And who created Satan? God! Who created choices? God! So God creates something and decides mankind can live for 70 years and into punishment for eternity while Satan gets a free pass to live for thousands of years with the opportunity to corrupt a gazillion more victims. Sounds logical to me.
Here's some more 'God's Word' logic... Romans 13 New International Version Submission to Governing Authorities 13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Russians!!, don't oppose Putin!! That's a command! Humans with low intelligence and not capable of making informed decisions, off to hell for eternity for you because you were born stupid. "Satan, keep on going, you're doing a fine job, your time is not up yet, God wants you to keep working your craft."
God didn't create Satan as an evil being. He created him righteous. Satan's beginnings in evil are described as happening when he decided "I will make myself like the Most High." Isaiah 14:13 God created angels and humans with the ability to make choices. We are not robots. God was not evil in creating good creatures. The creatures corrupted themselves by their own free choices. The fact that God lets people choose to continue in sin/rebellion does not make God guilty of our sin or rebellion. The Bible actually says the opposite, that it grieves God as well as makes Him angry. Although you try to put the blame for Satan and people onto God, God is the judge and He has declared that we are the guilty ones. There is no valid arguing with God. Satan will end up in hell. The Bible says hell was originally created for Satan and the angels. I know of at least one reason for allowing people and Satan to continue in rebellion to God: God is letting them have their way and in doing so is letting evil play out to be seen for the evil that it is, as well as His judgment, when it comes, for being right in judging all evil. There is no evil act or thought that will not go unpunished. The human mind can't really accept the eternal consequences of hell as a punishment or how guilty we actually appear to God because of His perfect righteousness. People reject this because they know they have done evil and can't, of themselves, be righteous. The only hope is found when one sees not only that they are guilty before God but that He Himself suffered tremendously just so that He wouldn't have to punish us--His only requirement is that we deal with our rebellion against Him by acknowledging it and by embracing for ourselves in a personal way, what Jesus did at the cross. He took upon Himself the wrath of God that we deserve. Part of turning from our rebellion against God to God is to actively receive the truths in God's word about Jesus: that He is God who became flesh and dwelt among us, that He died for our sins and that He was raised alive the third day. Basically, pray to God about it. Acknowledge to Him that we've sinned against Him and that we want Jesus to be our God and to save us from our sin. It is that turning to God, through talking to Him about it, and expressing to Him that we embrace what Jesus did on our behalf, that God does the work to make us born again into His kingdom. It's described like this in Ephesians 1:13: And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit When in church today I worshiped God for His mercy toward me. It's not until we see that we really haven't deserved God's salvation or His kindness given to us through Christ that we can actually appreciate the beauty of the forgiveness of sins that belongs to the one who has trusted in Christ. Being a Christian is all about God being merciful, showing everlasting kindness, love and commitment to one who was once His enemy but now He has made into His friend. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:14, 15
These verse give a general overview of government. They are not ridiculous. In fact, in the book of Judges, there wasn't much government and people all "did what was right in their own eyes" and that was a mess too. Remember, this was written to instruct Christians living under various forms of government, but it is not trying to create the perfect government structure. It's basically like saying the stop lights should be obeyed, and if you don't obey then be prepared to pay a fine, etc.
elstudente, can you direct me toward a link to the english language version of the text, in as original a form as possible, of the 16 chapters of The Book of Helaman with no analysis by 'scholars'?
It's not of interest to me because it is not the Bible. According to Wikipedia: Most naturalistic views on Book of Mormon origins hold that Smith authored it, whether consciously or subconsciously, drawing on material and ideas from his contemporary 19th-century environment, rather than translating an ancient record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon
So Joseph Smith drew consciously or unconsciously his new scripture when some angel directed him to a buried golden tablet which indicated to him the latest covenant of God, and you do not agree with that. Yet you believe that Moses drawing consciously or unconsciously the Ten Commandments after talking to a burning bush is the same as being the word of God? And you believe in that? Don't you see a problem here? A hypocritical and biased way of thinking?
Not at all! Thousands of people saw God manifest Himself on multiple occasions and through many miracles substantiating that God was indeed speaking to them through Moses. That is far different from the story of the Book of Mormon, which I don't care to go into details about. If you are curious, there is a lot that can be found out just by googling the differences between the Bible and the Book of Mormon.