LittleNipper wrote:How can the Eternal God have a created angel (albeit a very powerful one) for a brother?
Does it really matter? The story of Cinderella is equally good whether she is wearing glass or fur slippers, although it changes a bit if she is wearing Birkenstocks.
If you think about it, the Mormon Satan isn't such a bad guy. God asked for a plan to bring his children home and Satan offered a very practical, effective solution. Basically, it is the solution the church seems to wish they could implement, considering the removal of "free" from free agency and all.
The plan that was chosen is a pretty bad one, considering that the goal was to bring the kids home. It starts with God loosing a third of them right off the bat. Then he sends the rest to a foreign planet with no memory of him to test them on their obedience to him (!), but he fails to let 99.99% of them know about his plan, or that he even exists. He gives them urges and appetites but he puts another notch in his smiting belt every time they succumb to them and he outright slaughters a lot of them for not being adequately impressed by him, and again, most of them didn't even know about him.
But in the end, Satan is still the star of the show because if he wasn't stupid enough to keep whispering in our ears to sip some iced tea or touch our naughty bits God's chosen plan would have fallen apart the minute he plunked two naked people in a garden.
In the end, God's whole plan hinged entirely on the cooperation of his greatest enemy, the talking snake who's plan was rejected in the first place. Brilliant.
Thank goodness a tiny percent of us really special people were born into just the right circumstances to benefit from this secret plan.
"Be excellent to each other." - Bill and Ted “The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” - Mark Twain
Of course, the idea of Satan has changed over the years, but......
When Paul said that, he was referring to the drama that Jesus played out while on earth.
The creator in this story was named Yaltabaoth, an bastard child of sorts of the Mother God. Not from adultery, just without her consort. He wasn't quite right, but still was a God. He created man, (after several tries) and then was tricked into breathing life into man, which made man like God. God was not pleased, and placed a deep sleep in man to keep him down, but Eve broke through the veil and saw the truth.
God then cursed Eve and actually tried kill Adam and Eve, and their children. Note the flood....And stuff.
They worshipped in fear, and constantly resisted and rebelled against God.
The Savior, was here and sent by the Mother God, to rescue us. It's a cool story, but when Paul said that, he was referring to the creator, but was suggesting that our creator was actually our enemy and that Christ was here to save us.
The way you described it reminds me of Greek mythology or any other system to explain spirits/group energies. They're probably in reality not as personified - more expansive, unlimited to time or space. But it helps to relate to something (like charcters or people) we're familiar with.
The idea that our Creator is our enemy (the basis of Christianity today) never sat well with me.
To me, everything happens for a reason. In part, the Bible implies that God is the living truth. To me, this means that Life is alive, that it is all one. To separate little independent consciousness out of a big one, the idea of rebelling against the creator seems necessary, sort of how teenagers rebel against parents.
I personally see God as pure love, but I can see where love might create illusions designed to create strong souls. A scripture once said, "I give you weakness to make you strong." That would allow almost anything.
To me, everything happens for a reason. In part, the Bible implies that God is the living truth. To me, this means that Life is alive, that it is all one. To separate little independent consciousness out of a big one, the idea of rebelling against the creator seems necessary, sort of how teenagers rebel against parents.
I personally see God as pure love, but I can see where love might create illusions designed to create strong souls. A scripture once said, "I give you weakness to make you strong." That would allow almost anything.
It makes sense that we make ourselves enemies of God, but not visa versa, do you think? Then again the kingdom of God is within you.
I see God as pure love too. And I define love as appreciating or acknowledging what is, while striving for what's best, through trial & error. What I think is best, has often been wrong (illusional), but I try anyway, and learn - after failing enough times. :) I don't know if I've gotten past the idea that it's all illusion. Have you?
As one person put it, "that which is seen is temporary, that which is unseen is eternal."
As I see it, truth is eternal, unchanging, mathematical, without body. But it is everwhere, nothing can escape it.....except by illusion. But even the illusion does not change the truth, merely how it seems.
As I like to explain it, God the father is truth. God the Mother is the experience, or reactive consciousness. The truth cannot change, but consciousness can do whatever it wants, but there is always a price for ignoring the truth.
But this is why the female is often blamed for the sin. Only by ignoring a part of the truth was the the universe given body. If you take matter away from nothing, you also produce antimatter. Their true sum is always zero. The true sum of the universe is zero. When it is all over, all that is really left is the experience in some eternal form of consciousness information. Living data, imprinted on some law of nature that is our eternal form.
