Atheism

I was watching this Netflix things about exorcism last night. Besides all the other weirdness, this priest said the God lets the Lucifer torment and tempt us so that he (God) can "exercise his mercy". He said God loves nothing more than to be given the opportunity to forgive us.

Just how fucked up is that?

So we're ants minding our own business. God comes along with a magnifying glass on a sunny day.
He burns some of us to crisps, and maims others. Then we ask for forgiveness and he stops, happy he was able to end our suffering.

What a douchebag.

2 Replies

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I was watching this Netflix things about exorcism last night. Besides all the other weirdness, this priest said the God lets the Lucifer torment and tempt us so that he (God) can "exercise his mercy". He said God loves nothing more than to be given the opportunity to forgive us.

Just how fucked up is that?

So we're ants minding our own business. God comes along with a magnifying glass on a sunny day.
He burns some of us to crisps, and maims others. Then we ask for forgiveness and he stops, happy he was able to end our suffering.

What a douchebag.

You're misinterpreting God's will as being akin to human whimsy.

Demons (evil spirits) torment us because the power of creation bifurcates into the power of good and that of evil. You can't have good without evil any more than you can have sunlight without all the colors of the rainbow.

You also can't say that humans and other material entities/systems actions are devoid of spiritual motivation any more than you can say that plants grow without sunlight or that animals live without getting energy from eating plants.

God is merciful in the sense that suffering isn't as bad as it could be. Life could be a lot worse than it is, but it's not; thank God.

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@livinglava,

I'm not interpreting or misinterpreting anything.

That would imply I believe it in the first place.

I wrote what a priest said about the reason there's a devil.
He (not me) said it was so people could be tempted and sin so that God could exercise his mercy. Because God loves nothing more than to forgive.

Seems like a bad business plan to me.

Talk of "you can't have this without that" as far as social contructs vs things that actually exist is nonsense.

Following this priests logic, if I never felt tempted (and I haven't) to kill, rape or bring other physical, finacial etc harm to someone, God just isn't as happy with me as he could be.

I kill, rape or want to bring harm to others exactly as much as I want to, which is zero, and has nothing to do with darkness and light, punishment and reward.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I'm not interpreting or misinterpreting anything.

That would imply I believe it in the first place.

You are misinterpreting it so even if you believed it the way you were interpreting it, your belief would be based on a bad interpretation.

Quote:

I wrote what a priest said about the reason there's a devil.
He (not me) said it was so people could be tempted and sin so that God could exercise his mercy. Because God loves nothing more than to forgive.

I don't know what you were watching and/or whether the intent was to cause viewers to question what was being portrayed, but the fact that some directors find a way to criticize something about religion by coming up with a scenario that will do that and then filming it.

They say that God hates sin but loves sinners because the purpose of forgiveness/salvation is to free people from sin. It's like when you correct a child's bad behavior and they accuse you of hating them because you are critical of their behavior, but you assume them that you love them and that is why you hate to see them behaving badly.

Do you think a parent wants to see their children seduced into crime so that they can forgive and love their children despite their criminality? No, it just so happens that a parent's love goes beyond the harm that criminality brings on children. Some parents die before they get a chance to overcome that hate with love, but we all ultimately end up reconciled at some point in the hereafter one way or another.

Quote:

Talk of "you can't have this without that" as far as social contructs vs things that actually exist is nonsense.

When people use the term 'social constructs' without understanding that there is more to 'social constructs' than just fakeness, they are applying the term wrong.

Quote:

Following this priests logic, if I never felt tempted (and I haven't) to kill, rape or bring other physical, finacial etc harm to someone, God just isn't as happy with me as he could be.

People deny their own sin and the sins of humanity generally out of pride, which is a sin. If you think you're perfect, you're definitely wrong. No one is perfect.

Quote:

I kill, rape or want to bring harm to others exactly as much as I want to, which is zero, and has nothing to do with darkness and light, punishment and reward.

If you can't see your own flaws, you have to do some soul-searching. You can start by identifying all the sin that happens in the world and how it is caused. There is greed, envy, pride, lust, etc. and they all lead to further sin in various ways. Sometimes greed or envy in one person provokes worse sin in another. Think about a woman who tries to use her beauty to charm a man into satisfying her greed by provoking his lust, and she basically wants him to steal or kill or commit crime or whatever he has to do to satisfy her; and let's assume she's not just doing it passively but is actively aware of her strategy to manipulate him. She can deny that she plays a role in the harm he's doing, but on another level she is not outside the web of causation either.

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@chai2,

Quote:

I'm not interpreting or misinterpreting anything.

I'm pretty sure when you said "Just how fucked up is that <and everything that followed>"...you were criticising, based on you 'accepting hypothetically' that X is real' <X allegedly being a 'misrepresentation' of Z>. Your hypothetical acceptance of a fairly wacked out version that you know is not real, allows you to criticise something you don't like, while allowing you to not take ownership for why you don't like it, or the criticism that you give. It leaves you wiggle room (which you used) to avoid the criticism being challenged. Ie. "I'm going to criticise but not take ownership for why I'm criticising". It's a fairly cowardly way to criticise.

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@vikorr,

You're a nasty piece of work, and pompous and snotty into the bargain.

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@Setanta,

If you say so. The frequency you resort to name calling illustrates your character.

