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Florida Satanists are volunteering to fill school counselor roles after Gov. Ron DeSantis ® signed a law allowing religious chaplains into public schools amid staffing shortages.
“Nothing in the text of the bill serves to exclude us, and no credible interpretation of the First Amendment could. Should a school district now choose to have chaplains, they should expect Satanists to participate as well,” Lucien Greaves, cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, said in a statement to The Hill on Monday.
Back when DeSantis signed the bill in April, he described Satanism as “not a religion” and said its members would not be allowed to participate in the program.
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The Florida move allowing chaplains to serve as public school counselors comes as more states are aiming to inject Christianity into public school environments, including by mandating that the Bible or Ten Commandments be taught in classrooms.
The Satanic Temple has increasingly leaned into the fight over freedom of religion in public schools, including through the establishment of After School Satan clubs.
The temple, founded in 2014, says its mission is to “encourage benevolence and empathy, [and] reject tyrannical authority.”
That is God refusing, by choosing to let free will dictate actions. God acting as a bystander while those that didn’t take any actions towards Evil suffer punishes those who chose to be Good because of God’s actions (or lack thereof.) Pretending that this aligns with free will is inconsequential.
Does God have the ability and power to make it so people have free will AND there is no Evil: Yes or no?
Nobody chooses to be good. Apart from Jesus Christ who yes, was punished because of our sin and us executing someone who was very much innocent
Does God have the ability and power to make it so people have free will AND there is no Evil: Yes or no?
That’s a contradiction. Free will without evil isn’t free will, and you’ve basically just asked a question which is the omnipotence paradox. It’s like asking if God can make a square circle or a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it. Which are both things that cannot exist, like free will without evil.
It’s only a contradiction from a flawed human logical perspective. We, as imperfect beings, cannot see a world that is capable of free will that is also free of Evil. But God is capable of all things, including creating such a world where that is possible.
God is capable of a world existing without Satan and having free will, for example. Satan’s existence is reliant on God’s will, and should God will it, Satan would not exist, and to ascribe all Evil purely to Satan is to blame God for Evil. It is, frankly, an incorrect assertion. Satan could be a manifestation of Evil, I could understand that, but Satan is not the CAUSE or even perpetuator of Evil. Evil would have to be a fundamental force created by God in that example, in order to allow free will.