Does Satan Help Us Love?

[natey]

I'm completely ignoring your first few because clearly you have a different view of God and I'm not gonna bicker with you and waste my time.

Then God purposely set man up to fail (OT) so he could send himself (as Jesus) to save man from man?
Interesting picture you paint of your God.

Who said the OT was a failure? Becuase something changed it failed? Maybe you should try reading the Bible and see that the OT was NOT a "failure". Human beings were still being saved from hell, just in a different way. Sacrificing animals was a temporary solution then Jesus came as the permanent solution.

I never said that God was not a supreme being.
I said that God is not 'omni' anything.

I'm not even going to respond to that. Clearly we have different views of God.

 

[McBell]

I'm completely ignoring your first few because clearly you have a different view of God and I'm not gonna bicker with you and waste my time.

Perhaps if you were to stop telling me what I believe...

Who said the OT was a failure?

Noone did.
At least not in this thread.

Becuase something changed it failed?

What are you talking about?

Maybe you should try reading the Bible and see that the OT was NOT a "failure". Human beings were still being saved from hell, just in a different way. Sacrificing animals was a temporary solution then Jesus came as the permanent solution.

God set man up to fail in the OT.
IF God already knew that man would not be able to fulfill all the requirements he put into place in the OT...
If God knew that man would not be able to follow all the rules he put in place in the OT...
...yet proceeded to do so anyway, he intentionally set man up to fail.

I know of no other way to explain it.

I'm not even going to respond to that. Clearly we have different views of God.

Clearly.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Our purpose is to remember unconditional love, and practice it. IMHO Satan is God's blacksmith, he applies the pressure that brings out the purest parts of us. Placing blame on Satan might be somewhat useful, but only if you realize that Satan is not a person, and it resides within you, not outside of you. I do not see Satan as God's enemy, but more as the ying to his yang. God would not have allowed the existance of Satan if it did not serve some purpose towards unconditional love.

I like the idea of Satan being "God's blacksmith."

I suppose if I were to symbolize the relationship of God and Satan to the development of humankind, I would say that they are the two hands of a sculptor, each molding the clay in different ways to create whatever it is we are to become.

God pulls the clay in one direction, while Satan moves it in another. Without the influence of both, the clay would move in one direction, and how boring would that be?

 

[Gentoo]

And how were these people innocent? They were worshipping foreign gods and God told anyone to punish them. I don't see anything wrong with that, they were far from innocent as you were saying.

I know this was a few pages back, but I've been lazy and just decided to read this thread, and I had to comment:

WHAT??!!

It's probably best if I leave it there...
:bb:

 

[doppelganger]

Without the influence of both, the clay would move in one direction, and how boring would that be?

You'd have a snake.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

You'd have a snake.

Or a worm.

 

[natey]

God set man up to fail in the OT.
IF God already knew that man would not be able to fulfill all the requirements he put into place in the OT...
If God knew that man would not be able to follow all the rules he put in place in the OT...
...yet proceeded to do so anyway, he intentionally set man up to fail.

I know of no other way to explain it.

We are humans, of course we fail at some things. I really don't see your point here. If God gave us a list of 100 rules to follow it would be 99.999% impossible not to do at least one of them. God knew who was going to sin and go against His laws but that doesn't mean He shouldn't set up some boundaries. I'm not even sure what we are discussing about anymore. He set rules, and mankind broke them, just because He knew they were gonna break the rules doesn't mean He shouldn't have set them up.

That's like saying, people are gonna shoplift anyway so lets not make it against the law.

 

[McBell]

We are humans, of course we fail at some things. I really don't see your point here. If God gave us a list of 100 rules to follow it would be 99.999% impossible not to do at least one of them. God knew who was going to sin and go against His laws but that doesn't mean He shouldn't set up some boundaries. I'm not even sure what we are discussing about anymore. He set rules, and mankind broke them, just because He knew they were gonna break the rules doesn't mean He shouldn't have set them up.

