God is omnipresent and omniscient - all powerfull. Anything allpowerfull cannot not do anything. Therefore god knows all time. So when god set the universe up, it set it up knowing exactly how everything would transpire - god knew exactly how everything would turn out in the universe god had just set up. Yet there are people who go to hell, because they are evil or sinners. But god set up a universe in which the majority of people would be evil, or be sinners. So god chose to damn the majority of humanity to an infinity in hell. That didn't take me long to think through, I can't find fault with it, although I've tried a fair bit. Seems like another good reason for not worshiping a god, but I'm sure that there must be some people about here who can pick a hole or two in it - please do. First person to post "there is no god" gets a free "I'm a retard" hat from me, just PM your postal address.
Of course there's no chink in the armour of that one, it's why scientists cannot disprove God. It's possible - that God - like us chooses not to do anything. He simply created the universe and left it. Just because you're all powerful doesn't mean to have to use it.
I'm not sure you're understanding the point I'm trying to highlight. Not the issue of a god being an inactive deity instead of an active one, rather the idea that an allpowefull god by neccesity of its omniscience must have created a world where in which the majority of people that it was responsible for giving life to, were going to burn in hell forever at no real fault of their own(that's just how the dominoes were set up). I'm just trying to figure out ways around it, because it seems too convenient and I'm sure that there are good counter arguements to it.
Basically you're saying that this "god" fellow did away with the idea of free-will to whatever it created. That is the flaw. If this "god" created creatures that are free-roaming, it could control their environment, but not the creatures directly. Unless you want to get into the whole "free-will is an illusion to keep the creatures complacent" argument, but that is tiresome and annoying, and I doubt the creatures would be given the “freedom” to question anything at all. Ever. For any reason. There would just be no point in it. To sum it up: everything around the creatures can be controlled, but if the creatures have free-will, then the creator cannot control the creatures. Simple.
there is no god! PM sent In all serious though... Even if you had the final, irrefutable proof that God does not exist there will always be people in this world that just wont listen. Thus, they will pick holes in whatever you say even if what they are saying makes no sense, and then there will be people that listen to that person and ignore you because thats what they have always done. They will say things like, "that is how God intended it." or the old classic "god works in mysterious ways." haha! type firefox and it wants to correct it to Firefox, type god and it doesn't bother I don't know why that amuses me.
The assumption you're making is that God's omniscience is such that he can forsee all human actions when in fact, omniscience and omnipotence have specific limitations. Can an all-powerful God create an object that he did not make? Can an all-knowing God who does not exist as a corporeal entity know what something tastes like? If we entertain the idea that he is truly omniscient, then for God to know everything that will happen in the future it must all have been predetermined from the very point at which he created the universe. However, this gives rise to an interesting conflict: either humans are free agents and God is not omniscient in the commonly defined sense, or God knows all and human beings are simply destined to pursue a predetermined path. Richard Swinburne (a philosopher whom I presume has no relation to Bindibadgi ) argued that when creating humans, God chose to forgo specific knowledge; that is, the knowledge of our future actions. This is consistent with God's omniscience as found in the Old Testament.
you;re making the assumption that hell actually exists, too. (not actually a teaching that originates in the bible)
Ok, you want a real refutation. This was my major in college-in fact, my education almost revolved around this question. There are multiple groups of thought, you may take what you wish from it. One group is the Deists, and what they say has a lot of sense for some people. Their thought is that God, being all-powerful, heaves the Cosmos into being, just as the Bible puts it. Now, He spends a bit of time tweaking His model (the Old Testament), watching what it will do (as in a science experiment of epic proportions), adds a little to it (the New Testament) and walks off. The explanation is that God is all powerful, but by all-knowing, that he records all knowledge-not that he has a specific knowledge of all future. That would fit your hypothesis and still allow him to be at least lawful neutral. Another theory is self-limitation. In this theory, in order for people to have free will, God chooses to limit His omniscience so as not to interfere-the reason being that anything done of free will is inherently more worthwhile than anything forced. Since He chooses not to stop evil before it happens, He is seen as evil himself. I'm gonna stop in my explication of theories to address the original issue, and that is one of invalid argument-it's an abusive ad hominem (should that be abusive a dei?) and therefore a moot point altogether. If structured correctly, it would not look that way at all. It would be a shorter, to the point question-why would God allow people to be evil if He knows everything? Now, as to the issue of pandamnation-and no it has nothing to do with pandas-we have to examine the original issue at hand here. Remember the Garden? Let's go all the way back to when man was TRULY innocent-before the Fall. Now, remember what I said about free will? If you examine the texts, you will see that the intended use of man was as a friend-a not-quite equal bond, but one of friendship and of MUTUAL gain. God may not NEED anything, but who wants to sit alone forever? Sure, He had the angels to praise, but as they (so far as we can ascertain) have no free will, there's little point