Your logic is fatally flawed. It depends on the definition of a god as something which knows the future, which is not the definition of a god.
Then would you be so kind as to give us a complete description of “God”?
Your snarkiness aside, I don’t have one; there isn’t one to my knowledge.
Therefore the poster to whom I was replying was, in my opinion, incorrect in defining it as “something which knows the future”.
Do you disagree? Presumably so, given the tone of your reply.
If you do not know the definition, by what right do you correct someone else’s?
I’m not getting into an argument with you. Yes, he knows the definition of God. Is that what you wanted me to say?
Definition of God: A bright red intelligent tricycle that accidentally created the left half of the Universe approximately 18.6 quintillion years ago. It is 56 miles long and 38 miles tall, and every time it rings it’s bell a sun novas. It’s really smart, but somewhat clumsy, and moved on to do something else about 25 billion years ago.
Play “strawman” with someone else. I am obviously saying the words that I posted-that if you do not know the definition of a word, you have no right to correct someone else’s definition.
I didn’t “correct” his definition. I indicated that I felt there was no evidence to support his definition. Perhaps my post should have been shorter and simply said the more traditional “cite?”, but I always find that to be very blunt; therefore I tried to be slightly more conversational about it.
But that is as may be, that’s not the point now. I’m not going to get into a fight with you, and I don’t know where your hostility is coming from, but you’ve won. I happily retract my position, and accept his definition of God on the basis that I do not know God’s nature.
Are we OK now?
I can’t tell if you are deliberately misstating my position or not, so it is NOT “o.k.” You stated that his definition was wrong, and I am trying to find out how you can make that determination without knowing what the right answer is in the first place. Are there definitions out there that are more accurate than his?
If so, please provide evidence for the accuracy of said definitions. Are you saying that all definitions are equally inaccurate because all of them provide the same amount of evidence(i.e. none)?
All you have done so far is exactly what I pointed out was the problem with trying to get some solid information from religionists-the “Uh, uh-that ain’t it either” roadblock of an answer.
I’m so sorry, Czarcasm, but I don’t know what you want me to say. As I said, I know of no definition for God. I can’t provide you with one; I don’t believe anybody can, but I accept that I was wrong to say this. I felt that the poster in question was wrong to tell another poster that that poster did not have a God and prescribing a definition of his own to illustrate this; I should have kept quiet.
If you tell me what you want me to say, I’ll say it. I’ve apologized for my comment, I simply don’t know where else to go with this. I don’t know what I can say, other than “sorry” to make this better.
Apology accepted, but I wanted to use your previous statement to show the problem previous threads have had with the questions asked in this thread-the tendency to dismiss all attempts to find answers when it comes to the attributes of God.
I don’t understand this characterization at all. How is not preventing something that we perceive as bad necessarily evil? Sort of a bizarre example, but there was a South Park episode wherein one of the kids had Chicken Pox, so the parents were working together to have the rest of the kids stay the night at that kid’s house so they could catch it. Once the kids found out, they freaked out that their parents were trying to get them sick. From their perspective, their parents were commiting an evil act. However, with more knowledge, we realize that their parents were acting in their children’s best interest.
In our own lives, I’m sure we can come up with plenty of examples of situations that were horrible, but later on realized that we learned a valuable lesson or had some other consequences or, possibly, was actually a better result akin to “be careful what you wish for”.
But when we’re dealing with larger scale disasters, it’s easy to lose sight of that perspective on a large scale because we have a tendency to focus on the individual sufferings.
But that’s where it comes in, as in my view, the idea of omni-benevolence doesn’t make sense that no one ever suffers, but rather that one aims to achieve the best possible outcome in the best possible way.
