Is God Omnipotent?

[GENOSAD]

The alternative given to the child in that scenario would be: "but if you don't play in the street, I'll buy you as much candy as you want."

But by incentivizing them, aren't you taking away from their free will? Sure, they could still choose to disobey, but the offer of candy is still going to sway them towards obedience.

 

[Vitnira]

You're insinuating that god gives no alternative to playing in the street. Sorry I'm so late to the thread

The alternative given to the child in that scenario would be: "but if you don't play in the street, I'll buy you as much candy as you want."

...Why did you triplepost necro instead of editing?

You are correct and here is the corrected situation:
I have told my child to not play in the street. As an adult, they are about to play in the street anyway. I tell them "I will give you infinite candy forever if you don't play in the street, and if you are killed in the street, your stepbrother will torture you forever." They decide to do so anyway. I see a car coming that will hit them, and I have powerful psychic abilities to stop the car.

If I have the POWER to stop the car (with no impact to anyone else), and I do NOT stop it, how can I be seen as benevolent? And, with the common* Christian assumption there is a Hell you are damned to for eternity, how can I further be seen as benevolent for preventing an infinite punishment for an action I can see and stop?

I used this analogy because a common statement among Christians is "we are God's children, the sheep of his flock" - correctly connotating in the Christian mindset that we are limited in our knowledge. We are not capable of completely knowing what is good and are thus reliant on God's advice to do good - but the thing is, as "children"/"sheep", we are still obviously capable of following the "wrong" options. However, if the consequences are infinite torture for disobedience, that I have the power to stop, how can I be seen as omnibenevolent for allowing my children to engage in these options even if it robs them of freedom of action?

I continue to maintain: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good. Pick two. "Free will", assuming it does exist, does not handwave this fundamental contradiction.


*yes, not all christians believe that, but the majority do so it's a part of the Christian worldview

 

[Captain]

All of these bullshit religions were created because people needed something to wrap their heads around. They also needed to stop acting like assholes a thousand years go. All your ideas of God are from people trying to control other people so the world would be a little better and controlled by the smarter people. Whatever created the universe is not in these books filled with bullshit. It still blows my mind that rational people will just settle on these moldy collections of pages filled with stories written by randos that have no more answers than you do. It's all a sham. This world is about creation and its decay to nothing. It's super convenient Christianity can talk about how wonderful everything is and Gods love blah blah blah....but when you see suffering it's all " it's gods will....we don't understand his plan". It's all a nothing answer and a hollow ideology. Religions only purpose seems to be to give people ego reinforcement, set you up with some cult friends, fill a social calendar, prove your superiority and keep your brains from exploding from deep thinking. If you actually put some hard thought into it...and I mean real your brain almost feels like it's going to reboot kind of thinking....you'll find that it's all just bullshit. At least that's my opinion. We will never progress as a species if we hold on to these broken ideologies and keep fighting over who's god is best god. Religion is a trap.

 

[StoicCabal]

Calm down there Captain Nihilism, you can be content with believing that nothing matters aside from the material, but I remain steadfastly unconvinced that there isn't at least some kind of higher order. There's more to life than having more stuff, humans need fulfillment to function properly, and recent decades have done a fantastic job of proving that your hollow worldview will only drive humanity mad.

 

[Captain]

Calm down there Captain Nihilism, you can be content with believing that nothing matters aside from the material, but I remain steadfastly unconvinced that there isn't at least some kind of higher order. There's more to life than having more stuff, humans need fulfillment to function properly, and recent decades have done a fantastic job of proving that your hollow worldview will only drive humanity mad.

When did I say any of that? Why the fuck are you just putting words in my mouth? Anytime bullshit religions, like the many flavors of Christianity, are called out as such its followers and friends assume the ones calling it out are spiritual simpletons or materialistic consumers. How does that make any sense? I've thought about all this probably harder and longer than the average Christian's I know. The religions don't make any fucking sense, are heavily borrowed from each other, contradictory, and setup to not be questioned. Organized religion is a lie and you have to really be retarded to think any of it's true. Christianity is a story for a child, not a rational adult. Once you sign up for the Christian BBQ you are cutting off your ability to think deeper and question reality. The possibilities about our existence are endless, but you've settled on the least probable and refuse to accept it might be childish fantasy from a bunch of simpletons living with goats in houses made of mud and straw. Or it might be a well crafted story to control a population of idiots from revolting against a king or whatever.

