Are We Supposed To Forgive The Devil?

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='carrdero' date='Aug 3 2004, 08:20 PM'] JeffCR07 writes: All of my assertions are the teachings of Catholicism. I was born and raised catholic, but only recently began to really care about my faith and my relationship with God. As I began to learn and read as much as possible, my faith in the Catholic Church continued to grow. I have always been an avid debater and I have always loved philosophy, but it was not until recently that I have begun to (poorly, I might add) dabble in apologetics and logically defending the faith and truth of catholicism. I appologize if I didn't tell you sooner, I did not realise you had asked.

Well I think that we have discovered one of the obstacles to our understanding. You see Jeff, GOD isn’t Catholic. GOD was not born or raised Catholic. Though GOD is very wise and I am sure GOD has his own opinions about organized religions, GOD doesn’t assert religious doctrine or dogma on people wishing to enter a personal REALationship with him. Another problem to your understanding is that you are trying to come to terms with all of this by blending your faith and truth of Catholicism to a GOD that I am having a relationship with who isn’t Catholic. I am not discrediting or “putting down” the Catholic Church and I am sure the subjects that you are studying are quite fascinating but I do not talk to GOD about apologetics or the Catholic religion because these two subjects are not conducive or relevant to MY spirit or defining WHO I AM or where I want to BE.

Now let me explain to you what GOD has discussed with me about faith.

“Faith is INCORRECT, and is a human-made term. Faith is an excuse bestowed on people by themselves or another individual who is supposed to K(NOW), but doesn't. Never would I ask this of any of MY creations, and I would BE cautious of anyone who was asking it of ME. Anyone asking you to have faith in something because they don't UNDERSTAND something should not BE sharing this belief with other individuals. “

Pretty simple isn’t it? Right to the point, it is one of the qualities I like about GOD.

GOD goes on to explain.

“Faith automatically stops individuals from PROVING UNDERSTANDING for themselves. Faith is another way of saying " you will just have to take my word for it," which is contrary to belief and detrimental to UNDERSTANDING. Faith is not trust or TRUTH. Faith is not free. In fact, faith is very expensive and taxing to the soul that is trying to develop UNDERSTANDING. Get out from under faith. It is not necessary to UNDERSTANDING. It is not necessary to BEing.”

So you see faith in anything is not worth defending.

Now TRUTH on the other hand, if you desire it, is available and worth defending.
Here is what GOD has told me about TRUTH

“TRUTH is also one of the highest forms of LOVE. To give and share TRUTH is a consideration of LOVE. If you have consideration for people, you will find a means of sharing TRUTHs. There is no ONE who is not deserving of TRUTH; that is how ABSOLUTE it is.

And how do we come to our TRUTHS? GOD explains it to me this way.

Belief is not UNDERSTANDING, it is a starting point to UNDERSTANDING. For US to UNDERSTAND, TRULY, WE have to PROVE something to ourselves. Belief is something that WE rely on temporarily until the PROOF manifests into TRUTH. YOU can have beliefs if YOU like. There is nothing INCORRECT about that. It shows YOU have an open mind and a trusting NATURE. These are fine qualities. YOU can have UNDERSTANDING without belief; YOU just relieve the middleman, which is belief. This is a fast way to UNDERSTANDING. It is easy to accumulate many beliefs in one lifetime. This is a very NATURAL human quality. Some people display their beliefs as if they were priceless statues or fine art. Some people wear their beliefs like fancy clothes or exquisite jewelry. They feel a need to express their beliefs in this way. Beliefs help define who a person is. Beliefs come and go, not necessarily through a confirming resolution but through the simple fact that sometimes carrying ALL of these beliefs becomes "extra baggage." Or maybe it is because their current beliefs do not get along with the old ones.

Now if we are to put any belief into any of this what we have been doing so far on these posts is stating our beliefs.

