Im looking at you Jehovah.
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If there were a god, and the god demands your soul, then it was never your soul to begin with.
You basically had a license to use a soul while you were alive.
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with (Jesus as my) Copilot
Theological enshittification.
“You will own nothing and worship me for it” -YHWH
Free Will is yours, but your soul is owed to God. You are free to choose not to give it to God, and you are free to choose to go hell.
Is it dumb? Yes. Do people believe this is literally true, knowing it’s stupid? Also yes.
If a god demands your soul for background operations, they’re a daemon.
If a God is named Matt, it’s a Damon
If God wears a feathered boa and Bejeweled cat-eye glasses, it’s Dame Edna
Wouldn’t God be the Kernel and us the Daemons?
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Deus ex machina.
I know religion isn’t exactly the most popular topic on Lemmy, but I wanted to offer a Christian perspective on this.
“God demands your soul for eternity, so he must be a demon.”
This argument fundamentally misunderstands biblical theology and relies on Hollywood tropes rather than the text.
First, God doesn’t need to “demand” or bargain for your soul because He already owns it. As the Creator, Ezekiel 18:4 flat out says, “Behold, all souls are mine.” You can’t demand or bargain for property you already hold the deed to.
Secondly, God’s ownership doesn’t magically end if a person rejects Him. Pop culture paints a picture where God gets the souls of the saved, and Satan claims the souls of the damned. That’s Dante’s Inferno, not the Bible. Satan isn’t the ruler of Hell collecting souls; he will be a prisoner punished alongside them.
Even for those who reject God and are cast into the fire, God remains entirely sovereign over them. Matthew 10:28 makes this clear: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
TL;DR: God isn’t a demon trying to snatch your soul. He is the rightful owner giving you a choice to spend eternity with Him as an adopted heir, or separated from Him in the fire, but He maintains absolute authority over your soul either way.
Depends on your religion…
Gnostics would disagree with most of what’s written here and would largely side with OP.
I’m not extremely familiar with gnosticism, but I don’t believe they think God is a demon. I think a lot of what they believe is based on duality right?
They literally believe God is an evil God and that’s why suffering exists in the world. It’s also why people who increase others suffering are rewarded in this world.
Just this god of this failed material realm that we’re in.
They believe this reality was a mistake and the god of it is an imposter who’s either gormless or actively cruel, depending on which sect.
There is a higher realm above this one though with the true big daddy good guy god in it, and that’s who Jesus was on about in the new testament.
Jesus is more like a prophet to gnostics as he’s the first one to pick up on and preach about the higher realm god.
(I’ve been weirdly into learning about gnosticism lately, it’s fascinating stuff.)
Was Jesus talking about the higher realm God in the gnostic gospels?
I am not sure you can call what they have gospels. Almost all gnostic literature was destroyed. Of the few things hidden by monks or whatnot that survived the only one that has a lot of notoriety is the Pistis Sophia.
But to your question, yeah basically… He was talking/teaching about some pretty freaky stuff according to the Pistis Sophia. Detailing higher order cosmology and technical jargon about how you should navigate your soul in the afterlife and talks about the divine fallen entity Sophia. Sophia is the higher realm God that they believe birthed all.
If he’s talking about how loving and kind god is, it’s the higher realm one.
The demiurge is the insane temper tantrum of a god described in the old testament.
You see, God loves you! It’s just, if you’re Hindi or atheist or something, you must burn forever and ever and ever and ever… 90% of humanity must suffer for all eternity.
That’s what love is, don’t you know. Being tortured forever in Hell for all time, with God watching you, laughing! (according to Bible, He watches those suffering in Hell with amusement).
TL;DR: God might not be a demon, but He is certainly demonic.
Could you provide the chapter and verse for the claim that God watches those suffering in Hell with amusement?
I don’t have pictures of you taking a shit, that doesn’t mean you don’t shit.
I was being kind with my reply, but I don’t believe that any such scriptural reference exists. Repeating false pop culture talking points doesn’t advance the conversation in any meaningful way.
So a license.
More like a slave. Licensees have the option to freely opt out, slaves face punishment if they try.
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If God can tame the Leviathan and the Behemoth in the book of Job, a house cat shouldn’t be too much of a problem. But I am fully prepared for them to still completely ignore the rest of us.
“god owns your soul” : therefore we have no true freedom and god is a gaslighting monster, and not worthy of my time.
“God does not own your soul” : Therefore I am free and god wants what is not his, and not worthy of my time
Freedom is an illusion based on Christianity. But keep paying the church money, maybe they’ll let you in.
