Son Of GOD

Originally posted by dadudemon
I disagree on the Job thing. Satan basically asked God if God would remove Job's happiness and to show God that his love/trust in Job was unfounded. God was like, "nah, you're wrong."

Apparently, Satan could not do anything against Job due to his righteousness. Satan is virtually powerless. So he needed God's help (God can control nature, Satan cannot...being a spirit).

My thing is: why in the world would God agree to such a thing? Is that not "tempting God"? The Mormons believe the conversation between God and Satan is slightly different: Satan was not given no power over nature, it was God's doing, only. The Job account says God gave Satan the power to do so: an impossibility especially if you consider Lucifer to be a fallen angel. God would not give out his power/authority to evil, ever, at any point. That's about as unrighteous of a depiction of God as we can get. We would have a "gray God" rather than a "white God", if that makes sense (think Jedi).

The Armor of God is a persons righteousness, and the Sword is God's word that man uses to cut through BS. Satan has every right to attack a person that is unrighteous, so in fact Satan can possess people, and even enter animals.

To strengthen this idea, do you recall the demons that possessed the man known only as Legion? They prayed to Jesus to allow them to enter the pigs, when cast out of the demonically possessed man.

Originally posted by Stoic
The Armor of God is a persons righteousness, and the Sword is God's word that man uses to cut through BS. Satan has every right to attack a person that is unrighteous, so in fact Satan can possess people, and even enter animals.

To strengthen this idea, do you recall the demons that possessed the man known only as Legion? They prayed to Jesus to allow them to enter the pigs, when cast out of the demonically possessed man.

Possessing someone and wielding powers over the elements are two different things.

Lucifer, a spirit and fallen angel, does not have the ability to manipulate the elements like God does.

Originally posted by Stoic

Do you believe that there are demonically possessed people? People that are bound up by demons, because of the doorways that they allowed to exist in their lives? I do. The spirit of God took possesion of Baalum's ass (Donkey) and spoke to Baalum in the book of Numbers... So how is it not possible that the spirit of Satan, could not take possession of a serpent that walked upright, and tempt Eve with the power to see?

You know the bible says that from the mouths of two or more witnesses, shall the truth be known. My point in this saying, is just that I am not familiar with Sunday school teachings. Nor am I familiar with this book Paradise Lost, by John Milton. There can be but one full truth, on any given subject correct?

Milton's Paradise Lost was a (I believe) 16th century epic poem that chronicled the Fall of Man. To my knowledge it was the first major instance where the Satan=Serpent connection was forged. It has such influence that even people who have never heard of it have been influenced by it's ideas where God and Satan are concerned.

That's if there's any truth at all. 😉

Originally posted by dadudemon
Possessing someone and wielding powers over the elements are two different things.

Lucifer, a spirit and fallen angel, does not have the ability to manipulate the elements like God does.

Of course whether free will can exist at all in a Universe with a Supreme, All-Knowing God is another matter entirely...

Originally posted by dadudemon
[B]I disagree on the Job thing. Satan basically asked God if God would remove Job's happiness and to show God that his love/trust in Job was unfounded. God was like, "nah, you're wrong."

Apparently, Satan could not do anything against Job due to his righteousness. Satan is virtually powerless. So he needed God's help (God can control nature, Satan cannot...being a spirit).

Different readings I suppose. However, Jewish Tradition holds that Satan is an angel who works for God and his job is to tempt people. While reading Job this makes sense as Satan must first get permission from God before preforming his task.

My thing is: why in the world would God agree to such a thing? Is that not "tempting God"? The Mormons believe the conversation between God and Satan is slightly different: Satan was not given no power over nature, it was God's doing, only. The Job account says God gave Satan the power to do so: an impossibility especially if you consider Lucifer to be a fallen angel. God would not give out his power/authority to evil, ever, at any point. That's about as unrighteous of a depiction of God as we can get. We would have a "gray God" rather than a "white God", if that makes sense (think Jedi).

Which is why the interpretation that Satan serves God makes sense in this book. With that all said, God is certainly darker in the OT.