JeffCR07 writes: There are many things that I don't understand about your posts, but the most important one is the one which I have been asking you to explain:
Yet as I showed in my previous post, a perfect being contains all that is good and so must contain the virtues perfectly. The god you describe in your posts lacks justice, and so is imperfect, and so is not God.

As I have explained in my previous posts that even GOD has made mistakes in the past. So GOD may have been imperfect and may have lacked justice at one moment. This is not something to fault GOD with, or fall out of favor from or judge or even misclassify GOD for. Just because GOD has made mistakes doesn’t mean we should refer to him as something differently than the ONE TRUE GOD. The reason that GOD is the ONE TRUE GOD that I have been speaking to is because

1. GOD told me so (again not the strongest evidence going for him)

2. He is the longest living entity that we K(NOW). This is a good thing because in all those moments GOD, if he desired, has probably defined all the qualities (LOVE WISDOM GOODNESS JUSTICE UNDERSTANDING PATIENCE FORGIVENESS) and desires (TO LOVE, SHARE WISDOM, EXPRESS FAIRNESS, TO BE CONSIDERATE) into perfection and is comfortable in the fact of WHO GOD IS. Now did you notice how I wrote “comfortable in the fact of WHO GOD IS” and not comfortable in the fact that JEFF/ PAT/THE CATHOLIC RELIGION/Webster's Dictionary want GOD TO BE?

3 No other entity wants GOD’s job. Nobody wants to BE GOD. If you call on GOD no one else will answer you besides GOD because no one else wants the responsibility of BEing GOD.

GOD doesn’t follow our laws, our logic, our beliefs or even our faiths.

GOD follows GOD”S LAWS, GOD’S LOGIC, and GOD’s TRUTHS.

We don’t follow GOD’s LAWs GOD’s LOGIC or GOD’s TRUTH’s because we are too busy trying to define our own laws, our own logic and our own beliefs so that we can figure out who we want to BE not only as an individuals but as a society.

I will end on this last quote which I think pretty much sums up how I feel about GOD.

“Again, there is no definitive teaching on this, so there is no need to believe as I do, it merely seems to make sense.”
Posted: Aug 3 2004, 08:21 AM by JeffCR07 on DEAR GOD thread [/quote]
Sounds like you read way too much of Piers Anthony .
Whoever you are talking to, he is [u]not[/u] the guy who made the stars and other twinkly things.

So
You claim God isn't perfect and doesn't care for justice or faith. Then he is not much of a god, is he?
There is something in the bible about this: Deuteronomy 5:6.

May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Father to the Son and Sender of the Spirit reveal Himself to you and bless you. Amen

[Guest JeffCR07]

I think, prehaps, it would be wise to refrain from posting any more on this thread - as our discussion is bearing no fruits - and just let the thread die. We should make note that anyone, including Carrdero and Tora, who sincerely wish to engage in ordered, intellegent discussion are more than welcome to do so, and I would be happy to oblige, but we should create a new thread, and start fresh.

[MorphRC]

:-S

[MichaelFilo]

[quote name='carrdero' date='Aug 3 2004, 07:20 PM'] JeffCR07 writes: All of my assertions are the teachings of Catholicism. I was born and raised catholic, but only recently began to really care about my faith and my relationship with God. As I began to learn and read as much as possible, my faith in the Catholic Church continued to grow. I have always been an avid debater and I have always loved philosophy, but it was not until recently that I have begun to (poorly, I might add) dabble in apologetics and logically defending the faith and truth of catholicism. I appologize if I didn't tell you sooner, I did not realise you had asked.

Well I think that we have discovered one of the obstacles to our understanding. You see Jeff, GOD isn’t Catholic. GOD was not born or raised Catholic. Though GOD is very wise and I am sure GOD has his own opinions about organized religions, GOD doesn’t assert religious doctrine or dogma on people wishing to enter a personal REALationship with him. Another problem to your understanding is that you are trying to come to terms with all of this by blending your faith and truth of Catholicism to a GOD that I am having a relationship with who isn’t Catholic. I am not discrediting or “putting down” the Catholic Church and I am sure the subjects that you are studying are quite fascinating but I do not talk to GOD about apologetics or the Catholic religion because these two subjects are not conducive or relevant to MY spirit or defining WHO I AM or where I want to BE.

