God and the Devil

Then the discussion must be over. :slight_smile:

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Yes…and accorsing to the Bible, an all-loving God can and does kill.

Thanks for acknowledging that.

Now, as for whether the spirit can be killed…depending onnwhat Christian faith you are, the answer is different.

Some believe the eternal fire is simply a metaphor for evil, including Satan and those that aren’t saved, being obliterated in the last day. Others feel it’s eternal punishment.

Doesn’t change the fact that God could indeed have the Final Judgement happen whenever he wants to…and obviously, he chooses to let the world go on and on.

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Then your answer is the Devil can’t be killed?

If true then if God is more powerful than the Devil and can see the future why doesn’t He thwart him every single time essentially making him non-existent?

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No, that is not my answer. You asked why God did not kill the devil. The devil is spirit. My response stands: Would a good and loving Spirit kill another Spirit?

What say you?

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Sure. It’s the Devil.

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A Mahayana Buddhist point of view. Careful reading is necessary.

A passage from a letter from the 13th century Japanese Buddhist Prophet, Nichiren:

"The sutra states, “Evil devils, the devils’ people, heavenly beings, dragons, yakshas, kumbhānda demons, and others will seize the advantage.”

Another part of the sutra details these “others”: “Whether it be a yaksha, or a rākshasa, or a hungry spirit, or a putana, or a kritya, or a vetada, or a skanda, or an umaraka, or an apasmaraka, or a yaksha kritya, or a human kritya…” (Refers to beings in various lifestates)

These passages explain that those who in previous lifetimes embraced the four flavors and three teachings, non-Buddhist teachings, or doctrines concerning the realms of human and heavenly beings appear in this life as devils, or heavenly or human beings who persecute the votary of the true and perfect teaching when they see or hear of him."

These various lifestates are within all beings and is inseparable from the environment.

In the Lotus Sutra, “Devadatta,” a enemy of Shakyamuni Buddha, who tried to kill the Buddha, is said to eventually, after a long period, be able to eradicate the evil karma (sins) and be able to attain Buddhahood.

This means that even the most evil beings, can eventually, attain Buddhahood.

Nichiren also wrote:

'The devil of fundamental darkness can even enter the life of a bodhisattva who has reached the highest stage of practice and prevent him from attaining the Lotus Sutra’s ultimate blessing–Buddhahood itself.

Thus he can easily obstruct those in any lower stage of practice. The Devil of the Sixth Heaven enters the lives of a man’s wife and children and deludes him. He also possesses the sovereign in order to threaten the votary of the Lotus Sutra, "

And:

“The third chapter of the Lotus Sutra states, “They dwell in hell so long that they come to think it as natural as playing in a garden, and the other evil paths seem like their own home.” Those who commit the ten evil acts fall into the hell of Tokatsu or Kokujo and there must spend five hundred lifetimes or one thousand hell-years. Those who commit the five cardinal sins fall into the hell of incessant suffering, and after staying there for one medium aeon, are born again in this world.”

And:

"Since this is so, the believers of the Lotus Sutra should fear those who plague their practice more then they fear bandits, burglars, midnight killers, tigers, wolves or lions–even more than invasion by the Mongols.

This world is the province of the Devil of the Sixth Heaven. All of its people have been related to him since time without beginning. He has not only built the prison of twenty-five realms14 within the six paths and confined all mankind, but also made wives and children into shackles and parents and sovereigns into nets that block off the skies. To confound the Buddha nature which is the people’s true mind, he causes them to drink the wine of greed, anger and stupidity, and feeds them nothing but poisoned dishes that leave them prostrate on the ground of the three evil paths. When he happens on one with a seeking mind, he acts to obstruct him.

