Why doesn't Jehovah just destroy Satan and the demons then leave humanity alone? (page 3)

punkofnice

galaxie

Is therè something gods not telling us,

God never says a word......................................easy not to speak when you don't exist

adamah

FWIW, the Universal Sovereignty Issue is not unique or novel to the JWs: they didn't come up with the idea, but it's been around for thousands of years in apocryphal Judeo-Christian writings.

Syme said-

The official doctrine of the Watchtower is that God can destroy Satan but doesn't want to, for the time being (meaning, for the past 6,000 years). So, how can he be benevolent?

PON said-

The very fact that we question it all proves it's a load of crap. If it made sense and was obvious there'd be no questions.

Ahhh, but that's the rub, the point some are overlooking:

Per JWs, the humans who say God fails on the all-loving trait are the same individuals destined for destruction, defined as 'evil ones' who've fallen under Satan's influence! The 'evil ones' cannot be (and don't need to be) convinced of God's all-loving trait, since Xians believe God cannot allow a few hard-headed foot-draggers to interfere with the Divine master plan, so He'll just wipe them out.

So each person is essentially forced to choose between complying with God's will or take the highway to Eternal destruction with Satan and his minions (who also balk at God's all-loving trait). That's the work of 'separating the sheep from the goats', and the goats will never consent to being labelled a goat or accept the omnibenevolence claim: in fact, by pointing out how God fails to be all-loving, in the eyes of a JW, such persons are only certifying their own death warrants. self-identifying as being worthy of destruction...

That's the problem of getting into theology/theodicy (presuppositional apolegetics): once you get past the presupposition of accepting God's existence without any evidence, the rest of theology and theodicy actually offers an answer which makes sense to believers, since apolegetists have over a thousand years' head-start to 'shot-gun' multiple answers and work out the kinks.

DATA-DOG

Perhaps "evil" came into existence when Satan sinned. Perhaps he did not know the consequences of his actions, but an omnipotent creator would. That would mean that God allowed "evil" when he could have nipped it in the bud, so to speak. Evil may have existed before humanity, but not before a certain point in time, not before Satan's rebellion. Even so, why let man be corrupted just to fix it later? Did God need to create a vacuum for job security?

DD

Simon

The bible is the script to a terrible B movie ... you tollerate the stupid nonsensical plotline because some of the special effects / CGI look good and there are dramatic explosions, especially at the Armageddon part, but really, the plot sucks and makes no sense so best not to dwell on it too much.

punkofnice

Simon - Hence Charlton Heston as God's rep on earth!

Heartofaboy

Hey DataDog, I quizzed my father about those same questions during the family bible studies when I was a teenager starting to feel my feet & setting the wrong impression for my younger siblings.

Poor old dad he tried so hard but family study night was not the happiest night of the week!

Now with all the latest changes going on with the WBTS he wonders if it was ever worth all the effort.

Comatose

About the 1,000 year reign. Again, the only issue solved is whether man is better off with god or the devil. Man never had a chance to just live good humanist or secular lives. They had evil spirits interfering. So, the issue of gods soveriegnty can't be settled yet. The idea that some issue is being settled right now is a hoax.

Of course mankind would be better off without an evil Devil ruining their lives! lol That took 6,000 years to figure out?

adamah

DD said-

Perhaps "evil" came into existence when Satan sinned. Perhaps he did not know the consequences of his actions, but an omnipotent creator would. That would mean that God allowed "evil" when he could have nipped it in the bud, so to speak.

That's the question I asked as a 12 y.o., and never got a satisfying answer: where did the concept of 'evil' come from, i.e. in Genesis 1/2 when God was creating inferior beings, why would God create them with the capacity for angels or humans to piss Him off, to violate His Divine will (the definition of sin)?

The old mantra, "God wanted to give beings the capacity for free will, so they didn't HAVE to love and obey him; He didn't want to build robots" is hogwash, since God didn't waste any time expressing His Divine Will, where per the story ALL humanity has to pay the penalty for the pair's sin of disobeying God's Divine Will! They HAD to do what God wanted, or face the consequences: He'd have been better off building robots, if that's what God wanted, and only starts in with the "Do what I say or else...." nonsense threats.

So God comes off as the Designer of flawed beings, which Judaism has NO problem with, since God's and humans' "perfect" trait is a later Xian interpretation of the account. Jews don't think of A&E as "perfect beings" but as flawed beings who possessed a 'yetzer hara' (an evil inclination), and God wanted them to control their urges by developing their inclination for good to counter.

If anyone needs to get beyond Genesis to see Xian theology has major logical problems, they're really not trying to think critically but are allowing their desires to color their minds.

DATA-DOG

When you really reason on things, it becomes apparent that there can only be a few real options.

1) There is no God

2) There is a God, but he does not interfere.

3) There is a God, but he only likes some people. So he saves some and let's others die.

4) There is a God and he has solved everything, but the consequences are suffering for humanity, at least for now.

5) There is a God, but he is not so powerful that he can easily wipe out other evil beings. The war may be raging on right now. I could be that the Devil is so powerful that it takes some doing to get rid off him. Since the WTBTS is wrong about almost everything, I see no reason why their take on Revelation would be correct. Perhaps humans are on their own, and Satan has not even been cast to the Earth yet?

That makes more sense to me than YHWH saving some dubs and their chickens, but letting others die around the globe. He is either involved or not. If he is involved, then he chooses to let a lot of people die for reasons that I cannot understand. If God is not involved then it seems like life is a gamble, and you get to play with the hand you are dealt. It's really interesting that we are having a discussion that has been repeated through countless ages.

DD

galaxie

DD..I am folowing this thread by way of context argument as I am essentially athiest.Is your comment not contradictory? On one hand you say evil came into existence at satans rebellion , but on the other you say evil may have existed before humanity , According to genesis the humans were created and then they were tempted . So satans evil thoughts must have developed after human creation .So where would he be able to formulate his evil thoughts from , if he had a choice? Where would he as a perfect angel get his choice from? There is no choice without a selection who provided the evil part. There can only be one answer his creator .

Why doesn't Jehovah just destroy Satan and the demons then leave humanity alone?

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