God and omnipotence

[Merlin]

Hi Truth

This is a very important question to me. I think that from a Human's perspective God is perfect because he a) is Immortal b) can have a physical presence if he chooses or not, if he chooses and c) because he created us.

However the second part of your statement, about the need for others (creatures), is the part that has made me question if from God's own perspective he is perfect.

Something that is perfect and serene does not need messy noisy humans to irritate him

Anyway, your thoughts on why god needs us

I sincerely hope God is not perfect and omnipotent and omniscient. It would mean that everything that has happened so far was part of his 'perfect' design, and he knew it would happen.

He created perfect Adam and Eve, but that didn't last long before it went wrong. We've had giants in the early days, but they have been done away with. He has drowned majority of people because they were not working to plan, and started again with Noah. He has given the Jewish nation several bloody noses for not doing as they are told over the years, including plagues, pestilence, and several exiles.

The above list kind of shoots the idea of perfection in the head, and as for omnipotence, it would assume that all of this was allowed to happen as He could have prevented it.

In my theory, God 'set it all going' and it is then out of his control. The next step is up to us.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In my theory, God 'set it all going' and it is then out of his control.

Why do you call this a 'theory' rather than wishful thinking?

 

[Merlin]

So you have no idea what this grand purpose is, but you're sure that it's something that you can do. Otoh, helping people is a mundane goal, even tho it's something that is beyond our capability.

Compared to fulfilling the needs of the Creator, helping an old lady with her shopping is mundane.

Maybe God had no preordained purpose for creation. Maybe God created simply because that's what God does. As I've said elsewhere in this thread (or another related one), what is God without creation? Just a thought.

Or maybe he needs us. No, not needs us for 'a little bit of company' in the universe, but NEEDS us because there is something he cannot do without us. "He waits in eager anticipation for the sons of man to fulfil His purpose".

It's not that I completely disagree with you Merlin. I do believe that reflection is just as essential to the spiritual life as action. However, I see great danger in placing an illdefined spiritual goal above the physical needs of our fellow sisters and brothers. Whatever that purpose turns out to be, it cannot be at the expense of creation. You think it's pointless for God to create people with needs and expect us to fulfill them. I think it would be even more pointless for God to create people with needs and NOT expect us to fulfill them.

There is time in this life for both. I just worry that there are people who come back from a very worthwhile day helping out at some charity, and assume that God has put a nice tick in their entrance exam for heaven.

I believe it is like telling your math teacher that you do this good work. He will be very pleased to hear that, but will not change the marks he gives you for your mathematics exam.

If God has a specific purpose for us (like the maths teacher has in the example), then it is only this that will affect the afterlife.

 

[Merlin]

God may be potentially omnipotent but not actually omnipotent.

I will be happy to accept that this is a weakness in me, but I cannot treat seriously so-called philosophical statements that just play with the opposite meanings of words. It's like people saying something is almost unique. It either is or it isn't.

We are all potentially rich. But that doesn't mean we are rich, it means that in certain circumstances we could make ourselves rich. But on the other hand, we might never get rich, so what is the point of saying we are potentially rich.

If that is what you are saying about God, then it is not unreasonable to think that if His creation fulfils its purpose He could become more powerful (omnipotent if you must). But at the moment He is not. Is that what you are saying?

 

[Merlin]

If one admits that their belief has no real chance of beinf right, how can one possibly assert to believe them?

Why assert anything at all.

From there, my beliefs are founded on that sensor input and my best-effort to impartially interperate it. I deliberately avoid adding assumption or interpreting speculation as fact.
In short, I don't agree with your statement at all.

So you have a belief system that does not depend on your believing it started with some magical events or events? You have a belief system that depends only on your sensor input. Is it possible for you to say what that is please?

 

[Merlin]

Why do you call this a 'theory' rather than wishful thinking?

Firstly, because I have as much right to a theory as anybody else. Everything that is written on this forum as fact, is just somebody's theory. None of us have any facts, no matter how often they assert that they are.

