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Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Gnostic Bishop
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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"I don't suggest that God could not have intervened in some way to prevent Eve from eating the fruit, though many would consider the command with it's threatened consequence itself a powerful action by God to deter them from doing it."

So why did God not deter Eve by just not putting Satan in Eden to tempt her with a power she could not resist?

"Essentially they are personally morally responsible for their response and are rational moral beings with a choice set before them "

How can you be a moral being without the knowledge of good and evil?

And if they were moral already, why would God forbid them knowledge that they already had?

Regards
DL
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Flann wrote:You seem to think that God is in some way bound to thwart them from exercising this moral capacity by doing something or other.
If he is omnibenevolent, then he is bound by this. Otherwise, he is not omnibenevolent. You can't wordsmith your way around this.

God's conversation with Adam influenced his behavior. What you are implying is that he did not have the power to alter the conversation to affect Eve in the same way. Eve was predestined to eat the apple no matter what god did. Since God created her this way, he therefore planned for humanity to fall and for evil to exist.
Flann wrote:As I said moral responsibilty is granted in human jurisprudence and pleas of influence and temptation are not in the vast majority of cases taken as removing moral responsibility.
That's how it works unless you want to deny moral responsibility.
You're rationalizing again. You don't need to remove moral responsibility. But you're ignoring the fact that it can be shared.

Moral responsibility can be had, while still admitting of causal effects. We can attribute the desire to kill in many people to childhood abuse. In many cases, the cause truly is psychological trauma from childhood abuse, meanwhile the perpetrators are still morally responsible.

Consider this from a different angle. Let's say there is a father who knows fully well that his abuse is going to lead his child to make poor decisions later in life, and perhaps even murder someone. Yet the father still abuses the child. The child goes on to murder someone later in life. Does the father share some of the moral culpability? He doesn't fully assume it, and it isn't removed from the child. But the father most certainly shares in the moral responsibility, acting with full knowledge that what he is doing has a good chance of resulting in murder.

I'm not wrong about this Flann. It's a logical contradiction without a solution. There are tangential solutions, such as redefining your god as lacking one of the 3 O's or telling the Adam and Eve story differently(perhaps granting credence to the idea that Satan and God are equally powerful). But short of that, there is no solution. I'll be happy to continue with this, but I'm afraid you'll get more and more irritated by the conversation.
GB wrote:So why did God not deter Eve by just not putting Satan in Eden to tempt her with a power she could not resist?
Wasn't Satan a fallen angel? Why did got not create an angel that wouldn't become fallen? Did he have no power over how his creations would behave?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:So why did God not deter Eve by just not putting Satan in Eden to tempt her with a power she could not resist?
As I said temptation does not automatically absolve from responsibility. That she could not resist is your assumption. What is clear is that she was swayed by the temptation but so are lots of people without it absolving of moral responsibility.
She believed Satan rather than God the creator. "You shall not surely die" was Satan's truth but that was a lie.

So God is lying and Satan telling the truth? But they had interactions with God and knew his character and that he had provided a perfect environment for them with just a single prohibition.

What is funny is that you think Satan was right and God wrong so he seems to have persuaded you too as he did Eve!
You know that God was wrong and Satan right.
From a Christian perspective God's sovereign control of circumstances and providential working is not incompatible with the free agency of humans. Both are true.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: How can you be a moral being without the knowledge of good and evil?
Their nature was essentially good and they would tend to do what is good without a clear awareness of the moral concepts of good and evil. It would probably never occur to them to abuse the animals but to act benevolently and their relationship with each other would be harmonious due to their moral nature.
But I can't get inside their heads as I have not experienced that state myself.
How do you explain evil in our world?
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Interbane wrote:[

Wasn't Satan a fallen angel? Why did got not create an angel that wouldn't become fallen? Did he have no power over how his creations would behave?
A fallen angel?
To Jews, no. To Christians, yes.

From the Christian POV, IMO, they should see God as screwing up heaven with an evil Satan. They should also see God as screwing up Eden by putting Satan there to pester Eve.

Yet that goes right over Christian heads as they continue to blame women for all of man's woes. Not surprising from this misogynous religion.

We all do as much as we can in seeking knowledge. The problem for unfortunate Christians is the perception of the terms knowledge and truth.

The idea of Jesus dying for us was created to produce a sense of indebtedness that the population is supposed to feel.

