Devil Worship?

Exactly. I think I posted a long thing on this before. Basically there are 2 kjinds of evil. One is "sin' which are things caused by choosing to not obey Gods will. (murder theft etc). This is a nessecary consequence of free will since a choice between being good and being good isn't a choice. The second kind of evil  is physical evil (disease and pain inherent in the natural world ) this is here because eArth isn't menat to be paradise, this evil is designed to to give us oppurtunities to do good or evil. Further explination upon request
An irate
Cinlef

Yeah, this sort of argument doesn't hold any water.  I don't know about other religions, but in Catholicism, it was very important to God that people have free will.  He wants them to *choose* to be good.  Probably he could force them to be good, but that's not what he's interested in.  Maybe because he wants us to prove ourselves, give us challenges, that sort of thing.

It's like you're doing an experiment, and you would like it very much if the results supported your hypothesis, but you're not about to fudge them just to get what you want.

-Erasmus

Indeed, afer all, if you were God, what would be the point in making humans able to decide between good and evil, and then forcing them to be good?

In fact, what would be the point in creating life at all if you were merely going to tell it what to do?

The idea of God doing an experiment to see if we are good or evil makes a sort of sense. However, I completely reject the idea that we have no free will and our actions are all predestined.

To me, it's just folly. We appear to have free will but we don't really...and how exactly can you know that? Yes, our actions could be decided by destiny but since there's no proof it's just as likely that they're not.

In fact, since I don't believe in destiny, if destiny did exist then I'm *supposed* to disbelieve it.

To me, it's just folly. We appear to have free will but we don't really...and how exactly can you know that?

It's not so much that we (i.e. some group of sceptics including myself) don't believe that free will exists.  We just don't see at the moment any mechanism by which it might operate.

However I should point out that there are some highly controversial experimental results suggesting that the earliest neural correlates of a conscious action (the so-called readiness potential) predict conscious awareness of the intent to perform the action.  For example, whenever I feel like it, I should hit the "Enter" key on my keyboard.  At some point, some neurons fire in my brain.  Then I decide to hit the enter key, then I hit it.  A google search for "conscious volution", "readiness potential", or "Benjamin Libet" should return a wealth of references.

-Erasmus

Erasmus could you elaborate that last point? I couldn't quite follow
A bemused
Cinlef

Erasmus could you elaborate that last point? I couldn't quite follow
A bemused
Cinlef

See new thread!

-Erasmus

There are plenty of things wrong with Devil Worship.  The devil is the anti-christ, and worshipping him would be like having death on your doorstep and welcoming into your house. Now I know that's a bad analogy, but I can't think of any good ones now.  All I know, from what I've been taught, is that the Devil represents all things that are against good.

Don't be ignorant. The Devil gave us freewill and if you love your free will strongly enough to put it ahead of a god who wanted us to be his test subjects and mindless like zombies who couldnt decide for ourselves then yes Devil worship is evil. I don't believe in the devil of God but if I did, I would pick Satan over God.

So leaving the fascinating topic of the topology and physics of Hell, let's get back to the pertinent question that is Devil worship. Why one should or shouldn't choose Devil over God?

Well, first of all, I am totally not convinced that God, the judeo-christian Jehova, that is, is actually *good*. Certainly, his creation of Something out of Nothing was an absolutely brilliant idea -- so he's certainly brilliant. But Good? Well, what are the defining qualities of God?

God is jealous, extremely so. Old Testament is full of glorious accounts of how the idol-worshippers were massacred with His aid.  He even had to test his first-ever open worshipper Abraham, to make sure he doesn't love his son more than he loves God.

God is vain - he is willing to justify any action as long as it involves sucking up to him. When the angel of God came to Sodom to talk to Lot, Lot offered the crowd of angry Sodomites his own virgin daughters to be spoiled, just to prevent them from getting to the angel. And yet -- he was still saved!  In addition to that, God keeps a huge entourage of angels and saints who are constantly occupied in singing praises to Him.  In fact, it is my impression that the primary preoccupation of a devout soul in Heaven is just that - singing His praise day in and day out. No thousand virgins or anything =/

God is cruel. By all accounts, he is very keen on punishment, and not so keen on personal favours. Every time he wishes to make His presence known, he chooses punishment to prove his might, as opposed to blessings. Did Moses ever show any *painless* God tricks to the Egyptians - like, say, make trees bloom off-season or provide every firstborn with a lollypop? Nope, it was drought, disease and baby plague. The only person to whom He ever promised goodies in this world was Abraham; the rest have to wait till Heaven to get anything pleasant out of God.

Now, let's ponder about this One Selfless Act of His, of giving humanity his only son to ensure our salvation. First of all, I'm not convinced that He really did love His Son as much as a human parent loves his offspring. In the Bible, God's love exhibits itself in a kind of favouritism that Noah and Moses and David experienced - He lets them do neat things. Jesus was similarly granted an assortment of tricks; but did Jesus ever have God call him just to tell him he misses him back in Heaven? I have a hard time imagining God spending 33 years in Heaven missing his son, and yet bravely telling himself that it's for the good of humanity that he has made this sacrifice.

