How often do you expect to see it such that you know you're seeing it more than you should coincidentally?

It shouldnt come up as much as it does.

In the sense that the devil is typically the moral and spiritual enemy of God, then yes the existence of such a devil means God also exists.

This in the same way that the folklorish pot of gold at the end of the rainbow necessitates the leprechaun.

However, if you happened to find pieces of ceramic where you saw a rainbow - you shouldn't necessarily believe in leprechauns.

The superstition isn't the belief in leprechauns but the belief that they can be seen with the naked eye.

Lucifer and Ahriman are impediments to the growth of the human being with our age more Ahrimanic in which only the earthly or sense bound is recognized. Ahriman, in his effects, would have you believe that there is no supersensible while Lucifer would have you leave the earth in a dizzying array of spaceless thoughts. LOL

Most libraries, works of art, music, even religion, all in the past display direct influences of Lucifer whereas the main strategy via Ahriman is modern material science, i.e..Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements. Even the religions are under this influence during our times but especially medicine.

Strictly speaking the "devil' relates to Ahriman who in the Hebrew lexicon is known as "Tofel" (? unclear spelling), "the great deceiver". In Goethe's Faust the devil , or Ahriman, is known as Mephistopheles ; please notice the "tophel" in this word. Mephistopheles of course, was not created by Goethe but a well known referent to historical man . There are other creations of the developing man such as Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" . He, as noted by men, is of ancient origin and obviously "real' in nature and being.

Man's work is the balancing of the two , to which we cannot escape. The 'balancing" is our work with the Christ, as guide, within the individual man.

Its of future development within recurrent lives, so "life those weights and toile that bale".

I do agree that the two questions can be separated.

I think that it is obvious that they can be separated.

By "eternal life" I was referring to a self-awareness that does not end at death. Do we need more than that to continue the discussion?

Actually, this is fairly trivial. If there is no awareness there is nothing to recall. It is a tautology.


There is no scientific understanding of consciousness. There is simply the statement that consciousness is an emergent property of the electrochemical activity in the human brain. That is not an understanding. It is like saying that the blue color of the sky is an emergent property of the interaction of light and air molecules. That is not understanding or explanation. It is simply a belief.

I suppose that it would be instantaneous. But that is an assumption.

This seems to be equivalent to my definition of "eternal life".

I do not see how this adds anything. I would readily have conceded in the first line of this response that eternal life and God can be separated.

I also never said that God was important in that He was necessary for eternal life. You have argued fairly competently against an assertion I never made.

I would assert the opposite in a sense. I would argue that the question starts with eternal life. If there is no eternal life, I would assert that God is not important. After all, it appears that we cannot conduct any test that can detect the presence of God in this life. If we cannot detect anything after death, then we can never detect God. If there is something we can never detect, then it does not matter.

If there is eternal life, a proposition that you are apparently willing to accept without evidence, then the question of God does become important. Using a somewhat generic definition of God as the conscious Creator of the universe with virtually unlimited power and a perfect understanding of good and evil, then His perception of us as we enter eternity would be very important. It is as simple as that.

In what way do you see His possible existence as unimportant?

I was merely using it as a device to demonstrate my argument. I do not accept it, any more than I accept the common beliefs about death.
In my conception of eternal life, as outlined, your subjective experience has never 'entered eternal life'. You can't add 1 or -1 from infinity: it will still be infinity. Under my outlined conception, your subjective experience has always and will always be eternal: rendering your rebuttal irrelevant.
I'll keep it simple too.

Whether God exists or doesn't exist, I will behave and believe in whatever way I wish, through whatever ethical framework I choose. If he did exist, and he disapproved of any of my beliefs or behaviors, it would not affect them. The reason? I would never bow-down to, or worship a God that does not give me the autonomy and freedom to live out my own life in the way I choose.

My God, if I were to believe in one, would be above that of 'human ownership' and tyranny. My God, if I were to believe in one, would give me the free-will to shape my own path in life, be it moral or immoral or amoral.

As such, if I won't permit God's existence to affect my beliefs or behaviors in any way, the question of his existence becomes entirely unimportant in my life. The potential for holy punishment, or reward, do not scare, nor encourage me; to do or believe anything that I do not choose to do or believe.

so close

Well, you said this:

"For example, I can believe in eternal life (and some days I do, although I can never know in this life) without God, as a creator of that life."

and this:

"If as such, we live inside an infinity, then it may be plausible that I will never be dead."

