Zone1 Fascination with the Devil and Hell

[alang1216]

Another "fun fact". It is more than likely that the Spanish flu began because of very crowded, very unsanitary conditions in a US military base in Kansas.

Was God responsible for crowding the military base? Was He responsible for the unsanitary conditions at the base?

Did I miss the commandment to keep your military bases sanitary?

 

[Foxfyre]

Still not sure why god created satan knowing how things would turn out. Not sure why he would create some people, knowing that nothing they might do, say, or think would keep them from hell. Seems a lot like a kid with a magnifying glass and some ants.

I don't know whether God created Satan or maybe he or it just happened like sin entered the world when Adam and Eve (literally or figuratively) sinned. Or maybe a force of evil has always existed just as God has always existed and the early believers couldn't accept that God isn't the cause of everything so assumed He created Satan.

I have this list of questions that is the only thing I want to take with me when I leave this temporary Earth.

 

[Meriweather]

Did I miss the commandment to keep your military bases sanitary?

All Commandments are based on love of God and/or love of neighbor. Under which do you imagine keeping a military base sanitary falls?

 

[alang1216]

All Commandments are based on love of God and/or love of neighbor. Under which do you imagine keeping a military base sanitary falls?

Love your neighbor but keep away from him? Dam, I never read the fine print.

 

[Meriweather]

Love your neighbor but keep away from him?

Totally befuddled about how you came up with that one. Your neighbors want you to stay away from them? Or, are you saying you want to stay away from your neighbors? Either way, you must have an entirely different set of neighbors than I've ever had.

 

[alang1216]

Totally befuddled about how you came up with that one. Your neighbors want you to stay away from them? Or, are you saying you want to stay away from your neighbors? Either way, you must have an entirely different set of neighbors than I've ever had.

You don't get the flu from unsanitary conditions you get cholera. You get the flu from crowded conditions.

 

[Meriweather]

You don't get the flu from unsanitary conditions you get cholera. You get the flu from crowded conditions.

The military base had both conditions. I'm wondering...what is your position on handwashing and using different clean, unused towels when someone has the flu. (Both qualify as the sanitary/unsanitary condition.)

 

[frigidweirdo]

My family has a genealogical connection to the Salem Witch Trials, so I have been reading the newly released book, Killing the Witches. In any religion forum, ours included, there are threads about Satan, hell, devils, the anti-Christ, etc. In fact, atheists are even gung-ho on making God out to be evil.

What is wrong with us as a people? Spectators delighted in seeing people hanged, burned, pressed to death under stones. The good people back then who did protest or help the accused remind me of ourselves today: While bad things erupt all around us our efforts now come across as puny as those who lived through the witch trials then. God is good! So why the fascination and the power of evil?

We as humans are emotional.

We're emotional because of sex (and the need to reproduce). Literally it's how we've been created in order to reproduce.

Part of this emotional nature is the need to reproduce with "the best".

How do we define "the best"?

Back in the day "the best" was the strongest, for men, hence the alpha male. The strongest would be the one who could defeat his enemies, the one who could take power. Sometimes the strongest was the one who could get people behind him, make a power base.

Women are attracted to this strength.

Men are attracted to the most beautiful, which often means best skin and some other attributes which change based on society. So women are very image based.

We create enemies, we create the other, and we attack them. It makes us feel in control. We can control the weather by having human sacrifices, we can do all sorts of things to control.

Witches was one way of attacking something which was created due to religion, which is a good way of making a power base. We kill the witches, yay, we're safe again.

 

[frigidweirdo]

You don't get the flu from unsanitary conditions you get cholera. You get the flu from crowded conditions.

Not really, I mean, I get your point, but you get flu because you take in the virus, you can get flu from being around one person, or merely touching the door handle of a door.

 

[evenflow1969]

My family has a genealogical connection to the Salem Witch Trials, so I have been reading the newly released book, Killing the Witches. In any religion forum, ours included, there are threads about Satan, hell, devils, the anti-Christ, etc. In fact, atheists are even gung-ho on making God out to be evil.

What is wrong with us as a people? Spectators delighted in seeing people hanged, burned, pressed to death under stones. The good people back then who did protest or help the accused remind me of ourselves today: While bad things erupt all around us our efforts now come across as puny as those who lived through the witch trials then. God is good! So why the fascination and the power of evil?

Lol, God is good. People are noy.

 

[BULLDOG]

We have such different perceptions of God, there may not be a meeting ground. You seem to think God knows what is going to happen before it happens.

Let's start with what we do know which is mankind wanted to know both good and evil. Did the teen girls know they were lying? Absolutely. And they knew people were being put to death based on the lies they were telling, the performances they were exhibiting. As for the adults: When they accused a four-year-old of being a witch, the little girl was put into a dark, unsanitary prison cell where over her months of incarceration she slowly went insane and never recovered. Girls may have accused her, but adults threw a four-year-old into a jail cell, mistreated her, barely fed her. And you want to blame God?!

Let's look at the other side where humans also wanted to, like God, bring goodness out of evil. In the case of Salem, evil was all around them and prevailed for months where many good people seemed at a loss for way too long. And the evil was being stirred up by mere children--although, admittedly, too many adults were eager to take advantage of the situation for their own power and monetary gain. Evil, power, and money against the rest.

