Proving the Bible is false in few words.

[fr0d0]

How are 'being an ethical automaton' and 'being the instigator of reality' contradictory? I don't see any inconsistency. If anything, it seems rather elegant, since it removes the whole issue of ethical intent from the business of creation.

Well it was only that you used the phrase to suggest options which I'm suggesting weren't there. Now you're dropping the choice from your argument.

That was my point. Schmod = god.

No it wasn't. Your point was that schmod illogically limited = God. and I showed how shmod didn't = God unless the restriction was logical.

I think that we're operating from 2 different definitions of 'omnipotent' here. For me, an absolute minimum for omnipotence would be the capacity to do anything that is nomologically possible for a finite being to do. Both Schmod and god as you've decribed him are clearly not omnipotent in this sense.

An extreme case would be a deist god, who could create the universe but then play no causal role in subsequent events. Now for me, such a causally impotent being could not possibly be omnipotent. Whereas for you, he/she/it seemingly could be, as long as the causal impotence was a logically necessary part of the nature of the entity.

I don't define God as having no causal effect. I allow for the possibility that this could happen. My only caveat being that he would, to be consistent with the logical construct, never be seen to have effect.

If God was only within the universe, and restricted to universal law, he wouldn't be omnipotent. But God isn't contained by the universe.

Now you've got me really confused. The Universe as I understand it includes everything that could possibly interact with its constituents. God in his totality is therefore definitionally part of the universe. When you say 'universe' do you actually mean 'material universe'?

The universe is God and he is also more than that. It can never be a satisfactorily scientific description, other than to say, non scientific. ie... it can never be known. This is a theological answer, and theological logic. Nomologic has no bearing.