God's love and Satans evils

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Evanescence

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We all know that god is all loving and perfect right? and he wishes for us to spend eternity with him.

If that is the case then why is Satan in excistance?
and why does god allow satan and all his devils run around and tempt us?

If Satan wasn’t here to bug us in the first place snake in garden of eden for eg.

Then woulodn’t gods plan be so much easier?

Why does god allow satan and his demons to be on earth annoying us?

Evanescence
 
But will God forgive Satan?

we’re no different from Satan really, everything about us is sinful, there’s no good in us apparenltly, only good when God works through us, the desires of our hearts are totally evil etc… so is Satan able to be forgiven too?
 
What about the desire on having a relationship with god and wanting to spend eternity with him? how can that disire be evil?

What about ones desire to be a singer? be able to do what you love best, to be who you are and to follow your dreams?

How can that be evil? If god “the perfect creator” created us then why are we so bad?

why must god stand there belittling us all the time?

Quote from Matilda:

“I’m smart your dumb,
I’m big your little
I’m right and your wrong!
and there is nothing you can do about it!”

Sometimes it feels that god is saying those things to us, constantly reminding us that we are weak and helpless and nothing just dirt without him!

Yes its true but still its like we can’t do anything right! and it sounds like as if we are a burden to him!

Evanescence
 
Sorry some of that was tounge in cheek, God created Lucifer too, yet he’s going to be destroyed…but this sympathy for the devil, ha ha er…

Some people here might think the only difference between us and Satan is that we are able to recognise and accept forgiveness. Other than our natures are the same… I don’t believe this but then I’m not ‘really’ christian.
 
Satan is in existence because God created Lucifer. Lucifer turned away from God and was cast out, and thus we have Satan.

The existence of these types of things in no way denies the all-loving, all-good, all-powerfulness of God. We have been given the ultimate freedom in that we have the ability to choose. If there was nothing but good and nothing but perfection, we would never actually have the ability to choose. We would essentially be forced to God. God wants us to come to Him out of a purely free choice on our part.
 
We are made in God’s image. This means we choose whether we sin or don’t, whether we worship God or not. If God hadn’t made us in his image, we would be like robots - loving God because he programmed us that way. Would you want a child that never did anything wrong and always said “I love you” if you knew the child could not choose otherwise?

Now if we’re given free will to choose what we do, then we must be allowed to sin. If we’re allowed to sin, then we must be able to suffer the consequences of our choices and make others suffer as well.

Lucifer was similar to us in that he was made in God’s image, but he and the other angels were made closer to God’s image in that they have certain powers that we don’t have.

You can’t have free will without sin and suffering.
 
But bacicly god is saying “like me or fry in hell!” how is that not forcing us to like him?

Evanescence
 
good point, and there’s certain people in the Bible who didn’t seem to have free choice. Judas’s betrayle and subsequent suicide was prosphecy, God hated Esau before be was born, even though he tried to repent ( but coudn’t cause he wasn’t made that way)…
 
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Evanescence:
But bacicly god is saying “like me or fry in hell!” how is that not forcing us to like him?

Evanescence
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you’d be suprised at how many actually choose to fry in hell.
 
Anita,

What would happen to those poor souls who have been misleaded?
Example the Ex-jw’s Many jws leave the religion in result of becomeing Athiest, and they end up dis-liking god after all they have been through and you can’t really blame them.

Here is a thread on me trying to talk to them,
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/93917/1.ashx

poor guys would god really send them to hell?

And yes I still stand asking this question and I am dieing to hear a responce “If you don’t like me, I’ll torture you for all eternity." How is that not forcing?”

Evanescence
 
Evanescence,

With respect to you, you are trying too hard to figure things out that are really difficult, if not impossible, to figure out!

Even trying to figure out 1% of God’s personality or reasoning is enough to fill multiple volumes of speculation. It can literally drive you mad (in the british sense of the word), which is why Jesus recommended that we approach God as a little child, with a simple faith and a gentle acknowledgement that He loves and cares for us as any good parent would.

The role of Satan in our lives can be looked at twofold: First, God still loves Satan, being that He created her (I personally believe that the devil is female and looks very much like Elizabeth Hurley ;)) . God cannot hate what He has created (when the Bible says that God hated Esau, that is not quite a good translation into English. A better translation would have been that God disregarded Esau because of Jacob’s obedience). I think that God would love nothing more than to see Satan repent, but it will never happen because she has completely and totally rejected God in favour of serving only herself, as many people end up doing, as well.

Second, God allows Satan to continue in existence because she serves a function: evil. Evil, though not good in itself, of course, still does serve a good function in that it gives us contrast so that we can understand what is good. If only good things happened to us, then how would we know that it is good? Surprisingly, we actually need evil in our existence not to willfully embrace and enjoy, but rather serve as a measure by which we learn what is good. So until the day God makes things right at the Second Coming, Satan will continue to serve this function, even if she refuses to acknowledge this.

I hope my ramblings have helped a bit! By the way, I love your name! Evanescence ---- isn’t that the same name as that band that has this really sad and depressing song? The video to it has this goth girl all curled up in a ball while children slowly move around her. Great song, but so despairing!
 
Thanks for the reply! 🙂

Yep I am a big fan of evanescence! 😃

Evanescence
 
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Evanescence:
And yes I still stand asking this question and I am dieing to hear a responce “If you don’t like me, I’ll torture you for all eternity." How is that not forcing?”
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Can you make anyone love you? Can you make anyone be your friend? Can you pick a woman off the street and tell her she must love you because you are going to marry her regardless of how she feels?

So why would God’s desire to be loved by us be any different?

