xero

Some things are straightforward, but other things are a matter of interpretation. The thing that gets me is when someone acts like they have it all figured out. Nope.

I understand that. Also knowing God existed is also not the point. If Satan imagined Jehovah himself was the product of the realm in which he was able to view him, like me being in a room or in a world with defined boundaries and I see someone and imagine that they didn't create the realm that we both reside in, but in point of fact simply was the first on the scene, then you'd be getting the point the author is getting at.

W/regard to Jehovah's foreknowledge I've always thought of it this way: There's only so much stuff in the universe and only so many ways these can be configured over time factoring in the operation of free will. Before Jehovah created even Jesus as the Word he examined all the possible scenarios and that no matter which path was taken it would all end up being "very good" at the end.

I'm not sure that's true. There's a thomist who's essentially arguing exactly this - that God continuously sustains everything. The argument is that like you can't have an infinite regress in the physical realm w/universes (no matter how many) and you can't have an infinite regress at any given point in the here and now, so God's spirit is the sustaining point for all reality. You can think of it the same way you think about the universe - no infinite regress longitudinally , but in the here and now flipped it's also true vertically.

The book isn't pushing the "religions evolved" idea. It's pushing the idea that false religion has from the beginning fostered the idea of evolution because it's originator also believed the same (or at least wanted these to believe it). The demons, BTW aren't the same thing as the sons of god, at least not according to 2nd temple thought. It was thought that the demons were disembodied dead nephilim. I suppose not being fully human might have made it different for them as opposed to normal humans. Maybe they had phantom-body pain (like a vet who has phantom limb pain) and that was why they kept trying to get inside people or anything physical like pigs.

Actually the "knowing he is his creator" is actually not specifically stated in scripture - this is what the author suggests the possibility is... Yes @Anna the author is suggesting, as did the Sumerians, that all the gods evolved. This would include Jehovah. Not that the author believes this, but that the lie fostered was fostered by and believed by Satan (and that this could be the contribution to what any sane person would think was a foolish endeavor) was the heart of the rebellion.

So I'm just about done with "The Long War Against God: The History & Impact of the Creation/Evolution Conflict" and a couple of interesting notes in the book were that the idea of evolution existed from the beginning in the Sumerian texts and every ancient religious text (except the Bible). The author suggests that perhaps Satan was himself an evolutionist and did not believe that Jehovah created the universe, himself or any of the other angelic beings. He was not dogmatic about this, but it's a thought I never considered. It would certainly make more sense that if you didn't believe that Jehovah created the universe and that you simply sprang into being or perhaps such was the case at least w/Jehovah, that you might actually believe you could take him.

ad·u·la·to·ry /ˈaj(ə)ləˌtôrē/ adjective adjective: adulatory excessively praising or admiring. "an adulatory review" I'd imagine you could "give and adulatory review" OF a dead person. We do that all the time.

Totally disagree. Actually even in the 1st century in a Christian congregation no matter where you were any local government would have likely executed the wife who murdered her children, so the fact that today she's not a corpse wouldn't change the principle that she should be dead. Slicing and dicing this like "she's still alive ..duuuhh! you can't get remarried" reminds me of Jesus who condemned the religious leaders of his day who'd make loopholes to avoid fulfilling the principles behind the law.

You spend a lot of time worrying about other people's affairs. I think you'd be better off looking in the mirror.

Why do you spend so much energy worrying about the affairs of other people?

What an ironic moniker.