religion question

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I am atheist or agnostic depending on my mood (raised Catholic), but this has been bugging me for some time:

How can 'God' be both all good and all powerful?

[george]

because god is everything.

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but there is suffering... if god is all powerful he is allowing it... so how can he be all good?

[george]

try to imagine the universe.

it is huge, and full of unlimited outcomes.

how can you be really sure that what seems horrible or tragic to you, is not in some way an important part of making the universe go?

[The One and Only...]

Because he wants us to take care of ourselves?

Anyway, god can't/couldn't be all powerful, since that is by nature a paradox. Is god so powerful that he can create a boulder he cannot lift?

[soundtest]

try to imagine the universe.

it is huge, and full of unlimited outcomes.

how can you be really sure that what seems horrible or tragic to you, is not in some way an important part of making the universe go?

if god is all powerful, the suffering should not be necessary. if it's a lesson for us, being all powerful, he/she/it could teach us another way.

Anyway, god can't/couldn't be all powerful, since that is by nature a paradox. Is god so powerful that he can create a boulder he cannot lift?

that's what i'm getting at.

[FS]

Anyway, god can't/couldn't be all powerful, since that is by nature a paradox. Is god so powerful that he can create a boulder he cannot lift?

That's only a philisophical or even just linguistic paradox thought up by someone trying to be clever. If God is all-powerful, then he cannot create things greater than him (like a boulder he cannot lift) because there is nothing greater than him. You can't make a road longer than infinity. Maybe you can suss God with it in an arguement, but it doesn't make him any less all-powerful.

[The One and Only...]

Then he is not all powerful, because there is something he cannot create.

[FS]

You're reasoning that God, right now, would have some measureable form. While I'm not contesting that, we were debating God's power if he is all powerful.

It's like challenging him to make a road longer than infinity. If you think the fact that he can't do that makes him not all-powerful, you don't understand infinity.

I'm sure that an all-powerful being can do something he cannot do. He'd just have to downgrade himself first, like taking on human form.

[soundtest]

But wouldn't the laws and rules of the universe, and even infinity, be easily changed if one were all powerful? I mean, he did create them in the first place, right?

Edit: regardless... for argument's sake say he is all powerful... there is suffering and he allows it so how can he possibly be all good?

[FS]

An all-powerful God could alter the laws of nature and the universe beyond our understanding, and make anything happen, I guess.

The Bible attributes God a number of flaws that are whisked under the carpet by saying he gave humanity free will.

If we are to believe the Bible, his patience has limits, he can't see in the future, he needs to rest after six days of creating the world (note: he can't do this in less than the blink of an eye), and he decides to drown the entire planet rather than just erasing the sinful humanity from existence, and there's a ton more. So if you're to take the Bible literally, God is not infallible, all-powerful or flawless.

You could speculate that God's power on Earth is limited to how many believe in him. Or to how the balance of good and evil we do unto each other is divided. The more shit happens here, the less power he gets to act. Maybe he's cruel. Maybe he sees humans as pawns to perform some foggy divine plan and he does not hestitate to sacrifice good nor bad as long as the outcome is his will. Maybe the afterlife is so incredibly worth it, that God decides he lets free will reign over earth and only judges people afterwards.

Or maybe we just can't understand the answer. And maybe we can in the afterlife.

[ScruU2wice]

how can you have good without evil?

If he wanted to shift the universe and destroy it all i bet he could but why would he do that, its like building a model railroad once you set it up why would you destroy it...

He doesnt have to show us all his powers, maybe he does things like making the earth in 6 days to test the faith of humanity. In Islam, god knows all that will ever happen, and he knows that people will question his power and so forth.

[sspadowsky]

This is why I'm glad I got out of religion. I don't put a lot of stock in an invisible man in the sky who watches everything I do. It leaves me free to do what I choose, and I don't have to bother with annoying questions like the "rock he can't lift" nonsense.

[Helm]

FS, Methinks thou art wrong. Partly.

If all-powerful creates a linguistic fallacy (self-refferential paradox and mutual-exclusivity and all that) then it means that "all-powerful" as a term, could be considered illogical (at least to the extent of it being used as a premise for a more developed position). And language, being the product of logic applies to us as logical beings. So, it is impossible for anyone to introduce 'all-powerfulness' or 'omnipresence' or any such term in a discussion that adheres to "1 != 2" and other such basic axioms. Which is to say, all discussions, if you go by the Socratic definition of what a discussion is.

