God is not perfect

If God exists, do you think that he is perfect? I don't think so because if he was, devils like Satan wouldn't exist.

Well that's to argue that Satan exists...which I don't believe he does.

I believe this Universe is perfect...just look at it, a marvel...

I feel its a matter of who is doing the defining Free Will vs. Evil which is more important?

Surely perfection is in the eye of the beholder and it this case the beholder prioritized free will.

The question then is can free will exist without evil being possible?

Any thoughts?

The fact that Satan led 1/3 of the angels down the road of destruction isn't indication of God's lack of perfection, rather, Satan's sin of pride and rebellion. Those are the two sins that led to our path of destruction as well.

Pride and Rebellion are the 2 main driving factors of the French revolution.

You say they are sins.
I say they are the reason you don't still live under a global monarchic absolutist (that's what you'd call the monarchic version of dictature) regime.

Amazing how people can be so blind.

Originally posted by maynardsthirdeye
If God exists, do you think that he is perfect?

Perfect in what way?

You're alive, intelligent, and able to question - so far, so good, I'd say.

Does Satan(and evil) existing disprove God's perfection?
Impossible to say without all of history past, present and future laid out in front of you.
It's quite likely that Satan exists as a tool, as a force necessary to the development of the world and of humans.. Without knowing the end result of Creation and the world(which God does) no human could possibly conclude that God is perfect or imperfect.

God could forsee Satan's eventual fall - one can only assume it serves an important purpose: To create freewill as Toltec suggested - to offer temptation to Man, to thereby build man's charcter, etc...

Quango there is actually a story about Satan which depicts him in that way, it is called the Reluctant Messenger.

You can find it on the net its a pretty good story

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
The fact that Satan led 1/3 of the angels down the road of destruction isn't indication of God's lack of perfection, rather, Satan's sin of pride and rebellion. Those are the two sins that led to our path of destruction as well.

I'm just saying that I don't think God wanted to lose his angels. And if he was "perfect", he would have been able to stop Satan's rebellion and get his angels back.

maynardsthirdeye how would you have felt if the story about Frankenstein monster had ended with the Doctor lobotomizing his creation.

And they lived happily forever?

I am not trying to be sarcastic here, simply suggesting this for consideration.

Originally posted by maynardsthirdeye
I'm just saying that I don't think God wanted to lose his angels. And if he was "perfect", he would have been able to stop Satan's rebellion and get his angels back.

I would suggest that he knew he was going to 'lose his angels'. Perhaps the whole point of creation was a split and eventual reconciliation. The reunification of the Godhead.

You forget that history is not over yet. You can't judge the perfection of creation w/out knowing all of it - that which is to come.

Originally posted by quango

Originally posted by maynardsthirdeye
If God exists, do you think that he is perfect?

Perfect in what way?

You're alive, intelligent, and able to question - so far, so good, I'd say.

Does Satan(and evil) existing disprove God's perfection?
Impossible to say without all of history past, present and future laid out in front of you.
It's quite likely that Satan exists as a tool, as a force necessary to the development of the world and of humans.. Without knowing the end result of Creation and the world(which God does) no human could possibly conclude that God is perfect or imperfect.

God could forsee Satan's eventual fall - one can only assume it serves an important purpose: To create freewill as Toltec suggested - to offer temptation to Man, to thereby build man's charcter, etc...

Yes indeed....Satan exercised his freedom in rebelling, and in his fallen, rebelous nature against God he struck out at God's creation( he knew the seed of his destruction came from Adam).
God has allowed Satan to exercise his power in the Earth and in tempting man to sin. By Jesus dying for our sins He defeated Satan by giving Man a way out: salvation from eternal damnation with Satan.
Satan knows his fate is sealed and he wants to take as many of us with him to thwart God.
It's like a child who is disciplined by his parent and then runs away to punish the parent.....God is perfect. We can not know the mind of God. He is omni-prescient-he knows all of everything under His creation.