Now let me explain to you what GOD has discussed with me about faith.

“Faith is INCORRECT, and is a human-made term. Faith is an excuse bestowed on people by themselves or another individual who is supposed to K(NOW), but doesn't. Never would I ask this of any of MY creations, and I would BE cautious of anyone who was asking it of ME. Anyone asking you to have faith in something because they don't UNDERSTAND something should not BE sharing this belief with other individuals. “

Pretty simple isn’t it? Right to the point, it is one of the qualities I like about GOD.

GOD goes on to explain.

. Faith is not trust or TRUTH. Faith is not free. In fact, faith is very expensive and taxing to the soul that is trying to develop UNDERSTANDING. Get out from under faith. It is not necessary to UNDERSTANDING. It is not necessary to BEing.”

So you see faith in anything is not worth defending.

Now TRUTH on the other hand, if you desire it, is available and worth defending.
Here is what GOD has told me about TRUTH

“TRUTH is also one of the highest forms of LOVE. To give and share TRUTH is a consideration of LOVE. If you have consideration for people, you will find a means of sharing TRUTHs. There is no ONE who is not deserving of TRUTH; that is how ABSOLUTE it is.

And how do we come to our TRUTHS? GOD explains it to me this way.

Belief is not UNDERSTANDING, it is a starting point to UNDERSTANDING. For US to UNDERSTAND, TRULY, WE have to PROVE something to ourselves. Belief is something that WE rely on temporarily until the PROOF manifests into TRUTH. YOU can have beliefs if YOU like. There is nothing INCORRECT about that. It shows YOU have an open mind and a trusting NATURE. These are fine qualities. YOU can have UNDERSTANDING without belief; YOU just relieve the middleman, which is belief. This is a fast way to UNDERSTANDING. It is easy to accumulate many beliefs in one lifetime. This is a very NATURAL human quality. Some people display their beliefs as if they were priceless statues or fine art. Some people wear their beliefs like fancy clothes or exquisite jewelry. They feel a need to express their beliefs in this way. Beliefs help define who a person is. Beliefs come and go, not necessarily through a confirming resolution but through the simple fact that sometimes carrying ALL of these beliefs becomes "extra baggage." Or maybe it is because their current beliefs do not get along with the old ones.

Now if we are to put any belief into any of this what we have been doing so far on these posts is stating our beliefs.

JeffCR07 writes: There are many things that I don't understand about your posts, but the most important one is the one which I have been asking you to explain:
Yet as I showed in my previous post, a perfect being contains all that is good and so must contain the virtues perfectly. The god you describe in your posts lacks justice, and so is imperfect, and so is not God.

As I have explained in my previous posts that even GOD has made mistakes in the past. So GOD may have been imperfect and may have lacked justice at one moment. This is not something to fault GOD with, or fall out of favor from or judge or even misclassify GOD for. Just because GOD has made mistakes doesn’t mean we should refer to him as something differently than the ONE TRUE GOD. The reason that GOD is the ONE TRUE GOD that I have been speaking to is because

1. GOD told me so (again not the strongest evidence going for him)

2. He is the longest living entity that we K(NOW). This is a good thing because in all those moments GOD, if he desired, has probably defined all the qualities (LOVE WISDOM GOODNESS JUSTICE UNDERSTANDING PATIENCE FORGIVENESS) and desires (TO LOVE, SHARE WISDOM, EXPRESS FAIRNESS, TO BE CONSIDERATE) into perfection and is comfortable in the fact of WHO GOD IS. Now did you notice how I wrote “comfortable in the fact of WHO GOD IS” and not comfortable in the fact that JEFF/ PAT/THE CATHOLIC RELIGION/Webster's Dictionary want GOD TO BE?

