Hi again ! Continuing our disscussion here <3
For those that didn't saw our disscussion on deviantart: I do agree with his vision that evil is necessary and even good for god's plan of the ultimate peace. But I do not believe that god created it, instead that evil started to exist as a consequence of the creation of god. I also do not agree with his vision of a dual god. Besides that we are just having a friendly and helth disscussion about religion, and respecting each other's point of view.
"Do you have faith?
If you do, you cannot believe in hell."
I don't believe in hell, neither does my church. I think I've said it somewhere in DA before, but that's why people are so mean to us.
"In a dualistic god, yes, but you tried to take that duality out of him.
If you are sitting there not doing anything good, one could say that you are doing evil, but would neutral to describe you not be a better term? "
Sorry I think I didn't put it very well, english is not my first language and gets a bit har sometimes.
But what I was saying is that god is not dualistic. It can look like this if you say that god is everywhere working all the time, but to me is more like he can choose to work or not. Like, something can't be A and Non-A at the same time, it's impossible, so god can't be God and Non-God. If we say that god is good and non-god is evil he can't be both God and Evil.
What I was trying to say is that instead of being a entity, evil is just like one of the laws of the universe that wasn't created, but started to exist one the moment that good was created. Just like if you are you, everything that it's not you is your opposite or Non-you. If we don't have you we also can't have non-you.
Basically: Evil is not Satan (With doesn't mean that satan is not evil), but it's not god either. It's just there like the endless nothing where god was at the start. Just beacuse god can be everywhere doesn't mean he needs to keep using his influence all the time, that's why he gave us humans consience.
Also, I am not the personification of good, if I sit there doing nothing I won't be evil, just a lazy ass. If God does nothing evil can act, he don't do the evil himself.
"They show an all-powerful god whose plan and will cannot be thwarted or derailed, while at the same time indicating that he cannot do his will and that people can derail his plan to save everyone."
Because people can, they just won't. All the times God said he would distroy a city/kingdom/etc... but the people regretted their actions and started doing good he changed his mind.
The main point in the bible is that there are both evil people and good people mixed togheter, but because of the sin the people who want to be full good can never do that. And they will die just like the evil people, since the punishment for sin is death.
This is why Jesus had to die, and this is why if you accept Jesus there is going to be no judgement for you on the final day. Because he already paid your sins for you. Other people that didn't accept Jesus will be judge by their actions (Now I don't remember if it was Paul or Peter who said that but I will look up.), and this doesn't mean they are not going to heaven just that it will be different for them. (By the way just because someone is christian doesn't mean they have accepted Jesus too.)
Anyway, If everybody suddenly turned good. We could have the apocalypse tomorrow and only the dead would be judge, the living would get free-heaven pass. But we know this won't happen so...
He just gave us free will because he is not unfair. That's why when someone takes an evil action it's their own fault and not god controlling them. Althought god knew this would happen and could have avoided it, if he did satan would just tell everybody how god is a control freak.
"If god is the creator and sustainer of all, mas you seem to think, why does he not make us all equal so that we, like what you think happened with Satan, does not happen with us? "
Equal to who ? Equal to god ? This is not possible since he would always have more power than us, and since evil is not just god what happened to satan could have happen anyway.
I mean, Satan was the closest to god. That's why he turned evil, because he wanted to be even better than god himself and this was not possible.
Equal to each other ? Well we are going to be equal to each other and angels after the apocalypse, but only those who want to accept. This is why we have free will.
Free will doesn't mean no consequences, just that you know what the consequences are and have the ability of making your own choise.
"If you are a Christian, your tradition has Satan as a she. You might wonder why you neve caught on to that fact.
Google the Vatican's Expulsion painting and tell me if those breasts on Satan are a man's or a woman's. Further, while there, don't return Eve's head to the natural position. You will see why. "
Catholics used to paint Satan read and with horns. Satan is an angel just like all the others. And while he was most likely a man as the other angels that appeared (in genesis, and Gabriel to Mary) where all male, and both his name and the pronoums used to him whe all masculine. I don't really know if angels do have a gender, or if there is any angel girl. I mean, they don't do sex and they are also immortal, god being the only who can kill them as far as I know, and god could also heal them or create more angels... So looks a bit useless, but I don't know.
Anyway if Satan does have an gender he is a male. And I also couldn't find the painting you are talking about, could you please send me ? I am very interested as a never saw a painting of satan as a female and I really love classic art. ^^
"My religion, Gnostic Christianity, has tied god's righteousness to equality as we think that a god would not screw up in his creating us to the point of losing any of us to hell, as he says is his will. "
I've had many gnostic friends, but I've never heard about gnostic christianity. I thought gnostic where people that just were not sure if it did exist or not and if did wich religion was right. I would be intersted to hear more about, since I love studying other religions.
We also believe in god's righteousness to equality. But we also believe that the ultimate good and equality would be justice. That's why evil people won't go to heaven, but also won't suffer forever in hell.
Anyway I thik that's all for now. I will be waiting for our next talk, bye ! /(+-+)/
@Gnostic Christian - You're not talking about me, are you? Don't jump to conclusions.
