141 replies to this topic

[cerberus]

Generally all the things we know are balanced. Sometimes, the scales tip in favour of either party, but never to the degree of domination. This is what divides good and bad.

MY OPINION'S FOR THE NON-EXISTANCE OF GOOD AND BAD AS SEPARATE ENTITIES:

So basically, there's no seperate good and bad. 'Good' things do happen very often, as do things that are 'bad'. They can even happen at the same time. Generally good things, which sometimes are caused by us, and we feel like heroes, and the bad things we do, we normally have to find a scapegoat for.

For examples.. Did God or Satan influence.....

1. A volcano creates new, but destroys some in the process.   Good or bad?

2. Earthquakes caused by the movement of tectonic plates, both destroy and create new.    Good or bad?

3. Floods creates new fertile land, but destroy as well.    Good or bad?

Of course, sometimes something bad/good happens, which turns out to be not so bad/good. And of course, something that is bad or good can always be better or worse. So we see good in bad, and bad in good. To me this suggests good and bad are the same things. We just separate them when we need to explain something.

If God/Satan existed, and made everything super great/bad, then we would lose the value of good/bad.  So, if we if we knew only good or bad, it would be the norm. Logically, the only way both can work, is if they are the same thing or they work together. But that means they act for a joint purpose which stops either doing just good or evil.

Also, the Bible has an equal amount of good as bad. For example, one of the Bible's biggest characters, Jesus Christ, was killed in the most horrific means possible. This was to show that no matter how bad something gets, it always will have good, no matter how small, because it can always be worse. As it happened, he was ressurected, and the lesson was complete.

The Bible just uses characters, if you like, to illustrate the lessons. You learn more if you have a model or icon to work too. Million's look up to Jesus and God.

To me, the idea the Bible and Holy books try to convey is to help us cope with the good and bad. If learning this, you can see they are the same. The Bible is a  guidebook to help us cope with life. The reason heaven and hell are in the bible is because, if you choose to be good or bad, you know what will happen if you do either. That doesn't mean they exist for real.

The only ways i think God and Satan could both exist at the same time, separately is when you get heaven and hell. One the devil's domain, the other God's domain. Both are satisfied.

'God' and 'Satan' and 'good' and 'bad', are concepts made by humans and personifications that humans use to determine the acts and roles of what see as  good and bad. We naturally, have to try to explain what happens to us, when we don't know the answer. Speculate to accumulate.  Books like the Bible help with this.

When good things happen, we say it's god's will or good luck, when bad things happen, we blame the devil's will or bad luck.

In my opinion, good and bad don't really exist, they are one whole thing.

[TheLight]

Neither Satan or God rule this world, chaos does.

[Halo_Jones]

I was thinking the other night.....as you do when you wake up at 4am and can't get back to sleep,    Well if your good God rewards you when you die by letting you into Heaven where it's Paradise ect ect, but when your Bad and Evil you go to Hell where you suffer for all eternity for your sins ect ect. What I was wondering is...if Satan is the ruler of Hell then why doesn't he make it Heaven for the evil doer's and reward them for commiting evil...surley then it would act as an incentive for more people to commit more evil?    Just thought I'd share.   

[reese2]

Hey I dig that Halo......................


I have always wondered that myself...  Because you are right, if he rules hell, wouldn't he be sure to stock up on all the evil things that make it worth it to be evil in the first place??  That is why I don't believe organized religion, because it doesn't make sense................      

[Seraphina]

lol, I actually DO think that's what it would be like, assuming religion is real (still don't believe a word of it )

Heaven: An eternity of praying...talking to god...living a life of self perfection, persuing one's inner peace.  

Hell: An eternity of booze, sex, hard rock music, and staying up playing blood thirsty video games.

The fact is, since most things that people actually do for fun at considered 'sin'...I doubt very much heaven would be a nice place to be. You might live a life of peace...but what sort of life would it be? Can you imagine spending eternity without ever having a party, a lover, or watching a good contact sport?


I vote for

[eddie]

You may want to be careful what you wish for......

Hell by definition is anguish. You will be completely alone, no parties, no music, no fun. You most probably will have an intact memory though, you'll have all of eternity to regret your decision.....

[Seraphina]

Hell is nothing by definition. The word was applied to that meaning because it is feared by the so called 'god fearing'. I am neither god fearing, nor god believing, and don't hold a great deal of fear for the afterlife whatsoever.

Since both heaven and hell are entirerly hypothetical, I think that a hell that caters to sinners is more realistic. As I've said elsewhere, God has been seen to be far more savage and ruthless in how he treats humanity than the devil. If anything, the devil is an individualist, not evil...he is merely interpreted that way but the so called 'good' of the bible.