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@vikorr,

Of course I’m ******* criticizing.

Someone, in this case a priest, saying some supernatural being let’s some other supernatural entity tempt us and convince us to do something wrong, for the sole purpose of “exercising his mercy” because “God loves nothing more than exercising his mercy” is absolutely fucked up.

Part of the problem is this priest says that, and people don’t examine it for half a second, which is all it take to realize how fucked up saying that is.

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Put somebody in a war torn region, living the life of a refugee, watching family members getting torn to bits, starving, and see how well the mercy gets dispensed.

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@vikorr,

The frequency with which you employ sneering sophistry illustrates yours. Isn't there some thread in which you can slander Muslims available?

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Not gonna quote her because I’m lazy, but LL said something about perfection and sin.

I’ve heard it throw out there that “no one’s perfect” not only like that’s not being acknowledged, but that it’s necessarily connected to doing wrong.

So you are I aren’t perfect. How does that equate to actively doing wrong?

I saw this guy holding up a “REPENT” sign at a light the other day. There was small writing under it, which couldn’t be read. Really poor execution on his part.

As I drove on, I gave that some serious thought for a few minutes.
What exactly did I have to repent for?
Not only have I not shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, but I in all honesty could not think of anything that I’ve done for decades that has caused any human or animal, any harm that wasn’t purely accidental.

Have I pissed people off? Hell yeah. Have I disagreed with them? Have I flat out not liked someone? Of course to all of these.
None of those things are wrong.

When I have inadvertently hurt someone, did I try to right it as soon as possible ( which could meaning waiting until the harmed person was in a position to accept my reparations)?
Yes. I can say I yes I have, and that currently I have no outstanding debts to pay.
At the same time I remain imperfect.

I don’t have a sinful nature. Have never done any of the thing LL mentioned, and am not personally responsible for the woes of the world in general. This bullshit of saying humans share some “sin” is nothing but a power play by those who want to produce feelings of vague or obvious guilt in another for selfish reasons I can only guess at.

If some god botherer wants to interpret that as me thinking I’m perfect, not my monkey, not my circus.

And that really pisses them off.

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@chai2,

Quote:

Someone, in this case a priest, saying some supernatural being let’s some other supernatural entity tempt us and convince us to do something wrong, for the sole purpose of “exercising his mercy” because “God loves nothing more than exercising his mercy” is absolutely fucked up.

Oh I would agree with this criticism (bolded) if it (the rest)were the case. However, that wasn't the point of my post.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

The frequency with which you employ sneering sophistry illustrates yours. Isn't there some thread in which you can slander Muslims available?

You seem to be projecting your proclivity to hatred onto others.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

Isn't there some thread in which you can slander Muslims available?

Relating facts about Islam is not slandering Muslims.

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@coldjoint,

I wouldn't bother. He doesn't understand the difference between:
- criticising behaviour vs name calling
- criticising specific ideas (in ideology) vs criticising the people who hold generaisedl ideas (in ideology)

As I mentioned, the frequency of his name calling illustrates his character - these are just from the last 4 pages of his posts, one just from the readable parts that show up in the first line or two <visit any persons profile you'll see what I mean>:

-no you silly ass

-human vermin who won’t change

-the Fat Boy in the White House

-That's the kind of horseshit one would expect from a pompous jackass

-What a snotty creep--go piss up a rope.

-Bite me.

-Spiritual wisdom? What a crock. Go to church. When you're on the respirator, coughing your life out, ask your magic sky daddy to cure you.
Prove your god exists, otherwise, you're just a stray dog barking.

And he has a long, long history of this sort of behaviour. Hence why I think he's projecting his proclivity for hatred onto others. Ie. He doesn't want to understand the difference between the criticisms <at the top of this post>.

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@vikorr,

No, I'm just accurately describing the character of your posting here. I don't hate people because of their religious confession or their politics. It appears that you do. In any event, I've watched you time and again employ a sneering sophistry to attempt to portray yourself as the voice of sweet, dispassionate reason when, in fact, you're just attacking the other persons's ideas, or their manner of expressing them.

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@Setanta,

Uh huh. Your continual name calling says otherwise.

Quote:

to attempt to portray yourself as the voice of sweet, dispassionate reason when, in fact, you're just attacking the other persons's ideas, or their manner of expressing them.

And here you are projecting again.

To be clear though, I do criticise peoples behaviours exhibited in expressing ideas, if they engage in hypocritical behaviours, factual/issue avoidance etc. I've no issues with that.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

vikorr wrote:

Quote:
Someone, in this case a priest, saying some supernatural being let’s some other supernatural entity tempt us and convince us to do something wrong, for the sole purpose of “exercising his mercy” because “God loves nothing more than exercising his mercy” is absolutely fucked up.
Oh I would agree with this criticism (bolded) if it (the rest)were the case. However, that wasn't the point of my post.

So then WTF was your point?

Some statement, looking back, about accepting something (god knows what) hypothetically, and x being a misrep of z? No idea what all that even means, nor care, because it has nothing to do with repeating what some priest on a show about exorcism on Netflix said, and me saying that's fucked up.

You just needed, like LL to throw a lot of words up there showing how smart you are, intending to pull someone down a rabbit hole.

Not gonna work with me because I'm not that bright.

I do know that that's fucked up.

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I am not the walrus.
John is the walrus.

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