Originally posted by dadudemon
My thing is: why in the world would God agree to such a thing?

We would have a "gray God" rather than a "white God", if that makes sense (think Jedi).

I've yet to see a convincing refutation of the Problem of Evil by a Christian

St Augustine's explanation was particularly unsatisfying.

I always assumed that if there was solely good there would be no free will.

Originally posted by ares834
I always assumed that if there was solely good there would be no free will.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I don't personally believe in evil, just in good and a deficiency of good. This seems almost Augustinian at first brush only that I don't think good is something intrinsic to matter/nature like he seemed to think but rather a condition created of human choice/volition.

Men probably invented evil, but they didn't invent suffering.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I don't personally believe in evil, just in good and a deficiency of good.

I never quite understood the distinction. Wouldn't the absence of good then be considered evil just as the absence of light is considered dark? Therefore, evil would exist just as darkness exists.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Lucifer, a spirit and fallen angel, does not have the ability to manipulate the elements like God does.

What? Why?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What? Why?

I have a better question: why would Lucifer, a spirit and fallen angel, have the ability to manipulate the elements like God does?

Originally posted by ares834
I never quite understood the distinction. Wouldn't the absence of good then be considered evil just as the absence of light is considered dark? Therefore, evil would exist just as darkness exists.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I have a better question: why would Lucifer, a spirit and fallen angel, have the ability to manipulate the elements like God does?

But to me that's like asking: Why would a hufflup be able manipulate the elements like a fuppledup?

Representations of Lucifer and angels in my experience often have the power to command the elements. You have to explain to me why it doesn't works that way. It's your mythology. I can't think of a reason the Devil shouldn't be able to command the elements because I don't know the internal logic of your system of magic.

Originally posted by Lewis21
God Is only one, He is not the Father of any one but The creator of Every one. According some religion Book(Bible) son of God means The person who accept the onness of Allah and lead his life according to the teachings of God Almighty, so every person who believes in GOD is the Son of God, it does mean that he is Born to God but he is Created by GOD.

Not everything in the Bible is literal, and I believe I'll be able to find many Jews and Christians who will agree with this (probably equally as many who won't).

Main point is, Jews and Christians don't believe in Allah. This is an Islamic deity.

Originally posted by ares834
I always assumed that if there was solely good there would be no free will.

only insofar as humans not having wings is a violation of our free will to fly on our own.

God defined the limits of what humans are able to do by designing our physiology and psychology. In theory, preventing us from doing evil would be no more a violation of free will than would preventing us from tracking 25 moving objects at the same time.

Wouldn't we be too heavy to fly anyways?

Originally posted by Bentley
Wouldn't we be too heavy to fly anyways?

I'm sure God could have figured out a way for us to if he wanted us to have absolute free will.

biologically speaking though, for sure, our bone and muscle structure would require wings of ridiculous size and the energy it would take would never be worth it.

Originally posted by inimalist
only insofar as humans not having wings is a violation of our free will to fly on our own.

God defined the limits of what humans are able to do by designing our physiology and psychology. In theory, preventing us from doing evil would be no more a violation of free will than would preventing us from tracking 25 moving objects at the same time.

Perhaps being unable to fly is a restriction on our free will, yet to be unable to do evil would completley eradicate our free will.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The difference is that darkness has no "essence", it's a negative quality that's defined as the absence of something rather than something with real qualities of it's own.

The difficulty is good certainly doesn't have essence ina physical sense and it does not appears to do so in a spiritual sense either. Basically I view good and evil in the same way I view lawful and unlawful which is to say none of them actually "exist".

Originally posted by ares834
Perhaps being unable to fly is a restriction on our free will, yet to be unable to do evil would completley eradicate our free will.

how so? it would simply restrict the group of actions it is possible to do to a smaller number which we are free to choose among, exactly the same way that not being able to fly would.

you could still freely choose among the things it is possible to do. It would eliminate certain moral considerations about free will, but it certainly wouldn't eliminate free will specifically.