(April 1, 2016 at 11:27 pm)JuliaL Wrote:Quote:From Wikipedia:
The term omnipotent has been used to connote a number of different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:
1 A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do.[1]
2 A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie).
3 Hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.[2]
4 A deity can bring about any state of affairs which is logically possible for anyone to bring about in that situation.
5 A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan.
6 Every action performed in the world is 'actually' being performed by the deity, either due to omni-immanence, or because all actions must be 'supported' or 'permitted' by the deity.
In which a deity's "nature" is invoked to avoid the simpler, straightforward explanation that the deity was made up by bronze age clerics and their ancestors and has no existence other than an incoherent concept in the clerics' minds. To counter this, apologists have to stretch, twist and torture logic to get to a point where the deity is no longer the logically inconsistent paradoxical thing described. Even then, they are only able to, under special circumstances, argue that such a being could exist, not give actual evidence that one does.
Although it is trotted out regularly as a "flaw" in the God hypothesis, it is both ignorant and illogical to define omnipotent = do anything.
There is evidence of the existence of God. You just don't believe it. Not my problem. I was merely correcting a theological mistake.
