urge to pray - advice/help

[brotherlylove]

Why would remaining unknown be the greatest possible deception? If no one knows it exists, then not telling anyone that is exists is not exactly a great deception. No, a great deception would be lying about what does not exist and convincing everyone that it does.

What I said was that Satan is the greatest possible deceiver, and that the best position to deceive from is one where you are unknown to all. As the father of lies, the deception is everything that is not of the truth. For instance, you attempted to obfuscate the agrument by changing deceiver to deception.

By revealing himself in a form other than his true nature (i.e. revealing himself as weak and ineffectual), Satan has not only been able to deceive you about himself, he has also deceived you about god. If he'd remained unknown, the only thing he'd have been able to deceive you about would have been himself and that wouldn't be enough. The deception he has perpetrated through the bible is even greater.

If no one knows he exists, he doesn't need to deceive anyone about himself. His deception is to lead people away from God. Satan deceives by manipulating human beings to spread his lies. He does this spiritually, by either influencing, oppressing or outright possessing, through his army of fallen angels. He has the most freedom to do this when no one knows he is doing it.

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The grounds for me saying it is you using it as an argument. Sure, I don't believe it, but when you use an argument for your religion that works just as easily against it, I will us it against you.

It's not even an argument for my religion, it is simply what Christians believe and have always believed, and what the jews believed before that. It's surprising that atheists don't know that. I am simply saying that my worldview has an explanation for the genuine supernatural experiences that other people have. You can claim trickster Gods or flying purple unicorns or whatever you want, but you don't actually have any grounds for it, so it is not a persausive argument.

The other half of the equation is that if a good God exists, the deception could only be limited. The truth is available to know who God is..and if God is good that is offered to anyone. So, you could not be endlessly deceived in this paradigm.

We didn't invoke the trickster, you did. Now you don't like tricksters because you've realized how childish an attempt at explanation the trickster is. I bolded the portion of your statement that you should re-read..slowly.

There is no other half, that is part of the trick.

I don't care if you use logically incoherent arguments. If anyone who is interested in the truth comes to read this dialogue, it will be a point in favor of my position.