they realize that it was for their own good.

Think about God's love and mercy for minute,

 

Ok. I took the time to do so.

 

I could not find any in how he dealt with A & E. He tacked on a bunch of punishments arbitrarily and did not tell them of the benefits of eating of the tree of knowledge. Satan had to.

I did see some with how he dealt with Satan. He gave him dominion here on earth.

I could not find any in Noah's day or Sodoms as God killed instead of cure those he thought defective.

He had the choice and took the moral low ground.

 

In those days, this was what was being sung.

 

 

 

Regards

DL

[sweenith]

Who is the epitome of Evil, God or Satan?

 

Though shalt place no one above me. Satan did not as he followed God's instructions with Job. He was firmly under God's control.

 

Many have jumped through hoops to make anyone other than God the most evil in existence yet scripture says that God gets the Gold star in all categories. Even as the most evil. After all, he is said to have created the concept of law. The Word. All Goods and Evils. The first divisive tool for social manipulation and control.

 

You say that it's the creator, rather than anyone he created, who is most evil. Whether or not your claim is true will depend on what view one takes regarding God's relationship to morality: if for instance some version of divine command theory (DCT) is true, then your statement will turn out to be necessarily false, since it would then follow by definition that "good" means that which has been commanded by God. That's not my own view, but if you're basing your argument on Scripture as you seem to be doing, then it would then be incumbent upon you to show, among other things, why DCT is false (or probably false).

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh1qWZWNGGE

 

God is said to have just about all attributes that man has been able to imagine.

 

God has been reduced to our wish list. Including the creator of an everlasting hell to entertain our more hateful wishes.

 

God is still ashamed of what he has wrought as in the days of Noah.

 

Mythical Noah the is. Even after using genocide to reboot his systems. Strange. Another failure. God, if he were real, seems to have two messages for us.

 

(1) Who says that God has nearly all humanly-imagined attributes? In any case, that's certainly not true, since for every attribute, there is a corresponding attribute which is its negation, from which it follows that God could not possibly have more than half of all humanly-imagined attributed since any more than that would imply that God has some attribute, p, and also some attribute, not-p, which is a contradiction.

 

(2) Your point about wish-fulfillment is question begging, because in order to assert that the doctrine of Hell is a product of our own wishes, you have to be presupposing that the doctrine of Hell is false. But people affirm the doctrine because they think it's true, not because they think it's what they want to be true. Hence you're going to have to give them some reason to think there's no Hell before they're going to accept that Hell is a fabrication reflecting human wishes.

 

(3) Any argument for the evilness of God that depends upon a particular literal interpretation of some Scriptural text, especially if it's a text that has traditionally been interpreted in a non-literal way, or if it's one whose genre is disputed or something like that, any such argument will only be successful insofar as you succeed in establishing that your interpretation of the text in question is correct. Old Testament stories such as the ones you reference were given figurative readings at least as early as Augustine (see his response to the Manichean objections, in his Confessions), so your work is cut out for you.

 

Do as you are told and do not think too much. Hence faith to drive away logic and reason.

 

As the epitome of Evil, Satan runs a poor second place to God.

 

Have we put the blame for creations evils on the created, Satan, when it was God, who, as the epitome of Evil, shirked his duty of taking responsibility for what he as God sowed.

 

Where did God state that? ("Do as you are told and do not think too much")

 

And you seem to think that none of the actions committed by any of God's created beings have any moral value, for otherwise it would make no sense to say that even though certain created agents (Satan, humans) freely chose to do evil, that it was God, rather than them, who had done something wrong. But any theist who affirms that human beings have libertarian free will (and that's almost all of them) will reject your assumption. Only if determinism were true would it be fair to blame God for the actions taken by created beings. But so long as they could have acted differently than they in fact chose to act, then it will be the case that they can be held morally culpable.

 

Finally, God is traditionally defined as denoting a being which is, among other things, perfectly moral. Since it's a contradiction to suppose that a morally perfect being is to any degree evil, it follows by definition that God is not more evil than Satan (since it follows that God is not evil at all). So, If it's the case that some Scriptural text implies that God is less than perfectly moral, then that text must be false in that regard.

[Greatest I am]

Wow. You are right. If I were to answer and try to prove all of the issues you opened, it would be a lot of work.

 

I am not here to write a book friend.

 

I am here to compare Satan and God as they are shown in scripture.

 

Some of your requests would be impossible for me to answer to in fact.

 

Like DCT.

 

I see your request as a logical fallacy. It is to those who believe in it, and God, to prove it. I cannot disprove a negative where God is concerned. Impossible.

 

This speak to that.

 

 

For this discussion, I will stick to the literal words of the Bible even as I know it should not be read literally; since I do not believe in any of it’s characters as other than archetypes.

 

Happy to chat if you want to stick to the main issue in a literal way or even as myth.

 

It is God morals, as shown in scripture, that is my focus. Not the minutia of any particular verse or the real existence of a God..