God wants us to come to Him on our own. He will not force us to love, worship or adore Him. Everyone must come to that place of their own free will - because love freely and willfully given is the best gift.

Now look at it this way - heaven is God’s kingdom. Why should God let us into His house if we don’t love Him. Do you let malignant strangers willfully into your house?
 
Its either love god or burn in hell!

Bacically in the end God is punishing us for not liking him!
I still don’t see how this is not forcing<
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Evanescence
 
Forcing implies that we have no choice. We have two alternatives, one that is clearly not healthy for us and one that is.

If you are standing on the edge of a cliff, you have a choice to jump off if you want to kill yourself or you can stay on solid ground if you want to live. It is a completely free choice even though one alternative has clearly negative consequences.

IF someone were to come by and push you off the cliff, you would have no choice whatsoever. But standing by the edge you have an option, you can choose life freely or you can choose destruction. It is not a good alternative, but you do have a free choice to your own self distruction.

The free choice that God gives us also has one positive and one negative outcome. We can choose God and love, or godlessness and disaster. God didn’t make robots, you are not programmed to only one routine. The other choice may not be very appealing but that is the consequences for not following God’s plan for us.
wc
 
We can choose God and love, or godlessness and disaster.
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Well still I don’t see how its not forcing, its either love god or burn in hell for eternity! what if you are a good person but just don’t believe in a God or are buddhist instead?

I don’t mean forcing in robots I mean forcing in "choose me or the fire!!! " doesn’t leave you much of an option does it? also your getting punished for not liking someone, would you like it if someone in the street walked up to you with a gun and said “love me or i’ll kill you?”

Please forgive me for this questioning, I love god and all, its just the questions hat pop up to mind! lol

Evanescence
 
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Evanescence:
Well still I don’t see how its not forcing, its either love god or burn in hell for eternity!
Evanescence
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You’re overlooking certain facts. First of all, living without loving God *is *Hell. Even God can’t make not loving Him something that it isn’t (or He would violate the law of non-contradiction). So the choices boil down to love God or don’t love Him. You are either an image of God or you’re not. I don’t see any room for a third option here.

Second, many angels considered Hell a very good choice; that’s why they chose it. (Consider Satan’s line from Milton’s Paradise Lost “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”)

I deal with the very questions you ask in a novel I wrote (sadly, still unpublished, but I have hopes!) In it I show the scene where Lucifer and his cohorts rebel. God shows all the heavenly host that His Son will become a man. Many of them refuse to accept this (But those beings are below us! We have to *worship *one of them?) Lucifer actually screams at the prospect, and his cry causes a rift in the cosmos. Beyond it is chaos, that is, Hell. God warns him to choose carefully. Lucifer replies, “That’s our choice? Love You or You burn us?”

God replies, “I’m merely showing you what existence without loving Me is.”

At this point, Lucifer and his followers choose not to love God. They consider it a better option than having to serve God Made Man (sin of pride). Their love, which once freely flowed outward, changes direction, flowing inward. In other words, they love themselves more than God. They have turned themselves into opposites. At this point, God’s love becomes painful for them. What once was pleasurable ecstasy becomes excruciating agony. They cast themselves into Hell because being so close to God’s love in Heaven is more unbearable than Hell.
 
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Evanescence:
I don’t mean forcing in robots I mean forcing in “choose me or the fire!!!” doesn’t leave you much of an option does it? Evanescence
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er…not really. if i hated God, i’d choose the fire. i really would, if i hated Him. anything but God. please.

(in which case i’d thank Him for giving me a choice!)
 
It’s not really the matter of hating him!

What if you don’t want to be with god but you also don’t want to burn for eternity.

What if you don’t want to be involved in anything at all just live your life without the devil or god pulling you like an elastic band in opposite directions!

What if you just want to be left alone? no god or demon yelling in your mind! no god threating to kill you if you don’t do things his way! or a devil trying to tempt you all the time

Can’t you choose a way in ignoring both sides? Like not being evil as the devil wishes but not loving god either just living a normal life doing normal things I mean by all means being a good person just not having a relationship with god (I love god and I feel really bad posting this …sigh…)

Its either love god or burn in hell I still don’t see how that is not forcing!
er…not really. if i hated God, i’d choose the fire. i really would, if i hated Him. anything but God. please.
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thats not my point! it’s not hating him its just either not believing in him or just don’t want him in ones life! no hatred. But if you choose to live a life without religion but still a good decent person why burn in hell? what just because you don’t love somebody? see this is very much like forcing!

Please forgive me for this post

Evanescence
 
“what if you don’t want to be with God but you don’t want to burn for eternity”

i never could understand this logic. either there is a God, (in which case you either love Him or hate Him) or there isn’t, so there is no afterlife whatsoever. no Heaven, no hell, nothing.

i don’t understand how people who don’t believe in God fear hell all the same. i’m not trying to be insulting, i really just don’t get it. it is God who talks about hell, and if i don’t believe in Him, why should i fear the existence of the hell He and His followers keep talking about? it’s His idea. if i choose to deny Him, why should i buy into His very wild claim of an everlasting death?

“Can’t you choose a way in ignoring both sides? Like not being evil as the devil wishes but not loving god either just living a normal life doing normal things I mean by all means being a good person just not having a relationship with god”

why should i even bother about the devil if i don’t believe in God? if there is no God, then who is this devil who says he is the enemy of this non-existent God?

“But if you choose to live a life without religion but still a good decent person…”

i can’t see the point of being a good person if i think there is no God. why follow the straight and narrow path if it leads to nothing in the end? why should anyone be a “good person” if there is no God?

“Please forgive me for this post”

and please forgive my clumsy answers.:o
 
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