Originally posted by Tyriffic

Originally posted by quango

Originally posted by maynardsthirdeye
If God exists, do you think that he is perfect?

Perfect in what way?

You're alive, intelligent, and able to question - so far, so good, I'd say.

Does Satan(and evil) existing disprove God's perfection?
Impossible to say without all of history past, present and future laid out in front of you.
It's quite likely that Satan exists as a tool, as a force necessary to the development of the world and of humans.. Without knowing the end result of Creation and the world(which God does) no human could possibly conclude that God is perfect or imperfect.

God could forsee Satan's eventual fall - one can only assume it serves an important purpose: To create freewill as Toltec suggested - to offer temptation to Man, to thereby build man's charcter, etc...

Yes indeed....Satan exercised his freedom in rebelling, and in his fallen, rebelous nature against God he struck out at God's creation( he knew the seed of his destruction came from Adam).
God has allowed Satan to exercise his power in the Earth and in tempting man to sin. By Jesus dying for our sins He defeated Satan by giving Man a way out: salvation from eternal damnation with Satan.
Satan knows his fate is sealed and he wants to take as many of us with him to thwart God.
It's like a child who is disciplined by his parent and then runs away to punish the parent.....God is perfect. We can not know the mind of God. He is omni-prescient-he knows all of everything under His creation.

I'm glad to know you can comprehend omni-everything and perfection because I can't seem to comprehend all that.

"Evil" is the consequence of free will; evil is not just the opposite of good, it is the abscence of good. think of heat and cold. The concept of cold is merely the absence of heat.
Free will involves the choice to choose God, or to not choose God, as did Satan, as well as Adam/Eve. According to biblical history, to choose the opposite of God is to choose evil.

Maynard -
I'm gonna guess that Tyriffic is coming from a biblical perspective. In that light, everything he is saying has a foundation in Scripture. As far as "omni-everything" is concerned, I like to think about it in terms of cause and effect, as someone put it: If we are beings with limited power, limited knowledge, and limited life, then our source must be something with all knowledge, all power, and eternal life. Whether or not you agree with that philosophy, its something to think about.

If you think about it logically, if you believe that God gave us free choice, the odds are that at least one being would choose not to accept God. Comments?

Peace


If you could say that there's a beginning; when motion began time began because they are one and the same. Motion and time come from The Source, also known as The All or The One. Although All-law come from The One; The One is the center so it's beyond the very laws which it set forth. The All IS Law.

Some of you speak of The One, as if it's a ghost in the sky who has a ego; who said; "Okay; I'm gonna create Satan today." The One only set laws into motion, such as karma(cause and effect), which we are bound by because we are manifestations of The One but not The One itself. They say that those things farthest from the center or source are more bound by it. Those things closer to the source are actually more free because the center or source is infinit. That's why we are our own Christ or anti-Christ; because it's up to us if we want to return to The Source(non-attachment and/or compassion) or if we want to go farther from it(attachment/ego).

There would be no existence or manifestation without the apparent struggle of dynamic opposites, yet, while it seems contradictory; positive overcomes negative.

For example: What happens when light and darkness meet? Surely the light isn't drowned out by darkness. What happens when the black and white gene meet? The black gene dominates because melanin is a product of the Sun, while the non-melanated gene is product of darkness because melanin absorbs the Suns energy and uses it; while non-melanated skin is damaged by it. This isn't saying that light = good and dark = evil, because they're two different things; just like sharp isn't hot and dull isn't cold.

quango's Satan concept was pretty good; but I don't believe in a Satan as one individual being. The negative side of things is but a pain that we go through to gain or become like KRST(Christ) resurrected. The "Jesus" story and other KRST(Christ) figures are but expressions of a concept of nature. It's like going through hell and coming out right. On the physical plane, when you work out you destroy muscle tissue; but when it regenerates it's stronger. This is the same on the mental and spiritual planes; the law of correspondence: As above so below, as below so above; on Earth as it is in heaven. But the One is beyond heaven and Earth or is actually the unity of the two.

