Why God did not slay the Devil?

[blazeofglory]

We seem to believe in the almightiness of God, and by that means God is all powerful and can get things done at will. He is impregnable and the Devil for that matter has nothing to encounter with God. God if he really wills can keep the Devil at His heel. God is described as sensitive, merciful, benevolent and the like. We all are said to be his offspring and he is the very fountainhead of compassion and generosity. Yet we have here people suffering, slaughtered, hungry, tortured. Some are excessively rich, powerful and others are too poor and pitiable. God decrees, judges and vindicates the acts of men. But here so many innocents die, and culprits escape; those who are not guilty at least are swept away by the tsunami; some own thousands acres of land and others have no land at all. Food crops are wasted in some courtiers and in others people suffer from starvation and famine. And how does God justify this. Why should he discriminate between his children if we all are really his offspring in point of fact? Maybe if the root of all this is the Devil, why does he not execute him and bring peace and order on all? I am not advocating for atheism or materialism and I do not support it, yet I expect someone to extinguish the fire of skepticism burning inside me. The degree of acts of violence, torture the killings of the innocent are always on the rise, and villainous people are getting rewards and those who indulge in culpability are penalized.
Where has God gone? Where is His justice? What is the meaning of Omnipotent? And why His Omnipotence has not been translated into acts to punish the guilty and reward and defend the innocent. I simply cannot understand the intricacy of His creation. I am just honest to myself and to the rest.

[March Hare]

Ah...the problem of evil. The Big Thinkers of Christianity never made a dent in that conundrum. Omnipotent and omnibenevolent. The ancients never asked so much of their deities.

Fascinating subject.

[Brave Archer]

Food crops are wasted in some courtiers and in others people suffer from starvation and famine. And how does God justify this.

God can't force a man to do anything. He can't make me donate 100$ to the food bank. He can't make me pay my taxes. It is all choice. The root of GOd is still there, but somewhere along the line someone decided Christianity was the way of God, God didn't decide this, man did.



The degree of acts of violence, torture the killings of the innocent are always on the rise, and villainous people are getting rewards and those who indulge in culpability are penalized.

God doesn't "allow" these things, and Satan didn't make anyone do it. Blaming God or the Devil for the evil deeds of an individual or individuals is a cop-out.


Where has God gone? Where is His justice?

God has gone no where, some people just don't look for him. He says take the first step, like anything in life you want, you make the first move to make it happen.

You asked how does God justify the worlds problems, but I think a grown man with a brain is responsible for his actions, God didn't make R. Kelly a pedophile, somewhere in his life he became sick and twisted.

It sometimes doesn't seem fair, and I too have asked "where are you"? But, eventually I started to find that HE was always there, but I never turned to Him or even spoke His name in times of triumph. Said something about my character, I think.

But, I don't have all the answers. I sometimes wish I knew what the hell was going on in the world. Why people feel the need to keep others down. To hate someone because they're different. How someone comes to have a superiority complex? I don't know.

[Maximilianus]

I mean no offense to anyone's beliefs but... have you ever thought about the possibility that there's no god but that created by puppets who desperately need a puppeteer in the form of an invisible man pulling invisible strings?
Now we all want freedom, but if the puppeteer is invisible then it's just fine, isn't it?

What's our idea of justice when we stare at whatever we consider unfair? How do we tell fair from unfair? Did any god knock on our door to tell us "hey, hello, I've come to tell you how to tell fair from unfair, and by the way I'm gonna give you an idea of justice"? Well... I don't know you but I bet it's not the case.

