Posts by Chap

50

Is Satan the good guy?

by blackout in

if i were to believe in the bible (which i am starting to totally disbelieve), i like the idea that satan was actually on mans side, and when you look at what he told eve he was actually telling the truth, it was god who lied.

this used to cross my mind as a witness but i would very swiftly dismiss it as demons affecting my thinking.

didn't he say we could rule ourselves if given a fair chance?

Chap

Question:

If Satan is so good, why doesn't he protect us from God's evil?

30

Resurection of "Can any believer answer this?"

by Chap in

hi all.. there was an interesting thread a while back that i have a few things to add to.

i am new so i didn't know if anyone would see a post i would put there since the thread happened a few months ago.

it is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject.

Chap

Assuming that people doing God's will are keeping his commandments and by default everyone else is doing Satan's will, consider the following.

A person wants to "help" God make a prophesy come true. How much can this person actually do? Let's say he thinks he needs power so he tries to become president of the US. Already he has a problem; God's commandments. "Thou shall not bear false witness" for example. Lets say he figures that God will understand and ignores the problem. He is no longer doing God's will.

Let's take an actual person from history, Adolf Hitler. Since he did not believe in God, (he was a Darwinist) he was free to do what he wanted. I believe Satan was behind this man to accomplish his purpose which is to prove God to be a liar. His strategy had to fronts, either would make him a winner. The first was to exterminate all Jews (God's chosen people) so the prophesys concerning Israel would not come true. The second was to conquer the world so the prophesy in Daniel saying that there would be no world empires after Rome would be proven false. Either of these things would also prove that God is not all powerful, all knowing, etc.

As a direct result of Satan trying to nullify prophesy, Israel was restored as a nation.

Isaiah 11:11
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Emphasis mine.

What other people was kicked out of its land and returned once let alone twice?

The problem with everyone being free to do as he pleases is that not everyone wants the same things. Therefore, Satan is fighting against himself.

30

Resurection of "Can any believer answer this?"

by Chap in

hi all.. there was an interesting thread a while back that i have a few things to add to.

i am new so i didn't know if anyone would see a post i would put there since the thread happened a few months ago.

it is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject.

Chap

Would an immoral/ammoral god sacrifice part of himself so that anyone who repented and believed in him would be restored?

If there are many wills instead of one, they will clash and cause misery, fights, war, etc. This has been proven. The "God is a totalitarian because we are not free to do what we want" argument does not hold up. Does a good king allow anarchy? I have disobeyed God many times. Am I not still here? We have not seen the environment God wants for his creation because there is rebellion. God says his way is good for everyone. I am looking forward to finding this truth out for myself.

30

Resurection of "Can any believer answer this?"

by Chap in

hi all.. there was an interesting thread a while back that i have a few things to add to.

i am new so i didn't know if anyone would see a post i would put there since the thread happened a few months ago.

it is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject.

Chap

There has been a lot of discussion and points made. I would basically answer them the same way starScream did. Thanks.

One thing. If we being finite were to totally understand God, wouldn't that prove him finite as well?

StinkyPantz: About Genesis 6. I think God relates to us on our level. I don't think my brain can comprehend how he truly felt. Sometimes we can be sorry at a particular moment that we married our spouse for example. That does not mean we regret it or were wrong for doing it.

30

Resurection of "Can any believer answer this?"

by Chap in

hi all.. there was an interesting thread a while back that i have a few things to add to.

i am new so i didn't know if anyone would see a post i would put there since the thread happened a few months ago.

it is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject.

Chap

We can infer from the bible that Satan is the ruler of this world. Satan offers it to Jesus in Matthew 4. Also, Jesus said in John 12:31 "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out." (New American Standard Bible)

Also we can see around us; the people who seem to get ahead in this world are not the same people who practice the teachings of God; especially, "love your neighbor as yourself"

I agree with pom that we do not have free will. We serve Satan or we serve God. God commands us to obey his laws and glorify him. Satan wants us to believe we can do whatever we want; deluding us to serve him.

I believe that one of the things Satan is trying to do is to defile the character of God. God says he cannot lie. He also says he is all knowing, all powerful, etc. Therefore, all Satan has to do is to make something that God said not be true (a prophesy) and he could call God a liar who is not all knowing, all powerful, etc. Satan can than argue that God isn't any better than himself.