The unity of opposites or The Tao is the infinit source and is uncomprehendable to all but The All.


ONE

[Edited on 16-7-2003 by Tamahu]

A perfect God is just putting on a pedestal something that a human knows he cannot be.

Perfection is an interesting word as by nature its definition is all encompassing.

As a result a conclusion is that for God to be perfect he must as well exist as finite and imperfect. Which means basically he must be mortal as well as immortal.

Otherwise God is not all things and thus imperfect.

I am not implying this is impossible.

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Toltec
Perfection is an interesting word as by nature its definition is all encompassing.

Any thoughts?

I still don't really understand the question...

Perfect how?

The Perfect Being? If so, what is that? What are the criteria? Says who?

Mistake-free? If no one but a thing as Total and encompassing as God could see the mistakes, then who can say? Wouldn't God be the only consciousness capable of seeing God's mistakes? (and not just mistaking them for mistakes due to human limitations)

Does God sit in judgement of himself?

Quango can understand your questions but not the context in which you have quoted my text.


Now on to what seems to be your query.....

A God defined from the pretext of being the beginning as well as the end, knower all things with respect to reality.

An issue with respect to temporal dynamics is a factor.

For God there is no past, present or future as we understand it (except perhaps from the context of aspects and or images depending on how you see
it or wish to explain the human condition in general).

God simply is within the frame we perceive as separate in respect to events.

By definition God in its entirety is then outside as well as inside reality as we understand it.

Why would God sit in judgment of himself?

The only thing I can consider is with respect to creating something that is not good.

The term infinite, all encompassing, perfect eternal, illimitable, perdurable, sempiternal, supertemporal, everlasting and perpetual are words which inherently definitve all things infinite.

Reality as we understand it is real, blown-in-the-bottle, bona fide, genuine, indubitable, sure-enough, true, undoubted, undubitable and unquestionable.

Finite can other wise be states as bound, bounded, limited : confined, restricted; definable, defined, definite, determinate, fixed, terminable; exact, precise, specific

So in order for something to be infinite it must also be finite so it can be in reality completly infinite . If that is not the case, reality is either not infinite or reality as we understand it is an illusion. In which case it is in fact an infinite illusion as infinity is all that in reality exist (an infinte illusion would not be an illusion as we understand it).

The Universe is accepted as finite but boundless which another way of saying the same thing but in this case support from physics is implied.

How can a mistake be made when the answer is
already given?

If you have a newspaper dated tomorrow and in it are the winners of every sporting event in the world and the stock market results for every company. You decide to take advantage of that information and make a mistake what does that make you?

Why are you presuming God is capable of being that stupid?

If you criteria for imperfection is that no Judge exist for God your presumption inherently questions Gods intent.

An intent which is also supertemporal.

Any thoughts?

I quoted the text i did to show that my problem is with the word 'perfect'. The question, is God perfect? makes no sense to me.

Perfect compared to what? Perfect based on what criteria? Compared to what? - other Gods?
Obviously not.
He is the One. The All. Theres no point of reference to label him perfect or imperfect.

I didn't mean to imply that God was stupid by my statements about mistakes. What I meant, and what you said in your post, is that God sees the past, present, and future. He forsees all, and if something in the universe looks like a mistake to us, it's only because we're humans with limited understanding (we don;t see all of time. Hence only God (from his position outside of time) would be able to correctly identify any (hypothetical) mistakes he made.

I'm not saying he does make mistakes - my point is,no human could answer whether god is perfect or not. He just Is.

Originally posted by maynardsthirdeye

I'm just saying that I don't think God wanted to lose his angels. And if he was "perfect", he would have been able to stop Satan's rebellion and get his angels back.

Did you ever heard about " free will " ?

Anyway, God is Perfect. And I don't see how a human can try to understand God. A vast majority don't even understand the Pythagore theorem or why the sky is blue,but we would have to be able to understand God ?
Only God can understand God.

What an arrogance.