(August 18, 2012 at 12:16 pm)spockrates Wrote: I'm sorry, I must have missed your question. Please repeat it.
Here:
Skepsis Wrote:If you have a God who knows everything and is everywhere with at least enough power to create the universe, why is it that he is capable of not dictating the choices of every person ever to live? By creating a world with beings capable of choice he is necessarily creating a world where he predetermined the choices of everyone.A God who knows everything before he creates everything is creating a world where he willed every being to make the choices they do.
Quote:I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean when you say the word omnipotence. Please explain what omnipotence is.Omnipotent isn't even an issue unless you are saying that your God is omnipotent.
I'll repeat this too:
Omnipotence is the ability to perform and action, think any thought, or otherwise act in any conceivable way. The capacity to do so, not that he would or does. That's as clear as it gets.
Quote:OK, so is it possible for someone who has the power to become perfectly honest to also be omnipotent?Yes. Perfect justice, perfect love, perfect honesty- they all preclude the ability to perform the antithesis of themselves.
Quote:The reason I ask is because I'm still not sure I comprehend what you believe the word omnipotent to mean.Nothing is impossible. If I were omnipotent I could do anything.
Quote:Once I have a working definition in mind, you and I can measure concepts of an omnipotent God against it.Do you believe your God to be omnipotent? If not, then this discussion is moot.
Quote:We cannot come to an agreement that it is impossible for God to be omnipotent if we don't first come to an agreement on what omnipotence is! Don't you agree?Omnipotence is logically impossible, but if your God can invalidate logic then that isn't a problem. Your God could then lie, cheat, steal, murder, rape, and torture while still being perfectly good, because he would be truly omnipotent. He could create a stone he is unable to lift, then lift it. Things like that.
Quote:Now if you, or I find that our proposed definition is not logical, no worries!Yeah, omnipotence is, by it's nature, illogical.
Quote:We can just modify it until we agree that we agree as to what the correct concept of omnipotence is.Or we could stick with a God who simply has the power to create worlds, answer prayers, create miracles, and other Godly things that Gods do, like I originally suggested. If the isn't your God then my argument is needless.
Quote:We will then be in a better position to come to some agreement as to whether God can be omnipotent and also omniscient and omnibenevolent....While maintaining free will as a trait for all humans.
Quote:I think you said omnipotence is the power to do anything and everything, but perhaps I misunderstood. So please tell me so I can be sure what you mean: What is omnipotence?I already have. You asked three times in this one post, and I answered twice. I think that'll do.
My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true.
Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
-Bertrand Russell
Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
-Bertrand Russell