I'm getting existential depression or anger. I hate how we have been born in this finite material planet/universe only for it to end at some point in time.
Does it end? The Bible says it
changes, the old giving way to the new. (
2 Peter 3:10-13)
That we are obliged to choose between eventual eternal fate in the form of Heaven versus Hell and that whatever actions we do have implications toward one or the other.
??? I'm not sure why you think you should be free to act just as you wish in God's universe. He made and sustains it at every moment; this seems to me to give Him the right to dictate to us how things will be in His Creation.
That we are tempted by Satan.
We are tempted also by our own selfish nature. Satan would have nothing to work with in tempting us if we didn't have such a nature.
That God allows him to do that despite being His and all holydom's most bitter enemy. That Satan and his own followers get literally a free pass to torment and lie to mankind en mass while we should just kneel and not take physical action.
Satan is just a created being with the capacity to choose for or against God - like you and I. Satan chose against God and, being an angelic being, has used his capacities as such to oppose his Maker. We do the very same thing. But our capacity to freely choose is necessary to loving Him.
Satan doesn't get a "free pass" to torment humanity. His "bill" for the evil he has done will come due and it will be paid in full whether he wants to pay it or not. The torment of his punishment will continue for ever and ever, the Bible says. (See
Revelation 12:12; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10)
That my "reward" that I'm supposed to look forward to is merely spiritual and for God rather than my self or pursuing some form of material pleasure -- there can't be a balance between the two somehow.
Your view of God is far, far too small. God is Himself our "exceeding great reward." He is, after all, the Greatest Thing in all of Creation, greater than all of it combined. He vastly outstrips in every respect the best, the most amazing, things we can imagine or have experienced. And when we see Him face-to-face, those who love Him will find Him utterly and forever satisfying, truly the "great reward" He has told us that He is. Against what, then, could God possibly be "balanced"? Not all of Creation could equal in excellence and wonder the Lord God Almighty. You pine for a far lesser thing, a weak and shadowy alternative, when you wish for "some form of material pleasure" alongside the treasure of God Himself.
Exodus 15:11
11 "Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?
Psalm 71:19
19 For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?
2 Samuel 7:22
22 "For this reason You are great, O Lord GOD; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
Psalm 86:8-10
8 There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord, Nor are there any works like Yours.
9 All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, And they shall glorify Your name.
10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds; You alone are God.
but both Satan and God are also dictators in the cosmic form in a way because by his law and design we are made to depend on him for goodness.
Satan is in no way the sort of "dictator" God is. If God is a "dictator," He is so as the Creator and Sustainer of Everything. Satan is not. God has made all there is and is the Ultimate Ground of its existence. Satan has no universe-making power and certainly no power to sustain a universe. God calls the shots because He is the Creator, because He is God Almighty. Satan, in contrast, is a usurper, a liar, a murderous sneak, who is nowhere near the class of being God is. God is perfect in holiness, love, mercy, justice and wisdom. Satan is a foul, self-deceived and deceiving wretch, soon to fall under God's eternal judgment. And so on.
Who else should we depend on as the designer and law-giver of everything? Do you have a better, superior alternative to the perfect God of All?
I try not to curse God and I can say I still like God in the end because Satan and Hell would be infinitely worse.
Your standard of comparison is rather...low, here.
It's like one can't opt-out or escape either way, you are ultimately controlled. Even after dying it's still controlled in a way to some extent -- in Heaven you lose your agency to choose not to want a global relationship with everybody and become reprogrammed
Only those who want God's way, who want God, will be in heaven with Him. Everyone else will find themselves getting the separation from God that they always wanted - forever. And so, those in heaven will not think of the absence of sin, of its tempting power, an evil thing, but a cause for great joy. They will delight in an existence where God's will is always desired and done.
but Hell is where eternal torment and wickedness is - and a lot of people are there not because they did something very wrong and immoral - but the choice that got them there is merely wanting to live on their own terms at least sometimes or that they followed in the "wrong" religious and belief traditions or culture.
Uh, no. People go to hell because they have sinned, because they made selfish, evil choices against the command of God Almighty and have not repented of them. Level of knowledge and culture having nothing to do with God's punishment of
wickedness. And our sin is "exceedingly sinful." It is so bad, in fact, that the only appropriate response to it is the eternal punishment of hell. It's hard, steeped in sin as we are, to recognize just how evil, how wickedly vile, our sin really is. We love our sin, we live in it every day and encourage others to join us in it, we don't even often see that our sin is, in fact, sin. How, then, do we point at God's punishment of our sin and say, "It's too much! You're being unfair! My sin wasn't that bad." Who is a better judge of wickedness? Those totally saturated with it, or God who is Light and in whom there is no darkness at all?