What we consider justice, I believe, is the materialization of our values, whatever they may be, and we don't really need a god for that because we've been materializing our values by ourselves since day one, so why would we suddenly need a god? There are very good people out there talking to no god, and very bad people pretending to have a religious background for whatever evil they do. Now, there are those who believe that "one's evil" is "their good" while "one's good" is "their evil". So which one of us is right? Who has the right/wrong perception? Will any god ever come here to tell us "hey, you at that corner are all right while you at the other corner are all wrong"? We would really love this to happen, won't we? It would be like tossing the ball to someone else and we wouldn't be held responsible anymore. Quite some relief to have a god taking the burden off our backs! But the thing is, I believe, that such thing is not very likely to happen and it would be much easier to stop wining for the unlikely and do whatever we have to do by ourselves. After all it's what we've been doing all the time since we are a species. All of us do what we want because we think it's right and, now again, what's right and what's wrong?

I see no god anywhere, just good people doing good and bad people doing evil, according to their own grid of values, as it has always been in our species, according to what we choose.

We may well wonder "why god never comes"?
Whereas maybe we should wonder "was he ever here in the first place, or is it that we just made up a superior image to be here, in order to feel safer"?

I think that people create puppeteers, unwilling to be puppeteers themselves, but the truth is that, to some point, we play at times the puppet and we play at times the puppeteer.

Why god did not slay the devil? Are both of them really somewhere to be slaying each other? Because if you want to slay, you have to be somewhere and the slain must be somewhere as well.

[PoeticPassions]

I mean no offense to anyone's beliefs but... have you ever thought about the possibility that there's no god but that created by puppets who desperately need a puppeteer in the form of an invisible man pulling invisible strings?


My view on this is in my signature, in the form of Huxley's quote.

[Maximilianus]

My view on this is in my signature, in the form of Huxley's quote.

I noticed. In part I got some inspiration for my thoughts from the same quote ;)

[Michael T]

God can't force a man to do anything



God doesn't "allow" these things



God has gone no where



I happen to be in the same camp as Maximilianus and PoeticPassions in the 'God' debate. :thumbs_up

However, I will just say that it astounds me when people start spouting statements about what 'God' thinks, or does or doesn't do, as if they are his/her/it's personal spokesperson. Do you seriously think you could have the slightest idea what some omnipotent timeless being /creator (if there were such a thing) is thinking / motivated by? Isn't that incredibly arrogant? I could understand it in a religious thread, but not in a philosophy thread. You should really give some thought about the validity of those comments.:)

[Maximilianus]

I will second Michael. I too believe a philosophical thread should be more rationality-oriented.


Do you seriously think you could have the slightest idea what some omnipotent timeless being /creator (if there were such a thing) is thinking / motivated by? Isn't that incredibly arrogant?
Most people are arrogant enough so as to provide an invisible, possibly non-existent being, with features and abilities that we would love to have ourselves just because probably... we would love to be gods, wouldn't we? After all, being a god apparently implies such a wonderful plethora of benefits that we could barely refuse to apply for a job as a deity :brow:

[Brave Archer]

Originally Posted by Maximilianus
I mean no offense to anyone's beliefs but... have you ever thought about the possibility that there's no god but that created by puppets who desperately need a puppeteer in the form of an invisible man pulling invisible strings?

I didn't always believe in God, but in my life i've seen things that have made me come to believe. My personal "walk" with God is for me; I do feel the majority of religion is man-made. Years of taking from other religions for mind control. But, my feelings about this are rarely popular during conversation with so-called christians.



I happen to be in the same camp as Maximilianus and PoeticPassions in the 'God' debate. :thumbs_up

You should really give some thought about the validity of those comments.:)


I don't assume to now what God thinks, but I believe a lot of what is in the bible, and according to that work, God doesn't make anyone anything, you are what you are. You don't agree? I also don't think me saying people need to take responsibility for their own actions is arrogant.

[Maximilianus]

Dear Archer, keep in mind that the Bible is as man-made as man-made religions. After all it was written by men, wasn't it? Keep in mind that, ultimately, all is man-made.

Asking people to take responsibility for what they do is not arrogance at all. What is arrogance is to pretend to know what a god would pretend when we are not gods ourselves. This is what I believe Michael meant with his comment.

And of course, we are what we are. That's why free will it is called ;)