Or at least Satan.
Dropzone was referring to Fallacy of the excluded middle not Law of excluded middle. A Wiki search for Fallacy of the excluded middle redirects to the article for “False dilemma.”
Fair enough, but it’s best not to use that term in order to avoid ambiguity.
“Dear Pot: Yes, I am black. (SIGNED) Kettle.”
Yes to both. God punishes for misbehavior, in the OT.
No, it means that God could control everything.
The Bible is pretty consistent in the OT. God tells people what he wants and then sits back and watches. When they misbehave, sometimes he warns them that he’s going to lay the smack down if they continue, other times he just whacks them without any forewarning. Presumably, he could practice some form of mind control and force them to act according to his will, but he has chosen to allow humans free will.
God is more like a parent, in the OT, than a wizard. He gives his children free reign, within boundaries, and punishes them when they cross over those boundaries. Whereas if he was a wizard, he’d just hypnotize them and force them to act according to his will.
Overall, I think you’ll do a better job of questioning Christianity by asking what God’s goal was with the whole willy-whacking thing, than by going the “Can Superman tear off his own head?” direction.
I’ve been patient with this thread. But that’s at an end. The next pointless bickering I see will lead to its closing.
In the early Bible God directly caused the disasters he threatened - Sodom and the Flood for two. In the later Bible he is more like a parent who says you’ll get burned if you touch that pan. Which is way different from burning the child.
That’s an example of a successful prophecy. The coming of the Messiah - not so much. (At least if you are Jewish, and as I think we’ve gone over already, Jesus doesn’t fill the bill either unless you reinterpret the prophecy to force it to apply.)
Remember we’re talking about God seeing the future. If he predicts it, and really sees it happening, then he is powerless to change it. Or if he works in more subtle ways he must control everyone involved to make the prophecy happen. Or he could be lying. Remember Jonah? He was pissed off because God told him to predict something and then didn’t follow through. Which means God lied to Jonah about it happening - or if not, he was wrong about what he was going to do. Lying is perfectly compatible with God.
As for Superman, that just sets the limit of omnipotence. I’ve already agreed that it does not included logically impossible things. My paradox is a lot more fundamental than that.
You’re mixing two different fictional concepts here. I only want to know why you think omnipotence + omniscience are logically impossible. If you assume an omniscience that knows everything that is going to happen, you’re positing a deterministic world. In a deterministic world, an omnipotent and omniscient being can change what he wants to do also. He just knows ahead of time that the change will happen. The only thing that he cannot change is doing something other than what he knows he will do. But since, under your rules, omnipotence does not extend to logical impossibilities, he is still omnipotent and omniscient both. That combination is not a logical impossibility. So, an omnipotent being could very well give himself omniscience.
What, if anything, becomes demonstrably impossible if we assume there is no God? Such would be support for a proof by contradiction.
It’s not entirely clear it really was a “sacrifice”.
Jesus was crucified and died for my/all sin(s), a finite punishment, God says the punishment for sin is eternity in hell, infinite punishment. Jesus doesn’t pay retail, he pays wholesale and buys in bulk. If God can cut himself a deal why can’t he give me one?
If you accept my sacrifice of myself to myself instead of eternal torture you’ll get to have eternal life . . . worshiping me! That isn’t a sacrifice . . . it’s an attempt at extortion.
Jesus is not Prometheus.
CMC fnord!
In a thread about religion vs atheism? What else is there?
But God is said to be able to do all things.
Except deal with iron chariots, for some reason.
I once heard that there was a saying “wooden ships and iron men.” I told that to someone a few years back and he said “Now it’s the other way around.”
That joke goes back at least as far as the Battle of Tsushima.
First, I agree that an omniscient deity who cannot foresee the future can be omnipotent, But that is a feeble version of omniscience. Since God supposedly is maximally omniscient and maximally omnipotent, a god whose omniscience includes the future is more omniscient than one who omniscience cannot - thus that being is not God. There is no logical contradiction in omniscience - including the future - by itself. Or at least none I can think of.
Now, a world with such a god is determined, but not deterministic. You can have truly random events - but God knows how they come out. If you can send a picture back in time five minutes, rolled a die, and sent the outcome to yourself before you rolled it, the roll is just as random as before.
The God who set things in motion to create and then never interfered does imply a deterministic universe, but I don’t think we’re talking about that kind of God.
Now, I don’t know what changing your mind means when you know what you will decide. Beside that, you note that he only can’t change his mind about things he will do. But that implies he knows the things he won’t do also - which, since God can do everything possible, includes all other possible actions. If he lets the sparrow fall it is because he decided to not catch the sparrow. So, the union of things he decides to do and the things he decides not to do is all things - and so God is constrained to do exactly what he foresees - and has no free will.
Add to that the fact that an eternal God knows all this at t = - infinity, and we’ve got a universe set in concrete. It is a poor omnipotence that is constrained from doing anything not foreseen at the beginning of time. Computers have more free will than that.
When was that?
May 27–28, 1905.
One of the earliest battles between modern battleships…and a very badly botched battle, as the Russian fleet walked right into killing fire and was annihilated.
Thus the joke: “Iron ships…and wooden men.”
He’s probably an elf. They don’t like iron, and it would explain the attitude problem.