If God predicts something is going to happen and everyone is willfully serving him, it could be said that it isn't much of a prophesy, right? Since most people in the world are not practicing Christians, God makes Satan unwittingly fulfill his word with the use of the people in this world who are serving him. I'll show an example of that within the next couple of days because I got to get some sleep.

30

Resurection of "Can any believer answer this?"

by Chap in

hi all.. there was an interesting thread a while back that i have a few things to add to.

i am new so i didn't know if anyone would see a post i would put there since the thread happened a few months ago.

it is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject.

Chap

Hi all.

There was an interesting thread a while back that I have a few things to add to. I am new so I didn't know if anyone would see a post I would put there since the thread happened a few months ago. It is going to take a while to put all my thoughts on the subject. The thread is :

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/39437/1.ashx

The thread was started by LucidSky but most of the thread was about pomegranate's view of the character of God and of Satan.

Writing for me is laborious and some of my ideas will require rather long posts so I do not know how much I will put up tonight.

172

Evolution or Creation??

by dottie in

well i know i may be opening a can of worms here.... but after what we were taught in the wts about creation...and now that you may know more about evolution... which do you think you'd choose to believe more??.

myself...i am leaning towards evolution...but then i read things that make me think otherwise.

so i do find it confusing sometimes .

Chap

If evolution is true, the Bible is false and should be discarded. To keep this simple and not get into alleged evidence, I state my case for creation in this way. If my understanding of the second law of thermodynamics is accurate, order always moves toward disorder. In other words, things in the universe were better yesterday than they are today. In order for one to prove evolution true, he has to prove the second (and first) law of thermodynacs to be false.

15

Can Good Exist Without Evil??

by Sargon in

some ponderings:.

the laws of physics tell us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

good and evil are equal and opposites of the same concept.

Chap

Does anyone's definition of paradise include evil in it? Even if you think paradise would be OK if no evil were done to you, wouldn't you want everyone to be happy? I don't ever recall being thrilled when something bad was done to me. To me, even hearing that something bad happened to someone else would ruin my paradise. Paradise for all can only exist without evil in it.

4

What is the relationship; God - Man - Tree

by Chap in

jw
friends

assuming that the god of the bible is the creator of all things, what would you consider to be the most accurate relationship of each and why?

my perception is that how we explain this tells a lot about our world view and whether or not we believe in the god of the bible.. .

1) god = highest life form man = high life form tree = low life form.

Chap

Assuming that the God of the Bible is the creator of all things, what would you consider to be the most accurate relationship of each and why? My perception is that how we explain this tells a lot about our world view and whether or not we believe in the God of the Bible.

1) God = Highest Life Form Man = High Life Form Tree = Low Life Form

2) God = Highest Life Form Man = Life Form Tree = Low Life Form

3) God = Infinite Life Force Man = High Life Form Tree = Low Life Form

4) God = Highest Life Form Man = High Life Form Tree = High Life Form (1 for the treehuggers)

5) God = High Life Form Man = Highest Life Form Tree = Low Life Form

28

Help - how to reason from 'best out there'?

by Xander in

okay, another discussion with the brother.

he did mention i was a bad influence, but, feh, he still talks and listens a little, so i'm not too worried.. i've got him whittled down to - "if nothing else, at least this org tries to follow the bible the closest, every other religion has serious flaws.".

this is kind of a hard one to beat, as, in the end, what the society says is generally quite good and positive.

Chap

Xander,

Try this on your brother. Read John 1:1 from both a JW Bible and from a different translation. Here is John 1:1 from both.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (New American Standard)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god. (JW Bible from memory) Underlining added to both versions.

Then get out the interlinear Bible to see if the word for "God" is the same for both instances in the verse.

Here is John 1:14

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (NASB)

By believing in their own Bible, JW's break the first commandment found in Exodous 20:3

Thou shall have no other gods before me. (NASB)

From reading John's Gospel, we see that either the "Word" that was "with God" and became flesh was Jesus Christ. Therefore we either worship Jesus Christ as God or as a false god. There are no other possibilities. I hope this helps.