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originally posted by: JimNasium
a reply to: Specimen
Re: "Wasn't both Jesus and Lucifer referred to as "Morning Star"
www.truelife.org...
We SHOULD pay heed as this was written by a guy who makes His living by Preaching.
Worship = War Ship
I think it depends on what Lucifer we and the texts are trying to depict.
originally posted by: Gargoyle91
They say Satan is the great deceiver of mankind and we are taught this by God's followers , What if Satan is actually the good guy and God is the deceiver and has had everyone fooled through out the ages ? I mean realistically we are being threatened to worship and follow God , What kind of supreme being would need to do that ? We hear nothing from Satan's side and he's not threatening us to worship him or else . Why did God not want us to eat from the tree of knowledge but Satan did ?
This has always puzzled me how God earned the faith by saying bad things about Satan and not vice versa .
I'm not religious but I understand something has to make nothing and I will find out what it is someday.
In one bible verse regarding the bronze serpent, it is said that the son of man(Jesus) is to be placed at the same status.
originally posted by: Deetermined
a reply to: Specimen
In one bible verse regarding the bronze serpent, it is said that the son of man(Jesus) is to be placed at the same status.
Jesus is only making a comparison here. In the day of Moses, those who looked at the bronze serpent were spared from death. Jesus is only stating that he will be lifted up on a cross to spare people from eternal death.
John 3:14-15
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
originally posted by: Gargoyle91
They say Satan is the great deceiver of mankind and we are taught this by God's followers , What if Satan is actually the good guy and God is the deceiver and has had everyone fooled through out the ages ?
originally posted by: RobFox
I mean realistically we are being threatened to worship and follow God , What kind of supreme being would need to do that ?
originally posted by: RobFox
We hear nothing from Satan's side and he's not threatening us to worship him or else.
originally posted by: RobFox
Why did God not want us to eat from the tree of knowledge but Satan did ?
originally posted by: RobFox
This has always puzzled me how God earned the faith by saying bad things about Satan and not vice versa .
originally posted by: TzarChasm
i would say there is a certain manipulative nature to the garden situation. adam and eve were explicitly told never to touch the fruit of knowledge. but "the adversary" was never given any command to leave adam and eve alone. furthermore, the tree was not guarded against trespassers or thieves, the gate was left open for "the adversary" to access their home, and god was mysteriously absent while "the adversary" had a conversation with eve. theoretically god was standing there literally right next to them watching eve being tempted by one of his less savory creations and refusing to intervene on behalf of his naive daughter, even though he knew what would happen if "the adversary" was successful. the big problem here being that god (being omniscient and omnipresent) warned his children with the perfect knowledge that his warning would be undermined by his pet, and the fact that he would be privy to the entire event, and would still proceed to punish them despite being complicit in their betrayal which he previously engineered. i believe the legal term is "entrapment". and the only person with the means, motive, and opportunity is the one guy who literally controls the universe.
originally posted by: JimNasium
a reply to: EasternShadow
You typed "But you are required to pray to God, so that you are not completely alone and loss..."
May I ask what You meant by this?
originally posted by: Gargoyle91
We hear nothing from Satan's side ...
originally posted by: AtomicKangaroo
a reply to: Deetermined
I don't need God or Satan to know good from evil.
I don't need an old book or anyone else to tell me how to have morals and be a decent human being.
The grey area only comes from having to chose a side of two possible sky fairies whose business is of no interest to me.
Just leave me alone to live a peaceful and good eternal existence doing my own thing and maybe chilling with other eternal mortals of a similar mind and I'll be fine thanks.
...
Humans are by nature interested in themselves. When personal desires and interests become paramount in life, however, trouble results. What does it mean to be self-centered, and why is it unwise to become so? This term means being “concerned solely with one’s own desires, needs, or interests.” Does that not accurately describe many people today? Significantly, the Bible foretells that “in the last days” of Satan’s wicked system, “men will be lovers of themselves,” or will become self-centered.—2 Timothy 3:1, 2.
Christians appreciate the wisdom of observing the Bible command to take an interest in others, loving them as one loves oneself. (Luke 10:27; Philippians 2:4) ...
