I Used to Believe the 3 Little Pigs until I heard the Wolve's side of the story

[noeylani94]

Here’s a topic I read on another forum and was interested in what everyone had to say to this hypothetical scenario. I’m Catholic, but I find it quite interesting. My conclusion I come to is that without Faith in God, we are essentially left with no basis for our foundation of worship. So here it is:

Note: To Theists. Please don’t have a kneejerk reaction to this thread and post something stupid like “Because The Torah/Bible/Qu’ran Says so.”. Please read, think, and provide logical arguments.

There is a planet, a planet with no religion, no Holy Books, and no concept of “God”. The people of this world do not know how the Universe started, they do not know how they got there, but they have theories, some good, some not so good.

Some time during the life span of Planet another being arrives, a creature of great age, knowledge and power. This entity does not occupy the same physical space as the Planet, or it’s people, but can pass between the realities if it wishes.

At some point it crosses over and communicates with the people of the Planet, it tells them it is all powerful, never dying, and was in fact the one who created them. However he also informs them of his evil brother, another creature like him who aims to destroy them.

“Only through me can you move into the next realm, if you choose to turn away I will be unable to save you from my brother” He tells them.

Of course, some of the planet’s inhabitants are skeptical, but the entity soon quashes these beliefs by demonstrating his power. Within time all of the Planet’s people accept him as their God, and worship in him the hope he can save them from his brother.

However, in reality the entity lied. He was not all powerful, he was not without death, and he was defiantly not the one who created them. He even lied about his motives, in truth he was the deceiver and only through his brother could they be saved.

I pose to you a hypothetical scenario.
In this scenario we can draw many likeness to Religion in the world today. God has given us many scriptures, and even proved himself through Miracles and Predictions. He tells us that only through him can we achieve salvation, and that Satan is the deceiver, one who would trick us away from our eternity in Heaven.

I ask you, since you have never heard Satan’s side of the story, how can you accept God’s one? Even if we accept the Holy Books are 100% Fact they do not prove God’s story, they show nothing more than God being a very powerful entity.

 

[JackVk]

I hear Satan’s side of the story just about every day. Satan has engulfed the secular world, which is why there is abortion, war, totalitarianist regimes, greed, etc. See what sin is? I can’t trust Satan, because he lies every time.

In your argument, that without trusting God we have know way of knowing He is truth, you answer your own question. Chesterton had an idea about this: “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they will believe anything”.

 

[noeylani94]

I hear Satan’s side of the story just about every day. Satan has engulfed the secular world, which is why there is abortion, war, totalitarianist regimes, greed, etc. See what sin is? I can’t trust Satan, because he lies every time.

This is only defined because the Bible says this is true.

 

[JackVk]

This is only defined because the Bible says this is true.

Or maybe because I have experienced life without God first hand, as many reverts have. When I look at the period of my life before I started actually practicing my Catholic faith, there is no point in time when I can say I was truly happy. I was a self-centered, cynical racist with a narrow mind full of hate. I was frequently alone, I had no friends, and was labeled around school as a psychopath and someone that nobody wanted to be around. When I came back to the Church, that all changed.

 

[noeylani94]

Or maybe because I have experienced life without God first hand, as many reverts have. When I look at the period of my life before I started actually practicing my Catholic faith, there is no point in time when I can say I was truly happy. I was a self-centered, cynical racist with a narrow mind full of hate. I was frequently alone, I had no friends, and was labeled around school as a psychopath and someone that nobody wanted to be around. When I came back to the Church, that all changed.

That’s a great answer. Something I was looking for.

 

[JackVk]

That’s a great answer. Something I was looking for.

That’s the whole thing about the Christian life. On paper, it makes no sense, and that’s why you can’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

 

[filled2bursting]

The trouble with telling a lie is that it deviates from reality, and thus fails when tested against reality.

How do we test?

In this scenario the above entities will teach different ideas about their beings. If they teach their beings are something other than what we could consider objectively “Good” then we can easily reject them. Beyond this we have to test said beings actions and teachings in the world vs their alleged state of being.

Two ideas that are considered objectively “Good” (if not always agreed to be existent) are truth and love.

God is Love and Truth is a basic premise and claim, so we ought to be able to test this.

1. Testing truth is relatively easy in that truth cannot contradict truth, thus we can try to assimilate scenarios where this might fail:

God is revealed as all powerful… Can he create a rock so heavy even he could not lift?
Yes, from several perspectives:

1. the human heart, which he cannot force by his nature of love
2. the cross which he required the help of others to carry, also stemming from that second eternal nature of love.

Ultimately, this may be argued as that worldview of truth that is the most internally consistent and cogent, revealing the most about how the world (reality) operates.

1. Testing love is harder as it is harder to define love, but one can still test His actions against different ideal standards:
   I would choose the positive/negative versions of the 10 commandments:
   (or at least the seven pertaining to man to man)

4)Honor and Love(parental), → Honor given to Jesus name above all names, honor given to Mary (new Eve, aka mother of all the living)
(Love shown in sacrifice, honor, loss, sorrow) Love of God to Jesus - revealed as coequal Godhead, creation and restoration of humanity
5) To give Life and destroy death, → such is the mystery of the Passion
6) to turn infidelity to faithfullness, → such is the story of the Old testament, all mankind, and my life today
7) to give generously of what is yours (goods, dignity, life) to those with no right–> (the Eucharist is the ultimate example of this)
8) to fight lies with truth, → I guess testing the result of the truths introduced by Christ/Judiasim that are unique to it… Equality, concern for the sick, weak, alone, dying, love as the highest virtue, – an articulation of what we internally evaluate to be good.
“By their fruits you shall know them” – (we as Christians have more to do here, but again these truths point us in a fruitful direction)
9) to promote the welfare of another’s goods, → 2nd greatest commandment Love thy neighbor as thyself
10) and of their marriage (covenant relationships). → Ongoing themes of the marriage between God and man, of covenant relationships as everlasting, some of the greatest examples of faithfulness - prophet Hosea, as a symbol of God’s faithfulness for Samaria. The theme of eternal love that is his very articulated nature.

 

[MarcoPolo]

In this scenario we can draw many likeness to Religion in the world today. God has given us many scriptures, and even proved himself through Miracles and Predictions. He tells us that only through him can we achieve salvation, and that Satan is the deceiver, one who would trick us away from our eternity in Heaven.

I ask you, since you have never heard Satan’s side of the story, how can you accept God’s one? Even if we accept the Holy Books are 100% Fact they do not prove God’s story, they show nothing more than God being a very powerful entity.

This scenario presupposes that the planet’s occupants have no concept of good or evil, does it not? Also, if one of the “tricks” performed by the “divine visitor” happened to be allowing himself to be tortured and killed at the hands of those he called his creatures (despite showing prior miracles that demonstrate that he could escape the torture if he wanted), then his case would be more compelling than the case from silence you did not hear.

You or I could play all kinds of “what if” games, like what if God is real and what if Satan dispatched a bunch of his agents in a form indistinguishable from other humans, and these agents call themselves “enlightened” and “atheist” and “agnostic” who were charged to come up with fictional hypotheses to thwart real humans from believing the true God that had Incarnated? I mean, THEN what! How can we prove that enlightened atheist agnostics are not Satan’s agents disguised as humans? Maybe we should bonk them all with hammers just in case.