walking on water is very possible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45yabrnryXk
I'm not suggesting that Jesus walked on water this way, if he ever did really walk on water, but it shows that it is indeed possible.
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Evil means a Christian God cannot exist?
- Thread starter jc104
- Start date
walking on water is very possible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45yabrnryXk
I'm not suggesting that Jesus walked on water this way, if he ever did really walk on water, but it shows that it is indeed possible.
What do you even mean by "logical". There are multiple systems of logic. Aspects of Christian theology like the idea that Jesus was fully human and fully divine would seem to point towards the need to use a Paraconsistent logic. I don't know if theologians have done anything in this area.
The OP is probably a troll but I'll take the bait incase he is just some stupid rand.
First of all who said God is omniscient? All powerful+ all loving does not equal all knowing.
If you look at the scripture you can see that we did not have the free will at the beginning. However seeing as you don't see the bible as a credible source I can't use it. Instead I ask you would God not give us free will? If we had no choice but to obey God's demands, then we would merely be puppets and what is the point of that? Surely being enslaved to a greater being would be much more cruel than giving us free will and allowing evil to exist.
You ask why we must suffer, but to me it seems necessary. How else would we learn from our mistakes if God stepped in every time to fix everyones problems? You do not seem to understand that punishment may be needed sometimes. To help you understand let me give you some copypasta from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons".
"
Chatrand: I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.
Ventresca: You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.
Chatrand: Exactly.
Ventresca: Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.
Chatrand: I understand the concept. It’s just… there seems to be a contradiction.
Ventresca: Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness…
Chatrand: Exactly! Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t he?
Ventresca: Would He?
Chatrand: Well… if God Loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.
Ventresca: Do you have children?
Chatrand: No, signore.
Ventresca: Imagine you had an eight-year-old son… would you love him?
Chatrand: Of course.
Ventresca: Would you let him skateboard?
Chatrand: Yeah, I guess. Sure I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful.
Ventresca: So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?
Chatrand: I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean.
Ventresca: But what if he fell and skinned his knee?
Chatrand: He would learn to be more careful.
Ventresca: So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show you love by letting him learn his own lessons?
Chatrand: Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.
Ventresca: Exactly.
"
Of course part of believing in God is faith. You are supposed to believe without concrete proof that God exists, and this drives some people crazy (and leads them to athiesm).
Oh and I don't care what your beliefs are, but don't call someone else's faith "wrong".
First of all who said God is omniscient? All powerful+ all loving does not equal all knowing.
If you look at the scripture you can see that we did not have the free will at the beginning. However seeing as you don't see the bible as a credible source I can't use it. Instead I ask you would God not give us free will? If we had no choice but to obey God's demands, then we would merely be puppets and what is the point of that? Surely being enslaved to a greater being would be much more cruel than giving us free will and allowing evil to exist.
You ask why we must suffer, but to me it seems necessary. How else would we learn from our mistakes if God stepped in every time to fix everyones problems? You do not seem to understand that punishment may be needed sometimes. To help you understand let me give you some copypasta from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons".
"
Chatrand: I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.
Ventresca: You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.
Chatrand: Exactly.
Ventresca: Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.
Chatrand: I understand the concept. It’s just… there seems to be a contradiction.
Ventresca: Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness…
Chatrand: Exactly! Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t he?
Ventresca: Would He?
Chatrand: Well… if God Loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.
Ventresca: Do you have children?
Chatrand: No, signore.
Ventresca: Imagine you had an eight-year-old son… would you love him?
Chatrand: Of course.
Ventresca: Would you let him skateboard?
Chatrand: Yeah, I guess. Sure I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful.
Ventresca: So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?
Chatrand: I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean.
Ventresca: But what if he fell and skinned his knee?
Chatrand: He would learn to be more careful.
Ventresca: So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show you love by letting him learn his own lessons?
Chatrand: Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.
Ventresca: Exactly.
"
Of course part of believing in God is faith. You are supposed to believe without concrete proof that God exists, and this drives some people crazy (and leads them to athiesm).
