I guess I know where you're coming from. Perhaps we can see better where the Father is coming from in this. The Father is not evil. If He was this is what would happen. He would delight in torture. The torture of every human in this life and forever after. There would be no reason to spare anyone. If the Father were evil there would be no reason to show mercy to a single person ever. The Screwtape Letters (by C.S. Lewis) may help you understand how Satan would rule. You may not want to read them so they will be at the far bottom of the post. I think understanding pure evil might help you in this stuff. What the Father did do by sending His only Son is an act of love. The Father loved (and loves) Jesus but also humanity. The Father gave His son. To me it's a big deal. ************************************************* The Enemy(that is, the Heavenly Father, {S.Szpak}) takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servantsâ"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- If, on the other hand, by steady and cool-headed application here and now you can finally secure his soul, he will then be yours foreverâa brim-full living chalice of despair and horror and astonishment which you can raise to your lips as often as you please. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the first time in your career you have tasted that wine which is the reward of all our laboursâthe anguish and bewilderment of a human soulâand it has gone to your head. I can hardly blame you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himselfâcreatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- But, of course, it is most likely that he is "living in the Present" for none of these reasons but simply because his health is good and he is enjoying his work. The phenomenon would then be merely natural. All the same, I should break it up if I were you. No natural phenomenon is really in our favour. And anyway, why should the creature be happy? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by absorbing them. A self does the same. With beasts the absorption takes the form of eating; for us, it means the sucking of will and freedom out of a weaker self into a stronger. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sex might have been, from our point of view, quite innocent. It might have been merely one more mode in which a stronger self preyed upon a weakerâas it is, indeed, among the spiders where the bride concludes her nuptials by eating her groom. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bring us back food, or be food yourself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -Stephen
Thanks for getting back on this but there is no way any rational understanding suggests that is an act of love. This Father you mention requires humanity to ritually kill His only Son. That is not an act of love. He requires humanity to carry out that inhumane act only because He wants to make by now what is a spurious promise , that humanity will be -so called - "saved" - from something He obviously cannot save Himself from doing. That is an evil act of depravity by any meaning of humanitarian . I'm interested in how on earth you can justify these religious views, but please don't insult intelligence by portraying a murderous and corrupt degeneracy as an act of love. ps I think you might find the C.S. Lewisâs Screwtape Letters are really more of a satire on Christianity . I donât think they help make your point very well, rather they tend to show the folly of the whole job. -stu
I believe God sent his only Son here to die for our sins. I believe that God is the CREATOR of Heaven and Earth. I turn to prayer when I need answers. When I die, I will be in Heaven for the rest of eternity.
cough ... hack... what...? The skeptics, scientists and atheists ALWAYS act as if they are the enlightened, "superior" ones. there is a continuing stream of labeling religious/God believers as uninformend, uneducated, deluded... while the skeptic paint themselves as the doubters, the scientists, the smart ones. Even though they have almost no clue how the Universe or Themselves came to be, why they are here, or where they will be going upon death. Pick up one of the Skeptical Inquirer type magazines. Almost every article is written from a smug, "they are stupid and we is smart" viewpoint.
Are you making *my Father* out to be a "crazy person", persuaded to disengage from embarking on a massive collective punishment campaign by offering him his only Son instead to be crucified? And you are saying *my Father* carries grudges against everyone since the beginning of the world? Jesus
For someone that doesn't believe in the existence of God you have unwavering beliefs in good and evil. How ironic that these beliefs are so strong about God Himself (or the concept of God, if that is how you would put it). You can't have it both ways. If God does not exist then what I have to say about God can't be considered as: "That is an evil act of depravity" There is no such thing as 'good' or 'evil' if you deny the existence of God. If you say to me that my views are evil, that is just your opinion. I'll say my views are good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football. Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis http://www.lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You must find the inability to sin quite comforting though. -Stephen
Look around...open your eyes. The god-of-this-world does just that, when you consider that every body and every circumstance are of his machinations. Stripped of power, its minions have but the power of one true choice, with which the *evil one* can be overcome, overthrown, overruled, and rendered "over". And so it must offer "gifts" in self defense. What appears to be "good" is it's own self-preservation scheme. Constant torture would backfire, since no one would consent to tolerate it for long. So torture is spread out over time, with "good times" interspersed to keep the minions interested in prolonging the game. It's carrot and stick. And while they play, he mocks them, and picks them off one by one, like a lion lurking about, seeking prey. You don't understand how evil would operate, and your naivete merely ministers murder to the mainstream, mocking both mice and men with your mad monologues. Evil takes the form of "good and evil", setting up a false dichotomy. The "good" is only good in comparison with "evil". It holds out "evil" on the one hand, that you may not notice what the other hand is doing. This is classic misdirection...Illusions 101. The Screwtape Letters are on the one hand, while C.S. Lewis, and his "Christian" god are on the other, working together to set you up for the kill...but not after mocking your mentality with meaningless magic. Your above statement merely emphasizes what evil should-would-could look like that you may slip your "good god" into the minds of those whose throats it will slit, given time. Like the "Joker" in the Dark Night, it will use a knife, because it takes longer to die. What is "old age"? It is certainly not an invention of *my Father*. And by it, or other means, 6 billions will be killed within 100 years. And when they reincarnate, they will be killed again, over and over, born to be mocked and killed, striving to survive only to die destitute of mercy. Wake up! Jesus