God or Satan...Who's Truly Evil?

It all started earlier today with looking up chaos religions and finding out about Discordianism. That somehow led to Satanism which led to me reading a bit about Theistic Satanism ie. worshiping Satan as a god.

When you actually think about it, isn't it God who truly tempted Adam and Eve? He chose to put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil there and said "don't eat from this tree." Basic human nature tells us that what we are refused is even more alluring.

Plus, I'm not a big Old Testament buff but didn't God tell the Jews to kinda kill a lot? So I don't see Satan in The Bible orchestrating mass murder.

Also I found this interesting quote earlier.

It is We Who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels prostrate to Adam, and they prostrate; not so Iblis (Lucifer); He refused to be of those who prostrate.

(Allah) said: "What prevented thee from prostrating when I commanded thee?" He said: "I am better than he: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay." Qur'an 7:11-12

Seems like a fair enough objection to me. If I had all the power and wisdom of an angel I wouldn't bow to us either.

I don't know if you're familiar, or not, but there is also a school of thought that it wasn't in fact God that created the earth, but the Satan.

Puts a whole new spin on things - and what do you mean God told Jews to kill a lot? As in individually or as in a whole lot of people?

This is also a question about the nature of Good and Evil.

If we assume that God exists, there are then 2 possibilities for the origins of morality. They are either God, or they exist independently of God.

So, if morality comes from God, then everything he does, by definition, is good. He can do something one day, then the opposite the next, and it is always good, because he is what defines good. If morality exists independently of God, then yes, it is possible that he could commit evil acts by that definition.

In the first case, it is Satan that is evil (and this is, by and large, how most theologians interpret good and evil, at least as I understand it), even if you might be able to identify more "kindness" or other such things in his actions than Gods. Since God is the source of morality, his actions are good, and since Satan is defined as his diametric opposite, he is evil.

The second one is much more difficult. If God is not the source of morality, what is? You need some scale by which to judge both the actions of God and Satan. You could arbitrarily develop your own, but that is just a confirmation of relativism, and your definition of Satan as good becomes no more valid than anyone else's definition of him as evil or neutral. In this way it is possible to say that God may be evil, but only under certain qualifications about what constitutes evil.

Basically, if you are accepting the dogma that God and Satan exist, you are basically accepting God as the center and origin of morals, and by definition, not evil and Satan as evil. To challenge that, you are, in fact, challenging the truth of all scripture, and to that I say, why stop there?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I don't know if you're familiar, or not, but there is also a school of thought that it wasn't in fact God that created the earth, but the Satan.

Puts a whole new spin on things - and what do you mean God told Jews to kill a lot? As in individually or as in a whole lot of people?

I don't know about that school of thought but it sounds like Gnostic Satanism in which God as we know it is just the demiurge or flawed physical being while Satan is the true divine Lord.

As for your second question, I believe it was the Canaanites God ordered killed. There may have been others...like I said, I'm no expert on the OT.

inimalist: i'm a relatavist anyway. There is no way for us flawed human beings to determine what is absolutely right or wrong in matters like this. We can just offer our interpretations and beliefs and hopefully find out the Truth upon death.
Or so i think....

Originally posted by Luminatus
inimalist: i'm a relatavist anyway. There is no way for us flawed human beings to determine what is absolutely right or wrong in matters like this. We can just offer our interpretations and beliefs and hopefully find out the Truth upon death.
Or so i think....

lol, so then the question is moot anyways

how can either be good or evil if the concepts are human in origin?

Originally posted by Luminatus
I don't know about that school of thought but it sounds like Gnostic Satanism in which God as we know it is just the demiurge or flawed physical being while Satan is the true divine Lord.

As for your second question, I believe it was the Canaanites God ordered killed. There may have been others...like I said, I'm no expert on the OT.

inimalist: i'm a relatavist anyway. There is no way for us flawed human beings to determine what is absolutely right or wrong in matters like this. We can just offer our interpretations and beliefs and hopefully find out the Truth upon death.
Or so i think....

...or to determane what God actually is.
Scriptures are nothing to go by, if one might say. If God or Satan (whatever it suits you best) had everything to tell us in one book, then he is neither devine not eternal.