That presents a false dichotomy by assuming “ownership” automatically equals “coercion.”
God’s ownership of your soul simply means He is the Creator and the source of your existence. However, owning your existence does not mean He overrides your personal agency. The entire biblical narrative is actually built on the reality of human free will.
Having a Creator doesn’t strip you of true freedom. In fact, you have the absolute freedom to choose who you serve. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes this choice, such as in Joshua 24:15 which says, “choose this day whom you will serve.” The Apostle Paul also points out in Romans 6:16 that we all ultimately choose what we dedicate our lives to, whether that is sin or obedience.
God isn’t forcing your hand or gaslighting you. He gives you the ultimate choice. You can use your freedom to align with your Creator, or you can use your free will to reject Him. He actually respects your autonomy enough to let you walk away and have exactly what you chose.
ownership is coercion, for if not coercion, it’s force
respect the choice!? choose wrong and burn in hell!
some fuckin choice
It really is a shame on Lemmy that there’s generally a tone of dismissal when it comes to religion, even though it’s one of many things that I believe is to each their own. I’m glad you wrote this out, it’s succinctly put.
I feel to each their own for all of the religions who feel the same to people who aren’t members of their religion. The ones that say people outside their group are evil or deserving of enslavement or torture, spread through violence and colonialism, or try to legislate their religious, faith-based beliefs in government should be dismissed.
it reads like fantasy
there’s better fantasy novels
You’re describing a parent that thinks they own their children’s souls and bodies, and thinks they can do whatever he wants to them, up to and including torturing them with fire.
That sort of thing ought to make any decent person sick to their stomach, but christians will tell you its love. It should be no wonder that there are so many pedophile priests and christian fascists that want to tell you what you can do with your own body.
I know religion isn’t exactly the most popular topic on Lemmy
Then you should go back to the hole you crawled out of.
I know religion isn’t popular here because Sky Daddy isn’t real, but I wanted to talk some shit anyway about the stupidity that is the Christian religion.
Humans existed before Christianity and the “made up bible” references this fact by admitting there are other gods. How can the Christian God own all souls when they are not the only god. This is an outlandish claim which is clearly bullshit propaganda even by bible standards.
Second, even if you believed the “made up bible” the word hell is not a correct translation. The context of these words were lost long ago and the modern translations of the Bible such as NRSV are even more worthless because they are literally just making up the translation based upon partisan opinions.
We can certainly debate theology and history, but there is no need to resort to insults just because we have different beliefs. Having a respectful dialogue is always more productive.
To answer your first point, the Bible acknowledging that humans worshipped other entities does not validate those entities as equals to God. The biblical text consistently presents Yahweh as the uncreated Creator of the entire universe (like in Isaiah 44:6). The “other gods” mentioned in scripture are either described as man made idols of wood and stone, or lesser, created spiritual beings. Because the God of the Bible is the sole Creator of the universe, He retains ultimate sovereignty over all souls, regardless of what false gods humanity invents.
Second, your claim about the word “hell” and modern translations is factually incorrect. The original texts use specific Greek and Hebrew terms like Gehenna, Hades, and Sheol. While they each have specific ancient and literary contexts, translating them into the English concept of “hell” accurately conveys the themes of final judgment and separation from God that are clearly present in the original languages.
Finally, calling the NRSV “partisan” or “worthless” is the exact opposite of reality in the academic world. The NRSV is actually the gold standard for secular, academic, and critical biblical scholarship. It was translated by a massive, diverse committee of scholars from various traditions, including Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox experts. They were brought together specifically to eliminate sectarian bias. It is widely considered one of the most rigorous and least partisan translations in existence.
I was gonna write a whole thing burrowed deep in the comments here debating verse this and theology that but you know what, life’s too short for that.
I used to be a christian myself and I sympathise. Every once in a while you feel like you wanna stand up for what you believe and you just know you’ll be fending off endless pages of comments.
Dude, don’t do this to yourself. If there is a god he/she probably doesn’t need you suffering like this. Jesus already did that, why would you go have to go through that?
Also, you probably don’t think of it this way, but just for good measure, these people are not against you as a person. They’re pissed off at all the skeletons in the closet of religion at large. That’s a mistake I made back then. Don’t take it personal.
There is so much more I wish I could say to try and convince you to free yourself, just like you probably now think inversely of saying to me.
Have a good one.
Ezekiel 18:4
Old testament, it doesn’t count and it’s ignored by most christians on earth. Nice try anyway.
