# Limited omniscience or limited omnipotence?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limited-omniscience-or-limited-omnipotence/538896>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [May 10, 2010, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limited-omniscience-or-limited-omnipotence/538896 "2010-05-10T11:42:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limited-omniscience-or-limited-omnipotence/538896/21 "2010-05-10T20:58:20Z")

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> [@Frylock](#):
>
> It says some of the things you “know” might be false. So it looks as though what it’s really talking about is _belief_, not knowledge. The power described is the “power” to have every belief that has ever been had.

I obviously phrased it badly. It’s not belief at all but current human knowledge. Let’s take an example. If we were back in the 1800s, we would ‘know’ that v=u+at and the other Newtonian equations. So you’d be limited by that. Fast forward to Einstein and we now know that E=MC2, so you’re limited by that.

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**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limited-omniscience-or-limited-omnipotence/538896/22 "2010-05-10T20:58:52Z")

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> [@horsetech](#):
>
> Well, to date no human has regenerated hands or given birth as a phenotypic male, so, no, neither of those would be allowed.

But then there are things some people can do that I cannot, which means I am not omnipotent in the manner described. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limited-omniscience-or-limited-omnipotence/538896/23 "2010-05-10T22:56:48Z")

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Partial omniscience without the power to affect changes based on this knowledge sounds like a kind of hell to me. My pick is obvious.

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