Secondly if I was wishfully thinking anything, I would wish for a God that was in total control of everything. Nobody would wish for a God like I'm discussing. I am saying creation is NOW completely out of His hands.

 

[Merlin]

You should not base your relationship with any entity for what they have or what they can do. It should be based on the simple aspect that you enjoy being in each other's prescence.

Mine was a question, yours was a statement.

Out of interest, how many entities do you get into the presence of?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Why do you call this a 'theory' rather than wishful thinking?

Firstly, because I have as much right to a theory as anybody else. Everything that is written on this forum as fact, is just somebody's theory. None of us have any facts, no matter how often they assert that they are.

So you make no distinction between theory and opinion - between testable explanation and speculation?

 

[Merlin]

So you make no distinction between theory and opinion - between testable explanation and speculation?

In religion, no. Nothing is testable. If it were, there would only be one religion. If someone could make an assertion about any belief system, and allow the rest of the world to test it to prove that it was absolutely perfect, then they would all kneel down and join.

as it is, you need to have faith. The people who say read the Bible and you will then know what is true, I suspect have never read the Bible.

No, you listen to all of the theories and all of the opinions, and take a stab for the one that you think sounds most reasonable (or least unreasonable)

Unless you can tell me a religious claim that can be tested? I wait for it eagerly.

 

[Mujahid Mohammed]

is it important that we believe that he is omnipotent?

How many faiths believe that he is, or does he have limitations?

Yes he is omnipotent. He has many other attributes as well. Muslims believe this as well as some Christian faiths. Jews according to my Israeli friend do as well. No limitations but there are some things he will not do it is not that he can't he won't. I have heard from philosophising with different people. Can't create another Creator it would be illogical. The Creator is Eternal so how can something that has always been be created. The Creator is never the created. It contradicts his attributes in which he describes himself.

 

[Skavau]

Wether you praised God or not that will never affect him and it's up to you wether to obey him or not but don't forget the consequencess after death because this life is just a test for us so some people may prefer to enjoy in this life and to forget about the life after death and vise versa.

Why is there consequences for not worshipping God? It doesn't effect him.

Do you mean if you have a son would you feel great if he said to you: GET LOST !!! I guess you will feel bad in how your son is treating you this way. Now think how God will feel when you reject him even though you are doing good deeds to others while he is the most important one to do good deed to in order to win his forgivness and his heaven.

I think you miss the point. I was trying to point out the test that the Qu'ran says could infact be a lie and that God doesn't want worship. It's entirely plausable.

Besides:
Forgiveness for what? If I am doing good in my life and helping people to the best of my abilities - then what am I doing wrong? Is the worshipping side really relevant to helping humanity?

The God that we are talking about already knows my future and what I will do. He designed me to rebel or not believe in him. I have the ability to rebel, cheat and go against God - why should it surprise or upset him?

If you are talking about Quran so God said: [56] "I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me". (Quran 51:56)

Then God created us to satisfy his ego?

Anyway, again - you're missing the point. What if God deliberately set up the Qu'ran as a lie to see who would worship him and those who do goto hell for being 'weak-minded'.

[53] "Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things?" (Quran 41:52)

That means God is telling us to observe how perfect we are in terms of creation so why would we neglect his existance?

Well, of course that is if you believe in the Qu'ran. I do not and therefore that means nothing to me.

The point here I want to make is that - we humans aren't perfect. We have many design faults, many diseases can effect and kill us and many of those diseases are incredibly hard to treat. We have, in the past on many occasions commited horrendous acts and killings. We are faulty creatures.

It's ok if they died because this life is just temporary and the real life is waiting for us after death.

Well, you yourself believe that this life is a test. Is it a fair test though?

Someone who is shot dies, someone else who is shot in the same spot and suffers the same problems pulls through and survives. Both were helpless and could not heal themselves. God healed one of them.

Why did God heal one and not the other? That makes the test of life unfair, surely?