in listening to that for eternity. Think of it as the celestial radio. So God's cruising through eternity, listening to the radio, and He wants to talk to someone. So He gets out, makes a mudball and peoples it. (please excuse the liberties, I'm making a point here.) The essential thing of people is that we have free will-an attribute that makes us more than angels in the celestial reckoning. God did not want yes-men. So, He puts us in the Garden, a place of heaven on earth, and tells us eat anything but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why, you may ask? Not altogether sure myself, but repeated research leads me to think that it has to do with free will as well-you never know if they will obey until they have to. It's quite the same concept as before. There's no such thing as disobedience if there are no rules to break. So, that's how we get both sides of the free will coin. Now, God has to give us a choice if it is free will. So, He says "Don't eat that. You have lots of other goodies." This HAS to happen in order for free will to be free will. The thing that does NOT have to happen is for them to make the wrong choice. If God intervenes, it is no longer free will. So there is an implied trust in the situation. From here, it takes a quick trip into the toilet bowl. After an unspecified amount of time, Eve is enticed into eating the fruit. This is by an outside entity, known as the serpent, and almost universally identified as Satan, or Lucifer, the ex-Morning Star. The specifics are not there about the fall of Lucifel to become Lucifer, but there's a chance he was a free will experiment gone jealous. Other ideas include partial free will, in an attempt to create a companion before. BTW, a failed human does not make God any less powerful-if they fail of their own accord, when equipped with all the necessary gear to succeed, it is their own fault. At any rate, the Fall occurs. Now this is where we get interesting. It would appear that the Fall was in all actuality the recoding of human DNA (follow my insanity for a second), in a sense. The inherent nature of us was spoiled. The reasoning behind this is that if there is only one man and one woman, then whatever changes them gets passed on-such as the sin nature. That's simple Mendeleevian genetics. No big deal there-whatever it was changed them, and they passed it on. Innocence as it were was no longer hard-coded. At this point God sees a problem. Sin, or disobedience, must needs have consequence, but He loves His own creation, as well. He is practically their Father, you know... So, he bars them from the Garden, so that they may not eat of the tree of life and live forever, being close to God in knowledge, and ruining other scemes as Satan does. One underestimates how powerful a human that is not susceptible to disease or injury is, and who would live forever with full mental capacity... So there we are, out of the Garden , condemned to eventually die, and we're like "it's all over, man...", but God has a way out planned. One day down the line, God will raise up a power on the earth that can remove the sin from them and make them as they were before-able to hold full congress with God once again. Until then, we are then under the bonds of a suzerain treaty with God-our allegiance in order for future reward. We must fulfill the specific dictates through faith, without having any sight of when the reward will be paid out. And yet, people bite. Many figures emerge to follow God, and their stories are the Old Testament. Eventually, the terms of the treaty are carried out-the birth of Christ. Only by God technically sacrificing Himself, as a sacrifice of greater quality than the accumulation of sin, could there be forgiveness. In this instance, and in all instances of sacrifice, a perfect animal was used, as the animal could not have the defects it was dying for-it had to truly be a sacrifice, and not a way to dispose of defects. But an animal is not equal in God's eyes to a human, so the sacrifice was incomplete, and it would not hold out forever, requiring additional sacrifice. For the sacrifice to be permanent, the sacrifice had to be of greater worth-and so God chose to employ His triune nature (and none of us really knows how that works) and sacrifice Himself, the only thing more worthy, for our sins. Now, to address the point of all going to hell. You don't have to. You're given a choice. If you don't want to believe, then you chose that, not God. Not all go automatically to hell. With the statements on the age of accountability, when a child cannot tell good from evil, they will go straight to heaven. Most of us also believe those mentally handicapped from birth and perpetually childlike in mentality are also automatically welcomed in-as they cannot understand the question, they certainly wouldn't understand the answer. You don't beat an infant for pissing itself, do you? (rational people only there...) But, once they know the difference, they have to choose for themselves. Once again, free will means the choice can-be made for us. If we can't be forced into heaven, then we can't be forced into hell. To summarize, consider a Lian-Li case owner. Most people think they're good enough. They were born into stock, they live stock, and they die stock, throwing their cases into the trashcan. Most never touch a setting in their BIOS. They never realize their true potential. Now Nexxo comes along. Nexxo owns a Li-Li, but he believes there is something more to life than stock. So he goes out, and he finds that there is modding. He stuffs his case full of components, he tweaks his system to perfection. Project Metaversa, when its board blows and its shell is discarded, lives forever on the internet. Was that case created good or bad? Neither, it was what the user did with that case that made it good or bad. In the same way, God didn't MAKE us simply to go to hell. He allows us to make a choice, to be left stock and be tossed in the dumpster or to mod ourselves and gain eternal fame on the internet. I mean go to heaven. If I need explain more, I shall. I need a coffee now. Nexxo used without permission of owner, but I hope I portrayed him in a light that he is not offended by. You're the reason I chose Lian-Li for myself, man...