Those are pretty clear and indicate that you accept the possibility of eternal life. In fact, you used the word "plausible" which is a stronger affirmation than "possible". With all due respect, I think you need to word your arguments more carefully given that I have no idea what you believe other than your statements here.

This never made sense. If my awareness ends at my death, it is not eternal. It is not infinite. It is finite and ends at my death. I may never be aware of that ending, but that is because of the ending not because there is no ending.

This is fine and you have every right to make any decision by any process you wish. But remember the subject that we are discussing. You asserted that the existence of God was not important. Your paragraph does not assert that God is not important. It simply asserts that important or not, you have no intention of letting that influence you. I think you should be honest and state that whenever this subject is discussed. You should not assert that the existence of God does not matter. It may matter a great deal, even to you at some point. You simply do not intend to let that possibility influence your actions. Sincerely, good luck with that.

You have free will. Shape your life as you will. No one is restricting your will to do what you wish (excepting human law of course which are not the subject here). Just recognize that your choices may have consequences. Allowing you to experience the consequences of your choices is part of your freedom. It is not tyranny. It is justice.

This is a different statement than a simple statement "God is not important" or "God does not matter". A correct statement is "God does not matter to me" or "God is not important to me". Than if someone asks why, you can simply state that you choose not to adjust your actions to an outside moral authority and the conversation is effectively over.

I would add that I do not consider your choice wise, but its yours and my opinion of it is irrelevant. I include that comment only out of a desire to be fully honest in my response.

Not sure why you feel the need to straw-man me or second-guess my statements here. If I'm telling you explicitly that I don't believe either the common sense understanding of death, or the 'eternal life' understanding of death, this should be sufficient.

My answer to the question of life-after-death is: I don't know.

More importantly, I'm satisfied with that, although some days I may contemplate one answer and other days I may contemplate another.

If you can't be satisfied with never knowing something, then I can understand your affinity to God and notions of eternal life.
Understanding this comes down to the important subtlety I mentioned at the very beginning. Notably: life, defined as - subjective experience. Since I do not recount a time when I was not experiencing, my subjective experience could potentially be eternal. This is not the only reason, as outlined in my last post, so I won't repeat myself further.
I can't deny that it may matter, but not to me. If you choose not to believe me, by saying "good luck with that", that's more a reflection of your own inner-doubts than an observation of mine.

I believe you when you tell me that it matters to you.
I doubt they'll have negative consequences in human law, which is the only important law (albeit always subject to improvement). I follow a simple ethical framework that ensures I live the life of a good person, and serve as a net-positive on the world. Quite simply, my ethical framework demands of me to always give more than I take in all my personal relationships: (1) emotionally; (2) intellectually and; (3) tangibly [physical resources]. It is a type of 'competitive altruism' if you wish.
Adding the qualifier 'to me' I believe redundant. I'm the one stating the belief after all.
Whether my choice is wise or not, I will accept full responsibility for. What I won't do, is adjust my choice based on any ethical notions or frameworks I consider to be inferior.

This is all a little jumbled. I do not know the answer either. But I accept the possibility of life after death. Apparently you do also. The contemplation of either possibility is not at all involved in the acceptance of the possibility.

Again, I never said that I "knew" that there was an afterlife. How on earth could I know that?

Again, this is a little garbled. For one thing, you keep saying "recount". To recount is to express or talk about something. I have been assuming that you meant to say "recall" which speaks to what perception you have. But since you keep using "recount" I have to ask if you mean something else that is simply not being communicated.

In any event, I also do not recall a time when I was not experiencing. That however does not provide any evidence positive or negative about my experience being eternal through any reasoning I can construct. You will have to show your work in more detail for this to have any meaning. Not that it is important. If you accept the possibility that your awareness could be eternal we are at the same point on the subject, whatever the reasoning that brought us there.

The "good luck with that" was intended to express that I actually and sincerely hope that it does turn out well for you. I have no desire for anything else. In retrospect I could have worded it better because it implies something a little less positive.

That's fine. It is not important to me. I only added the bit about the law for completeness. I have no reason to believe that your morality would admit illegal actions.

Actually I disagree strongly. Statements have a typical interpretation within languages. If you make an assertion and I say "That is not important", it is a strong dismissal of the assertion and implies that it should not be important to you or me. If I say "That is not important to me" it is much narrower and is a statement of my particular position.

The paragraph above with the bold statement is a perfect example. If I had said "It is not important", it dismisses as unworthy of consideration the entire question of personal morality. By saying "It is unimportant to me" it is a much weaker statement.