Point is: because a term suffers from a fundamental fallacy, is means 'it is not' linguistically, but might 'be so' on another plane of thinking, of which you might be the only one aware. I am not debating this, I am simply saying that if such is the case, the 'term' does not apply to a logical context, if it is not logical.

:( Sorry god.

[jin]

Why WOULD God create a boulder so heavy, even he can not lift it?

Humans cannot describe the supposed infinite power of God, and try to use their own languages and limited perspectives and ideas to explain it, and then questions like the boulder question are brought against the human description of GOD.

[O71394658]

Well, to put it in a different light, God may not be good by your standards, or even my standards.

God is all-poweful (willing suspension of disbelief if you're an atheist here). Technically, his power is limitless. By human standards, we cannot really comprehend the subject of something having no limit. We ourselves try to grasp the subject, maybe by traying to explain it away using complex exponential number systems, or mathematical symbols used to represent microcosms in formulas and equations. The human mind can't really process the information. We always try to pry it into some cookie-cutter form. Human language falls flat. His power is infinte. We go...and? We kind of just accept it without trying to understand or comprehend. To tell you the truth, the only thing we're actually sure of is the fact that we aren't sure about anything. Really. We (assuming we to mean the entire God-believing peoples of the world) just take it to the fact that God is a much, much, much smarter being than us. What we may classify in our limited visions as good or not good, God may see something entirely different. The only way we can even try to comprehend God is to put him into a human form. In the Bible, God is seen very much so as a normal guy. He possesses emotion, patience, anger, judgment, knowledge, a "like image", he "sees", thinks, acts out on whims and fancies. Whatever. Just because our minds try to process the actions of God into human-prescribed molds of good or bad...that is where faith comes in. The mere surrender to the fact that someone much smarter and more powerful (see? -human characteristics) is in control. That whatever happens, even though we may see it as bad, is really what is exactly supposed to happen. A divine scheme of things, to break it down.

[FS]

You're right Helm, and I think Jin put down better in what region I was thinking.

There is of course the "made us in his image" crap that most people interpret as that God looks like us. However, good and evil are purely human terms that, unless the literal Bible is true in saying that God is fallible (and human, in many ways), don't really exist. We attribute good to helping each other, and bad to harming each other. In non-sentient nature, good and evil don't exist.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Myth:

1. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.
Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.
2. A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.
3. A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
4. A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western front

5. Jesus and the Easter Bunny

[VinceZeb]

Uhhh.... sorry to make you look stupid, but Jesus did exist. There is historical evidence to that fact.


Sorry.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

um..sorry to make you look stupid, but no there isn't....at least none that hasn't been proven to be a fabrication.

[kellychaos]

I think evil is needed to define good and that both are needed to facilitate an elaborate system of checks and balances that are beyond the scope of what we can experience through the limited senses available to us. If you tend to think of a higher power or spirit that is not only within us (and needs to use us to experience the world) but also outside of us (to "be" the world) at the same time and who tries to incorporate EVERYTHING in making existence work, then you may view "evil" as not so much as something that "should not be" as much as something that is "necessary to be" but that we do not have the infinite overview that is inherently part of this spirit. Did that make any sense? Sorry about the rambling. :spliff

[VinceZeb]

Cosmo, are you for real?

Jesus has been listed in some historical documents, acknowledged in almost every major religion and has been even accepted by many non-believers as being a real human being.

There is more evidence for Jesus of Nazereth's existance than there is for many famous Greeks, Egyptians, and others that existed in the B.C. era. Why the hell would you accept the existance of someone such as Plato and not of Jesus, when there is more acknoweldgement of Jesus in history as being a real being?

You have already proved you are not that smart, so please don't dig yourself into a deeper hole.

[mburbank]

Vinth, you can't go a full sentence without 'proving you're not smart'.

You pinched, myopic, childish conception of religion doesn't even bear discussing. Your conception of catholocism is an insult to Catholics, you take pride in ignorance, you wallow in petty hatred and grievances, and aside from you belief that Jesus is savior, you are the least Christian person it's been my great displeasure to encounter. And that inlcudes Naldo. I may not believe Jesus was messiah, but baarring that, my values are far more Christian than yours from the moment my alarm goes off in the morning. You make me sick, and that's on of you good points.

Now show me wht a punk you are by demeaning the ethnicity Jesus and I share, you descendent of Jesus killing , messiah clothes gambling bag of crap.

[O71394658]

um..sorry to make you look stupid, but no there isn't....at least none that hasn't been proven to be a fabrication.

I don't get it buddy. Are you asking whether Jesus existed at all? Or whether he was the Messiah?

