If God is so powerful why would he want to be miserable?

Question

Why create Satan? Why not just give us free will to choose what we want to do in our lifetimes without anyone being hurt? Debate is one thing. Tragedy and horror are another. There are certainly an infinite amount of choices we can make that will make us happy throughout our lifetimes. Since we cannot be and do all of them our free will will extend until the end of our lifetimes. Why throw the awful stuff in? I could never consider anyone a God who puts us all into such terrible situations or creates some being (Satan) to do so.

I am an atheist, which shouldn't matter in the least.

Please give me a real answer; NOT one that completely avoids the reality of the question itself. Thank you.

Answer 1

God is not miserable as you are stating again. You just do not know what you are talking about.

God did not create Satan but existed to be against God.Remember tht there is always an opponent on a fight. God is for the good deeds and his opponent is Satan who is for the bad deeds.

God gives you the right to follow either right or wrong or good or bad. You maygo to the bad deeds if that is your desire and you may go to the good deeds if that is your desire. So you have to chose either of the two, bad or good.

anyway if you still believe, its up for you. To be with the satan or to be with God and because you do not believe God , preferab ly you are on the side of Satan and that is very clear. Just select from the two living spirits. God or Satan.
jtm

Answer 2

Satan was created by God as an archangel. The same as Michael and Gabriel. Satan made the choice to try to overthrow God. We are given the free will to choose what we want to do in our life time however, we always make wrong choices and hurt ourselves.

True happiness is found within a boundary of protection. Our choice of submitting to God will last beyond our life time here on this earth and will enable us to have eternal life. Jesus has told us that He came to give us life and to give it more abundantly. To me, that means that He wants happiness for us.

The awful stuff is here because we don't follow God's way. We, because of our sin nature follow our own way which gets us into trouble.

It is your choice you may accept Jesus or Satan. There is no in between.

P.S. Something to think about. Our time here on this earth is like a vapor passing through in mere seconds. Our time is so short that we are forgotten in the minds of about two generations of ancestors. Is this life the important one or is it the next one?

Answer 3

It's very, very difficult for people to look at themselves as guilty and standing condemned before the Lord. There are books available that discuss the concept of Satan, but the real issue is whether Man is totally depraved, mostly depraved, partially depraved or not depraved at all. Too many people look at Man as not at all depraved, we're all "pretty good" by our own standards.

Not by God's. Otherwise He's just "pretty holy." And the natural conclusion we have to draw is that God is miserable, sadly places the ones that don't choose Him, into Hell. And He pleads with us to come to Him, and at that point, he may as well step off the throne and pray to us. And He's unfair, but loves us anyway, and I can see why some folks (like you, the atheist) want to take this whole Christianity thing and throw it in the trash can.

How about an almighty God, who decrees His sovereign will and guides the footsteps of the regenerate and the reprobate, worthy of praise and honor and glory in his election to salvation AND in his reprobation of the ALREADY condemned (John 3:19 I believe) to the fires of hell? Every knee shall bow to Him, he is not miserable in his rule of his creation. He saves us in spite of ourselves, sets down a law we can love, and we can even boldly approach the throne through the work of His Son on the cross.

Answer 4

At first Satan was Lucifer, a Spirit being and an angel. When he sought the glory that rightfully belonged to God, he was cast out and became miserable and evil. As far as having evil, we could not have free will without it. Think of it this way; How can you know what is good without knowing what is bad? If there were no evil we would have no "basis for comparison" to put it another way. I could continue with my opinions on the matter, but I don't think that's what you want.

Answer 5

"Satan" is just the personification of humans' unique, inner sadism and cruelty toward one another. They can't face the fact that we're the ONLY species (exc. for chimps!) that kill and maim each other for NO GOOD REASON, so, since most humans are still primitive and brainwashed, they believe "The Devil made them do it!" BULL!

The more people buy into this mythology, the less responsibility they have to assume, which will be our destruction.

As for the concept of a "loving" god who allows misery and suffering, that's just a byproduct of the same cruel impulses, with an attempt to justify it. It makes NO sense at all.

Answer 6

First of all, I agree that your being an atheist shouldn't matter in the least. I even suspect that if there is a God, she finds it kinda refreshing.

OK - as for the question - I am so not smart enough to have formulated an answer of my own, but I know of someone who made a very good try: Simone Weil. She blends Christianity and a deterministic perspective that she picked up largely from the Greeks, and concludes that the creation of our world was actually God's "abdication". I'm only mentioning her to you as an author who presents a highly original outlook on some of the issues you've mentioned. I'm not trying to convert you (and Weil's version of Christianity isn't even close to what any church preaches anyway).

