dangerdan wrote: Hmmm, not really sure if you answered my question there. The question was…
But Greenlight, how have you come to know such facts about Satan?
Sorry I wasn't clear. No, I answered it:
I wrote: How would anyone come to know the truth, except to take a side?
Which means that I came to know such facts by logically looking at both sides of the argument and determining which side could be right and which side could be wrong, if either. It just turns out that I chose God's side and that there is no possible way that Satan's side could be correct.
dangerdan: …but anyway I’ll respond to your post. You seem to be saying that you know God is better than Satan because God is more powerful than Satan, and God will punish and torture Satan. Is that correct?
No. That's not correct. I am asserting that God created us in His own image. Because we were created to mirror God, our sense of right and wrong, good and bad, is reflected of His sense of the same. We have to be detered from the original path of creation in order to think otherwise. This act is done by Satan.
I'm not sure we were arguing who was better... but I am saying that God is "better" than Satan because--
1. The human definition of perfect is God
2. God is the human definition of perfect because He modeled us and our "programming" after Himself.
example: If humans built a robot to be like a human - that robot would most likely not be perfect, because they would not be human. The more that robot would become like a human, the more perfect that robot would be.
Now, if one of many robots we humans create starts telling other robots that humans do not act like humans perfectly... that would be ridiculous.
Sorry this is getting confusing - even to me. But I'm trying to lay out a simple point so that you will no longer be confused about it. I feel like this pops up a lot on these forums.
dangerdan: I don’t suppose you’ve heard “Have no other Gods before me” before? Seems pretty petty and envious.
That's not the definition of envy, as I understand it:
dictionary.com says:
envy
1. A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
2. The object of such feeling: Their new pool made them the envy of their neighbors.
3. Obsolete. Malevolence.
God is not discontent, and He never will be. Why would He be, unless He chose to be? He has all power and knowledge. He is perfectly self-sufficient in every way, satisfaction and love included. Saying that God is envious is laughable.
What that first commandment does fall under is jealousy. My God is a jealous God, and He has every reason to be. Again, what He is not, is envious.
dangerdan: If you don’t praise God and you prefer to devote your life to other things, like making music or surfing (let alone worshiping some other God!), then you may potentially be punished for not giving God enough attention, correct me if I’m theologically mistaken.
Your assertion here is incorrect. You are theologically mistaken (I told you this was always the case), so I'll go ahead and correct you, as you've invited.
Devoting one's life to God is completely seperate from devoting one's life to other things. You're dodging responsibility with your above statement by saying you can't do those things AND devote your life to God. This simply isn't true. True Godly worship is doing everything to the best of your ability, according to who God created you to be, what desires He gave you, and what gifts He gave you. You can worship and glorify God by devoting your life to music - many Christians do. You can worship and glorify God through surfing. You can give God glory and worship by doing these things while thanking Him, praising Him, and acknowledging that He is the one that gave you these blessings (gifts and desires). Without Him, these things would not be possible.
dangerdan: So if I practiced envy, jealousy, hatred, anger and vanity in a righteous way (whatever that is supposed to mean) then it would no longer be immoral. Is that right?
I like the way you seek verification after everything (like "Is that right?" and "Correct?". It's very helpful. I'm afraid you're incorrect again, though.
First: Your incorrect in saying "
no longer." These emotions (minus envy, since God is not envious) were given to us by God for specific reasons - and they are imitations of Himself. Everything other than "no longer" is fine with that first part, though.
dangerdan: Could I also hazard a guess that you think everything God does is righteous, by definition, thus vetoing her from any immoral activity. Correct?
I think everything here is correct, except that the Christian God (I'm assuming you're not referring to some other god) is referred to as a "He". So, with that mistake corrected - I can agree. To save yourself from future corrections of this nature, you can always just avoid using pronouns and instead say "God".
So if I practiced envy, jealousy, hatred, anger and vanity in a righteous way (whatever that is supposed to mean) then it would no longer be immoral. Is that right? Could I also hazard a guess that you think everything God does is righteous, by definition, thus vetoing her from any immoral activity. Correct?
