I know that this has been done before, but after a half an hour of fruitless searching, I couldn’t find one scrap of the threads. If you find the threads, please post the links!
Now to the heart of the matter: Could God create a burrito so big that even he could not eat it? The clincher is that if He could create something like that, then He would not be capable of doing everything. If He could not, he would still be incapable of the ability to do everything. Previous discussions were about rocks and lifting, but I was thinking South-Of-The-Border. Feel free to use a rock if you wish.
I will start with the Socratic declaration of “I know nothing”. I don’t have the debate calibre neccessary to argue this point, but I would love to see an enlightened discussion. I am stepping into philosophy, and this is one of the most intruiging questions I have heard. Show me what you have, great minds of the Straight Dope, so that I may observe and learn!
I’ll just post the boilerplate response that ‘omnipotent’ needn’t be defined as ‘capable of doing all things, even those things that are logically impossible or those things that are not things at all’; you might just as well be asking "can God goxiuwhezaf?’
It’s the “well of forgetfullness” and the omnipotent/omnibenevolent/omniscient argueent.
According to some of the faithful god throws your sins into a well of forgetfulness when you confess or ask forgiveness. So while god knows everything, god is also capable of keeping a secret from himself. The only time I heard anything logical explaining this is that by asking forgiveness or confessing god un-does what it was you are asking forgiveness for thus while it’s aftereffects still exist and your own memories still exist to god it never happened and thus it has no reason to remember it.
I have never heard a logical explaination for the omni/omni/omni god in a world where evil exists. It just seems cruel. Which is why I think the ancient Greeks or Norse were more realistic. Zeus may have been all powerfull, or damn near it, but he was subject to being the kind of jerk who would just let bad things happen.
As we’re all sick of it now, I won’t point out how “God’s Burrito” would make an excellent band name.
If you’re gonna do this thread, why not use the line from The Simpsons that’s very similiar? Flanders comes to see Homer, who’s stoned on mary jane, and Homer asks Flanders “Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot, He Himself could not eat it?” It blew my mind for sure.
Anyways, that was the first I’d considered that sort of dilemma, so I’ll leave this discussion for those who’ve encountered the issue before. For me, it seems to be just another of many flaws in the “3-O God” theology.
I think “Satan’s Burrito” sounds warmer, thought maybe not as comfy.
Except the general teaching I’ve heard from christians is that god can do anything, including the logically impossible. Supposedly, he can change what is or isn’t possible. He is, after all, supposed to be the one that created everything from nothing, and done a whole lot of other things that are logically impossible. Yet when someone comes up with this, he’s suddenly unable to do the impossible any more?
There is no burrito so big that it can’t be eaten. Burritos are like that - no matter how big it is, or how many you’ve already had, you can always eat just one more. It’s like a miracle or something.
You’re getting mixed up, I believe, between things which are impossible for humans because of our limited resources, and things which are logically impossible; you could make a triangular circle by altering the definition of circle so that it includes triangles, but what have you really done?
It’s not that asking God to goxiuwhezaf is really really hard, so hard that even he can’t do it, it’s just that it’s a request that has no meaning.
The irresistable force/immovable object paradox (if that’s the right word) is equivalent to asking God to disprove his own existence (I mean, how hard can that be; you can do anything, right God?).
I’ve never heard it seriously taught that God could do literally anything, including those things which are not things or are logically impossible; I have heard it taught that of the set of real things that are not logically impossible, there is nothing that God cannot do (cannot, not necessarily will not).
[sub]I predict this discussion will soon move on to predestination/foreknowledge[/sub]
Wow, you made it small type and gave it this silver color to blend with the background…do I surmise you wouldn’t be looking forward to (what is probably for this board) yet another discussion of that sort of thing.
Sort of like, if God was planning tomorrow to try microwaving a burrito so hot he himself could not eat it , and had already figured out through omniscience how well that plan would work, but he makes himself forget so that he can be genuinely surprised? I mean, if you’re gonna try that, the best part has gotta be when you put the burrito in your mouth and you have that anticipatory concern, “Is it too hot…it seems really hot…man, I can’t believe I made it this hot…well here goes…HAAAA, HAAA, Gah, that’s frickin’ hot!”
If you know how that scenario is gonna play out in advance, it really takes some of the fun out of it. I mean, you’d probably know exactly what time and temperature level were best to microwave burritos, there’d be no experimentation, no pride at finally solving the “hot on the outside, cold on the inside” dilemma. Would God deny himself this pleasure? Surely not. So clearly God has the ability to make himself forget the physics of microwaving burritos, so as to add suspense to what would otherwise be a tedious existence filled with perfectly microwaved burritos.
Well, it was just that the predestination/foreknowledge issue is fraught with what seem to be logical inconsistencies; If God knows what he is going to do in the future then he no longer has freewill concerning those actions and is thus not omnipotent. These are fairly easily explained with concepts such as God existing independently of spacetime, but such explanations, however sensible they are, are rarely treated as anything but weaseling, so I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go there, although I know we will.
Hmm…that explanation sounds fine to me Mangetout. I wouldn’t call it weaseling. I have plenty of other problems with the 3-O god, I have no problem with a solution like that. Really every argument in defense of god sounds like alot of handwaving most of the time, because most of the attributes people assign him are so incomprehensible as to be more or less indescribable by language.
God can do anything. He can both exist and not exist simultaneously. Just ask the people around here. Now, existing and not existing at the same time, that’s something. Forget the burritos.
This is an hijack, and I realise that it sounds flippant, but I don’t mean it to be- I really am curious:
If God ate a burrito, would it have to be a kosher burrito? JDM
Assuming that the universe itself is the burrito, God would have to be outside of it to eat the damn thing. Then if he’s outside, I think that limits what can be done inside.
Maybe the big bang was just a giant burrito driven fart!