The idea of the fall was created to have people interpret the scripture in a way that makes them think that seeking knowledge is a sin.

This makes it easier for Christians to be pushed to become unthinking sheeple that can be easily manipulated, --- just as the re-writers of the bible and interpretation biased preachers want.

Christianity can thus profit from fear and indebtedness in this manner.

In the end, knowledge and truth are for our own enlightenment. Seeking untruth is a form of transgression and that is what priests and imams try to produce. Priests and imams are quite skilled in helping people lie to themselves.

Conditioning that some would call indoctrination or brainwashing when pushed to it's present idol worshiping extreme.

Regards
DL
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Interbane. I'll respond to your post after I've considered these things carefully. In the meantime I'll address some of Bishop's stuff.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:A fallen angel?
To Jews, no. To Christians, yes.
So what is the orthodox Jewish view of Satan. Please provide references from these sources.
Gnostic Bishop wrote:Yet that goes right over Christian heads as they continue to blame women for all of man's woes. Not surprising from this misogynous religion.
Wrong again Bishop. I distinctly wrote that the fall was in Adam not Eve. Do you actually read responses on these threads you set up?
Gnostic Bishop wrote:The idea of the fall was created to have people interpret the scripture in a way that makes them think that seeking knowledge is a sin.
Christians don't think seeking knowledge is a sin. Newton,Kepler,Clerk-Maxwell,Faraday etc.
Disobedience to God is though.
For the third time today; What is your explanation for the evil in our world? Or don't you have this knowledge yet?
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Flann 5 wrote:
Interbane wrote:You are forced to admit that god could not have found a way within this flex to alter eve's disposition so she wouldn't choose as she did. Or, if he spoke to Adam, you are forced to admit that he could have said a single word that would influence Adam to speak to Eve and convince her against eating the apple, yet he didn't.
Eve actually was fully aware of the command and threatened consequence. He said to Adam " Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Reading the narrative it is clear that Adam did as you would expect, make this known to Eve. So this word did convince Adam to speak to Eve of these terms and this prohibition.
I don't suggest that God could not have intervened in some way to prevent Eve from eating the fruit, though many would consider the command with it's threatened consequence itself a powerful action by God to deter them from doing it.
They had a great deal in their favour circumstantially and a nature which was not fallen.
Essentially they are personally morally responsible for their response and are rational moral beings with a choice set before them and they bear the responsibility for that choice.
You seem to think that God is in some way bound to thwart them from exercising this moral capacity by doing something or other.
They had plenty going for them and made a real choice for which they were responsible.
As I said moral responsibilty is granted in human jurisprudence and pleas of influence and temptation are not in the vast majority of cases taken as removing moral responsibility.
That's how it works unless you want to deny moral responsibility.

Thank you Flann 5 for saying this the way that you did. GB no matter how I tried to finish one subject, he would jump to another, before I could finish. Are you a Theologian? I don't think he will be ever happy with anyone's answers. You handled him the best. Thanks again for your explanations :goodpost:


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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:
Interbane wrote:[

Wasn't Satan a fallen angel? Why did got not create an angel that wouldn't become fallen? Did he have no power over how his creations would behave?
A fallen angel?
To Jews, no. To Christians, yes.

From the Christian POV, IMO, they should see God as screwing up heaven with an evil Satan. They should also see God as screwing up Eden by putting Satan there to pester Eve.

Yet that goes right over Christian heads as they continue to blame women for all of man's woes. Not surprising from this misogynous religion.

We all do as much as we can in seeking knowledge. The problem for unfortunate Christians is the perception of the terms knowledge and truth.

The idea of Jesus dying for us was created to produce a sense of indebtedness that the population is supposed to feel.

The idea of the fall was created to have people interpret the scripture in a way that makes them think that seeking knowledge is a sin.

This makes it easier for Christians to be pushed to become unthinking sheeple that can be easily manipulated, --- just as the re-writers of the bible and interpretation biased preachers want.

Christianity can thus profit from fear and indebtedness in this manner.

In the end, knowledge and truth are for our own enlightenment. Seeking untruth is a form of transgression and that is what priests and imams try to produce. Priests and imams are quite skilled in helping people lie to themselves.

Conditioning that some would call indoctrination or brainwashing when pushed to it's present idol worshiping extreme.

