My own concept rests entirely on the presumption of the existence of free will. I have already seen this proven to me by the way that synchronicity operates. For instance, I've seen synchronicities appear for things that did come to pass...but also synchronicities for things that didn't. My personal take is that synchronicities manifest when certain manifestations are "in play", but it doesn't mean they are definitely going to come to pass. One can always align or de-align oneself from the "result."

There can be no predestination; indeed, if there were, there could be no free will...and then what would be the point of existence? Life would be just one robotic theater production, in which we are all just going through the motions like marionettes or automatons.

The discussion of free will is obviously a big one, but for more metaphysical info on that, I recommend the works of Ken MacClean here and here. For a more theological perspective, I recommend the works of the kabbalist Moshe Chaim Luzzato.

But for the moment, let us presume the existence of free will.

Now, if we are to have free will, then any so-called Creator has to allow bad stuff to happen, and people to make bad, even evil choices.

If he doesn't do this, then we no longer have free will.

Hence the ridiculousness of claiming that God must be evil or uncaring to allow horrible things to happen in the world...because the alternative is that we become robots with no freedom to choose at all.

To me the answer is obvious, as is painted in the very schizophrenic, tripolar, and inconsistent behaviors of the Bible God. Sometimes he says thou shalt not kill, sometimes he says kill all the men and take the women and children as slaves. Doesn't sound like the work of one all knowing God, because One all knowing God could probably have the foresight to have some consistency.

It actually seems fairly consistent to me, if you look at the way things manifest and how prayer and LOA works. God and/or LOA does not seem to do much judging when it comes to manifestation or prayer requests. Hence the saying "Be careful what you wish for."

I'm sure there have been plenty of times in war where a soldier stranded in the midst of a battle prayed for deliverance...and received an answer to his prayer. Perhaps a byproduct of his successful deliverance necessitated the killing of an enemy soldier.

(But if you believe that we are all immortal beings of the spirit, then it's really not such a big deal, is it? In the long run, it's really not all that bad.)

In the same way, according to the Old Testament, the Hebrews had prayed long, hard and consistently for deliverance from the slavery of the Egyptians. Their prayers were eventually answered in a spectacular fashion. Source responded, and according to LOA, the Egyptians must have been a vibrational match for what happened to them as well. As to the "purity" of this tale as it has come down to us, who knows what really occurred? But that is my take on it.

I'd also like to offer an observation that throughout the history of the world, the various differing conceptions of Source or God seem to reflect the sentiments and values of the people from whom the conception issues. So, it seems natural that the concept of a harsh and judgmental Diety would come from an ancient tribe like the Hebrews. Likewise, we have animist "nature Gods" from the Japanese Shinto religion. The ancient Greeks had "Gods" of love and hedonism which they actually prayed to.

So, based on all of the above...

To me either Lucifer was acting on the orders of God...

My take on it (if we are to presume the truth of this story) is that Lucifer was an entity with free will. He made a choice that was out of alignment with Source.

...or he was doing us a favor by freeing us from a tyrant who thought he was better than everyone else and cocky enough to let that be his downfall.

However justified Lucifer may have thought his choice to be, he was essentially waging war against Source....increasing his separation from it.

There was never any chance he could have won...because if he destroyed Source he would have destroyed himself; he would have cut off his own power.

For other reasons they believed were also justified, certain entities (angels) who were aligned with Source decided that Lucifer was being too destructive, and took it upon themselves to defeat and imprison the troublemaker.

If he actually exists, Lucifer may very well be imprisoned somewhere, still bitterly shaking his angry fist at Source. Or perhaps, being possessed of free will, he changed his mind about the whole thing and aligned himself with Source, as suggested in this excellent novel by Michael Moorcock. (Can get it here)

When you think about the whole story, it's actually kind of a neat little tale about the perils of "fighting or resenting Source" and the advantages of aligning yourself with it.