Perhaps neither God or Satan are physical beings but personifications of what we see as good or bad...
Perhaps....

lol, so then the question is moot anyways

how can either be good or evil if the concepts are human in origin?

Well, first, just because I'm open to relative ideas doesn't mean everyone who answers the question will be. I am interested in hearing what the opinions of those who do believe firmly in the concept of good and evil have to say.

Second, good and evil may be beyond human origins...ther emay be a judge of good and evil somewhere but how can we know for a fact? If we die and find out everything that is good in The Bible is true then we know what is good and evil. But as long as we live, there are dozens (hundreds?) of texts that tell us what's good and evil and all you can do is choose which to believe.

Neither. I seriously doubt anything so powerful would be capable of caring about us or that we could really understand it a meaningful way. Metaphor involving ants yadda yadda yadda . . .

The other option is that they do care about us in some way. In which case it seems to me that anything they could possibly do would appear to be good from our perspective.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Neither. I seriously doubt anything so powerful would be capable of caring about us or that we could really understand it a meaningful way. Metaphor involving ants yadda yadda yadda . . .

The other option is that they do care about us in some way. In which case it seems to me that anything they could possibly do would appear to be good from our perspective.

God is perfection. He created us in HIS image, so of course he's going to care for us.

He's not human. He's the creator, he created everything around you.

When people wonder why he does certain things the way he does, they are only thinking like a human. God thinks on a level that we wouldn't understand.

God again is perfection, so to answer this topic, God is not evil. Perfection can not be evil. Evil can not be perfect.

Originally posted by Luminatus

Plus, I'm not a big Old Testament buff but didn't God tell the Jews to kinda kill a lot? So I don't see Satan in The Bible orchestrating mass murder.

Satan is not allowed to let anyone be killed. He still has to bow down to God. He can in no way overrule what God says.

God obviously has a reason for letting those people kill the others, because why else would he do it?

If neither exists, then neither.

So. Neither.

313

Originally posted by Insomniatric
God is perfection. He created us in HIS image, so of course he's going to care for us.

Why?

Originally posted by Insomniatric
He's not human. He's the creator, he created everything around you.

When people wonder why he does certain things the way he does, they are only thinking like a human. God thinks on a level that we wouldn't understand.

I said that, just in intellectual-type terms.

Originally posted by Insomniatric
God obviously has a reason for letting those people kill the others, because why else would he do it?

Due to being evil?

Originally posted by Insomniatric
God is perfection. He created us in HIS image, so of course he's going to care for us.

He's not human. He's the creator, he created everything around you.

When people wonder why he does certain things the way he does, they are only thinking like a human. God thinks on a level that we wouldn't understand.

God again is perfection, so to answer this topic, God is not evil. Perfection can not be evil. Evil can not be perfect.

Originally posted by King Kandy
If we are made to be like god, and he is perfect, why are we not also perfect? If a perfect being can only create imperfect beings, then he is in fact not perfect.

creating an imperfect being is not the same as being incapable of creating a perfect being

Originally posted by inimalist
creating an imperfect being is not the same as being incapable of creating a perfect being

Originally posted by King Kandy
I guess but then we get into the whole issue of motive.

Religious people would legitimately tell you that you wouldn't be able to understand the motives of a perfect being, nor, if God exists, do you have the right to judge his actions, as they are by definition perfect

its a cop out, but given the topic is the supernatural, it is valid

I guess. I really wish it was more clearly defined what it meant to be "in god's image". It seems like if that were the case, then we should be perfect as well.

In some parts of Judaism, man is said to be in god's image because only man and god can create words for things. This isn't in the bible though.

Who says God is perfect? Only some religious people would say He is. Others who still believe in a deity, like the followers of the various types of Gnosticism, would point out what we know as God is very much imperfect.

Originally posted by Luminatus
Who says God is perfect? Only some religious people would say He is. Others who still believe in a deity, like the followers of the various types of Gnosticism, would point out what we know as God is very much imperfect.

I know. I was just saying that what inimalist said about religious people arguing God was perfect and thus beyond our minds' abilityt o comprehend is only the opinion of some religious folks There are many who view God as imperfect as we are.