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]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.