To answer your first question, yes he existed. Tacitus, a famous Roman historian, and Josephus, a famous Jewish historian both had elaborate descriptions of Jesus. He was definitely a man who was born in Nazareth. He grew up, traveled around the Middle East and preached, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate. That is historical fact, and is recognized by believers and atheists as such.

About the second question, I believe so. You're going to have to decide for yourself on that one.

[AChimp]

I think what Cosmo is trying to get at is that there is no historical reference to miracles that Jesus was supposed to have performed OTHER than the Bible.

Cuz, you know, if there was a dude who could make the blind see and cure lepers with a glance, other people at the time might have taken notice and written about it.

[Protoclown]

I don't believe that god is exclusively good OR evil. I believe he is both at once. I believe he is everything. The good, the bad...reality.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

actually, Jesus is a myth..based on the Dionesian/Orsirus mystery cults. Or, maybe it's coincidence that all of these cults feature godmen that were hung on a cross, died and resurrected the third day....healed the sick, turned water into wine at a wedding.....most of the evidence that gets presented to prove the existance of a historical Jesus, has proven to be false...just like Jimmy Christs coffin.....

[Cosmo Electrolux]

oh yeah...they did it a couple of thousand years before JC and the boys made the scene. There are, however historical records indicating that there were several dozen "messiahs" riding donkeys into Jerusalem waiving palm leaves that day....

[ScruU2wice]

actually, Jesus is a myth..based on the Dionesian/Orsirus mystery cults. Or, maybe it's coincidence that all of these cults feature godmen that were hung on a cross, died and resurrected the third day....healed the sick, turned water into wine at a wedding.....most of the evidence that gets presented to prove the existance of a historical Jesus, has proven to be false...just like Jimmy Christs coffin.....

So your saying that jesus never existed? and that the majority of the world is wrong, because scientists have nothing better to do then find fallacies in biblical stories? further more your saying that people who actually witnessed jesus' existence were all liars and that there was no distinctive impact on history by jesus because he never existed? and there is no way you can be wrong because you believe that for piece of evidence that prove the existence of jesus can be scientifically proven wrong?

[O71394658]

Jesus didn't have a coffin... :confused

[Cosmo Electrolux]

Jimmy Christ ( James, Jesus brother) :)

[O71394658]

:suicide

[Cosmo Electrolux]

thing is, you can't prove Jesus was an actual living breathing person...the Romans, who were meticulous record keepers, have no record of a Jesus wandering around jerusalem at that period in time. Christian theologians had a habit of mixing their myth in with local history to make the whole story more plausable...like any decent fiction writer. If you'd bother to check the history of your own religion, you'd find that most scholors (yes, even the christians) agree that the gospels (your "proof" for the existance of christ) have been "doctored"...actually written and re-written several times over. Hell, the gospels don't even agree on the lineage of Jesus....(he was supposed to be a direct desendant of King David)...

[O71394658]

Tacitus (AD 55-120), a renowned historical of ancient Rome, wrote in the latter half of the first century that ‘Christus ... was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also.’ (Annals 15: 44).

Suetonius writing around AD 120 tells of disturbances of the Jews at the ‘instigation of Chrestus’, during the time of the emperor Claudius. This could refer to Jesus, and appears to relate to the events of Acts 18:2, which took place in AD 49.

Thallus, a secular historian writing perhaps around AD 52 refers to the death of Jesus in a discussion of the darkness over the land after his death. The original is lost, but Thallus’ arguments — explaining what happened as a solar eclipse — are referred to by Julius Africanus in the early 3rd century.

Mara Bar-Serapion, a Syrian writing after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, mentions the earlier execution of Jesus, whom he calls a ‘King’.

The Babylonian Talmud refers to the crucifixion (calling it a hanging) of Jesus the Nazarene on the eve of the Passover. In the Talmud Jesus is also called the illegitimate son of Mary.

The Jewish historian Josephus describes Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate in his Antiquities, written about AD 93/94. Josephus also refers to James the brother of Jesus and his execution during the time of Ananus (or Annas) the high priest.

[ranxer]

cosmo yer whacking at the root, as i've discovered its mighty hard to do regarding almost anything in america. personally ive given up on attacking jesus.. what's wrong with the idea of jesus existing as a historical figure anyway?

jesus had a lot of strong positions that place him as a liberal green party member, what's wrong with that? i dont place any faith in him being a messaih but a person with progressive views.. speaking for the voiceless etc.. most christian religions cant even come close to living up to what jesus has reportedly said, isnt that enough for you?

why bother attacking his existence rather than the religions that have spun off of him?

from waht ive heard jesus was a gnostic and the gnostics weren't allowed to get anything into the bible.. they even had manhunts for the gnostics around the time jesus was crucified.. i'm much more interested in what the gnostics stood for than why jesus was called the messaih or why anyone would say jesus existed when he didnt. personally i believe he did but i'm talking from an athiest point of view that believes in humanity and solutions to our problems that don't have anything to do with shutting anyone up.

