If people want to raise their children according to their own standards, then that is entirely their business.
Yep, more or less. But when your church puts its fear-mongering on YouTube - as stated before and ignored by you, it seems - you open yourself up to public criticism.
We do not force our views on others and appreciate it when others do not force their views on us.
"Force" is being applied here in the
exact same degree to which your church forces others. Just as you don't twist others arm to join your church, no one here is twisting your arm to raise your kids "the right way". Yet just as you march incessantly door-to-door (and I mean you as in you Witnesses, not you individually), barging in to other people's lives, we are going to comment and criticize what you make public knowledge. Either suffer it or don't; whining that we shouldn't voice our opinions is hypocrisy.
I do not know who put it on YouTube, but it is only available from our website. It is not intended for public distribution...
No it's not. It's available from YouTube. It can be searched on YouTube. It's brought up if any of the words are searched for. Who published it?
JW.org. If it's not intended for public distribution, then
why did your church publicly distribute it? Oh, but it's "for your kids". Well what if my kid sees it too, and is now scared of your vengeful child-god in the sky? What do I tell them if they start worrying needlessly that their toys are evil, because this trash video told them so?
We believe that "satan" (resister)...
Changing meanings of words now, eh? In no (proper) use of "satan" does it mean "resister". As a proper noun ([Ha-]Satan) it means "The Prosecutor". Not a single being, but a
title that could be held by any angel of the proper order. Like "Judge". As an adjective (
satan) it means "one who opposes", typically in reference to the will of Yahweh.
Anyone could act as a
satan, and it wasn't a permanent state-of-being. Example: when Jesus told Peter "get behind me, satan" he wasn't calling Peter "the devil", in plain language he was telling Peter to fall in line and do what he was told. The botched job at translation has confounded the two, and the result is billions of Christians who can't tell the difference.
Translating it as "resister" is linguistically problematic for you. For example, you "resist temptation", ergo you are satan to temptation.
To your statement, believe the devil is real all you want, it's no skin off my teeth. I'm going to voice my mind on it, however, and give quarter only what has ever been given my beliefs.
After the pre-flood era where these angelic creatures could actually materialize flesh and blood and father children, God's response was to eliminate those monstrous children from existence and force their errant fathers back to the spirit realm, where he dealt with them by placing them in a condition of restraint ("Tartarus", which is erroneously translated "hell" in many Bibles)
And now we're stealing other terms. Tartarus has no meaning, and is a primeval entity of unknown purpose. It is also the bottom level of Hades, where Zeus imprisoned the Titans, and where the wicked are punished in proportion to their crimes. So for all your lot's railing against
"Paganism in muh Christianity!" it's really funny to see you using definitive and
exclusive Pagan figures and locations.
That's a direct quote from scripture so, uh... no. I didn't.
Well, as it turns out, there is no scripture that connects satan and hell at all.
No duh. As I did say, I was quoting myself from elsewhere, so there was more to that discussion. Yet from context of the quote, it's clear that I was criticizing the claim that Satan is imprisoned in Hell.
As an angel, even after his defection, he was permitted free access to both heaven and earth to try his best to turn any and all free willed creatures against their Creator.
Stated where? Biblically, that is, not JW literature. It's crystal clear from Job - I even color coded it for ease - that Satan cannot act without permission from Yahweh. So he is not given "free access" to act of his own accord.
Why would God do that? Because he has no time for rebels and wants to remove them from his future plans.
This contradicts your claim that Yahweh granted him free reign to sow chaos. If your god wants to remove rebels from his plans, he - supposedly all-powerful -
would remove them.
Allowing satan to do his best is the ultimate way to test out those who have the qualities that God is looking for....selfless loyalty, trust and love for the one who created them, despite all attempts to persuade them to do otherwise.
You're so close, but just not getting it. Yes, testing the qualities of the pious is Satan's role. I stated this,
clearly. Yet it still comes from Yahweh, as he
directs those tests. Every instance of some "great man" in the bible being tested - Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc - is the action of the Satan. And as told from Job, that action cannot happen unless Yahweh gives the green light.
I'm sorry but that is a rather pathetic explanation that completely contradicts the personality of the Creator.
You mean it contradicts
your interpretation of the personality of Yahweh. Much like Kaleb's mother, you're more concerned with what
you think of your god than what the text describes.
If he was God's 'servant', then why punish him with eternal annihilation in the "lake of fire"..."the second death"? (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 21:8) Christendom has this all messed up...
Consequence of trying to force-merge Hebrew texts and myths with Christian thinking. Job is a Hebrew myth. Matthew and Revelation are Christian texts.
You forget that this is the same entity that offered Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world for one act of worship". You honestly think a servant of God would test out God's own son, the savior of mankind in an attempt to make him veer off course....three times?
Assuming he is the son of this god, and not just a prophet. In either case,
yes. Was Jesus ready to take up his fate, or was he still wrapped up in the ways of man? Why would the "son-of-god" even need to go on a wilderness fast, but to be tested?
[Satan] didn't say everything "Job" had he would exchange for his life....he said "a man will give everything that he has", so by extension satan was accusing all humans of being selfish in their faith, if their life was threatened. IOW, 'No one would die for God'.
Men will do so, yes. Yet through that test Job was regarded as more than a man, overcoming his material nature and proving himself a true "servant of god". You're not really showing how Satan was the villain in that story, you're just drawing focus to the narrative of human nature versus piety.
This demonstrates that God will not allow satan to go too far.
Oh, but I thought you said god gave him free reign to test and tempt? Free reign has no bounds.
In any test that he allows, God will make sure that his individual servants are up to the testing, and he will provide the needed strength to endure it.
Thanks for acknowledging that your god permits the tests, but it still sails right over your head. If your god cheats the test, granting strength, then it's not a real test is it? That would make your god's "A-Team Saints" nothing more than Russian gold medal Olympics who were doping.
Think of the ways that satan attacked this man for no reason other than the fact that he was an exemplary worshipper of his God. Yet he did not waver in his faith, even though he had no knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes.
That is the whole point. Job was an "exemplary worshipper" of Yahweh, but to the people of Judea so were the Pharisees. Job's piety needed to be tested, to ensure that it was genuine, which is the
entire point of the Satan's role. Your eagerness for him to be the villain shows clear as day.
Your evaluation is a sick commentary on what you think of God.
Sure paints him in a better light than your commentary does, and is more than I frankly think he deserves. The horror I paint; that Yahweh actually cares if his devotees are genuine or not, and sets tests to them to see if they waver. Yet you think your god fixes the challenge so that you always come out on top... Your hunger for a villain past your own shortcomings casts a darker shadow on your god than anything I've said, and relegates his temperament to your whims and biases.
Just like the mom in the video.
We are all able to exercise our own free will.
