God is perfect

[Davin]

"Satan" is from a Hebrew word for adversary.  It is the adversity in life that causes us to develop into beings capable of exercising moral judgment and discerning right from wrong.  Adversity is built into the fabric of the universe and the struggle created by it contributed to the evolution of the species. It has its place and purpose.

Alright, that makes sense.  But what makes Satan truly "evil"?

Opposite of Good.  It's 'design' is to harm.

As opposed to the "good" not harming in the cases of the plagues of Egypt, the world-wide flood, making bears maul children, ordering people to bash babies on rocks... etc.

[AnimatedDirt]

As opposed to the "good" not harming in the cases of the plagues of Egypt, the world-wide flood, making bears maul children, ordering people to bash babies on rocks... etc.

Something like that.

[Davin]

As opposed to the "good" not harming in the cases of the plagues of Egypt, the world-wide flood, making bears maul children, ordering people to bash babies on rocks... etc.

Something like that.

Just compare the body counts, the "opposite of good" has harmed far fewer than the "good." So much so, that it's kind of hilarious that one would even try to imply that the supposed "evil" is designed to harm.

[AnimatedDirt]

Just compare the body counts, the "opposite of good" has harmed far fewer than the "good." So much so, that it's kind of hilarious that one would even try to imply that the supposed "evil" is designed to harm.

It is as you say*.

[Egor]

Because I don't know that and, unless you can prove it, neither do you.

Prove what? You're the one who brought it up. You're the atheist with all the cares and concerns about Satan. If you don't believe in Satan, then stop worrying about him.

This is just one more thing you've made up.  And your version of god is very difficult to distinguish from Satan, as if you've done a mash up of the two for convenience.

Allow me to school you: If there is a God, and if there is a Satan, God would have had to create Satan. If God created Satan, we can assume it was for a reason.

If there is no God. Then who gives a damn about any of this conversation we're having?

What is it that you don't get that until you can prove it all you've got is a story you've made up?

There is no proof you would accept. None. Even if you saw the dead rise again. Even if you saw a missing limb restored, you would simply say that it's a natural process we don't yet understand. You look at gravity and say that. You look at electromagnetism and say that. You look at dark matter and say that. You look at the Big Bang and say that. You want proof of a version of God that doesn't exist. You want proof of some YAWEH mythology that just isn't true, and you demand proof of that type of god because you don't ever really want proof at all. You like being an atheist and you want the real God to accept you that way. Ain't gonna happen.

Taken a look at politics in America lately?  As for the rest of it, most of us grow up thinking about god and assuming the stories everyone tells us must be real because why would anyone lie about a thing like that?  It's when we really think about it that the atheism comes in, since for many of us our reaction to the closely examined idea of a god is laughter at its absurdity, not terror.

Oh, I see. So you're still operating on the level of a child who just found out there was no Santa Claus. And you think this makes you enlightened? If there is a God, and if you think about it, you will realize that said God is also the God of the insect kingdom. He is also the God that gave dogs and cats really long canine teeth. He's also the God that makes a tree that produces a ton of leaves just for them to all dry up and be burned once a year. Or the gravity that fatally pulls one to the ground. Or the creator of the Third Reich.

You say I mix up God and Satan. No I don't. I think about it clearly, and I realize who God is and what He is capable of.

I've never had a problem with the concept of hell. I'm very medieaval about it. I feel as right about it as Jesus Christ did, because I understand the utter and complete justice of it. I understand the righteousness of it.

You just can't reconcile the pictures you've seen of a smiling Jesus with a child on his lap and a lamb at his feet and a God who would give you cancer just to bring you to the spiritual place He designed you to be at. So you think you can just close your eyes and say He's not there. What mercy He shows you in giving you time.

If you don't like Christianity, you can have your own religion. You could be a mystic if you wanted to be and flavor it with any or all the religions of the world. What you have no excuse for is atheism.

In my humble opinion.

[MadBomr101]

Alright, that makes sense.  But what makes Satan truly "evil"?

Probably a messy divorce and a painful, ongoing heat rash. 

[Buddy]

Alright, that makes sense.  But what makes Satan truly "evil"?

Probably a messy divorce and a painful, ongoing heat rash. 

I dont know what that means but it's provocative and funny. 

[superfes]

I don't understand where this discussion is going.

God's perfection cannot (even by lighter terms) be defined by the amount of harm is done to our corporeal vessel, especially if the eternal soul is transported later to another plain.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Satan may in fact be an adversary, but not to God, to man.

Deconstructing the Christian god's perfection can only be done in reference to the actualities that the belief is based on, and it's based in the Bible.

You can't take what we understand about killing being wrong and say that because a god created a great flood (By the way this story was originally about Gilgamesh not Noah, this is one of the thousands of reasons why it's obvious that the Bible is a fabrication) that that god did or didn't do evil when that doesn't apply to his "perfection".

Since the Bible says we can't know his plan and the Bible already protected themselves against other beliefs by labeling anyone who doesn't believe or believes something else as a follower of Satan. You can't even question what your elders or religious leaders say without following Satan. How perfect is your religious belief where you cannot even ask why something is one way or another.