 

[Merlin]

Yes he is omnipotent. He has many other attributes as well. Muslims believe this as well as some Christian faiths. Jews according to my Israeli friend do as well. No limitations but there are some things he will not do it is not that he can't he won't. I have heard from philosophising with different people. Can't create another Creator it would be illogical. The Creator is Eternal so how can something that has always been be created. The Creator is never the created. It contradicts his attributes in which he describes himself.

Yes, I realise that Moslems believe that Allah is omnipotent. You might be right. You have as much chance of being right, or wrong, as any other religion.

If God is omnipotent, and if he created everything in this world to his own design, then he created a really awfully cruel world.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In religion, no. ... No, you listen to all of the theories and all of the opinions, and take a stab for the one that you think sounds most reasonable (or least unreasonable)

If you make no distinction between 'theory' and 'opinion', are you simply being sloppy when you say things like "you listen to all of the theories and all of the opinions"?

You previously wrote: "In my theory, God 'set it all going' and it is then out of his control." Since you acknowledge that you just took a stab at the topic and came up with this opinion, could you tell me why you find deism more reasonable than nontheism?

 

[lilithu]

So you think God created the people with needs? If he did, and it is part of his plan for us to try to satisfy these needs, the logical conclusion is that needy people were created just to see who among us would bother to help them. A sort of 'entrance exam for heaven'.

There must have been less cruel tests he could have set mankind.

It never seemed logical to me that a God would create a world in which all of this pain and suffering occurs, and where he would allow this to continue even though he could solve it if he wanted to. It makes even less sense that you think he has created these people as tests for the rest of us.

What test? You're the one who introduced the word "test" into our conversation (and ran with it) not me.

Look, either there is no God and therefore no creation. What is just is. Or there is God and therefore is creation. It's obvious that creation has needs. So if there is a God, then yes, God created people with needs. That is inescapable. What's not inescapable is the idea that God did this as part of a "plan." That's you're own speculation.

Compared to fulfilling the needs of the Creator, helping an old lady with her shopping is mundane.

Yet you admit that you have no idea what the "needs" of the Creator are. So in the meantime, what? Instead of wasting your time with mundane things like helping people you're going to sit and try to figure out what God needs?

Or maybe he needs us. No, not needs us for 'a little bit of company' in the universe, but NEEDS us because there is something he cannot do without us. "He waits in eager anticipation for the sons of man to fulfil His purpose".

Let me get this straight: in your view the Creator is powerful enough that if "He" had wanted to, "He" could have created humans with no needs and a world where there is no pain and suffering. Yet somehow this same Creator needs us to do something that "He" cannot do without us. Upon what do you base this argument? And did "He" create us with needs, even tho "He" didn't have to, because without these needs we wouldn't cooperate? Is it extortion? I mean if these needs that cause us so much pain and suffering were totally avoidable, why doesn't God "solve" the problem and then ask us to do what "He" needs us to do? Your God makes even less sense to me than the God that makes tests.

I agree with you that the Creator is not omnipotent. But given the premise of a non-omnipotent God, the simpler conclusion is that God created us with needs because God could not create us without needs.

If God has a specific purpose for us (like the maths teacher has in the example), then it is only this that will affect the afterlife.

And if God does not have a specific purpose for us beyond living well, you will have wasted this life for the putative afterlife. What if this life is God's gift to us, imperfect as it is.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Look, either there is no God and therefore no creation. What is just is. Or there is God and therefore is creation.

That impresses me as a false dichotomy. One could easily posit some supernatural occurrence or interaction resulting in a creation event, i.e., the thing {X} in "{X} did it" may have no relevant attribute other than its capacity to catalyze a creation event.

 

[fromthe heart]

That impresses me as a false dichotomy. One could easily posit some supernatural occurrence or interaction resulting in a creation event, i.e., the thing {X} in "{X} did it" may have no relevant attribute other than its capacity to catalyze a creation event.

I don't quite understand how one can look at the fact of the complexity of the human body that not even THAT is all known about and not see something higher in the picture...ALL these years and no one has a clue of all that we are...and yet we just went BAM and came about???:biglaugh: I'm sorry I'm not laughing at you just the idea of the fact of some big KABOOM and we evolved out of the air,muck and mire like we are that simplistic...Amazing how even with eyes one finds it hard to see what a wonderous part of it all God gave to us....even opinions...given freely, allowed by right and so differing in realities.

