Is God the good guy?

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Oberon

My own opinion is that there is no such thing as the Devil, but it is a need by humanity to blame everything that goes wrong on something. God? Well, something started the Big Bang off, probably the collapse of the universe before us, but then what started that one? Something sparked it all off somewhere, what? Well, I don't have the answer there. I do feel that there is a level of existence beyond which we can comprehend, that is to do with the soul of all creatures...the giant atom perhaps as George Carlin put it. We come from it, we walk this earth and then we go back to it, call it heaven, call it reincarnation, call it whatever you want...many will call it a load of rubbish but that's ok too.

Of course, there's always the chance I'm wrong, heck, there's the chance we're all wrong and as such we are all doomed to suffer in the hellfires of eternity...although to some of us on this planet, I suspect that the hellfires of eternity would be a welcome respite to the hell that already exists on this planet...because to be honest with you, we are far, far, far better at creating hell than Lucifer will ever be.

It's rare that we have to go very far before you'll post something insightful and eloquent; once more, you have proven that.

I know this much: I find the world - indeed, all of creation - so much more amazing now that I've outgrown the model of a Creator's "Intelligent Design". Notice that Heaven represented eternal reward, which would be yours for suffering the abuses of power, where Hell would be your reward for resisting them. Convenient, at least if you're the one with the power. This is the entire principle behind Manifest Destiny, and the Western World's largely done away with that concept. Why not the "religion" behind it? Because it still works to keep the sheep in line - I mean, seriously - Christianity even calls it's followers sheep, for pity's sake.