To illustrate that, lets use another example, this time chess. Let’s say that we have a computer that is sufficiently advanced as to see ahead from any given state to all possible end scenarios and, thus, can always achieve the best possible outcome from a particular state. Now let’s say his opponent puts the computer into a state where it can guarantee victory, but it has a few different routes that it can take. One route is only a handful of moves, say about 6, but in order for it to work, it must sacrifice a valuable piece, like the queen or a rook. Another route can achieve victory without losing a piece, but it would take considerably more moves, like 25 or 30. Which route is the “best” one? In the end, both routes are equally good, in that they both achieve a victory, but one does it more quickly and the other does it in a manner that requires no sacrifice from any of his pieces.
The problem is, the game of life is magnitudes more complex and so, in order for this line of argumentation to make sense, one has to assume that there is a path that necessarily min-maxes all relevant aspects. And, of course, that is theoretically possible, but that requires either God directly manipulating all aspects, or sheer dumb luck on our part.
Or to tie that back into the chess example, in theory the “best” possible game could be said to be a fools mate, but that only works if one player controls both sides or the second player just stumbles into it. Or, for the real life example, either God controls everyone, which removes free will, or we were just lucky enough to make all the right choices to have optimized long ago, which we weren’t.
Since we’re clearly past that point which, I’d say is metaphorically represented in the Bible in the book of Genesis, we’re still heading toward the same ultimate outcome, but the manner of what is best is an argument about which factors should receive priority when optimizing. Obviously, if you favor one set of aspects, and God favors another, then you will disagree with him over who has the best route. But to argue that it is evil is making a lot of baseless assumptions about all of that.
But to argue that it is good makes the same baseless assumptions.
I’d go the route Czarcasm went, in which case it doesn’t make a lot of sense to say the entity was good either.
In any event, suppose you are out for a walk and you see a young child unattended. The child is playing in the street and you see a car with a distracted driver coming down the street in an obvious collision. You have the ability to scoop the child up and to safely deposit the child on the curb. You don’t, figuring the child’s parents will learn a valuable lesson about always leaving your child with an adult supervisor. The inevitable happens and the child is killed.
Would you say you’ve done a good act?
I couldn’t follow your argument, and this is where the problem began. What is the justification for the abovequoted claim?
The best possible outcome is one in which everyone freely chooses to do the good at all times.
Jim,
Being a Christian means you’ve accepted Jesus as your savior, so unless you have done this, then you are not by diffinition a Christian. Christianity is not a race, nor does it limit itself to any one culture. The foundation of Christianity is Jesus, but the home it built itself upon is from several different belief systems all merged to please the men who created them, and not a single one pretends to be based on a god or gods that are as good natured as The Christian Christ. Christ was created out of necessity to unify the religion of Judeoism with the cult of Mithras. It didn’t hurt that the new Christians found themselves a thin thread to attach themselves to the chosen Jewish god named Jealousy.
If you read the entire bible, on your own at not have it read for you, you will be able to answer your own questions about which gods you would like to hold court for. I’ve read the bible and deduced that those 3 characters are not gods, but projections of what the writers wanted their creators to be. I type 3 characters because the problem of evil plagues any religion that claims a perfectly good god. A nemeses must be created to answer for dead crops, miscarriages, and wars. It was necessary for the myth of YHWH to have a counter productive partner. Even if YHWH created him and demanded of him to preform the most awful actions against mankind.
What is truly interesting is that this so called evil doer has done less evil than the so called good guy. The myth of Adam and eve which was stolen from a far older myth and poorly edited, was the undoing, in my opinion of a perfect god. In this story YHWH admits to creating everything, even the snake, but then pretends like he does not know that his children won’t learn the truth. YHWH in anger (?) throws them out of the garden laboratory and into the middle east. You’d think that a perfect loving creature would get rid of the snake he created, but you’d be wrong, instead YHWH uses him to send Job the strangest tests. Read the bibke, it’s more exciting than a Stephen King novel.
What I’m trying to say is, mankind creates gods in their own image. If there is a god or gods, they most certainly aren’t to be found in any book. Would any real god side with one tribe of man while murdering another? YHWH (Allah), the god aka Jealousy is a myth, no more real than Zeus or Thor and one day, hopefully soon, a majority of believers will find that they do not need gods as much as gods need us.
