Re: Blind religion vs. obvious Truth.

Saywhatagain, I had a feeling all this would keep rolling around in your thoughts because I can tell you are a major deep thinker! :)
This is a very freeing belief I believe because God designed our freedom to mean completely depending wholly on him, and not on ourselves. So when we know that the most important thing ever, our salvation, is completely dependent on God, that he accomplishes all of it, all without any dependency on us, that is freeing indeed. And of course we are going to respond with repentance and belief once we are made alive and can now see what we couldn't before, that we were slaves to sin in need of a great Savior.

I remember the first time I really understood what this meant, and I had a very blissful feeling too. Because for the first time, I knew for sure that I was God's child for eternity, because it was all dependent on Him and he couldn't fail. I had grown up in major legalism where you had to earn your salvation. I lived in fear because I very much knew my own weakness. If there was anything dependent on me, even my decision to choose God, then I knew I could mess that up, because then I could choose to turn away from him. And I have had many dark times in my life, even as a christian, where I lost sight of the truths of God and no doubt, I could have turned away from him if it wasn't for his firm grip on me bringing me back to sanity. He's not going to let me go, or any of his children go that he has set out to save from the foundation of the world, and that is an amazing, freeing thought. The scriptures say nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God, and that means even ourselves can't separate us. My flesh scares me. But I know it can't compete with God, and he will win!
God doesn't start something he doesn't finish.
Phillipians 1:6
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
And that scripture is another great one for this discussion because it makes clear that God is the one that starts our salvation and it says he will bring it to completion.

Now, for the rest of all you said, let me state first of all, that I do not believe God is the author of sin, or that he is ever in anyway the one to blame for sin. But I still believe he's in control, because the scriptures say he is, and I know that is a huge mystery that people have been trying to figure out since the bible was written.
But you said this, and this is how I understand it too:
"In my opinion, God's wrath is nothing more than removing His grace and allowing the wrath of Satan to fall on us." And you also said "God is the only source of all good."

I believe the reason there is good in the world at all, is because of God's grace alone, which is what I think you are saying too. Even those that do not believe in him, I believe he gives a measure of grace to. And so there is a certain natural decency among the human race. For example, most people love their kids, and try to do right by them. And there is a certain natural neighborly kindness that human beings have towards one another. We even see amazing acts of kindness, love and sacrifice from some that do not believe in God at all. And I think this is all by God's grace. But I do not believe God sees these "good works" as good from coming from the people that do them that do not believe in him because they do not acknowledge that it was actually his grace that they were able to do these things. And then of course we've all seen unnatural horrendous evil throughout humanity and all the sin in general, and so I believe that is where God has removed his grace, like you said. And he does that as you said out of wrath toward sin and a world that does not acknowledge him as God. The bible says God turned over people to more and more sin because they would not acknowledge him as God. But we were all in this boat of slavery to sin at one point, and so we have nothing to boast in, but the mercy of God alone.
Ephesians 2:1
1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

And so there too in that scripture, as you said, Satan is at work in the sons of disobedience. But still, God is in control, and again, it's a mystery. But we can see a lot of how all this works in the story of Job. Satan did all he did to Job and his family and I'm sure he was influencing all Job's friends in all their uncomforting words to Job, but God was still in control, and had a purpose in allowing Satan to afflict Job. Job knew this and said this:

Job 1:21

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

Well I'm sure there is more I could say, but I will stop there. And no your use of the word man to refer to all humanity doesn't offend me at all. I do it too all the time and I'm female. :)