The devil and hell

I have posted this as a blog and a forum due to the fact that I have had the opportunity to discuss others views on religion with them, so I feel it is only fair to provide them the same. I also know that alot of people do not bother with the forums, but have been exposed to a disproportionate amount of blogs propagating a certain view regarding religion. I feel this planet is run by fear. The easiest way to get people to do anything is instill fear in them, get them to believe they are facing a threat. It is how Hitler and the Nazi party achieved their holocaust by portraying Jews as a threat, I mean even the fallacy that Jews eat Christian babies was used in their propaganda machine. In the 50’s we were told that oil would last till the 70’s, then we were told till 2000, now we are told 2030-50. I wonder what they are going to say then? The U.S used the communist ‘threat’ to create a country with weapons of mass destruction(anybody get the irony) to the tune of obliterating this planet over and over again and vice versa for the USSR. The Apartheid regime here used the the same ‘communist threat’, together with their ‘Swart gevaar’ indoctrinations to keep power here for decades with an immoral, ungodly system. So my point with all these examples is that to manipulate people you need a bad guy, you need to instill fear in them to get them to believe and to acquiesce to whatever it is you require from them. So the majority of religions utilise the devil and hell to justify their need for being, as they are supposedly providing you with the opportunity to avoid going to ‘hell’, by you tithing and living your life according to whichever form of existence they are propagating. Now my problem with this whole scenario is that they and I believe that God has created everything that exists, which would mean that He created the devil and hell. I have great difficulty in accepting that my Creator would create a being whose sole purpose is to mislead me and a place where I am to suffer for eternity, why create me in the 1st place then? Now scientists have scrutinized most of the tangible and even some of the intagibles that exist and everything that they have managed to analyse has a purpose and a part to play in contributing to existence, a role. Nothing is for show, nothing, except the devil and hell, the only 2 creations(if they exist) that do not contribute to life as we know it. This brings me to evil, the only evil that exists is in mankind, there is no evil in nature. Everything that occurs in nature has a purpose, a lion does not kill a buck for fun, a praying mantis does not eat its mate while copulating for his assets. We have found a useful tool to use(the devil) to justify our own criminal behaviour, the Hansie Cronje case being a poignant example. We refuse to accept responsibility for our own actions and would rather place the blame on an imaginary being influencing us. Now I can speak from my own experience here and tell you that everything bad or evil I have ever done has been a more than consciuous decision from my side. When you know something is wrong , you tend to dwell on it more, spend more time thinking about if you should or should not. Now no devil whispered in my ear, neither did he use a friend or family member to make me do wrong, I made the final decision, I decided I am doing this, knowing full well the consequences of my actions. So unless I am unique in this, I have to assume that any reasonable person who does wrong goes through a similar process. Now being raised Roman Catholic, by force, not choice, once I had the freedom do determine my own destiny, I looked at athiesm, existenstialism, buddhism,islam,judaism,hinduism, rastafarianism and christianity, you name it, I investigated it. They all start off good and then lose the plot. Money,exclusionism, hierarchies and many other worldy trends ingrain themselves. In all my searching nothing has been able to disprove God’s existence and prove the devils existence. No big bang theorists, no creationists have been able to convince me there is no God. Everything is too beautiful and perfect, from the minutest atom to the largest galaxy. No accident could create this, no ancient humans eating more fish could be the reason we are the dominant species here, everything was/is planned meticulously. Why argue against evolution, it is a system God created to ensure all life’s continued existence. Why try and convince an athiest of God’s existence, he is a perfect example of what a benevolent creator God is, He allows us the freedom of choice, with no interference whatsoever from Him to live our lives as we see fit. All He expects from us is to live in peace and harmony with ourselves and nature. With us being dominant, it would be our responsibilty to nurture the continued existence of Earth. But what have we done with all this freedom? Created a monster, such a simple gift we have been given, with more than enough resources to provide for us all comfortably, but no, we needed more. We needed to explain God and decide through various religions what ‘His’ expectations are of us, what ‘His’ rules are with regard to which parts of our bodies we surgically remove, what ‘His’ dietary requirements are of us, what name we may call ‘Him’ by. I will not go into the way His creations women are treated as a result of ‘His’ word , how long we are going to continue our domination of women using religion is a neverending story I will have to get to, suffice to say that I find it strange that Eve had to be the fall guy, it perturbs me greatly. ALL religions that I have been exposed to have and continue to contribute to all the misery and wars that have and will be waged, all the divisions between people and between male and female. I mean if you rear a little boy with the belief that women are inferior or not worthy, can you blame him for the man he turns out to be, is it his fault? So I say thankyou to all the good religion has done for us and I will continue to embrace all the good in all of them and disregard the bad in them, but I must regretfully decline in contributing to the dissent and division they are sowing. On the back cover of his book “Tithing and giving, unlock God’s blessing,” Deryck Stone writes ” To every promise in the bible, there is a condition attached. If you want ‘ windows of heaven’ blessings then you are going to have to honour God by bringing in what is rightfully His- the tithe. When you are obedient in doing what the Word says, God will rebuke the devourer for your sake and tells you to hold Him to His word. You can be reassured that He always does what He says.” Now I think it is wrong to steal money from people with promises of intervention from God’s part with regard to imaginary threats, but then again, that is how this planet is run. I mean a whole book written solely on tithing is a bit much to swallow. A money making racket is too nice to describe it, I firmly believe this is the biggest scam ever perpetrated on humanity. And please people don’t come with that sad old story that the greatest trick the devil has played on us is making us believe that he does not exist, cos maybe, just maybe, it is the other way round. If I am wrong, and live a good life, I believe God will have mercy upon me.