The logical consequences of omnipotence

[John V]

What is there to think through John? When you "think it through", does your mind actually wander to a first date scenario?

It has, yes. I wasn't just typing randomly.

We all have attributes which some other people do not find appealing. These attributes aren't necessarily faults (although in people they can be).

We typically suppress these things on a first date. If we continue to see the other person, we gradually let ourselves be more fully known. As this continues, we reassess each other and one party usually breaks it off at some point.

If we suppress certain aspects of ourselves, the pool of people we can successfully interact with is relatively large. As we let ourselves be known more deeply, the pool shrinks. There are more first dates than tenth dates, more tenth dates than weddings, more weddings than 25th anniversaries.

However, there is a trade-off. If we suppress, than the relationship is superficial - we have a wide but shallow pool. As we open up, there are fewer takers, but the relationship is deeper.

BTW, this applies to friendships as well, not just romantic relationships.

Neither approach is right or wrong. Some people like having many friends or serial short-term relationships. Nothing wrong with that.

Now apply this to God. For instance, the Bible says god is jealous. Some people don't like that. He is judgmental. Some people don't like that (or at least claim they don't).

Could God have abvoided showing his jealousy? I suppose so. He could have prevented the snake from being in the garden. He could prevent people from liking anything better than they like him.

Could he have avoided showing that he's judgmental? I suppose so. He can apparently keep people from sinning in the next life, so he could do so here as well.

So, we only know about certain parts of god that no-one can take offense to.

As I said, it's an eternal first date.

God could have chosen that. He didn't. He chose fewer, deeper relationships over many superficial ones.

I 'm not really sure that I'm ready to paint a deity as the sort of thing that would spend it's time worrying about the sorts of things a human teenager might. Know what I mean? It seems that if we're going to propose some deity - that things are the way they are because said deity was not capable of laying it down another way. Sure, we could imagine all sorts of things, all sorts of powers or abilities, but simply assuming some sort of deity we aren't left with any reason to assume it was capable of anything more than what we see. Unless we want to inject a little fantasy.

Handle that for me?

It's not "simply assuming," it's analyzing and discussing.