If he sees that he is powerless to make a believer in the Lotus Sutra fall into evil, he tries to deceive him gradually by luring him toward the Kegon Sutra, which resembles the Lotus Sutra. This was done by the priests Tu-shun, Chih-yen, Fa-tsang and Ch’eng-kuan15. Then, the priests Chia-hsiang and Seng-ch’uan16 craftily deceived the believers in the Lotus Sutra into falling back upon the Hannya sutras. Hsuan-chuang and Tz’u-en led them toward the Jinmitsu Sutra, while Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, Pu-k’ung, Kobo, Jikaku and Chisho deluded them into following the Dainichi Sutra. Bodhidharma and Hui-k’o17 caused them to stray into the Zen sect, while Shan-tao and Honen tricked them into believing the Kanmuryoju Sutra. In each case the Devil of the Sixth Heaven possessed these Buddhist scholars in order to deceive the believers, just as foretold in the Kanji chapter of the Lotus Sutra: “The devil enters one’s body.”

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To paraphrase:

He drew a line that shut Him out,
Heretic, rebel, he wished to flout
But love and God had the wit to win
He drew a circle and brought him in.

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But the REAL God (the one in the Bible) is more powerful than the Devil. Why not just off the evil dude? Better yet, why create him the first place?

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Comprehension, lacking in faith and deep insight, IS the “devil.” Slander of the function of God/Buddhas is the basis of the evil karma.

God/Buddha has mercy for all pathetic devils. Through the suffering and misery even the “devil” possessed beings can expiate their evil karma.

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Why don’t God just get rid of these things?

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Because that is not how the mechanism of the Law of simultaneous cause and effect works.

YOU and all beings if faith is first, will “get rid of these things.”

Discard arrogance and trust yourself to faith.

This world is the transient world called Saha (endurance). You are in essense telling the Supreme Law how it should be—

"how can I be saved with no faith or effort or knowing with my life of the reality of cause and effect. God /Buddha is to blame. "

NO. YOU made the evil karma yourself. YOU have to take responsibility for it. The reward you seek will never occur when you think GOD/Buddha is to blame.

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That’s a form of blasphemy. To say that God cannot do something is to say that he is not all powerful.

God can do whatever He pleases whenever He pleases.

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It’s “blasphemy” (slander) to think you grasp what “all powerful” means regarding God/Buddha. The Supreme Law is the primirdial God/Buddha. It doesn’t need ignorant beings to point out it’s imagined flaws

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I’m not a Buddhist.

All powerful, omniscience, and omnipresence are words with set definitions.

According to (most) Christians he is all three. To say that God cannot perform some action is to deny one of his three most important traits.

Also what the hell is the supreme law? You can’t even get the various Christian sects to agree on much of anything beyond the basic tenants. Much less members of other faiths.

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I did not argue whether God “could”. I asked if He “would.” Vast difference.

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Christianity is Buddhism. It was taught at a time, in a country full of slanderers, using the Expedient Means of the Buddha.

Jesus was 100% a Buddha. Judaism was an earlier offshoot of Brahmanism.

Buddha was to Hinduism as Jesus was to Judaism. Enlightened reformers.

In the depths of your own life, the Buddha reforms the ignorance of all beings.

The Mahayana Sutras, specifically the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma Pundarika) has a mysterious origin that Christians and Buddhists together are still unready to grasp.

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So Borgia was right.

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Yes. Borgia had the best answer so far in this thread.

Everybody else dodged and used long complicated answers to basically say nothing.

The second chapter of the Lotus Sutra states:

“The Buddha knowledge, Sâriputra, is profound, difficult to understand, difficult to comprehend. It is difficult for all disciples and Pratyekabuddhas to fathom the knowledge arrived at by the Tathâgatas, &c., and that, Sâriputra, because the Tathâgatas have worshipped many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Buddhas; because they have fulfilled their course for supreme, complete enlightenment, during many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Æons; because they have wandered far, displaying energy and possessed of wonderful and marvellous properties; possessed of properties difficult to understand; because they have found out things difficult to understand.”

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God would kill thousands of mortals and condemn their Spirits to eternity in Hell, but killing a malevolent Spirit is too much for Him?

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