Read Persian mythology, the omitted books of the bible, Greek mythology, and Mithras, if you are seriously considering aligning your self with the god Jealousy or his Christian son god. It is best to know your gods, before claiming them as your reality.
Jim,
Being a Christian means you’ve accepted Jesus as your savior, so unless you have done this, then you are not by diffinition a Christian. Christianity is not a race, nor does it limit itself to any one culture. The foundation of Christianity is Jesus, but the home it built itself upon is from several different belief systems all merged to please the men who created them, and not a single one pretends to be based on a god or gods that are as good natured as the Christian Christ figure. Christ was created out of necessity to unify the religion of Judeoism with the cult of Mithras. It didn’t hurt that the new Christians found themselves a thin thread to attach themselves to the chosen Jewish god named Jealousy.
If you read the entire bible, on your own and not have it read for you, you will be able to answer your own questions about which gods you would like to hold court for. I’ve read the bible and deduced that those 3 characters are not gods, but projections of what the writers wanted their creators to be. I type 3 characters because the problem of evil plagues any religion that claims a perfectly good god. Read about the pharaoh Akhenaten for his lesson on creating a monothestic religion. To answer for this a nemeses must be created to answer for dead crops, miscarriages, and wars, the OT didn’t care about the evil side of YHWH only that his people worshipped only him. But the NT needed a bad guy to pin the hare in, so it was necessary for the myth of YHWH to have a counter productive partner if it was to become Christian and pander to the people. See the bad angell, was A YHWH creation and yhwh wasn’t above demanding of this winged creation to preform the most awful actions against mankind. Who cares if Satan didn’t really want to hurt people, YHWH was in charge, and going against that guy was not a good thing, just ask his stray followers.
What is truly interesting is that this so called evil doer has done less evil than the so called good guy. One might argue about the snake in the myth of Adam and eve, but a schooled person would know that this myth was stolen from a far older myth and poorly edited. In this OT version YHWH admits to creating everything, even the snake, but then pretends like he does not know that his children won’t learn the truth. YHWH in anger (?) throws them out of the garden laboratory and into the middle east. You’d think that a perfect loving creature would get rid of the snake he created, but you’d be wrong, instead YHWH uses him to send Job the strangest tests. Read bible, it’s more exciting than a Stephen King novel. the original myth had two guys in the garden and one was afraid of humans becoming smarter then the two mad scientists, the other wanted men to know things for themselves. That is why you’ll find the words, “in our image”, and “like us” peppered in the OT. Bad editing. Not a product of a divine editor.
What I’m trying to say is, mankind creates gods in their own image. If there is a god or gods, they most certainly aren’t to be found in any book. Would any real god side with one tribe of man while murdering another? YHWH (Allah), the god aka Jealousy is a myth, no more real than Zeus or Thor and one day, hopefully soon, a majority of believers will find that they do not need gods as much as paper gods need us.
Read Persian mythology, the omitted books of the bible, Greek mythology, and Mithras, if you are seriously considering aligning your self with the god Jealousy or his sun god. It is best to know your gods, before claiming them as your own.
Knowledge is power.
S.
I think the reason why the tri-omni thing started had something to do with making sure that the being called God would be worthy of worship. Disparity in power alone will not make somebody worthy of worship, otherwise, theists would welcome worshipping powerful aliens. Imagine Galactus or The Specter - I doubt if any of the adherents of the Abrahamic faiths can contemplate worshipping beings like them - else, they’ll look like the common pagan. Having been created (ultimately) by God will not automatically make him worthy of worship otherwise parents would be worthy of worship no matter how tyrannical. Somehow, by imagining God to be maximally powerful, good and intelligent it will melt all these questions away. I’m not convince it does but I somewhat understand the sentiment.
Comic books are a good analogy; what we see in Christianity and religion in general is the result of millennia of power inflation. Just as Superman always gets more and more powerful over time, the claimed abilities of gods got larger and larger.