In Defense of Evil part 3 of 3: Satan was the Good Guy in the bible. God was the bad guy.

Thank you, Wylted, for your response. General summary: Uncontested points (since I last responded) - God’s rules should take precedence over our relatively ignorant interpretations. Remember, this is the creator of everything that we’re talking about; a being that is omniscient too (I’ve addressed my opponent’s few criticisms on this matter). Why should human interpretation take place over what God has commanded as rule? Is He not the author of rules? - There is essentially nothing to indicate that Satan’s plans are good, and thus, they default to neutral at best. If we’re to use our minds to determine as to whether Satan’s plans are good, then this would be interpretation outside of the ‘Biblical Narrative’, which my opponent has disallowed - Lucifer means ‘Angel of Light’, yet he was granted that name whilst he was an angel of Heaven God’s plan My opponent continues to reiterate arguments on this topic, pertaining to the impossibility of knowing God’s exact plan. Again, as it is written in the Bible, God sacrificed his only son to die for our sins. God’s involves everyone entering Heaven, and all you have to do is believe Jesus died for your sins. That’s it! God is allowing you to enter the Kingdom of eternal peace, and all so easily! We know this aspect of God’s plan, and it’s so clearly wonderful. We don’t know what the devil intended, as my opponent admitted via his counter-arguments (‘we don’t know if the devil intended suffering to result from freeing our minds’). Yes, there are aspects of God’s plan that we do not know, at least at this moment. But He’s promised us such wonderful things, and it’s written in the Bible how his only son died for us. Would an evil God promise us eternal happiness? Perhaps. But would an evil God sacrifice His only son, in order to forgive our excessive sins? I sincerely doubt that, don’t you? Doesn’t that indicate that God is probably telling the truth? So, you should be judging God by His actions, and my opponent agrees with this. God has orchestrated the ultimate sacrifice for you and me, in order to save us from our sins. So what if he does things that on the surface, seem terrible and evil? Could they not be part of a big plan? Has God not shown that he is benevolent? Satan’s ‘gift’ of wisdom Again, as I’ve questioned before: is wisdom really such a gift? If you were smart enough to realise that you were going to roast in hell for eternity for disobeying God’s orders, wouldn’t that wisdom be harmful? Wouldn’t you feel terrible? Besides, wouldn’t it be better to trust in God? Let’s have a quick look at a hypothetical example that doesn’t directly involve God. Let’s say that you, as a 10 year old child, wanted a certain gift for Christmas. The problem with this is now you’re expecting something, you know that you want this and you could potentially have this. The problem is: what if you don’t get what you wanted? What if the gift was too much for your parents to afford? Wouldn’t you be really sad? The negative affect that results from wisdom can be very harmful. My objection has somewhat to do with “separating us from God”, which my opponent argues, but as you can now see, that’s not its entire purpose. The Devil is Evil 1. “Sinning isn't evil.” I have demonstrated it to be in my murder example. It, at the very least, has the capacity to be evil. As I’ll continue to argue here, sinning can be argued as evil in every scenario. “If I go to the store pick up a playboy and jerk off, I'm not hurting anyone and I feel good as a response.” Hurting anyone *else* isn’t the problem. The problem is that it is easy to become addicted to this, and this can in turn lead to asocial behaviour. God wants you to, since you’re a man, meet real women, so that you can form a loving bond in His name, for He knows this to be good. He’s trying to help you here. “The evil comes when you label these primal urges as sins. When you view these things as taboos, you repress them and then they become compulsions…” Where is the proof of this? 2. My opponent concedes that I have successfully refuted his first example, as I showed that God announced Himself, hence He wasn’t trying to deceive. “The example I gave showing God disguised himself as a drifter and then randomly attacked one of his own followers leaving that follower with a permanent limp. God doesn't just disguise himself to avoid harming people. He also disguises himself to harm people.” The context to this verse is very important. Some of Jacob’s history: he stole the Esau's birthright blessing (Genesis 27), and he had several children with women he didn't love, and was a relatively poor father to them (Genesis 30-31). God initially disguised Himself as a man, in order to fulfil the purpose of the confrontation. God revealed Himself in order to show who Jacob had been fighting with, to show that Jacob could no longer flee his sins forever, that God would eventually punish Him. God did indeed punish Jacob, and rightly so. Jacob even admits this, thanking God for the blessing (Genesis 32:29), and learning a valuable lesson. 