How does this show the perfection in the Christian god? At least the Greek gods had flaws, that would be easier to believe ;-)

So to question a god's perfection, you would be to look at his creations, as the Bible would have us believe that all you need to do in order to see the Christian god's handy work is to look at how beautiful everything is...

Do you not see god's perfection in everything you see?

[Tank]

Because I don't know that and, unless you can prove it, neither do you.

Prove what? You're the one who brought it up. You're the atheist with all the cares and concerns about Satan. If you don't believe in Satan, then stop worrying about him.

Atheist don't care about mythical superstitious fantacies. But theists of all sorts do keep coming hear and telling us about them, so you raised the subject of mythology, institiotionalised superstitions and unvarifiable personal beliefs/ faiths.

[MadBomr101]

Ed, pull up a chair, I want to talk to you.

Yes, that one is fine.

Ed, I am concerned.  The more you post, the more it appears you need some kind of assistance with a little thing we like to call reality.  So far, you have proclaimed your unwavering faith and eternal love and servitude to an unseen, spectral super being with infinite cosmic power who speaks to you as a voice in your head.  You make wild and wholly unsubstantiated claims of this being's unlimited magical might and then can't understand why we don't "get it."  

The thing is, we do get it.  

You're suffering from an all too familiar condition that has stricken far too many people and left them subjugated to an elaborate, and frankly, preposterous fantasy that exists solely in their own minds.  We call this condition, Religion.  It's a communicable disorder that is spread among people by exposure to the Religion virus.  Once exposed, the sufferer will spend a lifetime worshipping, praying, exalting, and basically kissing the ass of a being who exists on the same plane as Bugs Bunny, Mother Goose and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What's so amazing to us is that YOU don't get THAT.

Just wanted to point that out.

And just FYI...

I have known and argued with many Xians over the years and many of them have been perfectly lovely people who simply suffer from this one unfortunate condition.  That hasn't made them incapable of having relationships with atheists nor to proclaim a blind and ignorant hatred for them as you do on your blogsite.  One of my oldest and best friends is a devout Xian who is married to an even devouterer Xian.  Both of them love me and even trust me to be alone with their baby, blissfully unaware of my plan to corrupt the child and lead him into the black pit of atheism where I will feast upon his bones and make a keychain out of his left foot.

[Stevil]

If there is no God. Then who gives a damn about any of this conversation we're having?

If you don't like Christianity, you can have your own religion. You could be a mystic if you wanted to be and flavor it with any or all the religions of the world. What you have no excuse for is atheism.

Christianity must be opposed when it leads people to vilify others (e.g. gays), or when it forces people to suffer (e.g. anti euthanasia), or when it causes people to pick up weapons and kill others (e.g. the Crusades, the Norway massacre), or when it persecutes people whom do not belong to its exclusive group (e.g. many, many incidents in the Bible Belt).

Atheists are right to want to understand ho a Christian can read the bible and then do these horrid things. Atheists need to understand the minds of the Christians so that we can attempt to convince them to behave nicely within society. Atheists are right to be confused when a Christian states that their god is loving and perfect despite the atrocities documented in the bible.

Atheism needs no excuse, nobody had killed, murdered, tortured, massacred, oppressed in the name of Atheism.
A disbelief in god is the only rational option given there is no evidence of any god, there isn't even a clear definition of what a god is.

[AnimatedDirt]

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

Is this to point out that God creates evil?  If so, I find it slightly laughable while I would agree in this measure;  If God creates light, then by the very nature of light, darkness is also created, not by purpose, but by definition.

[Stevil]

There is no proof you would accept. None.

I would accept answered prayer as proof.
If we could see a clear and repeatable advantage given to event that were prayed for (to the right god) as opposed to events prayed for (to the wrong god), or events not prayed for, then I would be a believer. No doubt.

Why is it that prayed for events statistically look exactly the same as events that weren't prayed for?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

"Satan" is from a Hebrew word for adversary.  It is the adversity in life that causes us to develop into beings capable of exercising moral judgment and discerning right from wrong.  Adversity is built into the fabric of the universe and the struggle created by it contributed to the evolution of the species. It has its place and purpose.

Alright, that makes sense.  But what makes Satan truly "evil"?  

My take on this is a little different.  Since Satan operates within God's will, and all that God created was "good," Satan's activities, while "evil" locally, function as a part of The Ultimate Good (the reconciliation of the cosmos with God).  So the serpent and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (part of the metaphor in early Genesis), all function to carry out an ultimate plan of God.  The "evil" is on temporary, and assists in bringing about The Ultimate Good.

[AnimatedDirt]

My take on this is a little different.  Since Satan operates within God's will, and all that God created was "good," Satan's activities, while "evil" locally, function as a part of The Ultimate Good (the reconciliation of the cosmos with God).  So the serpent and the tree of knowledge of good and evil (part of the metaphor in early Genesis), all function to carry out an ultimate plan of God.  The "evil" is on temporary, and assists in bringing about The Ultimate Good.

Your definition of Original Sin...prior to Man's?