by Oroborus21 19 Replies latest jw friends
The beast is the fundamentalist god you've been worshipping
Why look into politics ?
Bas, your assumption and assertion/conclusion is incorrect on several points.
Merely saying something to telling something to someone does not REQUIRE that the person have experience (i.e. "knowledge") of the thing itself.
I could tell you that Jamaican Gold you have been smoking there in the Netherlands will "open your mind" but that doesn't mean that I have actual experience with it.
As it turns out, Satan did have personal "knowledge" of good and bad things, being at first a righteous angel and then out of choice becoming something bad, the opposer to God. (Jehovah God is perfectly good and has not known "evil" so your conclusion that the Devil = God is off.)
But you are missing the whole point about what Satan was saying. The issue is not that he was talking about either the "capacity" to make moral choices nor experience of both good and bad things in life. Adam/Eve already had such capacity to make moral choices, such being both the nature of man and evidence by God's placing before them the trees of life and the tree of knowledge of good and bad from which they were told not to eat. Additonally, even in Paradise or as they expanded they would have experienced "bad" things, a stubbed toe, a prickly thorn, hunger/thirsty pains (that would have been quenched when they ate or drank), fatigue, etc. They were fully human after all.
Anyway, the point is not these things but rather the issue was one of sovereignty, that is does Man have the "right" to define what will be the moral choices. Such "rule setting" belongs to the province of God. Thus Satan's lie was that man could be "like God" that is be equal to God in having the right to define morality and by extension to live and be ruled without Him.
-Eduardo
Eduardo, may I make a suggestion? If you have the time (not neglecting your work or your family) keep the religious speculations and guesswork at a minimum and concentrate on your business. I enjoy your posts but as a friend I hope you don't keep worrying about Satan/God/Jesus/theocracy/democracy as it might relate to Bible prophecy. It'll only waste your time and mess with your brain, man.
Also, if God REALLY wanted to institute theocracy with Christ at the head, he could do so. There's no need for games, setting up the nations and then going AHA! Gotcha! Or any violence. That's why Russell almost made sense............... if you were to dump his date and retain a belief that Christ's return was one of blessings.
Didn't Satan say to Eve that she could be like God knowing both Good and Bad? In other words, isn't the issue whether man is capable of self-rule without God?
This implies that dictators and authoritarian governments get their authority from a god.
It could also mean that the god of the bible likes to see humans with no freedoms and no freewill ? meaning that the dictators and authoritarian governments best represent what life would be like if the god of the bible were in control of the world.
Democracy in the USA is like 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what they will have for dinner.Ken P.
I heard that quote as being "Democracy in the USA is like 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what they would have for dinner; and the sheep has a loaded glock."
Satan was right and humans should decide for themselves what is right and wrong.
Perhaps the end will come when EVERY nation on Earth is at least nominally a Democracy, thus succumbing to the lie of Satan and rejecting God's rule by way of Christ as the rightful King?
You're suggesting that in a democracy, humans choose their own way more than in any other particular government? So in a democracy, humans reject Christ as rightful King, whereas in a monarchy, they do not? Come now.
Humans have always ruled themselves. They have to - no one else is going to do it. The only difference between a democracy and any other form of government is that in a democracy the average citizen has some say over what happens.
SNG
errr oroborus, I haven't been smoking "Jamaican Gold" as you call it and I don't believe in either God or the Devil. I'm well aware of the
mythical roles given by the bible to god and devil as opposites, good and bad. But that's all what they are to me, mythical personifications
of good and bad. Morality in my view is a creation of mankind itself and it should be cherished as such, a collective heritage that still grows
and changes over time.
Bas