3. “If God is omniscient like my opponent claims then he easily could have shown mankind his love and spared them from a permanent demise through more humane means.” No, as I’ve explained, He couldn’t have (not because he isn't omnipotent, though). The sins cannot go unpunished, for that would be unjust, and our Lord is not unjust. He essentially has spared us all from a truly awful demise; all we have to do is believe that Jesus died on the cross for us. “The question is; Is God evil? Based on this action (subjecting his son to torture), I think we can put another point in the evil column.” If someone was willing to die for all of us, so that everyone else may live, would that be a bad thing? Isn’t that far more preferable than God making virtually everybody suffer and die? How could you possible say that this is a bad thing? “His motivation as far as we can tell was to enlighten man.” This cannot be substantiated with anything inside the Biblical Narrative, as suggested by my opponent failing to provide any evidence. It’s also hypocritical, in this regard, that my opponent would criticise me for arguing outside of the narrative, which I haven’t, when he is clearly doing it here. God Does Evil Things “My opponent admits that in some circumstances God finds rape as acceptable. What does your knowledge of good and evil tell you?” So God, an omniscient being, acts in a way that is evil, against His wishes, despite Him being the author of reality? Humans are essentially smarter than an omniscient being? Does that make sense to you? “My opponent again argues that God is omniscient. She calls the examples given "tests". There is no proof they are tests. If God needs to test people it would imply he doesn't know the results of the test before hand, therefore making him non-omniscient.” Test: noun 1. A procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something. [1] [1] http://dictionary.reference.com... God tests people for people’s sake, not His. We, as humans, are the ones that can establish the quality of our belief, by God testing us. My opponent makes the incorrect presumption that the being giving the test is the one who must require the test results, which defies definition. God gives us tests so that we can know the results. God Hates Humans “Be attracted to another woman but never act on it and you've committed a crime, according to Jesus in his sermon on the mount speech...” As stipulated by my opponent, Jesus is not to be taken as God in, in this debate; therefore, Jesus does not speak God’s will in this instance. "If your enemy smites you on one cheek, then turn to him the other one". “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” God will judge us all, in the end, and He will do so justly. “God has hated mankind since the fall of Adam. He's shown this by flooding the Earth, committing Genocides, outlawing the primal urges he created, demanding we lay down for our enemies etc..” This generalised, gloss-over of issues does my opponent’s argument no good, as we cannot begin to debate the context of such things, on this front. I have always addressed my opponent’s specific criticism, when appropriate. Let's Meet our Hero 1. God does not tell us directly in the Tower of Babel story, rather, this is my opponent’s interpretation of the Bible’s verse (as is the reason it is not supported by a Bible verse). God commanded them to spread far and wide: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1), but He never said why. “These are clear indicators of God's motives.” Nonsense, besides, this is my opponent’s interpretation, not Biblical Narrative (hence the word “indicators”, implying interpretation). 2/3. “Love isn't about control.” You’re always free to disobey God, it’s just that God will justly punish you if you disobey him. The rest of what my opponent says here is merely conjecture, and has been addressed earlier on. The arguments above should convince you either way, hence I’m not going to respond to this here. Closing Comments I wish to first thank Wylted for his formidable arguments. I also wish to thank you, for reading any/all of this. Whether you know what I say to be true, since you’re a Christian of some kind; whether you’re religious yourself, and have a love for other religions, or you’re an atheist that is likely to side with Wylted, know this. I’ve tried my best to defend the words in the Bible in a fair way. If the Bible was really about God being evil, why does everyone choose to follow God? Do you really think that Wylted’s interpretation of the Bible is correct? Do you really think that the Bible is about God being evil? On the surface, it may appear as if God is doing evil things, but look a bit deeper and you will find the truth.