Oh and I don't care what your beliefs are, but don't call someone else's faith "wrong".
I think it's a generally accepted belief in Abrahamic religions that God is omniscient.
I have already explained that we could have been given free will yet lack the ability to do evil. EDIT: And to be honest, I didn't really need to - if you believe God is omnipotent, then by definition he could have.
Says who?
Yet you see fit to equate atheism with insanity?
All knowing is a subset of omnipotent
This is a fallacy because of the differences in ability between a human father and an omnipotent god. the human father cannot prevent the son's suffering without restricting his freedom or limiting his learning, god is all powerful so he could do these things. Also not all human suffering has a beneficial outcome, children starve to death every minute, no good comes of this for the children or anyone around them.
Relatively simple explanation: Our existence on earth is meager and almost pointless in comparison to the afterlife. Earthly pleasures and suffering pales in comparison to the afterlife. What we consider the worst earthly suffering is simply our naiive, ignorant, and arrogant selves thinking we know true pain, and God knows we aren't really suffering, but are instead just too weak to accept a paltry amount of suffering. (IE: We aren't really suffering. We just think we are)
Unfortunately, this question is an exercise in creativity. You'll find something wrong with my model above (with creativity), and I'll find a creative solution that doesn't have that error. Lather, rinse repeat. The ultimate winner will simply be the debater who is more creative, not necessarily the debater who is correct. (IE: These kinds of arguments are pointless)
Nonetheless, I'm interested... for now... how this discussion will go.
Unfortunately, this question is an exercise in creativity. You'll find something wrong with my model above (with creativity), and I'll find a creative solution that doesn't have that error. Lather, rinse repeat. The ultimate winner will simply be the debater who is more creative, not necessarily the debater who is correct. (IE: These kinds of arguments are pointless)
Nonetheless, I'm interested... for now... how this discussion will go.
Side note: I am not religious.
Many argue that God puts people through tough times to try their souls.
If earth is so pointless why even create it at all?
Chris, why would god need to try one's soul when he is omniscient? he already knows to exactly what extent one will remain faithful, exactly what temptations they will give in to etc. I can see no reason why god would try someones soul other than if he just wanted them to suffer.
Related to Dragontamer's post: The fact that we do not have any satisfactory explanation for the origin of evil does not contradict the existence of the God of Christianity, because NOTHING can contradict Their existence. The claim that an omnipotent being exists cannot be disproven, since such a being can hide Themselves as thoroughly as They wish.
How is this not different? The only way to prevent evil would be to have complete control over humans (which in essence would remove our humanity). As long as humans exist we will have temptations which will lead us to evil. If remove free will then you are restricting freedom, much like the father would prevent his son from skateboarding. I ask again how is this not different?
If you believe God is omnipotent, then he can prevent evil however he likes, including by ways you cannot think of.
If you do not believe God is omnipotent, then you are not talking about the usual Christian conception of God, which is what this thread is about.
Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive anyway; you cannot have a being that can do both.
If you are omniscient, it means that you know every thing that was, is, and will be. If you know everything that will be, it means you know what you're going to do tomorrow.
If you are omnipotent, it means you can do anything. That means that you can change your own future. However, if you know your own future, and then change it to something else, omniscience means that you already knew you would do that and consequently you haven't changed the future at all, meaning omnipotence is impossible. Alternatively, if you are capable of changing your own future, you can't know that you were going to change it.
If you are omniscient, it means that you know every thing that was, is, and will be. If you know everything that will be, it means you know what you're going to do tomorrow.
If you are omnipotent, it means you can do anything. That means that you can change your own future. However, if you know your own future, and then change it to something else, omniscience means that you already knew you would do that and consequently you haven't changed the future at all, meaning omnipotence is impossible. Alternatively, if you are capable of changing your own future, you can't know that you were going to change it.
Of course he could prevent it. But it would not be possible to remove evil without restricting some kind of freedom, regardless of how it is done (even if I "cannot think of it").