I still believe it's all metaphorical nonsense...however, if it is true, I think I'd rather spend eternity in a place of individualism, than under the iron heel of a saddistic tyrant who has slaughtered millions upon millions of people who's only crime was non-comformity.

[pappagooch]

[gonzowalker]

Personally, I think God and Satan are like Military recruiters. I don't think either place is for me, and I don't want to be confined to heaven or hell. When I die, I want to go exploring the universe. I don't want the knowledge given to me, I want to discover it for myself. I wouldn't mind visiting heaven though.

[reese2]

[theSOURCE]

Edited quote from site:

The word "hell" appears 54 times in the Bible, 30 times in the Old Testament, 24 in the New Testament.  

In the Old Testament, hell is taken from the word, Sh'owl, pronounced sheh-ole' or Sh'ol; Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), Sheol, including its accessories and inmates: KJV--grave, hell, pit.  It is interchangeable with the word grave or a pit.  Basically, hell is a hole in the ground where bodies are buried.

In the New Testament it is taken from three words.

The word is Geena, pronounced gheh'-en-nah of Hebrew origin; valley of the son of Hinnom; ge-henna, or Ge-Hinnom, a valley of Jerusalem, used figuratively as a name for the place or state of everlasting punishment:

The actual place referred to is Hinnom, a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel" to the southwest of Jerusalem. It was formerly the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive as a sacrafice to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, the "fire-stove" or furnace, where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the refuse of the city.  As with refuse, in those times it was burned to keep down vermin, the obvious offensive odors, to maximize space, and a fire was kept constantly burning there.

The next word is familiar to most, the Greek word Hades. And, as with the Hebrew word Sheol, it is interchangeable with the word grave. There is a serious problem trying to designate this as a place of eternal fiery torture rather than a burial place, the problem being, mainly, that Jesus spent three days in Hades after his crucifixion.  Since it is clear that this place was actually a sepulchre, not a furnace and that Jesus committed no sin to warrant such punishment, it would justify the logical conclusion that this is the grave. Attempting to insinuate that Jesus had to go to this fiery Hell to defeat it presupposes that such a place exists without solid scriptural evidence.  Jesus performed his ultimate miracle by defeating death, not fire.  In the case of Lazarus, it must be noted that this is a parable and is used in a metaphoric sense as with the use of the word Ghenna.  

The third word translated into hell is only used once and refers to the place of imprisonment for the angels that are described in Genesis 6:4.  There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Enoch gives a detailed description of this place and can more easily be understood by reviewing the section on this site about the Flood. The word is Tartaroo, pronounced tar-tar-o'-o from Tartaros (the deepest abyss of Hades); to incarcerate in eternal torment.            

If one chooses to embrace the concept of an eternity of suffering in a furnace, that is one’s prerogative, but it is not a biblical concept based on a strong foundation.  It can be speculated and implied, but there is ample evidence against it.

The Link

[Void]

Just because we are bought up in Western society we have the imprinted view that any God must be the christian God. If we were born in Japan we would have more chance of becoming buddhist instead. If we were born in Saudi Arabia we would think of God as the Islamic God.

Just think of the ancient egyptians fanatically worshipping their Gods for thousands of years, and now what do we think of them? Just myths. Yet we elevate our modern Gods as superior and think of them having more chance of existing. Yet what is the difference between religions today and the ancient religions? Nothing, all have myths, stories, lessons...

And noone can adequately explain that if the ancient religions were wrong for 1000s of years, why can't we be wrong today?

I just bring this up because I notice quite a few people reasoning that if there is a God there must be a Satan (ie it must be the Christian God) but in reality there are a multitude of different Gods and ideas.

[FreyKade]

nicly put Void

about the heaven thing my feeble mind is unable to comprehend how it can be paradise....


lets say for example..this person (person a) is all good and gets into heaven....but longs to be with "person b", and heaven would only be paradise if person b was there with person a...however...person b is "bad" and goes to hell...therefore, person a in "heaven" is actually living his hell?

[Seraphina]

Void my friend, that is an arguement I myself have voiced many a time before Well said.

Of course, if we lived in a country that practises Islam, or during the time of the crusades, we'd both have been stoned for it   

[*MoG*]

God/Saturn
Heaven/Hell
Good/Evil

both sides of the same coin, you spin to win, who can tell which way it will fall.

No-one rules the earth (theorectically speaking), we make our own path and we all have to deal with the decisions we make.

Its all to easy to blame our bad judgement calls of the 'evil' of others.

And lots of people to bad things.  When we don't understand their reasons we automatically call them evil.  But I think it depends which direction you are looking from at the time.