RE: god can do anything, but he cannot be tempted nor tempteth he any man
September 9, 2014 at 4:53 am
(September 9, 2014 at 4:14 am)backslider Wrote: Hi everyone.
I'll start by saying that I was raised in a very religious home. I was home schooled with biblically based academic textbooks. I was taught to reject any ideas or influences that 'weren't of God.' I witnessed my girlfriend's mom casting out demons and interpreting dreams. I've seen some crazy shit. And I thought it was all completely normal.
I lived in a bubble where all of the history and symbolism in the bible fit neatly together. And you could feel the presence of God moving through the church on Sunday when people prayed and cried out in funny languages. They prayed for me but I never received the gift. Maybe I was just scared or didn't have enough faith. But I didn't want to fake it if I didn't really have it.
I quit the church band and various other ministries shortly after graduating school and moving out. I realized for the first time that I had to choose to go. I chose not to. A few years later I began to miss it and wanted to go back. But I decided that first I would seek out God on my own terms.
After two years of honest questioning and searching I consistently arrived at the same conclusion: to find God, I must first have faith without evidence. Only then can God reveal himself to me through his spirit. I called bullshit on the whole thing and called out to God personally. I exist, here I am. If you're real all I ask is that you can show yourself the same as I've done.
It was at that point that I dared to see the world from an atheist perspective for the first time. And it all makes so much more sense now. Each new revelation about how the world works was exciting and life changing. It's been two years and God still has yet to prove his existence.
On the point of the title of your post, there is a well known philosophical problem called the Omnipotence Paradox, originally identified by a 12th Century Islamic philosopher called Averroës, which is a very simple question, can god deny himself?
It illuminates an interesting paradox in the concept of omnipotence doesn't it.
MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