A self-centered attitude can lead to one’s being self-righteous [judging oneself by one’s own standards], which, in turn, can cause a person to become narrow-minded, presumptuous. The Bible aptly says: “You are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are, if you judge; for in the thing in which you judge another, you condemn yourself, inasmuch as you that judge practice the same things.” (Romans 2:1; 14:4, 10)
originally posted by: AtomicKangaroo
I've had this discussion many times with Christians with never a satisfying answer given.
I ask them to show where Satan/Lucifer or whatever in the Bible is doing evils to mankind.
They can't.
Nearly everything bad that happens to people in the bible via supernatural means is the work of God.
Old and New Testaments.
God says love and worship me or else. Even Post-Jesus. Give yourself to me 100% based on nothing but faith or go to hell for at least between now and the end of days (yeah Hell aint eternal apprently.)
But of course you must just love and worship him unconditionally, not out of fear or anything.
Kind of hard to not be fearful of an omnipotent being who has complete control over your eternal soul, especially when you look at his past and future track records.
He's kicked his kids out of home and taken their immortality for making a mistake.
He's nuked cities. Turned wives to pillars of salt for simply 'looking back'.
He's made people suffer horribly and killed simply to win a bet with the devil. Like Marty McFly responding to being called a chicken.
Ordered people to kill their kids to show their loyalty only to say "haha psyche, you don't gotta kill them now I know you would."
He's killed billions with a flood.
and much more.
And before you say "oh but Jesus changed all that. God's on his meds now."
Look at Revelations and the 'End Times' and what God's plan for us into the future is. (Especially if you're not one of his 'chosen people')
Beasts, plagues, famines, war, zombie armies and more with the eventual literal glassing of the planet and all that remains on it.
Memory wipes for all on death, and while everyone get's immortality, those of us who are not his 'chosen' will be stuck living essentially as we are now, but forever. Always outside his city looking in. No matter how good we were, no matter how faithful.
In the end everything kind of counters we have free will when this egotistical, needy, attention seeking super deity controls everything we do. Pulls our strings right to the end.
It's all there in his own words.
But what about the devil? Well we only have one side of that story. God's side.
There's no book dedicated to Lucifers testimony to how things went down.
Whenever he shows up in the bible he is always offering mankind things. No strings attached. Or he offers up an exchange. Hey worship me, get a free country.
He's okay with humans having # that useless to life and survival like TV's, Computer and shows like Jersey Shore.
Under God all our tech and other materialistic things will be gone. Heck God doesn't even like a joke and you can only dance and sing if it's dedicated to him.
I don't see Lucifer doing anything terrible to people until Revelations. But then again those terrible things seem to be part of God's ultimate plan. That same God who supposedly see all, knows all and created everything.
If he created everything, then who really is it unleashing swarms of locust with faces like people and tails like a scorpion to torture us?
Who is it turning rivers to blood and drying up oceans in the future?
Who's plan is it to ultimately kill us all, destroy the Earth and build everything a new including us with our personalities stripped out to be mindless worshipping sheep?
God or Lucifers?
Look at 'visions' of God on his throne. Heaven is a toy box under his seat where we await in standby mode. And everyone else present and witnessed is doing nothing but bowing, praising and worshipping God.
They have no other life than that.
Unconditional love? bwahahahaha.
I love my children unconditionally. For better or worse I love them and always will with no expectations of them.
God's unconditional love is based on you loving him unconditionally, otherwise GTFO.
His love is full of conditions. First and foremost you must dedicate your entire life to the worship and loving of him.
It's anything but unconditional.
And I could go on.
I've read old and new testaments, and a few spin off books and honestly God always comes off in them as being the biggest, most selfish, douchebag in the universe.
In comparison Lucifer honestly comes off as the lesser of the 2 evils.
(and despite seeing all and knowing how # would go down with Lucy. He still made that guy.)
But of course he's infallible, he cannot make mistakes. It's always everybody elses fault.
Honestly if the Christian afterlife is real, or if any major religions belief is the right one, I just want to be able to use my freewill and tell them all to piss off and let me live my after life my own way. (preferably with my mind intact.)
Spent an entire life having people trying to tell me how to live everyday of it and to worship them.
I don't need an eternity of that # to boot.
That would be the real hell for me.