Nifty. Now then, why do they baptise infants? Why has the church only recently revoked the idea that SIDS babies go into limbo? Was there ever any reason (given what you've just written would all have to come directly out of the bible - with obvious interpretation - which has existed for a while now I'm guessing) for people of said "faith" to think that the mentally handicapped go to this "hell" place? I mean, there has to have been something somewhere that would have sparked those ideas, but how could that be if the bible has never changed? It is the word of “god”, right? Or is it more a case of interpretation/opinions/views changing? (these are honestly real questions, not an “attack” on some silly ideas that I do not partake in the believing of) You know what, I am really just trying to say: cookies. (yay)
I can explain where those ideas come from. Do you know about the Dark Ages? The Catholic church withheld all knowledge, even reading and writing, so as to keep its subjects in abject fear? They withheld the reading of the texts, told them what they meant, and used that to control them. If you had no way to verify it, and you were told that your child would go to hell if they weren't baptized, there's a good chance you'd believe it, no? Especially when they could kill you or excommunicate you (often worse than death) if you disagreed... So we have a tradition of listening to those in charge, and not checking for ourselves. Same goes with people today. There's lots of denominations (including the one I grew up in) that are staffed by people who believe it because their pastor/priest/etc said it. Never mind if it's there, the pastor said it. I have heard people justify racism, hate crimes, the existence of aliens on earth, and even promiscuity because of that simple issue. God didn't call us sheep for nothin. So we have a lot of misinformation, a lot of FUD, and nobody tries to clean it up. They just roll it into the next rehash until people think it's canon. Most people haven't read enough to even care. To them it's something that's vaguely real, a name to shout during sex or when swearing, and not much more. Fire insurance, some call it. If you read the Scriptures for themselves, using a text that was translated to be as close to the Greek and Hebrew as possible (there are actually translations made to cater to certain ideas, doctrines, and heresies...) or better yet, as I have done, study the Greek and Hebrew yourself, you come on little that is not clear-cut. It does not need to be respun for the new millenium, it needs to be understood in its context. People also often forget context and make really stupid statements. Those totally against drinking, there are lots of mentions not only of the existence but the use of wine, and some of those are from God Himself. Always is the lesson everything in moderation, though. God commands the death penalty for certain offenses, but He states that forgiveness is still possible, and that it is only the carrying out of a just punishment, not revenge. You don't kill them cause they made you mad. You kill them because their crime merits forfeiture of their life. Some people cannot or will not be rehabilitated. Even in prison, they can either hurt others or direct people on the outside to carry out their orders. In that circumstance, the only way to keep others safe is to kill them-and their crimes would justify that end, anyway. Baptism it is made clear is a sign to others that a person has been changed, and is symbolically being reborn as a new person. That being what it is, there is no point to baptizing infants, they don't get it, they're innocent at the moment anyway. "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" did lots to hurt the cause. I don't care what other theologians said, there was more misinformation intended to scare the hell out of the audience (pun intended) than any other serious theological work I've ever seen. Jesus Himself said the children would go with Him, who are we to refute it? If you want to understand where many ideas on the nature of hell come from, Google and read that sermon. A man once said the only mistake God ever made was using people to spread his message. Seems like it some days...
That makes for very interesting reading KayinBlack, I'm glad you chose to answer my confusion, so thanks I can't say that I'm all that satisfied by the idea of self-limitation in an all-powerfull being though, it doesn't seem like that graceful a solution. Both of your proposed solutions to us having free will seem to rely on god de-godifying himself a bit. But I reckon you probably have the most authentic answer out of anyone I'll manage to discuss this with. Still, I feel that, even if god has decided not to know about the future, or has decided to self-limit to the extent neccesary in order to not know what us humans are going to eat for breakfast every day - that the dominoes have still been set up to fall a specific way. If I set up a run of say, 100 dominoes, it doesn't matter if I then don't look at the second half of my wee dominoe run thing untill each one falls, they're still going to fall the same way(alea iacta est type shindig). So, even if god hasn't checked out the future, if he set up the dominoes we were damned from the start(?). It seems to me that free will would have to exist totaly outside his power in order to counter that - which doesn't seem possible. This isn't meant to be an anti-god or anti-religion arguement, I'm trying to stick within the framework, it just confuses me a bit. Cheers to whoever can provide answers.