Regards
DL
GB
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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Flann 5 wrote:[
quote="Gnostic Bishop"]So why did God not deter Eve by just not putting Satan in Eden to tempt her with a power she could not resist?
As I said temptation does not automatically absolve from responsibility.
Yet your God did by blaming only Adam and not Eve.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
That she could not resist is your assumption.
I never assume if I can help it.

Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Eve is a part of the whole world.
What is clear is that she was swayed by the temptation but so are lots of people without it absolving of moral responsibility.
I would not absolve her but your God did.
She believed Satan rather than God the creator. "You shall not surely die" was Satan's truth but that was a lie.
Yet she continued to live so it seems that God lied and that is why he had to kill A & E by neglect and direct action.

You show the one consequence of 4 or 5. The serpent gave more than God as God did not speak of the consequences and benefits till after A & E ate. Just adding on such arbitrary consequences is quite immoral don't you think?
So God is lying and Satan telling the truth?


Correct.
But they had interactions with God and knew his character and that he had provided a perfect environment for them with just a single prohibition.
Explain how being as bright as bricks and with their mental eyes closed is better than being bright with one's mental eyes opened.

Your simple prohibition is not simple at all.

Would you deny your children an education on all subjects and keep them stupid?
What is funny is that you think Satan was right and God wrong so he seems to have persuaded you too as he did Eve!
I do not believe in your fantasy characters so keep such B. S. comments out of our conversation please.
You know that God was wrong and Satan right.
I know no such thing and you have yet to give anything to change my views.
From a Christian perspective God's sovereign control of circumstances and providential working is not incompatible with the free agency of humans. Both are true.
False. We are not free to not sin and must to survive.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

If you think we are free to not sin then name one who has not sinned.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: How can you be a moral being without the knowledge of good and evil?
Their nature was essentially good and they would tend to do what is good without a clear awareness of the moral concepts of good and evil. It would probably never occur to them to abuse the animals but to act benevolently and their relationship with each other would be harmonious due to their moral nature.
You cannot have a moral nature when you do not know you are naked. A moral nature is what they gained when they learned of good and evil. That was, as your God says, their eyes were opened and the became as God's in the knowing of good and evil.
But I can't get inside their heads as I have not experienced that state myself.
How do you explain evil in our world?
[/quote]

By your church and other religions misrepresenting what evil actually is. That and what I already gave you on man having to compete and thus producing evil to the losers of those competitions.

Regards
DL
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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So you believe that you are a seeker of knowledge,Bishop.
How do you explain the evil in our world? Do you have a problem with this question?
On your last post you threw out a lot of stuff. I could take the trouble to point by point go through it. Basically your interpretive method is poor and you need to take a hemeneutics course just to get some basic method into your approach.
Not that I have and I'm not a theologian Lisa. Some people miss the simple things that are obvious and get lost somewhere in a maze of speculation and conjecture they impose on it.
Actually you are not really a freethinker Bishop. You subscribe to Gnosticism with it's philosophical suppositions and interpretive approach to the bible. Summed up it's the bad guys are all good and the good guys all bad.
Cain was a good guy even though he murdered his brother for example. God is evil and Satan is good! I forget the others but just follow the principle of the bad guys are all good and the good guys all bad and you can't go wrong!
Well that's a bit crude. Douglas Groothius article is a better assessment of the differences in understanding and approach between Gnostics and Christians. www.equip.org/article/the-gnostic-jesus/
Last edited by Flann 5 on Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Who ruled heaven on this day. God or Satan?

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seriously..................................................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God rules the heaven, and the earth......

Look at it this way:
your child has committed a crime and is sentenced to death or say imprisonment for life. Because of your love for your child and wanting to see your child live his best life, you took the punishment for your child. a punishment that your child could not pay.

Regardless of what you want to believe, Jesus took the punishment so that did not have to. This should cause you to want to live your life for God. Sin requires death, and he took your place.

God is coming back to pay every man according to their deeds. You have life, hope and the choice to chose God and live eternity with him, chose to live your life contrary to the Word of God and for you not to chose God is for you to tell God you chose to serve and live with Satan, in hell. Whether you want to believe it or not................................

FACT IS THE FACT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU GOD FOR DYING FOR MY SIN, SO NOW I CAN LIVE A LIFE OF FREEDOM
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