[The_Rorschach]

"How can 'God' be both all good and all powerful?"

Read Isaiah if you ascribe to Christian or Jewish theology, if you do not, be more precise in which god you are speaking of.

God said to have created both good and evil, taking responsibility for both. Life, without free will, would be meaningless. Essentially, he is Good because he chooses to be responsible in the use of his omnipotence.

[Sethomas]

This is what I had to say in the other thread:

According to Aquinas, evil can't exist in and of itself, so evil is just an inadequacy of good. Furthermore, free will can't over power God's will, so God's will entails all evil. :eek

But what I would have to say is that God's will, regarding the passage of time on Earth, is for the world to reflect the collective nature of our immortal souls. Likewise, the nature of our lives reflects the nature of our souls as individuals. In the tangible world, the notion of free will is simply impossible both theologically and scientifically. But I believe that our souls were endowed with a personal nature, and in crafting a hyperdimensional universe God based his design on our souls.

In orthodox thought, the soul is given free will and control over a mortal body. In my theory, the soul is merely reflected by a mortal body without free will. So if you lead an evil life, it's because your soul was innately evil, not because your soul directed you to do evil things. Such is my theory of Metaphysical Consequence. I'll write a book about it after I get my Ph.D.

[AChimp]

Yeah. Like I said, there are records of Jesus's existence, but no objective records of his miracles.

[The_voice_of_reason]

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that even he could not eat it?



-Homer

[Big Papa Goat]

What is good and what is evil? Our notion of them is mere human morality. God has the entire Universe to weigh in his hands; our notions of good and evil, suffering and happiness, may not be very important to him.

[kellychaos]

I think what Cosmo is trying to get at is that there is no historical reference to miracles that Jesus was supposed to have performed OTHER than the Bible.

Cuz, you know, if there was a dude who could make the blind see and cure lepers with a glance, other people at the time might have taken notice and written about it.

I don't know if I exactly agree with this logic, chimpy one. Socrates taught many people and we know him to exist, yet if memory serves me correctly, Plato is one of few (perhaps only) people to have written down his teachings. Did his teachings (dialectic dialogues really) not take place?

[AChimp]

There's a difference between a guy who is just talked to a few people and a guy who reputedly addressed thousands of people on many occassions and performed divine miracles in front of them.

There were a couple of people around the time who mentioned Socrates in their works, though, and offereed additional views on him as opposed to Plato, who was his student. Xenophon, for instance. The fact that similar accounts of Socrates exist by different authors who weren't in cohoots with each other is evidence enough for his teachings.

I don't believe that there are books by other authors at the time that considered Jesus worth writing about. He gets a mention here and there in the various historical chronicles of the time ("cult leader talked to people, soldiers dispersed mob"), but there's no Life and Times of Jesus Christ, written by a contemporary, other than the what's in Bible, and that can hardly be considered an objective account to his miracles, especially after 2000 years or building an entire religion around him.

[O71394658]

Who says there wasn't historical evidence?

But you have to remember, most people (if not all except for a very few) couldn't read or write back then. "Paper" was also scarce, as they had to use expensive sheep and cattle skins to write on and stuff. (remember books had to be hand copied too, which could take months or years...) But besides all this, I wouldn't be surprised if there was historical evidence of his miracles. Hell, there was a miracle witnessed by thousands of people a decade or two ago, and most people don't even believe that.

[kellychaos]

Who says there wasn't historical evidence?

But you have to remember, most people (if not all except for a very few) couldn't read or write back then. "Paper" was also scarce, as they had to use expensive sheep and cattle skins to write on and stuff. (remember books had to be hand copied too, which could take months or years...) But besides all this, I wouldn't be surprised if there was historical evidence of his miracles. Hell, there was a miracle witnessed by thousands of people a decade or two ago, and most people don't even believe that.

I hate to flip-flop around but ... I guess, taking AChimp's side ... at least a few things were written about Socrates and his teaching and that was about 400 years B.C. and they seemed to have enough paper for that. Just sayin'

[AChimp]

I'm sorry, Numbers Guy, but I can't respond to you right now because I'm masturbating to your avatar. :(

[kellychaos]

I'm masturbating to AChimp masturbating to numbers guy's avatar. :wank