Greek Philosopher Aristotle once said: "It is the mark of an educated man to entertain an idea without accepting." I invite you to try and do the same here if you feel you can. If not, and you are easily offended and find stuff like this uncomfortable then do not involve yourself with this discussion.
Furthermore, this discussion is about the religion of Primordial Gnosis, and the idea God as depicted in the current famous religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc could actually be the real Satan. Also, if you are an Atheist like me I invite you to entertain this idea, explore and explore it for the sake of argument.
So, recently I have been dabbling in different religious texts in order to try and understand the minds of theists, as well as radicals and extremists. Interestingly, on this quest, I came across a rather interesting book called "Gnosis - The forbidden Religion." What this religion advocate is that the real God is the "Unknowable God;" it is this that intrigued my interest further; I am open to the idea of an unknowable God as opposed to an anthropomorphic one.
This religion also advocates that St. Lucifer (the Archangel) was actually a good entity trying to warn Adam and Eve against God in the bible that Gnosis believes is actually Satan, but he got caught.
From a philosophical point of view, this all sounds plausible considering a certain number of stuff that God permitted in the Bible does seem like it would make him as equal or even worse than the actual Devil as depicted in the Bible.
I will also end this by saying this: someone once wrote: "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." In the same way, perhaps the greatest trick the Biblical God ever pulled was convincing the world that he wasn't the real Satan!
Over to you.


Post Argument Now Debate Details +
Arguments
If we were to believe everything in the holy books; god would, logically, be able to destroy satan without any problem. The "satan is actually good" explanation fits really well here. Because it gives god a reason to blame satan and it also explains why this apparent contradiction is there. It also makes sense because, as OP mentioned, some actions of god seem really egoistic.
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Gnosis / Knowledge... The Apple... Lucifer / Light Bringer... Enlightening one?
Considering some of gnosticism core teachings and their cosmology one can indeed imagine that the actual "bad hombre" of the story is this guy that talked to Moses disguised as a burning bush...
Gnostics beliefs:
- All matter is evil, and the non-material, spirit-realm is good.
- There is an unknowable God, who gave rise to many lesser spirit beings called Aeons.
- The creator of the (material) universe is not the supreme god, but an inferior spirit (the Demiurge).
- Gnosticism does not deal with "sin," only ignorance.
- To achieve salvation, one needs gnosis (knowledge).
They may be onto something!So obviously, the guy that created materiality (our universe), would be evil if we accept the premise as true...
Interesting to note that we know of alleged actions of a certain "god", of which we also know the name (Yahweh, Allah, etc)...
Those last 2 bring me back to that Apple thing... And isn't it peculiar that as human knowledge increased over the centuries, the presence and actions of this creator god, decreased... More knowledge leading to less evidence of this "god"... Coincidence?
Interesting topic, thanks!
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If all matter is evil, it would also seem to me that gnostics would be inclined to perform mass suicides no? How can one justify a continued incarnation knowing that matter is evil? Maybe the crucifixion is somehow linked to the fact that gnostics didn't perform mass suicides? Or maybe Jim Jones was really a gnostic priest??
What is Robert Langdon's opinion on this?
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Thank you. I look forward to the more comprehensive argument. I don't know for sure but I do seem to recall a reason as to why Gnostics believe that the Unknowable God didn't destroy the Demigure but I can't remember why till I read up on it again haha.
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The idea that "GOD" created the universe, or that EVERYTHING HAS to be created, somehow, is also out of the realm of human intelligence … at this time. We thought the world was flat, we thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, we thought a lot of things … like everything HAS to be created. It took centuries to learn what we have learned, a few centuries from now (or tomorrow), we may find we were mistaken again. At the moment, I'm as right as you are …. whoever you are.
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