That's like saying, people are gonna shoplift anyway so lets not make it against the law.

Since I have no idea how to further explain it...

 

[Guitar's Cry]

We are humans, of course we fail at some things. I really don't see your point here. If God gave us a list of 100 rules to follow it would be 99.999% impossible not to do at least one of them. God knew who was going to sin and go against His laws but that doesn't mean He shouldn't set up some boundaries. I'm not even sure what we are discussing about anymore. He set rules, and mankind broke them, just because He knew they were gonna break the rules doesn't mean He shouldn't have set them up.

That's like saying, people are gonna shoplift anyway so lets not make it against the law.

Ah, but laws against shoplifting are made by imperfect humans! If we assume that God created humankind, and that God - who happens to be a perfect being - wanted us to be sinless, then why even the need to set up laws? Especially if our nature was created and well known by that God?

To tie this in with the OP, perhaps that is the purpose of Satan. God must not be perfect if laws were needed, so Satan was necessary in punishing humankind. Would that help us better love and forgive each other, knowing our flaws are inherent and will be punished later on? Unless love and vengeance are among those flaws...

 

[lunamoth]

Would that help us better love and forgive each other, knowing our flaws are inherent and will be punished later on? Unless love and vengeance are among those flaws...

That's not what I was getting at. I don't believe that anyone gets punished later on. I'm addressing how do we go about loving each other now, and does the idea of Satan play any part in that.

 

[natey]

Ah, but laws against shoplifting are made by imperfect humans! If we assume that God created humankind, and that God - who happens to be a perfect being - wanted us to be sinless, then why even the need to set up laws? Especially if our nature was created and well known by that God?

To tie this in with the OP, perhaps that is the purpose of Satan. God must not be perfect if laws were needed, so Satan was necessary in punishing humankind. Would that help us better love and forgive each other, knowing our flaws are inherent and will be punished later on? Unless love and vengeance are among those flaws...

Now we are just get a point where we are trying to speculate on why God does what He does. I am not God and I don't have anywhere near His knowledge so I will honestly say I do not know why He did what He did.

 

[Random]

If there is a God (Deity), there is necessarily a Satan, I feel.

GOD must be awfully stuffy and unchanging, so we need a cool Satan to lead the opposition. And yeah, it's about Love!

How? No-one could listen to Rock N' Roll and not be touched by Satan! And my reasoning is, well, what is Rock all about? LOVE! Of course!

So, it then follows that Satan, once the most powerful and beautiful of all God's angels, still acts in some abstract way out of love: perhaps his hatred of God is rooted in this.

They say Atlantis was once supposed to be a materialistic culture yet very scientific, spiritual and Enlightened; maybe Satan envisions this type of paradise for us here on Earth. That would indicate he wants to show us the love that is possible in THIS life, to stretch the boundaries of existence for the maximum power to individuals.

Maybe this is love of a kind. Maybe there is a lesson to be learnt. All I can say is, if Satan is real, GO SATAN! You rock...

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

We are humans, of course we fail at some things. I really don't see your point here. If God gave us a list of 100 rules to follow it would be 99.999% impossible not to do at least one of them. God knew who was going to sin and go against His laws but that doesn't mean He shouldn't set up some boundaries. I'm not even sure what we are discussing about anymore. He set rules, and mankind broke them, just because He knew they were gonna break the rules doesn't mean He shouldn't have set them up.

That's like saying, people are gonna shoplift anyway so lets not make it against the law.

It's more like when I first take the training wheels off my child's bike. I know they are going to fall and fail, and try again, and fail. I'm not setting them up for failure. I'm setting them up to gain more experience.

Failures are not a bad thing. Failures are part of learning, part of growth.

 

[McBell]

It's more like when I first take the training wheels off my child's bike. I know they are going to fall and fail, and try again, and fail. I'm not setting them up for failure. I'm setting them up to gain more experience.

Failures are not a bad thing. Failures are part of learning, part of growth.

Only because you are not all knowing and all powerful.
The Christian God is supposed to be both.