There's probably no God...

[orz]

It's possible that they could have been proved right, but impossible that they could have been proved wrong.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I was never happy with God's treatment of Job. To be honest, I've yet to hear of anyone that God treated well. But that's his style, I suppose.
Jesus loves You - God just wants to Put Some Money On Your Pitbulls.

God got on okay with Noah, I suppose. They were both obsessives who hated it whenever anyone else enjoyed themselves, and got drunk whenever they could. Well, Noah did. I can't speak for God.

[8bitagent]

I was never happy with God's treatment of Job. To be honest, I've yet to hear of anyone that God treated well. But that's his style, I suppose.
Jesus loves You - God just wants to Put Some Money On Your Pitbulls.

God got on okay with Noah, I suppose. They were both obsessives who hated it whenever anyone else enjoyed themselves, and got drunk whenever they could. Well, Noah did. I can't speak for God.

Satan, however, challenges Job's integrity, arguing that Job serves God simply because of the "hedge" with which God protects him. God progressively removes that protection, allowing Satan to take his wealth, his children, and his physical health. Job remains loyal throughout, and does not curse God. The main portion of the text consists of the discourse of Job and his three friends concerning why Job was so punished, after which God steps in to answer Job and his friends. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning and he lived 140 years (Job 42:10,17).

It's almost like 9/11. America intentionally stands down its guard, so the new world order can carry out its planes into building mission.

What the hell kind of God, who is suppose to be "the devil's main adversary", makes this kind of bizarre deal?

And why would Job, knowing God has made this almost Faustian pact with the Devil, grovel back to God? "Oh thank you God...you killed my family and ruined my life, but you're so awesome"

Good cop, bad cop. What if it's all a Satanic plan? Christianity, Islam, Judaism...what if it's all a trick? Even the Sumerians believed that the creators were wicked.

Of course, that wouldnt explain why most of us are innately born to be good.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

What the hell kind of God, who is suppose to be "the devil's main adversary", makes this kind of bizarre deal?

He's not his main adversary, though. He's his Dad.

The Devil is God's servant - his creation. Just before Satan (loosely translated as "the obstacle") starts torturing Job with God's permission, there is an audience before the Throne.

God asks Satan, the Morning Star, where have you been. And Satan says: "I have been ranging the world from end to end."

Now that rings true, to me, still - except that this was before Satan fell. This is when he was still supposed to be an obedient Archangel in God's court - a pal of Micheal's. In other words - he was doing shady work, on God's behalf, semi-independently, long before he Fell.

His sin was Pride - revolt against God. The torture, like that which was practised against Job, and whatever else he got up to, doesn't seem to have been a sin in the eyes of God or the church.

I'm not a very good Catholic, as has surely become clear. Frankly, the God of the Old Testament is an arsehole, and he groomed his favourite son to be his hitman.

Then he dumped him in the shit for eternity, and groomed his next boy to be a sacrifice.

That's the long and short of it.

And why would Job, knowing God has made this almost Faustian pact with the Devil, grovel back to God?

Hehehe. God can't make a Faustian pack. That would be wrong on so many levels.

But Job could. The whole point of his ridiculous story is that he just submitted, and submitted, and submitted. That is what the will of God seems to like. I think Job had a slight moan at one point about the death of his entire family and his skin being covered in boils - and God told him to quit bitching.

The whole point of Job's abject surrender was the abjectness of it. Utter unquestioning submission is what a God requires of his worshippers. And if they give him that he'll either protect them, or send Satan onto them. And if he does send Satan onto them, even if they've been good, they're not allowed to complain.

In short, God's a bawbag.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I really wish I hadn't said that, and I should probably edit it, but it's done now. He's going to break me into bits.

Regardless, I believe in Him. He exists, and runs things, whether I like Him or not.

Like Mugabe.

[8bitagent]

What the hell kind of God, who is suppose to be "the devil's main adversary", makes this kind of bizarre deal?

He's not his main adversary, though. He's his Dad.

The Devil is God's servant - his creation. Just before Satan (loosely translated as "the obstacle") starts torturing Job with God's permission, there is an audience before the Throne.

God asks Satan, the Morning Star, where have you been. And Satan says: "I have been ranging the world from end to end."

Now that rings true, to me, still - except that this was before Satan fell. This is when he was still supposed to be an obedient Archangel in God's court - a pal of Micheal's. In other words - he was doing shady work, on God's behalf, semi-independently, long before he Fell.

His sin was Pride - revolt against God. The torture, like that which was practised against Job, and whatever else he got up to, doesn't seem to have been a sin in the eyes of God or the church.

I'm not a very good Catholic, as has surely become clear. Frankly, the God of the Old Testament is an arsehole, and he groomed his favourite son to be his hitman.

Then he dumped him in the shit for eternity, and groomed his next boy to be a sacrifice.

That's the long and short of it.

And why would Job, knowing God has made this almost Faustian pact with the Devil, grovel back to God?

Hehehe. God can't make a Faustian pack. That would be wrong on so many levels.

