Is God Omnipotent? If so?

Is the logical impossibility of God being as described as omnipotent and omniscient down to human error?

  • It is quite clear that God cannot love us all and be omnipotent as children die from lack of rain all the time. Also its logically impossible for a God to be omniscient and also give us free will. It has been a capital crime for subjects to suggest a ruler may not be perfect or immortal right through European history up to Elizabeth I (executed people for asking her to name an heir as that suggested she may die) and the Romans insisted on being regarded as being perfect. Do you think this culture may have affected how people perceived God or how they wrote about him anyway? It seems very unlikely that people did not see these logical impossibilities then - maybe it was just accepted they were sucking up and no-one really believed God to be perfect, immortal, omniscience and omnipotent until more recently?

  • Answer:

    If I know someone is going to do something that does not remove their free-will. Suffering is caused by that same free-will. Where is the illogicality? Minds such as Newton, Kepler et al would disagree with your shoddy thinking.

alan h at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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The central error is that people take a fictional character such as God seriously in the first place.

Captain Sarcastic

Human stupidity not error!

john wondering

The concept of gods have been around for a very long time. Originally there were many gods and goddesses who all had their ideals, flaws, limits, and powers. Some gods were even more powerful than others. It's only relatively recently that some of the religions reduced it all to just a single god and then, to make him more powerful than any other culture's god(s), made him all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. It's all the way to the extreme end, just like the reward/punishment system of Heaven and Hell. The best possible place and the worst possible place. Those traits were basically just a result from a "gods race" between cultures. It's highly unlikely that anything inspire such claims and stories other than the need to have a "better god" than your enemies.

Bill O'Reilly

People may interpret God or the history of religion or religious definitions, but still will only be limited and error-prone. All people are born and die. God doesn't. Even if you don't believe in him or do, you will still die, but within the concept of God, he or she or it does not die. Therefore, it really doesn't matter too much whether people believe in God or do not believe. If God is real, his or her or its power transcends our capacity as well.

The universe didn't just pop out of nothing. Something or someone must have created it. If atheist were really into logical reasoning, then they'd realize god is the only logical explanation.

Brandon

Good question... An excellent way of identifying the origins of religions narcissistic personification of God.

JAMIE R

The evidence of God's omniscience and omnipotence is the Big Bang, when the universe exploded into existence out of nothing at the beginning of time. Given the amazing order and fine tuning in the universe, only omniscience could direct its creation. God can know of children dying from lack of rain (or illness, or injury, or war) and not intervene in nature to protect them. God assigned mastery over nature to us, and he has a backup plan for children who suffer--resurrection in heaven. Consider that if he bailed us out whenever we were in danger, we would become like the Eloi, carefree and mindless. Omniscience means the ability to know everything that can be known. Our future free acts do not exist to be known. God can predict our actions from our past behavior, but he can't know them until we bring them into existence. Cheers, Bruce

Bruce

I believe that our ancestors upbringing has definitely paved the way for the majority of people today, but as with all societies you have the "sheep" and the "free-thinkers." The sheep are those who go with the flow, accept what they are told, and just follow along right on to their demise. The free-thinkers are those who rebel, buck the system, and do not accept every thing for truth. In the past (and even to some degree, in the present) those who are in control, praise and use the sheep while making examples of the free-thinkers. This method forces the free-thinkers to stay hidden to avoid persecution and thus you come up with the underground societies. Essentially those who are in power do everything possible to keep the power, including brainwashing/eliminating those who threaten that power. I don't have a definitive answer on the concept of God because there are simply too many variables, many of which we are simply not privy to any possible knowledge on. I don't care for the idea that religion in itself is a catch-22... you have to believe and have faith to be religious, but you can't refute religion because it is based on the intangible (faith/belief) not fact nor can you prove religion because of the very same reason. It seems, to me, to be the perfect way to create control and leave no opportunity for that control to dissipate. On the other side of the coin, though, I don't believe that everything just popped up out of nothing and that is based on the fact that I have seen this world to be primarily logical (an action creates a reaction thus a non-action couldn't create a reaction). When it comes down to it, I simply don't believe the information fed to me but I also don't have a better answer than what has been provided. :(

Cf

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