If the Christian god loves us and dosn't want us to be hurt...?

Question

...Why does he allow Satan to exist at all?

He created Satan, didn't he? After the angel rebelled, why didn't this god just cause him to cease to exist?

Hell, why didn't he make it so Lucifer had never existed in the first place? No Devil, no sin, right?

Why did he give the evilest of all beings access to the world he created as well as his own kingdom where he can torture this god's own children, whom he supposedly loves?

Why go through all the trouble of sending a representation of yourself down to earth to get people to believe what you want them to and not go to Hell, instead of just, oh I don't know, blinking Hell out of existance altogether?

Why did the Christian god create evil and allow it free reign if he wants us to be good, happy, and safe?

Either he can't destroy Lucifer, which means he's not perfect and all powerful, or he is unwilling to do so, which means he, for some reason, wants us to suffer.

Why are we supposed to worship this god, again?

Chi Guy, but he controls the devil?

The devil is the one who tempts us to do evil, am I right? So why doesn't he get rid of the tempter? We'd still have free will.

girl1991, so your god is tricking us? He's created this puppet to lure us away, and when we do, he goes "HA! You never really loved me! Down to hell with you!" Is that what you're saying

MiZz SaAk, why? Why even create evil if you love your children and want them to be happy?

What a lovely cop out, mamapie2u. Well if someone is allowing the embodiment of evil free reign to cause torment all over the globe, you'd better bet your sweet butt I'm going to question it. That right there is evil, to me.

J., I've read the bible. That's why I'm asking these questions. because the bible never gave a satisfactory answer.

Answer 1

What I want to kow is why god allows satan to interfere with our free will yet he sits back and does nothing. It seems to me that satan is more powerful than god.

I am sure this is Eve's fault too. It seems in christianity there are two answers to almost all questions 1) "bible god did it" 2) it's all because man sinned so god has punished the last 300 generations of humans and will continue to punish us for eternity.
God makes me all warm and fuzzy inside..

Answer 2

In order to understand this, we have to go back to the beginning. God's original purpose was for humans to live in peace on a beautiful paradise earth. (Genesis 1:28) He only gave them one law. (Genesis 2:16,17) “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.” As their creator, he had the right to give them this law.

Satan lied to Eve and told her that if she ate from the tree of knowledge, she would not die and that she would be like God knowing good and bad. So she ate the fruit and gave some to Adam and he ate the fruit. When they did this, they joined in a rebellion against God. They in effect told him they didn't want to follow his law and they wanted to rule themselves.

This challange, whether God had the right to rule or humans could do it themselves, would take time to prove. So God stepped back and has let humans try every form of government. What has been the result? They have all failed, the earth is being ruined and humans have even brought more suffering to other humans.

To add to the trouble is Satan. The Bible tells us at 1 John 5:19, "We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the [power of the] wicked one" Satan is in control of this world right now, and because of the challange made in Eden, God has allowed it. However, he will not permit this to go on forever.

You ask why did God allow this, after all, he could have just killed Satan and Adam and Eve, right? Well, no. If he had done this, what would have been proved? That he is more powerful. Satan never challenged God's power. Remeber, the challenge he made would take time to prove. Don't forget, there was also an audience. The Bible indicates that hundreds of millions of angels were present, Psalm 103:20. God needed to allow this challenge go to its completion so that it could never be brought up again. There would be no doubt in the minds of any of creation that humans need God's rule.

God's original purpose never changed. He still wants humans to live in a paradise earth.
For a more detailed explaination, you can go to the following article:
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20010515/article_02.htm

Answer 3

If God were to create a being to live forever and give that being free will, and then blink that being out of existence when he disobeyed, free will would merely be a lie - an illusion.

But God honors the dignity of our choices - even when we (and the angels) choose to rebel against him.

Instead of blinking them out of existence (which may not even be possible - how are we to know?) He dignifies their choice by allowing them to live the life they've chosen - in rebellion and seperation from God.

So we have powerful angelic beings who are hellbent on evil and destruction of everything God creates. So God created a prison for them called hell where there is eternal torment and seperation from God. Hell was created for the demons, NO HUMAN BEING EVER HAS TO GO THERE - that is why Jesus died - to ransom humanity from the captivity of our own sins.

But you see hell is a necessary containment field for evil - it can't just be blinked out of existence or like you said in your question, or else evil would have access to the good forever. In order to have a heaven where there is no more evil, evil must be contained.

You say that God created evil, but he did not. Evil is the absence of God - it "exists" only when a creature consciously moves away from the Lord. Light exists, but darkness is merely the absence of light - it is the same with evil.

Answer 4

Lucifer wasn't created evil. He became jealous of God, so God banished him from Heaven.

God does love us all, but He gave us free will... This means we are to prove our faith to Him by resisting the temptations that Satan sends our way. Unfortunately, this free will also causes people to doubt God and question His power, just like you.

You ask, why did God go through the trouble of sending Jesus to Earth? Maybe Jesus was sent because less and less people were believing in God... Maybe He doesn't just "blink" Hell out of existance because He is angry at us for crucifying His son!

If you read the Bible (or at least Revelation) it says that God will destroy Satan in the Last Days.

Answer 5

Tough to say. Te whole idea of satan and god never really maed any sense. If god was all powerful then why was he afraid of satan? Surely an all powerful god can defeat someone that he created. Also if god is all forgiving he would have forgiven satan.
In short god vs satan comes down to being nothing more than religious fallacy

Answer 6

Because the Christian god has the biggest yet most fragile ego ever conceived. He likes to set up these scenarios so that we can all figure ways to ask him for help/love him/worship him etc. Only things like "destroying Satan" which, even to the Christian world view, would go pretty far towards making the universe a better place, aren't part of his "plan" whatever that is.
Another answer of course is that the whole story is much less interesting if you don't give people something to fear. I'll let you decide which response you prefer.

