Pretty much self-explanitory. Why? I am a Catholic, and here are a couple things. Why would you worship Satan, and end up burning in hell, when you could worship the Lord, Jesus Christ and end up in the Paradise garden? Why? I don't understand any philosophy in it. A couple more things: Sigil of Baphomet, they worship demons and heinous figures. Huh, to discover the "true self" or something? Ermmm. Also, I am not a nut, entertainers actually do sell themselves to make it big, like here, in an interview with lead *****cat Dolls Singer, Nicole Sherzinger, courtesy of the Vigilant Citizen. Don't be stuck in blind world! Learn, and don't let them trick you too!
Well, I am arguing from the standpoint of Born Again Christianity, which does not state that you must follow the rules to a tee or you are screwed. I'm not sure what you know, but at no point in the bible did God condemn someone to Hell after there first sin. Rather, he has set up systems for forgiveness so that even the most flawed humans can be with him for eternity if the choose.
I can agree it is nice, but Yahweh didn't create that option
Not sure what you mean here. Logically,
1) if there is no tree there is no choice. 2) God created the tree 3) God created the choice.
and it was up to us to decide where we wanted to go with it. You must agree that you would rather have the choice to follow God or not. Rather than being without option.
"Make the payments or I break ya legs. The choice is yours. I coulda smashed 'em at any time, but now it's up to you whether I do or not."
Rather, he has set up systems for forgiveness so that even the most flawed humans can be with him for eternity if the choose.
What of those whose sin included blasphemy against the Holy Ghost [Mark 3:29]?
Mark 3:29 is referring to those who refuse to accept the Holy Spirit, and thus are denying their own forgiveness. God cannot forgive those who are not accept it.
I would caution you about reading a single bible verse and drawing conclusions about it. Read about the context, and the surrounding chapter, this often clears up any controversy that a verse supposedly arouses.
Rather, he has set up systems for forgiveness so that even the most flawed humans can be with him for eternity if the choose.
So a man who commits horrendous deeds towards the world, but asks for forgiveness..has a better chance at getting into heaven than an atheist who does nothing but good?
1) if there is no tree there is no choice. 2) God created the tree 3) God created the choice.
Am I incorrect?
>Asserting that Yahweh is the actual deity.
What gives us the choice is the vast number of deities.
I would caution you about reading a single bible verse and drawing conclusions about it. Read about the context, and the surrounding chapter, this often clears up any controversy that a verse supposedly arouses.
I would choose to say that God gave us the ability to choose our own destiny, and it was up to us to decide where we wanted to go with it.
If we had this free will we would have had the choice to follow This God or not without having to have something placed in our way that would result in punishment.
If as the claims go is that the we were once perfect, even with free will we would always freely make the right decision. Since this is not the case this leaves us with either a God who screwed up or we were intentionally flawed and doomed by this God to eventually screw up.
Another thing the use of "us" here. If we are speaking Biblically literal it wasn't us who screwed up but our ancestor. We aren't being given the same choice as that ancestor was given. We are being forced to apologize and live with the consequences for someone else's choices rather than our own. And I have to ask how is that free will to have to owe up to a choice we never made, but someone else did?
You're not a theistic satanist, Chillz, are you? A notion was thrown into the debate about how people became satanists after feeling betrayed by god, and I was thinking about the implications of this on your morals..
Satanism is more a spit-in-the-face of organized religion than it is anything else. Yes I am one to notify the existence of an all-encompassing deity, but I'm not about to follow pre-conceived ideals that may or may not be what I want for myself.
I'm free to choose a set of ideals and live my physical life how I see fit because it's physically possible to me, not because some grand beast told me I could. To be fair, if God is the Great Placer, that would mean that he created the concept of freedom and choice to be an ever-existing force in the universe.
Concerning more of my "Satanism", I base a lot of my actions on HInduistic karma; the more of a north-facing moral compass I maintain whilst exerting a general aura of good feelings, the more the universe will shift to a more benevolent state and, in turn, reward me for my contribution to the sanity and happiness of those around me.
Nope it's not your ancestors fault it's yours because if they did sins or good deeds its their fault and let me tell you something about the story of Adam and Eve...... God was angry at the Devil's disobedience and threw him out out of heaven but the Devil vowed to take revenge on mankind until the day of Judgement but God said : My good people will not listen to you..... See what God said? That explains why he let the Devil do that he had faith in us that's why he let the Devil tempt us with bad things
Just a few comments on the conversation so far. Something which has clearly stuck out to me is that Alexander116 has a very rich and useful understanding of his (I'm assuming you're a male here) religion. It's a wonderful treat to see someone posting who can write in clear language and who has a genuine understanding of what they're talking about.
That being said the argument presented is, strictly speaking, invalid. To see this, consider a similar argument:
1) If there is no lumber then there are no tables. 2) I've created lumber. C) Therefore I've created a table.
Premise 1 is true since tables require lumber (if you don't like this example, you could substitute any object that is necessarily made from some created material). Where the argument clearly goes wrong is that I don't create every state of affairs that exists, whereas God does. That being said, there would have to be an implicit premiss that God creates all states of affairs. (This might be too strong, but the idea is at least in the ballpark). But what this means is that God directly created the choice, which is the conclusion that needs to be proven. So, yeah, it's question-begging. But in this context that's okay - we're looking at alternative approaches to morality that are in contradistinction to some form of theism (in this case, it's born-again Christianity).
So the root of the question comes down to how what a Satanist is and the salient differences between that view and a theistic view. One of the things that theistic views have going for them is that ethical principles aren't arbitrary (though this could be disputed). Given the problems with ethical theories in general, there seems to be a theoretical nudge in the direction of the theist. I have little doubt that someone who espouses the value theories and ethical theories associated with Satanism would have a hard time developing a compelling ethical theory.
So, just for a moment, let's put aside the myriad problems associated with theistic belief. Is there a rational reason to choose Satanism as a theory of value over that of some principled, theistic set of values?
Define "bad things"
This brings home the question I've just posed. Things that are bad are going to depend on one's value theory, but this doesn't advance the question in play. For example, God wants us to to be happy so things that make us sad are bad things (with qualification - and yes, I'm punting here). But some story along these lines would easily fit the hedonistic value theory that is associated with many Satanist cults/organisations/religions.
A lot of people are viewing this from a Catholic viewpoint... I mean in the Bible, the devil is made out to be a terrible being. In some forms of Satanism, Satan is admired for the rebellion against the controlling of God. This isn't my viewpoint, but maybe we should all ditch viewpoints and look at it differently.
I mean in the Bible, the devil is made out to be a terrible being.
Even in the Bible, the entirety of Satan's evil is basically God says he is.
Whilst we have God committing multiple genocides, ordering his followers to plunder and rape, making them imperfect and making them worship him for eternity so he won't punish them, requiring bloody sacrifices until he grew bored of that, handing down laws that are obscene, and just all around being an absolutely terrible being.