3 No other entity wants GOD’s job. Nobody wants to BE GOD. If you call on GOD no one else will answer you besides GOD because no one else wants the responsibility of BEing GOD.

GOD doesn’t follow our laws, our logic, our beliefs or even our faiths.

GOD follows GOD”S LAWS, GOD’S LOGIC, and GOD’s TRUTHS.

We don’t follow GOD’s LAWs GOD’s LOGIC or GOD’s TRUTH’s because we are too busy trying to define our own laws, our own logic and our own beliefs so that we can figure out who we want to BE not only as an individuals but as a society.

I will end on this last quote which I think pretty much sums up how I feel about GOD.

“Again, there is no definitive teaching on this, so there is no need to believe as I do, it merely seems to make sense.”
Posted: Aug 3 2004, 08:21 AM by JeffCR07 on DEAR GOD thread [/quote]
I have two quotes of which to refer to, just to show you carderro that what you are speaking of is nonesense.

[quote]1. GOD told me so (again not the strongest evidence going for him)[/quote]

[quote]“Faith automatically stops individuals from PROVING UNDERSTANDING for themselves. Faith is another way of saying " you will just have to take my word for it," which is contrary to belief and detrimental to UNDERSTANDING.
[/quote]

In the first quote, you say that your god told you so. In the second quote you say that faith stops individuals from PROVING UNDERSTANDING for themselves. Now if your entire truths that have been given to you can be justified only by the fact that your demon told you it is true, but your rebutal to faith is that it requires no understanding, and is in fact detrimental to understand, then how come the only thing we have to go on to believe in your demon is faith in that what you say is what it said, and what it said is true?

[carrdero]

JeffCR07 writes Your "god" is clearly not the One True God, nor is he even a good and just God. The most that can be said of this entity is that he makes you think you are free of culpability. If your heart is truly this hardened against the True God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the God of the Cross, then there is nothing that we can do, but pray for your return. We shall not, however, cast you our pearls any longer.

I'm not a bit surprised that you would come to this conclusion and I have understood that this is the answer that you were seeking all along but I can assure your assumptions are a bit unfair.
When I was talking to you Jeff I wasn’t contemplating if this was indeed the ONE TRUE JEFF. I have met other Jeffs in my lifetime and this JEFF didn’t resemble those Jeffs. So am I to be so unfair, so inconsiderate, that because you didn’t act or respond like the other Jeffs I know that this could be in no way the ONE TRUE JEFF and that you cannot possibly exist or be capable of having a sincere and honest perspective on life or Being Jeff? If this example sounds lame and impractical for you Jeff its because it is lame and impractical but regardless it is the same approach that you used on me . I don’t treat entities like that. I take them at face value, I listen to what they have to say and believe every word (believing is free) until I decide whether it is appropriate to my spirit or not. The same thing could be said about this entity. Maybe it is another entity who just likes to imitate GOD but at this moment I doubt it. Ask me again tomorrow and I may tell you that I moved on. I am not bound to any entity. One thing that history has a fondness for is killing the messenger instead of listening to the message. Right now the message is the most reasonable theory on life and living that I have heard in many years. It is not new, none of the material that I have learned from this BEing is original or revolutionary. It was the way that it was explained to me that makes sense and until something comes along that is more appealing to my spirit and conscience this seems to appeal to me at the moment. If the Catholic religion and their definition of GOD is the way that GOD feels comfortable to you by all means continue but I feel that you are a searcher JEFF and that you will keep digging. Both GOD and I agree that this is healthy and NATURAL and something that you should continue to do if you so desire.

cmotherofpirl writes:So You claim God isn't perfect and doesn't care for justice or faith. Then he is not much of a god, is he?