It is not important if there is intelligent life in another galaxy. I say that because I really cannot see any possibility that such life will ever interact or effect us in any way. It is an interesting hypothetical, but it is not important.

It is not important to me if there is a squatter breaking into your house and sleeping in your basement each night. I would never say it is not important however.

Whether my choice is wise or not, I will accept full responsibility for. What I won't do, is adjust my choice based on any ethical notions or frameworks I consider to be inferior.[/QUOTE]

Still dont get it. How would you adjust your actions for a God who gives no advice or guidance on those actions. Without that, God is kind of meaningless when it comes to actions. Have no clue what hed want or not want and if i found out for sure there is A God, nothing would change.

Now if you add some stuff to God being known (like he is not a universalist and the afterlife is for those that follow his known guidance) sure. But with just the info there is one im an in the dark deist. Life goes on.

You couldn't, but I don't know of a religion where this is the case. Certainly the main religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, have a clear source of such guidance.

Your post is somewhat muddled on this issue.

First of all, if the devil is Lucifer is very much up for debate, as this isn't given in the bible. Indeed this belief appears mostly to be a result of poor original translations of Isaiah 14.

Judaism has no concept of the devil as we know it in modern Christian theology. The Torah speaks of an "adversary", but he is "merely" an angel who tests humans. This isn't Lucifer (who is a reference to a Babylonian king), but Satan (literally: "the adversary").

This is the God RLK is using.

"Using a somewhat generic definition of God as the conscious Creator of the universe with virtually unlimited power and a perfect understanding of good and evil,"


Just the belief in this God and an afterlife should alter our actions. I need more for mine to alter.

This is a fair point but it is a little different from the question I was discussing with Vee, if I understand you correctly.

If I were to paraphrase your statement it would be:

I accept that God may be important, but I would need to know what to do about that before it would be important to me.

Is that fair or am I misunderstanding your point?

You're right, it isn't Lucifer who is an angel as is Ahriman who is I believe, your reference as " adversary". Ahriman is not "merely" an angel but a much higher being, being an angel", as again is Lucifer.

At the "Fall' we speak to "Lucifer" whereas "Ahriman" , if looking historically, reference is made to ancient Zoroastrianism in the battle of Ahura Mazdao, the "God of Light" against Angra Mainuii the "god of darkness".

Lucifer and Ahriman are both angelic beings of a higher nature than Man who in his future will progress to an angelic state of being.

I really only meant to discriminate between the two higher angelic beings and therefore in my original post give some understanding as to where they operate in the field of Man. Another matter is as to what level of angelic beings are they as there are angels, archangels, archae, exusai,dynamis, kyriotetes, thrones, cherubim, seraphim, all progressively superiorly on and into the Trinity.

This is theirs and our "field of activity" but its another story. I only give this in order to display that we are "within" great and almost ineffable presences including the "fallen angels" and I believe from memory Ahriman is an "archangel".

The "names" given in the hierarchy are of the Christian nomenclature and can be referenced to "Dionysius the Areopagite", I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angra_Mainyu

Pretty much. For my moral actions to change with the knowledge of God, there has to be more to God like knowing what moral actions i need to change.

That's fair.

Personally I came to the conclusion that I should pray and ask for God's guidance in my life choices. The overall effect of that on my life has been such that I have come to believe in God quite strongly.

Well if you can seek and find answers to moral questions that would be the more needed for God to be important to moral questions. This has not been my experience though.

Also think since you say God would be meaningless without eternal life you would have to add in God judges morals and getting eternal life will be based on that judgment.

And is the quote below how you actually view god?

"Using a somewhat generic definition of God as the conscious Creator of the universe with virtually unlimited power and a perfect understanding of good and evil,"

Or was that just for the purposes of the discussion?

No problem with the first paragraph. I obviously have no basis to say anything about your experience.

Concerning the second paragraph, you certainly can construct other parameters for God that would make Him effectively meaningless even though He existed. I am not sure that really impacts the discussion that I entered. I simply objected to the blanket statement "God is not important". I never said that it is not possible that God is not important.

No it was not just for discussion purposes. Yes it is probably a pretty good description of my concept of God, with the caveat that I crafted the wording somewhat casually so I reserve the right to make adjustments if it somewhat misses the target on closer inspection.

Fair enough.

So you don't subscribe to any particular religion? I've always thought that you identified as Christian.

I am a Christian. Is the definition of God I provided inconsistent with Christianity?