So like you I've made assumptions about what you believe based on nothing and responded to it as if it's fact. Enjoy.

 

[how to drain your dragon]

Just because the fan club for your fave book has been around for 2000 years doesn't make the book real.

 

[Captain]

Just because the fan club for your fave book has been around for 2000 years doesn't make the book real.

Hey don't be Godphobic .

 

[Ross_Я]

Anytime bullshit religions, like the many flavors of Christianity, are called out as such its followers and friends assume the ones calling it out are spiritual simpletons or materialistic consumers. How does that make any sense? I've thought about all this probably harder and longer than the average Christian's I know.

Write up some of your thoughts, please? I'm really interested to hear... whatever you have come to.

 

[Captain]

Write up some of your thoughts, please? I'm really interested to hear... whatever you have come to.

Our reality including and beyond the visible is a form of beauty that we will never fully comprehend. There are forces that move around us and between us. Everyone is connected together through a series of actions cause by others actions that create the destiny of everyone that will ever be. This post will change your life just by taking the time to read it. Had I not posted this your life and everyone that comes in contact with you would have been be different. There is a meaning and a purpose to being here but you only feel an echo of a glimpse of it. When I try to answer the question of who created God and who created the reality of his realm my brain can only process it into a single white room that has walls yet has none. This room floats in a sea of blackness and that is all my brain can return when pressed for the deeper processing of that issue. It's quite a distrusting process . It's like I've reached the limit of what I can understand. I once drowned in a river only to instantly find myself safely on a rock across from the spot, no possible way I could have gotten there. So I know reality is not what it seems. I have seen relatives die and another die within the same week only to ,for a fraction of a second, feel overwhelmed with knowledge that the first person who died was responsible for the second. Nothing has pointed me in the direction of an ancient book written by men. There is something beyond us but I don't know what it is, but I know it's not what Christianity thinks it is. Religion puts everything in a box and builds a construct of beliefs for you to follow never allowing you to allow our reality to give you clues to follow. Even music can bring your mind places a Sunday sermon can't. I believe music is a tool for our minds. We aren't meant to be chasing god to prepare for some afterlife. We are meant to connect with our realm, it's inhabitants. and each other. That is the important thing here. Going beyond ourselves in our own world is the lesson. That is what we should be doing here. Anything else is a mistake. Maybe people fear the Christian god and that's why they can't escape.

My only religious daydream/vision is this. I am riding a train over a vast ocean. The track sits on sand with nothing else around it. There is a pure sunlight but I can't see the sun. I can see all spectrums of light reflecting off the water. The sky is blue and filled with stars. The train leaves me on small beach about 20' wide off the tracks. I walk to the water and run my hand through it looking at the reflections. I see a building in the reflection. Behind me on the other side of the track is a forest, but I can see the building peering out. I walk through the trees and see a large concrete brutalist structure of random geometric shapes, yet in a harmony with each other. I enter through a beautiful courtyard where vines and bushes are intertwined within the concrete. I walk inside the building through mazes of amazing brutalist architecture that I have never seen before. I get to a room that looks far above the ocean where the light is amber as if the sun is setting. The wall is covered in floor to ceiling windows. There is a chair facing the windows. I am standing on a slight level above so I walk down steps going the whole length of the room to the chair. I feel the presence of what might be a god or a high being. As it turns around in the chair I wake up.

There is something bigger than us, what that is so don't know. It certainly isn't a contradictory Bible written by men and organized by people trying to control the masses. We have to reject this rubbish and find the meaning ourselves and not be trapped into something that just wastes our time on this earth.

 

[Ross_Я]

~snip~

Good stuff, mate. Thank you for the time you took to write it all out.
I can definitely agree that religions do simplify the whole... spiritual stuff a lot, and said simplification is likely the reason why we get all the contradictions and, ultimately, the whole idea of bringing spiritual questions down to the purely material level like this whole thread.
On the other hand though, I feel like it is necessary to simplify things in order to get even a chance to transfer some part of a message to an average man. I think so, at least.

 

[Captain]

Good stuff, mate. Thank you for the time you took to write it all out.
I can definitely agree that religions do simplify the whole... spiritual stuff a lot, and said simplification is likely the reason why we get all the contradictions and, ultimately, the whole idea of bringing spiritual questions down to the purely material level like this whole thread.
On the other hand though, I feel like it is necessary to simplify things in order to get even a chance to transfer some part of a message to an average man. I think so, at least.