This is another good question. I can point to the Tree Of Life as the answer but that is much too esoteric of an answer to see how it fits for most. For this reason I'll use an analogy as that was the best way Jesus taught.

There is an ocean, but this ocean is conscious! There is a big drop of water that comes to think of itself as powerful, so much so that it is greater than the ocean! It says I don't need the ocean I am greater than that! So it departs from the ocean, a few me too drops follow after it. Soon they find a vast emptiness, loneliness like they have never felt! This turns into hate.

Have you ever seen any relationships that were very loving that broke up and turned very hating? The hate comes from the hurt of loss.

As long as these drops believe they are separate from the ocean even against the ocean they can not consciously know the ocean. Therefore they feel they lost or fell from the ocean.

So now from this belief comes hurt, hate, jealousy, envy, ego, pride, murder, rape, rage. This is so different from the, comfort, love, generosity, compassion, unity, happiness, playfulness, of the ocean consciousness.

We could even go as far as to say opposite.

Through this we can see where many acts originate. Division or unity. Christ esoteric title is "The joiner of the opposites." He said "I didn't come to divide."

Existence (as science points out) started as a singularity. One point. Science says this singularity exploded (The big bang) to become our universe. The Kabbalah is a little more specific here. One became two. The first division of polarity. Or the first dimension to the second. To know the first dimension is to be the first dimension. To know of or about the first dimension is to be the second dimension. Continue on to the third, division and fourth. These we know to the fourth (time).

We can as well apply these to directions. The six directions of motion and expansion with the seventh rest in the center.

Now the interesting thing is the fall of the Devil or the fall of Adam and Eve we can see parallels relating to belief. Disobedience is a belief in division thus separation and hence the experience of feeling fallen, but.... As I said to know of the one we needed to become two.

The devil's lie is misunderstood. His lie wasn't that we would become as Gods but that we are or ever can be separate from God. Remember the words of the Elohim after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, "Behold they have become like us", in other words self conscious.

For me this is quite simple. The word 'god' is masculine and 'goddess' is feminine. The biblical god is obviously masculine and no better than mankind. Now hold on before anyone gets their shorts twisted in a knot. The bible tells us exactly that - "The LORD/YHWH is a man of war; the LORD/YHWH is his name." Exodus 15:3. The Source of all Creation is energy and energy has no gender, nor does it have human attributes such as anger, jealously, etc., After having read a lot of the forbidden gnostic material, I have come to the conclusion the biblical god is an archon and a big wannabe. He's an imposter. Since the bible tells us Christ prophesied through the apostle John that the true Christians would be killed and that a false church would replace them, then it is the beliefs of the ones massacred that represents the true teachings of the man known to us as Christ, and not the teachings of the ones that survived.

There is another scenarion. And thats that Lucy didnt ever exist as a present day or historical character. For that matter all the bibles characters , apart from Christ never existed as people.

The whole book could well be a selection of stories told to pass on certain truths, these truths contained within these accounts. The stories themselves being parables.

My take is that the whole drama of the bible with all the stories and characters is contained " within you" The whole books about you, all of it. Its not historically true, its eternally true.

The only character who is real is Christ, and Hes awakening within all of us, as us.

Of course there are many who would vow and declare that everything thats spoken of in this selection of spiritual writings actually happened. They will say that God and Satan had a heart to heart over the life of Job for instance.

And thats fine, im sure there are millions of people who believe this, im sure millions are trying to believe that Jonah really was swallowed whole by a large whale or fish. And that he lived happily in the whale for 3 days.

My belief is that that never happened, and that contained within that "story" are many deeper truths.

If im wrong then i hope that if there is a God external to myself, he will cut me a bit of slack concerning not believing this stuff.....after all , he must realise i wasnt around when this happened, or didnt happen.

There is a lot of discussion about what people "think" concerning Kabbalah which is well and good but highly subjective. Go to the source- the rabbi's themselves if you want to learn their mysticism. Here is a blog that is very good concerning authentic Kabbalistic ideology: http://jeffjudaism.blogspot.com/