Secondly, it's not like he gave his son up *forever*. He let him live a mortal life for thirty-something years, and then he got him back! And he *knew* he'd get him back, he knew he'd be reunited with his son forever. What is 30 years to God?

So by my judgment, that "sacrifice" doesn't reflect favourably on God's character, not in lieu of all the other unsavoury traits of His. I don't think it's very smart to worship Him because he is Good, or the embodiment of all things Good. However, it *does* make sense to worship God if one is afraid of His wrath. These guys   http://www.repentamerica.com  , I believe, are going about their faith in a way more sensible way.


So -- why would one worship the Devil? Well, I'm not sure I know much about the Devil's character -- but I do know one thing. Devil, as well as gods of the Pantheon and other banes of the Christian Church, all offer us stuff in *this* life. If someone cool enough comes along and says "worship me, I'll give you magical powers!" I would totally do it. I'm still not convinced that Devil-worship would give me magical powers, but I'm giddy to be proven wrong. Anybody?


--Anansy.

Errr ignoring the whole would worship the Devil for magical pwoers thing as that needs a seperate answer ( wouldn't you wonder what worshipping the devil entails? MOst people who calim to have magic pwoers from Satan had to do fairly unpleasant things)
As to sacrficie of Christ your missing the point which is that while Christ was a man He was also God (ah the Holy Trinity) thus when he died God the immortal all powerful universe creating God died(or at least part of HIm that is seperate and yet the same , I understand the Trinity works I don't understand how) thus God's immortal existence feels death. The taste of death is forever in His mouth. God suffered at the hands of us lowly humans, things He made, he was humiliated tortured mocked and killed. He willingly did all this for us. As to the 33-years thing true but invalide since we have no idea how God perceives time, if He's outside of time it's conceivable He exists in a Now wherein past present and future exist simultaneously.
An irate
Cinlef

Errr ignoring the whole would worship the Devil for magical pwoers thing as that needs a seperate answer ( wouldn't you wonder what worshipping the devil entails? MOst people who calim to have magic pwoers from Satan had to do fairly unpleasant things)

Actually, the Church of Satan claims that you get magical powers just by doing things that you enjoy, by partaking in the seven deadly sins.  The seven deadly sins can be quite enjoyable, mind you.

As to sacrficie of Christ your missing the point which is that while Christ was a man He was also God (ah the Holy Trinity) thus when he died God the immortal all powerful universe creating God died(or at least part of HIm that is seperate and yet the same , I understand the Trinity works I don't understand how) thus God's immortal existence feels death.

I call shenanigans on the trinity.  The Catholic church made that up to get around this tricky issue that Jesus was a polytheistic deity.

On the flip side, the whole Christ-was-also-God thing -- in fact, the whole duality of the nature of Jesus' existence -- was also at one point controversial.

Anyway, the idea of God dying does not bring tears to my eyes.  Dying is something that happens to flesh; God is eternal.  Anansy's point, I think, was less about the death than about the suffering endured.

God suffered at the hands of us lowly humans, things He made, he was humiliated tortured mocked and killed. He willingly did all this for us.

I'm not really clear on how this was "for us".  I'm of the understanding that it got the good people in Limbo out of Limbo.  However, God being God and all, it seems he could have just snapped his fingers, and all the sinners would be sinners no more.  Why did it have to be via the sacrifice of his son?  Personally, I think this is yet another made-up story; it wasn't necessary.  If it was necessary, it hints at some kind of "deeper magic" (cf. C. S. Lewis), or some rules that God must follow.

As to the 33-years thing true but invalide since we have no idea how God perceives time, if He's outside of time it's conceivable He exists in a Now wherein past present and future exist simultaneously.

Yeah, that's true.  The 33-years bit was kind of weak.  But even if it were just the 3 years, it was still a pretty... wierd thing to do, send your son to be sacrificed.

-Erasmus

Both the Devil and God are alright if you don't take them too seriously. Put them in a boxing ring together and I will worship the winner (I'm easily convinced)
PS Erasmus and Cinlef - Paul Martin is a respected presenter on British television !!!
Gran

A few points:

Another reason for Jesus becoming flesh and be sacrificed is also that as an omnipotent being without flesh, God has never experienced what dying entails.  Therefore, being one of us and experience that particular bit of truth about mortality is a way of saying, "You know what?  I get it now.  Dying is not pleasant.  I should know; I died once.  As for this and this morality problem you have, if I were you (and I was just like you, remember?), I'd do this instead of this...  You know what?  All this stuff is in a book.  Go read it."

Of course, one interpretation of the Apocalypse requires the son of the Devil to live amongst us, gets assassinated, and rises from that death to claim the world throne.  This, I imagine, is a even more difficult task.  If Satanists believe in 'living it up', as the saying goes, it'd be very difficult to say, "Alright, time to take over the world...  Who's gonna shoot me?"