And that might be the key. Until your truly get it you might be stuck in this reality in some reincarnation situation. Or there are only a few of us and the rest are NPCs lol. One thought I had once...what if we are ALL the same person in different reincarnation cycles. There is so much possibility.

 

[how to drain your dragon]

One thought I had once...what if we are ALL the same person in different reincarnation cycles. There is so much possibility.

The Egg

www.galactanet.com

You might enjoy this

 

[Captain]

The Egg

www.galactanet.com

You might enjoy this

That sounds exhausting lol

 

[Mamisu]

But by incentivizing them, aren't you taking away from their free will? Sure, they could still choose to disobey, but the offer of candy is still going to sway them towards obedience.

If you knew your friend was going to drive off of a cliff, and you offered to give him 20 bucks to not drive off the cliff, is that the wrong thing to do?

 

[Mamisu]

...Why did you triplepost necro instead of editing?

You are correct and here is the corrected situation:
I have told my child to not play in the street. As an adult, they are about to play in the street anyway. I tell them "I will give you infinite candy forever if you don't play in the street, and if you are killed in the street, your stepbrother will torture you forever." They decide to do so anyway. I see a car coming that will hit them, and I have powerful psychic abilities to stop the car.

If I have the POWER to stop the car (with no impact to anyone else), and I do NOT stop it, how can I be seen as benevolent? And, with the common* Christian assumption there is a Hell you are damned to for eternity, how can I further be seen as benevolent for preventing an infinite punishment for an action I can see and stop?

I used this analogy because a common statement among Christians is "we are God's children, the sheep of his flock" - correctly connotating in the Christian mindset that we are limited in our knowledge. We are not capable of completely knowing what is good and are thus reliant on God's advice to do good - but the thing is, as "children"/"sheep", we are still obviously capable of following the "wrong" options. However, if the consequences are infinite torture for disobedience, that I have the power to stop, how can I be seen as omnibenevolent for allowing my children to engage in these options even if it robs them of freedom of action?

I continue to maintain: all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good. Pick two. "Free will", assuming it does exist, does not handwave this fundamental contradiction.


*yes, not all christians believe that, but the majority do so it's a part of the Christian worldview

if I understood god, he wouldn't be god. God sees things in a different light. A light that considers things like eternity. Life after death.

 

[GENOSAD]

is that the wrong thing to do?

I'm not talking about what the "right" thing to do is, I'm talking about what interferes with free will.
But, since you mention the "wrong thing to do" in conflict with free will... Well, one of these things can't really exist with the other, now can it? If God has the power to keep harm away from people, yet He chooses not to so in accordance with free will, then He's not benevolent. Which is fine. We all read the Old Testament, it's no surprise that there's a mean streak hidden somewhere in that trinity.

 

[Mamisu]

I'm not talking about what the "right" thing to do is, I'm talking about what interferes with free will.
But, since you mention the "wrong thing to do" in conflict with free will... Well, one of these things can't really exist with the other, now can it? If God has the power to keep harm away from people, yet He chooses not to so in accordance with free will, then He's not benevolent. Which is fine. We all read the Old Testament, it's no surprise that there's a mean streak hidden somewhere in that trinity.

He let's people choose to either suffer for eternity, or be happy for eternity. It's a very easy choice.

 

[GENOSAD]

He let's people choose to either suffer for eternity, or be happy for eternity. It's a very easy choice.

OK, so he's not benevolent. Gotcha.

 

[llillilll]

if I understood god, he wouldn't be god. God sees things in a different light. A light that considers things like eternity. Life after death.

A omnipresent, all knowing god would't create creatures that can't understand his vision and put them in a test about the very thing they don'y understand.
I shouldn't choose atheism after i read a religious book if there is a all knowing god, as he would know to put some hints in the book for me. All holy books seem magical from faraway yet nothingburgers when you read them cover to cover.

 

[Ross_Я]

A omnipresent, all knowing god would't create creatures that can't understand his vision and put them in a test about the very thing they don'y understand.
I shouldn't choose atheism after i read a religious book if there is a all knowing god, as he would know to put some hints in the book for me. All holy books seem magical from faraway yet nothingburgers when you read them cover to cover.

I guess, we need to clear it up here: is this discussion about religious books or about God? I mean, like, religious books and tests they propose aside, an omnipresent and all knowing God would totally create creatures that can't understand his vision.