You believe the answer is for God to step in. Wouldn't that have the people crying, "No fair! You said we could know evil!" Wouldn't the people who want to learn how to bring good out of evil begin grumbling how can they learn to do this when God is always stepping in and whipping things back into shape before anyone else even has a chance.

What say you? Do you want to know both good and evil, or would you elect to remain oblivious? Do you want someone else to dress and feed you, or would you prefer to learn to do it yourself?
My question is why does it take us so long to turn evil to good? As far as Salem goes...there is the point that the witch trials ended far sooner than we were able to end slavery.

So god isn't omnipotent?

 

[BULLDOG]

It is interesting how many believe God knows how everything will unfold and turn out before He even begins His creation. I see it differently. What if God doesn't know how everything will unfold and that doesn't even matter because He can handle anything that does unfold?

 

[BULLDOG]

I don't know whether God created Satan or maybe he or it just happened like sin entered the world when Adam and Eve (literally or figuratively) sinned. Or maybe a force of evil has always existed just as God has always existed and the early believers couldn't accept that God isn't the cause of everything so assumed He created Satan.

I have this list of questions that is the only thing I want to take with me when I leave this temporary Earth.

We all have unanswered questions. My list got so long till I no longer see a reason to believe a god exists.

 

[Meriweather]

So god isn't omnipotent?

The definition of omnipotent (and all the omni's) is knowing all that there is available to know or the most knowing. Word usage and definitions change over time until some odd things crop up such as even knowing what is not there to know, or being so powerful one can create something even more powerful than he.

There have been some good discussions over whether it is possible to know the future if one can exist outside of time.

 

[Father O'Blivion]

We have such different perceptions of God, there may not be a meeting ground. You seem to think God knows what is going to happen before it happens.

Let's start with what we do know which is mankind wanted to know both good and evil. Did the teen girls know they were lying? Absolutely. And they knew people were being put to death based on the lies they were telling, the performances they were exhibiting. As for the adults: When they accused a four-year-old of being a witch, the little girl was put into a dark, unsanitary prison cell where over her months of incarceration she slowly went insane and never recovered. Girls may have accused her, but adults threw a four-year-old into a jail cell, mistreated her, barely fed her. And you want to blame God?!

Let's look at the other side where humans also wanted to, like God, bring goodness out of evil. In the case of Salem, evil was all around them and prevailed for months where many good people seemed at a loss for way too long. And the evil was being stirred up by mere children--although, admittedly, too many adults were eager to take advantage of the situation for their own power and monetary gain. Evil, power, and money against the rest.

You believe the answer is for God to step in. Wouldn't that have the people crying, "No fair! You said we could know evil!" Wouldn't the people who want to learn how to bring good out of evil begin grumbling how can they learn to do this when God is always stepping in and whipping things back into shape before anyone else even has a chance.

What say you? Do you want to know both good and evil, or would you elect to remain oblivious? Do you want someone else to dress and feed you, or would you prefer to learn to do it yourself?
My question is why does it take us so long to turn evil to good? As far as Salem goes...there is the point that the witch trials ended far sooner than we were able to end slavery.

I think if God showed himself in no uncertain terms and told us exactly what the true religion is, and if you follow it, you will be in heaven for eternity, I doubt there would cries of "no fair".

 

[BreezeWood]

To follow are the 10 commandments. I will interpret them to present day meaning in bold:

again, no ...

provide the tablets etched in the heavens w/ 10 commandments claimed by the liar moses or remove the phony text present in all three desert religion documents to ever again step foot on the path to the everlasting.

- to free moses from their torment for the crime to impersonate the heavens they have committed.

 

[Foxfyre]

We all have unanswered questions. My list got so long till I no longer see a reason to believe a god exists.

And despite all the unanswered questions my experience is such that I cannot not believe that God exists any more than I cannot not believe that the sun rises in the morning or the seasons change pretty much on time every years.

 

[Father O'Blivion]

Jump rope chant for little girls during the Spanish flu epidemic:

I had a little bird
And its name was Enza
I opened the window
And in-flew-Enza

Another "fun fact". It is more than likely that the Spanish flu began because of very crowded, very unsanitary conditions in a US military base in Kansas.

Was God responsible for crowding the military base? Was He responsible for the unsanitary conditions at the base?

Nope. But he could have denied the existence of the virus if He wanted to.

It is interesting how many believe God knows how everything will unfold and turn out before He even begins His creation. I see it differently. What if God doesn't know how everything will unfold and that doesn't even matter because He can handle anything that does unfold?

Then he could still stop floods, earthquakes and tornadoes before they make millions suffer?

 

[BreezeWood]

I think if God showed himself in no uncertain terms and told us exactly what the true religion is, and if you follow it, you will be in heaven for eternity, I doubt there would cries of "no fair".

well, were the cataclysmic events of noah's parable true, you will have your answer.

 

[BULLDOG]

And despite all the unanswered questions my experience is such that I cannot not believe that God exists any more than I cannot not believe that the sun rises in the morning or the seasons change pretty much on time every years.

We can see the sun come up. We can see the seasons change. You aren't told you have to beleve those things before you can recognize what they are.