I now run to the nearest exit...exit stage left...gggrrrowl...:>)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don't quite understand ...

I'll accept that as an understatement from someone who, if I had to guess, is functionally ignorant when it come to biology and chemistry - which is OK. I would ask, however, that you start (yet another) a thread on "irreducible complexity" rather than drag this one into that morass.

 

[Darkdale]

I don't quite understand how one can look at the fact of the complexity of the human body that not even THAT is all known about and not see something higher in the picture...ALL these years and no one has a clue of all that we are...and yet we just went BAM and came about???:biglaugh: I'm sorry I'm not laughing at you just the idea of the fact of some big KABOOM and we evolved out of the air,muck and mire like we are that simplistic...Amazing how even with eyes one finds it hard to see what a wonderous part of it all God gave to us....even opinions...given freely, allowed by right and so differing in realities.

I now run to the nearest exit...exit stage left...gggrrrowl...:>)

I'm sorry, but the idea that some god living in the midst of nothing, decided to create an entire universe for people is far more absurd than, "Why does life exist?", I don't know, chaos. In an eternal chaotic system, it is perfectly reasonable to suspect periods of immense order and practically everything that could happen would happen over an eternity. We may simply be experiencing a blink of eternal chaos. It's just that, we are experiencing everything so quickly and limitedly that we cannot glimpse it's purpose; or there is no purpose. Everything is just cause, effect, cause, effect - the same amount of energy has existed for eternity and it just keeps on bumping into itself creating all kinds of interesting systems, like small and nuclear bonds, solar systems, biologoical systems and saterday morning cartoons. Certainly there is no reason to suspect that this universe was created by conscious moral god. If so, I very much disapprove of his creation skills.

I have a few complaints; the development of the knee and the frailty of the human body are just a couple I'd like to mention. Oh yeah, why not make just one friggin planet? If heaven exists, in some other plain, why not just start us off there to begin with?

 

[Radar]

I'm sorry, but the idea that some god living in the midst of nothing, decided to create an entire universe for people is far more absurd than, "Why does life exist?", I don't know, chaos. In an eternal chaotic system, it is perfectly reasonable to suspect periods of immense order and practically everything that could happen would happen over an eternity. We may simply be experiencing a blink of eternal chaos. It's just that, we are experiencing everything so quickly and limitedly that we cannot glimpse it's purpose; or there is no purpose. Everything is just cause, effect, cause, effect - the same amount of energy has existed for eternity and it just keeps on bumping into itself creating all kinds of interesting systems, like small and nuclear bonds, solar systems, biologoical systems and saterday morning cartoons. Certainly there is no reason to suspect that this universe was created by conscious moral god. If so, I very much disapprove of his creation skills.

I have a few complaints; the development of the knee and the frailty of the human body are just a couple I'd like to mention. Oh yeah, why not make just one friggin planet? If heaven exists, in some other plain, why not just start us off there to begin with?

Sorry Dale, I tried to give you some karma but I got denied they say I have to spread it around before I can give more to you. Good post:clap

 

[lilithu]

That impresses me as a false dichotomy. One could easily posit some supernatural occurrence or interaction resulting in a creation event, i.e., the thing {X} in "{X} did it" may have no relevant attribute other than its capacity to catalyze a creation event.

Namaste Jay,

By my positing "{X} did it" there, where X=God, I was not attributing anything other than the creation event. One can define God as nothing more than the interactions that result in creation and it would not change my argument. I agree that the dichotomy is overly simplistic but thought that it was the most direct (least confusing) approach to making my point. My point being that regardless of how one views God, it cannot be the case that the needs of this world be subordinated by some hypothetical supernatural need, with hopes of some hypothetical afterlife. Regardless of how one views God - no God, emergent God, personal God, anything in between - it cannot be the case that helping humans (and the rest of "creation") is of secondary importance.