Do you deny that all people have some evil within them? Since all people have varying degrees of evil you could not prevent them from acting on thier temptations without removing thier temptations completly. If you remove temptations we would have no motivations or emotions. We would be just like animals. That would certainly involve "removing freedoms".
Which is really just showing that omnipotence is logically contradictory with itself. Which we all know because of the legendary treatise of God and the Burrito, among other sources.
Omnipotence is not a well defined thing because it seems so suggest one can do both A and ~A simultaneously.
Omnipotence is not a well defined thing because it seems so suggest one can do both A and ~A simultaneously.
We already have restrictions on our freedoms.
On the rest of it, we seem to be using a different definition of omnipotent. It is indeed not as simple a matter as it first seems.
Contradiction is not necessarily a dealbreaker, as I previously mentioned. But I have no experience with paraconsistent logics, and I doubt anyone here does.MrIndigo said:
EDIT:
We are like animals. Or rather, animals are like us. There do not seem to be any human faculties that are exclusive to us. It is of course difficult to know if animals feel emotions, since we do not understand them very well, but it seems at least some species do.
The differences between humanity and other species are ones of degree, not of kind. Many species have the same basic abilities as us, but we have developed them to a greater extent.
Okay so why would god create people with evil inside of them, why would he not create people who desire only good
Life is a test. The reason God is all-knowing and yet we have free will is that God exists outside of our perception of time. All things happen at the same time for God. He knows what will happen because IT IS happening to him. The best way humans can describe this supernatural phenomenon is that he is "omniscient". When we say omniscient, what we really mean is he exists outside of time and space as we perceive them. So, it is entirely necessary for us to prove who we are, and although it seems as if the future is "ordained", in reality the only reason God knows it is because he lives it simultaneously. Therefore, free will exists.
Now, I am not going to pretend that to TRULY believe in God can be achieved through pure logic. I do believe that one can come to the conclusion that there must be SOMETHING beyond our understanding that created the universe, but the notion that this being is anything like the Christian God, I admit, is not provable through logic alone. And I really do hope that the Atheists do not leave this thread angry or frustrated, I do not consider this an argument so much as a question and answer thread, whereby an atheist expressed an interest in what Christians believe and Christians respond. There is no need for argument. If Atheists have no desire to learn about Christianity, that is their free choice to make, and there is no reason for them to navigate back to the rest of Smogon any more frustrated than they were when they arrived at this thread in the first place.
Now, I am not going to pretend that to TRULY believe in God can be achieved through pure logic. I do believe that one can come to the conclusion that there must be SOMETHING beyond our understanding that created the universe, but the notion that this being is anything like the Christian God, I admit, is not provable through logic alone. And I really do hope that the Atheists do not leave this thread angry or frustrated, I do not consider this an argument so much as a question and answer thread, whereby an atheist expressed an interest in what Christians believe and Christians respond. There is no need for argument. If Atheists have no desire to learn about Christianity, that is their free choice to make, and there is no reason for them to navigate back to the rest of Smogon any more frustrated than they were when they arrived at this thread in the first place.
Jesus. John chapter 20 is a fundamental part of the Christian faith.
I disagree, on the grounds that the existence of the creator then demands an explanation, and any explanation for a creator can also be used directly as an explanation for the Universe's existence.
He creates people with a human nature, in which there is absolutely no desire for evil. However, there are temptations in this world, which threaten our nature and expose us to the possibility of evil. As the Catholic Church teaches, evil is merely a privation(or a lack) of what should be there. So you see, God created humans entirely good, but with the capacity to reject their good natures and give in to temptation.
OK, I should have been clearer, and maybe I misinterpreted Hobo Bob. I meant "Who says I should believe in God as opposed to not believe in God", not "Who says I should believe in God as opposed to try and prove his existence."
The answers given are probably going to be the same. But to answer 'The Bible', or any other religious book, to the former isn't really a valid answer IMHO, whereas to the latter it may be.