Answer 7

So I suppose it’s okay if people assumes a lot of bad things about you too, even though they don’t know much about you and they’d just be thinking in their little boxes? Why hear your side of the story when we could just take one look at you and know what you're all about? After all, we're all logical and intelligent beings...

How about if you sincerely ask God first, give Him a chance to answer, and then talk?

Answer 8

okay, stop seeing it everything as arbitrary "good" and "evil" first of all. through everything you deem "evil", good eventaully comes out of it. I will get to that later.

First of all, you must realize that everything that happens has various degrees of "good". when you share toys or something "its sort of good". when you save a life, its "very good". now when you have everything deemed as good, you may question, "how about murder and stealing, how are these good?". Lets look out of the immediate context for a moment. Lets look at the v-tech incident. Many people died, not a pleasant situation at all. Through this, we learn from these events and help prevent that in the future. Because of one incident, how many future students will be saved from these kinds of shootings? so in the end, was it ultimately good or bad? therefore, how can you deem everything as "good" and "bad"?

Lets take the example of "hot" and "cold". No matter how "cold" it gets, when does the temperature register as "cold"? temperature is measuring heat energy, and you cannot measure heat energy if there is none. same for good and evil. there are varying degrees of Good. Evil is just a term we use to discribe a situation in which something bad has happened in the present situation. Good still comes out of it eventually. Therefore, if you must assign platonic values to good and evil, making an analogy to the positive negative number line, you would still never be able to come up with "an act of pure evil". Even though you had bad intentions, the end result will always be good.

Answer 9

I'm a muslim and I gave you my opinion of the devil.At first he wasn't bad and reside in Heaven as chief of the Angel.he was a very holy genie different than the angel but able to be promoted as chief cause he is like us,has lust,greeds similar to human but unlike angel,does not have those attribute built inside them.So the devil resist all temptation and was rewarded and promoted.Before God mention anything about human being,the angel heard a rumours that somebody from Heaven is about to be sent down as a great leader on Earth.The rumours spread among the angel that it will probably be the chief of the angel and the genie was from earth,later promoted into heaven.And the genie really thinks that he is the one that God was refering to cause he is very familiar on Earth.So the angel asked the genie what new changes he is going to implement on Earth so the story on.Then God created Adam,the first human being and introduce to all residents of heaven and the genie was heart broken.The angels probably smile at the genie but you can guess the feelings.Later God commanded al residents to pay respect by bowing down their head to Adam,God latest creation but the genie refused and argue on seniority,in who is better creation.God says you are not fit to be in Heaven and demoted the genie,asking him to leave the heaven at once.The genie ask "God" and God answer "what?!",the genie said that he is not happy that God chose Adam over him by asking him to lower and bow down to Adam and he wants a chance to prove that human being are not fit to be leader on Earth.The genie ask for longevity until end of this planet livespan so that he can seek revenge on the whole entire race of humans for the trouble Adam had cost him losing his job and kick out of heaven.And God said "you are one of those person that i will prolong your live until end of Planet Earth livespan "so the game begins.God only kick him out of heaven but the genie wanted to seek revenge.so now we know why God tells us to beware of the Devil and I hope I have shed some light over the matter.

Answer 10

I have thought about this many times myself. (if your wondering, i'm one of jehovah's witnesses so....yeah, just thought id throw that out there cause..well, i have my reasons)
try going back to genesis. what happened? adam...eve...tree of life....DONT EAT....eat anyway...disobedience....kicked out of paradise. am i correct? now think about what satan said to eve. "is it really true that god said not to eat from this tree?....(now this part isnt a direct quotation, look in your own bible or hit me up for the word for word) for he knows that in the very day of your consuming it you will be just like him, knowing good from bad" what is satan implying? that god is holding something back from them? that god was a liar? that they did not need god at all, that all they needed was to go out on their own and they would be just fine? yes. that is exactly what he's implying. now think of it like this wonder girl. say you had a kid. now imagine you telling that kid to... i dont know...do something important(fill in the blank)... and your kid says "No, i dont need you"....do you force your kid to do it that way? yeah, you do. but will that little kid think you did that because it was the best way to do it, or because you were afraid his way might be better? that's basically human kind and god's relationship in a nutshell. now god didnt force us to follow him, because that would be like proving the devil is right. so, the reason we have so many problems is because "man is dominating man to his injury"(dont get me wrong, the devil plays a part in this too). how did i reach this conclusion? who rules the world? men. who are the atheists? men. who in the first place said we dont need god? satan. who agreed? men. who is to blame? men.



your next question must be: BUT WHY DIDNT GOD FORSEE THIS HAPPENING?

now dont call into question god's foreseeing power. but he didnt know this would happen. now what if god knew adam and eve were going to screw this up? would he have created man in the first place? so, why didnt forsee it? dont you think, if he had created adam and eve, knowing that they were going to screw up,that wouldve made god seem 1-untrusting? 2- cruel because who would give something so great knowing they were just going to throw it away?



BUT WHY DIDNT GOD STOP SATAN?

imagine you are an inventor. you have just made this shiny new robot that will compete in a battlebots competition. here you are in the arena and here comes your opponet. do you just leave the competition because you dont want your robot to get messed up? or do you stay there to see if your little robot cant handle it and come through for you? BAM! there's gods scenario right there. but what happened?

EVE MESSED IT UP.



okay, i hope even with my interjections this had some value to you....if not and you are laughing at me...while you read this....at least you got a good laugh. :)