But Job could. The whole point of his ridiculous story is that he just submitted, and submitted, and submitted. That is what the will of God seems to like. I think Job had a slight moan at one point about the death of his entire family and his skin being covered in boils - and God told him to quit bitching.

The whole point of Job's abject surrender was the abjectness of it. Utter unquestioning submission is what a God requires of his worshippers. And if they give him that he'll either protect them, or send Satan onto them. And if he does send Satan onto them, even if they've been good, they're not allowed to complain.

In short, God's a bawbag.

Thanks for the summary.

God sounds like the Western rulers, and the Devil is Osama bin Laden.
The big question is if Osama bin Laden or the Devil are truly "rogue".

I tell Christians, what a mind fuck it'd be if Christianity itself is just another "Satanic" trap and that the whole thing is rigged.

While Jesus to me has always sounded like a cool dude, the God of the bible sounded like a tyrant(the God of the Quran even moreso)
I've heard some suggest the Devil, like bin Laden to the West, is just a tool of God within this construct. That's some pretty messed up shit.

[8bitagent]

I really wish I hadn't said that, and I should probably edit it, but it's done now. He's going to break me into bits.

Regardless, I believe in Him. He exists, and runs things, whether I like Him or not.

Like Mugabe.

Zimbabwe, with the rigged elections? Since I was little, I always asked
that if people are allowed to have free will...why be punished for it?

I've come to think that the only hope we have is true non judemental love and goodness within our hearts, and that sadly it seems more and more like the path of Christianity is another trap...as is new age, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, ect. Just my view...maybe the point is people just have to find something that works for them as noone really has the answers.

[Ben D]

The whole point of his ridiculous story is that he just submitted, and submitted, and submitted.

That's the rub, 'God' is omnipresent and omniscient and anything sentient that evolves/emerges from the seeming chaos of eternal cosmic natural creation, will eventually have no choice but to give up their innocent ignorance of believing that they have a distinct separate existence in time and space from the underlying eternal and infinite unity of all there is.

"The Father and I are one " says Jesus, one who submitted beyond the point that Job had reached. Job wanted to continue an existence of maintaining a relationship with God beyond the evolutionary 'marker' that demands conceptual dualistic thinking of 'subject' and 'object' be transcended.

The teaching of Jesus is so very Taoist and Zenlike that it clear that the inspirational source is one and the same.

God can't be described in any words, nor known by any knowledge, can't be confined by any space, nor limited by any time,... hence the "Tao that can be spoken of, is not the Eternal Tao" teaching of Lao Tzu.

For that reason, almost everything in scripture of almost every religion is allegory, metaphor, parable, etc..

Here is a succinct little piece that captures the universal theme,...

I died as a mineral and became a plant;
I died as a plant and rose to animal;
I died as animal and I was a man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man to soar...
With angels blest.
But even from an angel I must pass on:
All except God must perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.

JALALUDDIN RUMI

[AhabsOtherLeg]

I really wish I hadn't said that, and I should probably edit it, but it's done now. He's going to break me into bits.

Regardless, I believe in Him. He exists, and runs things, whether I like Him or not.

Like Mugabe.

Zimbabwe, with the rigged elections? Since I was little, I always asked
that if people are allowed to have free will...why be punished for it?

America, with the rigged....? Hehehe.

I once asked if people were allowed to do anything wrong in Heaven.
I was told they're not allowed to, even if they want to, and in fact they cannot even want to because it's Heaven.

So it seems the reward for doing everything right in life, in spite of the Devil's temptations, is to be made to do everything right again for all eternity, except without the choice of doing otherwise.

Nice to have something to look forward to, I suppose...


A Protestant goes to Heaven, and St. Peter shows him round all the attractions - the Heavenly Throne, the room where they keep all those big Trumpets, and no doubt the big Golden Calf as well, and the vault full of fake dinosaur bones. At the end of the tour the Protestant says: "Well, it's a lovely place. I'd like to stay. But what's all the screaming about? Are we near hell? Ever since I've been here all I hear is sounds of unending torment and whips cracking from over the walls."

St. Peter says: "Ah. That's the Catholics. They insist."

[Sounder]

8bitagent wrote…

Of course, that wouldnt explain why most of us are innately born to be good.

So let’s focus more on this. (We are good, but we allow our brains to be scrambled by our beliefs.)

AhabsOtherLeg, your observations are interesting but the assumptions about what ‘God’ is, is off the mark. Another expression similar to what Ben D wrote is that G-d cannot be contained within a category. Maybe Satan and Lucifer are terms that refer to two primary forces that shape this manifest world. They are presented as created beings and the jealous god of the OT can never admit that it represents Satan. There was perhaps a time when it was necessary to represent ones god as a severe personage. That is, it’s all about order.

Over time, people find ways of loosening the constraints of newly organized social groupings. This becomes the rebellious angel, or the God of the Gnostics. Both impulses can be good in their place, but the representation of either one as being uncreated source of existence is idolatry.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

8bitagent wrote…

Of course, that wouldnt explain why most of us are innately born to be good.

So let’s focus more on this. (We are good, but we allow our brains to be scrambled by our beliefs.)

AhabsOtherLeg, your observations are interesting but the assumptions about what ‘God’ is, is off the mark. Another expression similar to what Ben D wrote is that G-d cannot be contained within a category. Maybe Satan and Lucifer are terms that refer to two primary forces that shape this manifest world. They are presented as created beings and the jealous god of the OT can never admit that it represents Satan. There was perhaps a time when it was necessary to represent ones god as a severe personage. That is, it’s all about order.

Over time, people find ways of loosening the constraints of newly organized social groupings. This becomes the rebellious angel, or the God of the Gnostics. Both impulses can be good in their place, but the representation of either one as being uncreated source of existence is idolatry.

To be honest, I was really only referring to the Biblical God, the character in the Book, and I was being needlessly harsh and stupid about it (though not as harsh or stupid as God sometimes comes across in the Bible itself). I was also just talking about what God is to me personally - He isa vengeful and authoritarian force, especially when I'm more than half a bottle down. I'm not trying to say that what I say about God is the singular Truth, or that anyone needs to believe it (or even hear it). My Word is rarely, if ever, Gospel.

The Gnostic concept of God is appealling to me, but I'm a traditionalist at heart, and I can't shake the old ways. So I have to reconcile things however I can.

If God and Satan are merely forces of light and dark (and grey) at play in the universe, and everyone has their own internal versions of these forces which are pulled and tweaked by the larger external ones, then I'm allowed to have God and Satan (ocasionally) cast as actors in my own wee morality play.

This bit bothered me, though:

So let’s focus more on this. (We are good, but we allow our brains to be scrambled by our beliefs.)

Where do our beliefs come from? They must come from ourselves, or, at worst, from our ancestors - and they were just like us, coping day to day. And if we are good, inherently, why do we create these bad beliefs that scramble not only our brains but seem to have scrambled half the globe into warfare or worse (domestic oppression, in my view, is worse than invasion or warfare because it cannot be fought back against as effectively) at one time or another?

I agree (I think) with MacCruiskeen that the Dawkinsian and Hitchenite (man, I sound like a Stalinist) versions of atheism are nothing more than new cults - they have their proselytizers, their flocks of sheep who've only read one book, their "martyrs" (who don't die - just get kicked out college classes and stuff) and their, admittedly, charismatic leaders.

[JackRiddler]

A good comment on this:

The Atheism of Fools, or, There is Certainly No God: Now Start Worrying and Change Your Life



[...]

In the midst of economic crisis, imperialist wars, catastrophic inequality, et caetera, the "brights" and "secularists" now see it fit to besmirch the fine tradition of godlessness by pimping for conformity, low-intensity hedonism and a truly unbearable lightness of being.

Faced with this capitulation to a smug petty-bourgeois ethos, any self-respecting atheist would rather keep company with the ravers, enthusiasts and fanatics. [...]

http://conjunctural.blogspot.com/2008/1 ... d-now.html

Excellent! There was something annoying me -- vaguely, probably -- about that campaign, but I didn't give it enough thought -- I figure, most likely.

This comment pins it down perfectly!

What a lame-ass - passive-aggressive, actually, given his condescension and arrogance in person.

[8bitagent]

If God and Satan are merely forces of light and dark (and grey) at play in the universe, and everyone has their own internal versions of these forces which are pulled and tweaked by the larger external ones, then I'm allowed to have God and Satan (ocasionally) cast as actors in my own wee morality play.

If people really believe in a God being, and a "Devil"; the interpretation of the Devil character as merely a leash of God as some Christians postulate is truly frightening: again, good cop, bad cop.

I'm not trying to promote the "God/Jesus is a hoax" meme that's popular. But having been raised Christian, it never escaped my mind how much sacrifice, bloodshed, vengefulness, smugness, ect there was in relation to such a "loving god".

No wonder some take a more Sumerian belief. Or a "God and Devil are on the same team, therefore Christianity is evil too", or a the only true religion is one's own spirituality type of argument.
I wish I could feel the positivity regarding Christianity many do, I just don't see it. I see a lot of positivity in some of the devout(tho still thankfully liberal) Christians I know.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

To be honest, 8bit, it is worrying me as well. My beliefs, for what they're worth, are getting dangerously close to those of the Process Church of the Final Judgement - whereby God and Satan and Jehovah are all on the same team, and the service of one is good for the other. Thereby doing the will of Satan - ie. pleasing yourself at others' expense - would be good for God, because it would hasten his inevitable return, or his inevitable sending of Christ (again) to sort the whole mess out. It's the Luciferian thing - as Lenin put it, in political terms, "the worse the better."

EndTime belief, basically. But I don't really buy it.

The Catholic Church is a sucessful fraud, and the Process was a bust - I like to back the winner, so I'm sticking where I am, for the time being.

I must say, if most Christians believe in what I believe in, then they are
not Christians. But I still am. And that's that.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Don DeLillo, from "Mao II": - "When God is dead, the people pray to flies and bottletops".

Very true. And who was the Lord of the Flies again?