That is a massive caricature of Christian theology. Saying the Old Testament “doesn’t count” confuses the Old Covenant with the Old Testament scriptures.
Christians believe the specific laws of the Old Covenant (like animal sacrifices, temple rituals, or dietary restrictions) were fulfilled by Christ. However, the Old Testament itself is still foundational scripture that reveals God’s nature, history, and character.
God’s status as the Creator of the universe did not suddenly expire between the Old and New Testaments. Ezekiel 18:4 is simply stating an unchangeable fact about God’s role as the author of life.
If you strictly want New Testament verses that establish the exact same concept of God owning everything because He made it, there are plenty. Colossians 1:16 says that “all things were created through him and for him.” Revelation 4:11 also states that God created all things, and by His will they existed and were created.
The New Testament is built directly on top of the Old Testament, and Jesus quoted it constantly. Claiming that Christians just ignore it is historically and theologically false.
Yeah, you should tell that to the billions of catholics out there.
The catholics who participate in cannibalistic blood and flesh rituals every Sunday?
Yeah, you should totally go tell them that they’re doing it wrong and being disrespectful to the legacy of ol’ Oily Josh. I’m sure that hasn’t caused a schism yet.
Oh wait… what was your point again?
Does he though? You have to jump through quite some hoops for him to accept your soul at all.
Jehova created a religion so souls would stay free from sin and head towards the light at death. He’s an ethereal angler fish and needs to feed. Sin is less nourishing.
He just wants to keep all the good ones. The bad and rotten ones can go to his fallen disciple.
You have reached step one towards gnosticism lol. I dont believe it but learning about Yaldabaoth is like cool fanfiction for an agnostic/atheist
if anyone is so inclined, check out the song Original Sinsuality by Tori Amos, my introduction to these other gods
Jehovah? YHWH more like it. Some bum ass storm god from farmers becomes the Christian solo god despite having a whole ass pantheon of other gods.
Explain. Everything I know of Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Adonai is that they’re the Demiurge in their mythos, not a storm god.
I also know that Allah had a pantheon, but never heard of the same for Yahweh
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh found this about Yahweh. Suggests starting as a weather/war god before absorbing the rest of the pantheon into themselves. El was the top of that pantheon
Aren’t they all just the same God under different names?
As far as I know, yes, except Allah who came from a different pantheon and absorbed the mythos from jehovah
Not sure if this answers your questions but I read a book several years ago that argued something similar.
Man. That wiki states that book takes “Stockholm Syndrome” at face value, which makes me immediately suspicious. Hostages working to secure their own safety when the assigned negotiator is absolute shite isn’t a basis for actual psychological discussions.
What if they only want it for a billion years? Asking for a scientologist friend.
I have a hard time believing in god, souls, eternity, and demons, so it’s a moot point.
This homie gets it. Stupid Yaldabaoth causing all this BS.
Call in Momon
Wow I really fucking love this
Fun little coincidence, it’s a screen grab from this video I was watching about Gnosticism earlier today.
isn’t it more your allowed in.
Allowed implies that you have a choice in the matter. The choice was made for you, though. You follow a particular doctrine as closely as possible. If the big man approves, you go up. Otherwise, down. There is no choosing allowed, except in your dilemma between instinct and faith. You may choose to police your reactions via the authority of your faith. That’s still not a choice on where you go after death, though. It’s a leap of faith toward a hypothetical predetermined outcome.
One could never be the perfect follower and also choose to go down. That was never part of the arrangement.
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no choice if you go down but im not sure about the up. Supposedly everyone who went up could not get in till jesus died so they bummed around the entrance or such. guess it depends on if your dealing with the one that has limbo and purgatory or not.
How interesting, I figured heaven was in some way believed to be beyond time. There should be no such before and after, unless I am mistaken.
all depends on flavor and individual. This was the catholic thing and I assume still is. No one can go to heaven if they have sin and christ cleansed the sins of the world by being an uber sacrifice. it gets crazy. you need baptism to get rid of original sin so supposedly in middle or dark ages or whatever if they found a baby abandoned they would baptize it and leave to make sure it would be ok.
One’s personal opinion on the matter doesn’t really weigh much. For an actual believer their own god - no matter how bad - is always better than the alternative. It’s not like you become immune to it the moment you reject them. Assuming that hell is by definition the worst possible misery for everyone then, if those words mean anything, literally anything is better than that. Doesn’t need to be good, just better.
Oh great. Now you tell me…