How about we look at it in a non-theological fashion, Idea 1. It's the human interpretation and use of the words omnipresent and omniscient. Instead of our current use of the words as able to know everything and do anything, we instead should have used the words to highlight a scale of power. Much like the use of millimetre, centimetre, kilometre to describe scale of distance, we should have used powerful, very powerful, supremely powerful and then omni-powerful. In this relational scale we see how most people would have seen the use of omni. For a servant who's master was powerful, who's lord was very powerful and who's king was supremely powerful how would they see a god, I believe they would see them as something so vastly powerful nothing to their minds could be greater and hence the use of omni. Or option 2. God does know everything because everything does happen. i.e. we use the parallel worlds theory. All outcomes of every choice happen splitting worlds of into parallel, but God knows all of these deviations and can see all the outcomes. In this case you have freewill, every choice was your own, just like every choice of all "your doubles" were their own.
Nice thread spec How about this one: God exists through belief If no-one believed there would be no God Human beings only started existing about 10 000 000 years ago Therefore God does not exist Yes it's a comic/satirical reference but I prefer reading that than the essays above
It doesn't? Crap... I agree, but the psychologist in me says that surely God knew of psychological reactance (or "reverse psychology", as it is colloquially called). The best way to get a human to do something is to tell them that under no circumstances they are allowed to do it. "Don't press this big red button", like. By telling them not to, he knew they were going to do it. So much for free will. For God to achieve a free will random outcome, he might have said instead: "Behold, the Tree. It has a Special Fruit on it, yea, and eating this fruit will have attached to it all sorts of interesting consequences. Thou shalt know new wisdom, but also new sorrow. Thou shalt experience new delights, but also new suffering. Thou shalt acquire great powers, but also great responsibility. Thou shalt be able to do great things, but with great consequences. For this fruit is bitter-sweet, and an acquired taste. And it is addictive. So eat, or don't eat. It's your choice, man". God, in short, should have made Adam and Eve aware of the small print. After all, there is such a thing as valid and informed consent. Good, Evil, Knowledge; those are big choices to make, when you don't really understand the choices or their consequences (in fact, life in a nushell). Perhaps it was unfair to expect any more informed choice from Adam and Eve than from someone who is learning disabled. Weren't they children in Paradise, after all? Weren't they innocent? Hey, if you wish to say I'm a God, feel free. Although the idea of Him going about creation like I went about my mod (takes forever, plans are constantly changed) is not really that reassuring...
There is at least one assumption in the first post that cannot be backed up logically. It is that time (i.e. what will happen in the future) is predictable. If you look up Hume, you will see how that issue never really got solved. Its commonly assumed that cause and effect have a stable relationship, however there is no logical link between these two. It has only been identified through empirical study that there is a coincidental relationship between the two, therefore a cause may not necessarily have the effect that you're expecting, there may be any number of possible outcomes which may or may not be similar to the expected outcome; therefore, logically, the future is not predictable, and since God has to obey logic, God is not able to predict the future. Instead God can know everything that can possibly happen. In short, omniscience means that God knows everything which is logically possible to know. Since there is no logical link between cause and effect it is not possible to know the future
That assumes that God leads a linear-time existence (I mean, did you never watch Star Trek: Deep Space 9?). But if God exists in the fifth dimension (first foundations of probability), then He experiences time, and even possibility, like you and I experience our three dimensional world: past, present, future, realised, not realised: they are all just directions he can walk back and forth in. Not only does He know what happened and will happen; he also knows all the alternative outcomes that could have happened instead. In fact, from his vantage point, they all may be the same thing as far as He is concerned (OK, perhaps you need to read Justina Robson's "Natural History" to get the idea). Perhaps it does not really matter to Him what we choose: "good", "evil" --it is just another interesting alternative to explore. Perhaps He rejoices with us as He suffers with us: all must be experienced. For us linear beings, the consequences of our choices are of course inevitable. We have to live with those in a very linear way indeed.
That's an interesting philosophical arguement pocketmonkey. I've been trying to avoid going hardcore logic or philosophy though, and trying to stick within the framework of an all-powerfull god. I'm not sure I agree that cause and effect only have a co-incidental relationship - I'm always open to argument though. A omnipotent diety must know the future. It can't not(by the very definition of omnipotent). I think even without the framework of omnipotence that predection of the future isn't neccesarily totaly out of grasp. Afterall, the universe is just a system, if you can build a complicated enough model that accounts for all variables(I.E. build a computer god and program a copy of our universe to run on it) then it could predict the future just by using identical variables to our universe(unless quantum breaks it, quantum breaks much, but I'm not familiar enough to know if it breaks my wee theory). edit: As usual, Nexxo says it better than I edit2: And welcome btw pocketmonkey, great first post!
Specofdust, you'll never find out if God exists through reasoning about it, you'll just end up very very confused tbh.