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Kturbo]

I think most people's problem with God is the fact that he did not destroy Satan the moment he sinned.The reality is that God allows satan to run rampant as ample proof to all creation and existence that satan's way leads to destruction.Why would a supreme God need to destroy satan immediately,this would bring his supremacy into question among the angels,they would wonder who is next.He also did not destroy Adam and Eve immediately when they sinned,instead he showed mercy and gave them and their descendants a chance to redeem themselves.Do you think the devil at anytime would give any of us a chance or show us mercy.The state of the world today is satans work and yet he has been restrained or we would never live another second.If Satan was really allowed to do what he wants,do you think anyone of us would be here to be talking about issues in this forum? Look at what happened with Job,God placed limitations on satan because God knew satan would kill Job if given the opportunity.Jesus came and restored the bridge between man and God so all that is left now is the second coming when all things will be made new and sin and its originator are removed completely.

[Moontanman]

Who is the epitome of Evil, God or Satan?

 

Humans are the only true evil, everything else is fantasy....

[A Tripolation]

It is God morals, as shown in scripture, that is my focus. Not the minutia of any particular verse or the real existence of a God..

 

Then you lose. God is the ultimate form of goodness. There are consequences for disobeying Him, and the actions are always justified by his inherent righteousness.

 

That is what Scripture says, and it overrides any "particular verses" you're about to dig up from evilbible.com.

[Greatest I am]

I think most people's problem with God is the fact that he did not destroy Satan the moment he sinned.The reality is that God allows satan to run rampant as ample proof to all creation and existence that satan's way leads to destruction.Why would a supreme God need to destroy satan immediately,this would bring his supremacy into question among the angels,they would wonder who is next.He also did not destroy Adam and Eve immediately when they sinned,instead he showed mercy and gave them and their descendants a chance to redeem themselves.Do you think the devil at anytime would give any of us a chance or show us mercy.The state of the world today is satans work and yet he has been restrained or we would never live another second.If Satan was really allowed to do what he wants,do you think anyone of us would be here to be talking about issues in this forum? Look at what happened with Job,God placed limitations on satan because God knew satan would kill Job if given the opportunity.Jesus came and restored the bridge between man and God so all that is left now is the second coming when all things will be made new and sin and its originator are removed completely.

 

 

Yep. Nothing like God placing a bet with Satan and allowing him to do his thing. A real moral God you have.

 

Nothing like letting humans suffer on a God damned bet.

 

You should have another look at your S O B God and look for one with morals.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

Humans are the only true evil, everything else is fantasy....

 

 

How refreshing. A sane answer.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

 

cripture says it so it must be true.

Then you lose. God is the ultimate form of goodness. There are consequences for disobeying Him, and the actions are always justified by his inherent righteousness.

 

That is what Scripture says, and it overrides any "particular verses" you're about to dig up from evilbible.com.

 

 

Scripture says it so it must be true.

 

Really?

 

Is this true?

 

If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brother, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple." John 3:15

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Kturbo]

DL,The scripture simply means you must be willing to put him ahead of everything you hold dear,it does not mean you must actually hate the people mentioned.DL,I take it you are angry with God about something or you have bought into some lie the devil has told you.Jesus said " love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" could a line like that ever come from anybody else on this earth.

 

Please don't be angry at God,but seek him whole heartedly and you will find him because he said he would never let you seek him in vain.

[Dekan]

Jesus said " love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" could a line like that ever come from anybody else on this earth.

 

Suppose the USA had taken that view, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. And President Roosevelt had gone on the radio, and said:

 

"Despite the attack, we must love the Japanese Imperial Government. They may be our enemies, they may hate us, but we love them. So we're going to be good to them. And our goodness will begin, by our peacefully welcoming a Japanese Occupation Army into Washington State, Oregon, and California.

 

Once these West coast states have been occupied, we shall do further good - we shall open our East coast states to occupation by Nazi Germany. Because we love our enemies. "

 

Would you think that a wise policy to pursue?

Edited August 19, 2011 by Dekan

[Greatest I am]

DL,The scripture simply means you must be willing to put him ahead of everything you hold dear,it does not mean you must actually hate the people mentioned.DL,I take it you are angry with God about something or you have bought into some lie the devil has told you.Jesus said " love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" could a line like that ever come from anybody else on this earth.

 

Please don't be angry at God,but seek him whole heartedly and you will find him because he said he would never let you seek him in vain.

 

 

Strange that you can take your quote literally and trash mine for doing the same as you.

 

Quite the level playing field.

 

As to the rest of your psychoanalysis, preaching and thinking that I hate a God I do not believe in.

 

Garbage.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

 

[Kturbo]

Strange that you can take your quote literally and trash mine for doing the same as you.

 

Quite the level playing field.

 

As to the rest of your psychoanalysis, preaching and thinking that I hate a God I do not believe in.

 

Garbage.

 

Regards

 

DL

 

Peace and Love to you my friend,I pray that one day you will find what I have found in Christ Jesus.

 

The word is always foolishness to the non believer.

[losfomot]

The word is always foolishness to the non believer.

 

I wonder why?

[seriously disabled]

I have no idea and really have no way to know this. For all I know, God could be the bad guy while Satan is actually the good guy who keeps God in check.

 

Or maybe there are actually multiple deities with supernatural powers, some of them are evil but the others are actually good.

Edited January 5, 2012 by seriously disabled