Why doesn't God allow you to worship anyone else?

These are not necessarily my own opinions, nor are they not. Just putting them out there for the sake of friendly and wholesome adversarial argument

Would Satan teach us to be kind and caring? I don't know, based on what the bible says, probably not. But the fact is, it doesn't matter what the book says, but its effect. That's what satan really cares about, not words. Christianity led us into a dark age which set us back for hundreds of years. The pagans were far more inquiring and open-minded because, they were allowed to be. The science and knowledge of ancient greece, rome and egypt were the most advanced in the world, yet we plummeted into the dark ages when the pursuit of reason was abandoned for piousness. What better disguise for satan's work than a holy book? What better disguise than as a benificent god? I can think of none.

Think about it - the kindgom of heaven is coming, so this world is not important. Regardless whether or not that was the actual message, that's how people interpreted it. What greater setback to human knowledge and wellbeing could be conceived? Regard Aquinas, the pinnacle of Christian thought:
"With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death."
This is just one of the interpretations of the religion, by one of the cleverer guys in history. Imagine the interpretations of an ordinary guy on the street! From an impartial perspective of someone watching the course of the centuries since B.C times, this could very well be the work of a 'dark lord' who wants to corrupt humanity. Regardless of what the book actually says and means, the bible and many other religious texts has only served to set people apart.

Yes, it has given a few of us compassion and a higher purpose, but knowing the vast majority of humanity are not capable of understanding the teachings a dark power would know that exclusivism and religious high-mindedness leads to terrible things. So now we have priests thinking they have impunity for abusing children because they can be 'saved' following a brief prayer. If you think that example is the minority, think the Crusades, the loss of vast knowledge and book-burnings at the library of Alexandria, genocides, the destruction of pagan temples, disempowerment of africans and native cultures everywhere, executions and witch-burnings, invasion of lands and destruction of cultures, et cetera.

And that's just christianity - what about the other monotheistic religions?
I'm not picking on christianity exclusively. If you were planning the downfall of human civilization, you would have done well to come up with such a devious plot as monotheistic religion, a network of them all scrambling for dominance. You could not have done better than to close people's minds off to true reality and foster a stunted and superstitious belief in the supernatural to which the 'worldly' takes second place. So yes - to answer your question, satan may indeed be capable of such evil. He can be hardly capable of anything else.

 

yes.

satan wants to manipulate/dominate/conquer/control

best way to do that is make a religion where you have to be all warm and fuzzy so the guy behind the veil can screw you first.

thats exactly what satan would do.

ummmmmmmmmm where do you think religion came from ?

 

That's what I was trying to accomplish too although it's not adversarial

I would like to first point out that the Dark Ages weren't really dark in the way of no progress in thinking. At least this is what I was taught on this subject. You say that the effect is more important than the intention or that the intention is to bring about a majority effect rather than the minority one. The majority effect being the worst and the true intended result. But we see throughout history that anything can set off a people to do things that are not beneficial to the world. I forgot the persons name but there was a time when people used the Bible to claim that black people are inferior based on what the Bible had said or thought it said, but there was someone countering those idea by using the Bible to prove that they were in the wrong; this was centuries ago where we tend to believe that ancient people all had a poor sense of right and wrong. I see this as confusing cause and effect. What is the true cause of these beliefs? What we do know is that many of these so-called pious people were getting true followers of Jesus killed. All we see is the bad guys because they had the loudest voice during these times but others were watching... some fought back and others didn't out of fear. I think it's people that cause evil and evil will use anything to rationalize it.

As for we live for another life and forget this one, it really depends on their interpretation of it and why it's being interpreted in that way. Again, cause and effect. My interpretation of it is that this life should be lived by trying our hardest to do what is right.

Genocide isn't limited to religious factions. I think it's a human thing than anything else. This kind of extremism can work both ways; for the theist or for the atheist. Some atheists have come to the conclusion that religions are evil and therefore all religious should be eliminated to solve the problem. Perhaps the problem is extremism.

Been enjoying this conversation.

 

Kind of feeling bad about the better thing

 

Some good points there. I'll have a think and make a reply later.

 

I wouldn't worry about it. English is but only one language, and all languages have faults, and all languages fail in some way to reflect our minds and most of all reflect the majesty of God.