That is what I have been trying to tell everyone! GOD is not what YOU make GOD out to be. If it’s a GOD that you want to worship there are plenty of entities existing physically and spiritually who would adore and are awaiting your worship. If it is a GOD that you want to protect and save you, there are many organized religions offering deals on this right now but only if you act quickly. You want promises and prophetic visions of Apocalyptic destruction I am sure that these gods exist and are abundant. What is it that you want- an Afro-American, Asian, Italian GOD. They got them. They got GODs that are in constant battle with evil if you so desire. This religion right over here says they got a three for one deal. You want a righteous GOD with perfect justice, I know some people who can introduce you to some.
Just because some people want this quality in GOD or that quality in GOD doesn’t mean that GOD is going to perform or deliver and live for your expectations. GOD exists with or without your hope, your dreams, your faith, your beliefs, your expectations. GOD is whoever GOD wants to BE.

Aloysius writes; Again I assert we do not have the same God, mine is the Holy One who revealed Himself to Israel and came down to earth to free us from sin. Yours is the one who just makes you feel comfortable.

I think that everyone should be and is comfortable with their GOD. That is why I think different organized religions exist. So that people can find a GOD that they and their spirit are comfortable with. That is why there are so many conversions to other religions because people do not feel comfortable and want more from another religions depiction of GOD. That is why Patrickism will never be a popular religion because the GOD of Patrickism isn’t offering more but less. In fact the GOD of Patrickism isn’t offering anything except friendship and warm conversation. Sometimes simple can be good.

MichaelFilo writes carderro's personal relationship with the devil is very comparable to that of Chris Zewe's (we all remember him, right?). From what he's told me of his pre-wiccan/atheiest period is that a diety revealed himself to him. The diety said he did not care about humans, and that the diety wanted certain things of him (never told me what they were). He said that the diety came to him.

This doesn’t sound anything like me at all.

Edited August 4, 2004 by carrdero

[carrdero]

MichaelFilo writes: In the first quote, you say that your god told you so. In the second quote you say that faith stops individuals from PROVING UNDERSTANDING for themselves. Now if your entire truths that have been given to you can be justified only by the fact that your demon told you it is true, but your rebutal to faith is that it requires no understanding, and is in fact detrimental to understand, then how come the only thing we have to go on to believe in your demon is faith in that what you say is what it said, and what it said is true?

Because I have not started the procedure to make these beliefs my TRUTH. I never said that any of this is true I explained that they were my beliefs. Faith is not beliefs, beliefs is not TRUTH. TRUTH must be proven. How can you defend and support a TRUTH when you don't have irrifutable proof to back it up. Do you have any proof to back up the TRUTHS that you proclaim? Do you have any sound reasoning behind the beliefs that you proclaim? People are sounding off what they believe to be the TRUTH all the time. I don't accept them as TRUTHs, I behold them as beliefs. If I put faith in the fact that GOD told me he is the ONE TRUE GOD then I stop there and say okay you are the ONE TRUE GOD. If I believe that this is the ONE TRUE GOD my belief can go either way. Either I can believe this is the ONE TRUE GOD or I can't. But I will not accept it as one of my TRUTHS until I have proven or disproven in one way or another. Even though I still have to make this a TRUTH or UNTRUTH to myself the fact remains that this BEing has already accepted that he/she/it is GOD and there is really nothing I can say or do to effect that BEings TRUTH.

[Aloysius]

okay, someone please just kill this thread by closing it. did i just hear carrdero try to justify multiple different gods? cause we all know there are multiple different jeffs in the world, jeff is but a name, but there is only one God.

[Guest JeffCR07]

I second the notion to have a moderator close this thread. Not because someone is espousing different beliefs, but because this conversation is a.) getting ridiculous, b.) has been substantially off topic for a long time, and most of all because it is c.) getting ridiculous.

[nikkan_hanil]

Love/forgive the devil? No. Case closed.

Someone please close this like the Vatican closes a deadpan "feminist" arguement.

[cmotherofpirl]

This thread is offically dead, because only prayer and fasting will have any effect from this point on.