To summarize Weil's position way too briefly and therefore very irresponsibly: In order to give us a real world, instead of just a puppet play posing as one, God had to forego any intervention in the universe. Divine goodness can be experienced mystically, and this can change a person's whole outlook and personality, but as for the physical realities of the universe, including the incredibly cruel ones, we're pretty much on our own. "God has separated force and the good in this world and kept the good for himself." By turning toward the good we can know and participate in something greater than ourselves, but we still have to live our daily life in the world of force, which is often a tragic place.

It's a very stark and idiosyncratic viewpoint, but it is one that has helped me in my ongoing search for meaning. Weil uses God language constantly, which you might find kind of annoying, but you don't have to share her perspective in every way to take something from her work.

Just a suggestion, and SW's works aren't difficult to get hold of. Good luck with your questioning, anyway.

Answer 7

I'm finding it entertaining to try to answer questions devoted to Christianity against my own beliefs.

I think the true nature of the universe is what we would call cruel and horrific, but that a lot of the things that are painful about life are entirely necessary. It just takes one group of creatures messing with their own food supply a bit too much and getting an overpopulation problem to enact some of the bloodier aspects of the beauty that is life.

Answer 8

Hello Friend,

1. God did not create Satan.
God made him an angel, he made himself satan.

2. God gave us free will because he loves us so much, he wants us to make choices in our lives.

3. He doesn't throw in all the awful stuff, we bring a lot of it on ourselves and satan throws in most of it.
Well wait, I lied, God will throw in some awful stuff but only because we are ALL called to suffer, everyone goes through times of suffering and we go through them to make us stronger and to draw us closer to God.
We can choose to deal with suffering by turning away from God and turning towards evil things but I think we all know that that wont help at all. He puts us through terrible situations so we can be humble enough to ask for God's help and get out. (HA! -- Actually, it's all about your outlook. Think of suffering as an opportunity to grow closer to Christ. Look at every time in the OT when the Jews were closest to God -- only when they were persecuted. Thank God for suffering otherwise we would have no reason to approach Him!) My friend Matt said this, I think it pretty much covers it all:

"the way i look at it is if we did not have suffering, then all of life would be good and happy(kinda like this place called heaven) so if earth is perfect why would we want to work to to go to heaven? also since death causes suffering(both for the person dieing and those around them, it is necessary for mortal life to exist and in a world withouut suffering there really wouldnt eb death so again, why/how would you go to heaven?)

also, life would be really boring without some form of suffering we wouldnt appreciate teh gifts God has given us at all because everything would be good anyway. there would be no "really happy" events cause everything would be happy. the emotional graph of you life would be a flat line

also without suffering there can be no love, since we must suffer in order to better the one we love. all in all suffering is an important part of our lives and it would be very different, but not better, without it "
he's right.

also know that God gave us free will hence we have a choice, we have the choice and option to do right or wrong. We can lessen the pain and distress of this world by choosing to do right. And sure God gave us free will but we are ultimately called to do God's will, he just gave you the option not to. But c'mon he is GOD! I think he knows whats best for us. So if you can trust him enough to let go of your life and choose his will over your own you'll be fine.

Answer 9

EVERYTHING GOD CREATED IS GOOD. MAN HAS ALWAYS HAD FREE WILL TO THINK AND DO AS HE WISHES. MAN ALSO HAS THE ABILITY TO CO-CREATE WITH GOD.WE CREATE WHAT KIND OF LIFE WE ARE GOING TO HAVE BY OUR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS. WE ALL KNOW THAT IF WE PUT OUR HAND INTO FIRE IT WILL BURN. WHAT WE'RE NOT GOOD AT IS RECOGNIZING CAUSE AND EFFECT WHEN YEARS SEPARATE THE TWO. SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING SATAN IS SYMBOLIC FOR THE FLESH AND BLOOD MATERIAL MAN. THE WAR IS BETWEEN MORTAL MAN AND SPIRITUAL MAN. WHEN WE THINK AND ACT LIKE THE MORTAL MAN WE SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.CAN ANYONE BLAME GOD FOR THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT? AGAIN THIS IS THE CONSEQUENCES OF MAN'S ACTIONS FOR DECADES.WE HAVE CREATED THE CONDITIONS THAT EXIST TODAY.GOD IS NOT A PUPPETEER. HE CREATES.

Answer 10

God did not create Satan; He created Lucifer (the most beautiful of all the angels and the highest ranking). He became Satan when he was cast down to earth together with 1/3 of the angels. Pride without repentance caused him his fall. Sometimes relying on our own fallible opinions, erratic choices, and willful disobedience cause us to stumble and pave the way for having bad and unfortunate consequences. These tragedies and disasters, wars and afflictions, drought and famines, these are signs that we do not do the will of God. "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord."