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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:33
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I posted this in the Jesus' forgiveness thread, but no one responded to it (it was pretty far OT), so I think it deserves its own thread:
quote:
Well, personally I like this quote:
"Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a universe filled with so much that is evil. They have missed a greater conundrum: why would a perfect God create a universe at all?" - Sister Miriam Godwinson, "But for the Grace of God"
Despite the fact that it's from SMAC, it brings up an interesting point: if God is omnipotent, he essentially defines reality. Now let's see what this would mean if, say, I had this power (just to remove religious dogma from this):
First, I could easily get rid of the suffering of every human being ever to live. I see how that would be a good thing. Well, wouldn't I be doing a good thing to make sure no baby had ever been stillborn or aborted, and instead lived happy, blissful lives? Seems so. You know what, how about I give all of those potential people, who could have been conceived but weren't? I'll stick them in too. Actually, I'll start adding even MORE people, and giving them good lives too. Even better! I think to make the maximum possible goodness, I'll create an INFINITE number of people, all with happy lives. And I'll give them free will, sure, but I'll create each and every one of them with enough "conscience" so that they never actually decide to "sin". Yay!
Bo-ring. What's the point?
Now, obviously, if I created a world like we had now, I'd be "evil". I mean, how can anyone but I be responsible for plagues and natural disasters - I created the world such that they would occur. Have I not "sinned" more than anyone, caused more pain and suffering than every human combined? All as some petty spite for them eating an apple from a tree? If the police did something like that, I'm sure most people here would definately call it abuse. It's like selling drugs on the street in order to catch drug users.
Obviously, our sense of "morals" could not in the least apply to an omnipotent being, because the ultimate result of that is utter pointlessness. Frankly, I'd rather live in a world with conflict than one without. It would be frighteningly dull without it. Just like when you play Risk - the objective is to conquer the world, but you don't keep playing afterwards, do you? |
Note: I'm still an atheist, I'm just thinking about the implications of omnipotence.
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Snowflake
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falling, once again
Apr 2003
time: 23:33
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Well the god created light, air and water, sky and land, fish and bird and other animals, then he thought, hmmm how about we create a new kind, with the form of me and an ability of thought, see what they can do. So he created human. Of course he could have calculated that given all the conditions what an evil world he would be creating, but what is the fun of that?
So he created, and observes, and helps a little here and there. But most of the time he simply observes. You know when a child who is learning to walk falls you don't always go pick him up even if you know that it might hurt a little. But you are doing a good thing for him for you know he'll eventually learn not to fall. Some people never learn how to walk properly is entirely another matter.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:33
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quote:
God is a construct whose power is limited by the human brain. In other words, God is a product of our imagination.
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Our perceptions of God are always limited by our own understanding, thus while we can imagine an omnipotent being, our limitations prevent us from fully grasping such a concept.
That's the problem with trying to define omnipotence, because we simply do not have any reference points to compare, (in fact, such reference points would be impossible).
All we can say is that an essential quality of God must be omnipotence.
Another quality of God is sufficiency, as he is totally self-sufficient. Therefore, God cannot merely be a creation of the mind of lesser beings, because such creation could not be God. We can grasp the merest portion, a list of qualities that ought to be attributed to God.
HongHu:
quote:
But most of the time he simply observes.
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Would it surprise you if I said that without God, there would be nothing else? That God continually sustains life? If we are made in his image, a good analogy can be made with a mirror. What happens to the reflection in the mirror when the person walks away? The same is with God. If God were to walk away, we would simply cease to be.
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cinch
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Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Jul 2002
time: 22:33
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The way I look at it is this:
If there is a "being" outside of our existence, outside of our universe... it ain't bound by the laws of said universe. It is, by definition, everything one has ever seen and nothing one could ever imagine at the same time, because these concepts of 'everything' and 'nothing' are simply states of being, or conceiving, in our universe.
Good, evil, happy sad... none of that factors into it. Anything outside of our existence is unknowable. If you follow most religions to their "end", if you will, that's usually what the message is.
So why alter your life in an uncomfortable way to attempt to please a "being" that no one can even conceive of, or know? That's just silly talk!
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by cinch
The way I look at it is this:
If there is a "being" outside of our existence, outside of our universe... it ain't bound by the laws of said universe. It is, by definition, everything one has ever seen and nothing one could ever imagine at the same time, because these concepts of 'everything' and 'nothing' are simply states of being, or conceiving, in our universe.
Good, evil, happy sad... none of that factors into it. Anything outside of our existence is unknowable. If you follow most religions to their "end", if you will, that's usually what the message is.
So why alter your life in an uncomfortable way to attempt to please a "being" that no one can even conceive of, or know? That's just silly talk! |
Well, given the definition of universe (the set of all that exists), if God isn't within the universe, then God doesn't exist  and wrt the "laws" of said universe, one of those "laws" would be that God was omnipotent.
Plus, I'm not assuming outside our universe. I'm really talking about the philosophical implications of omnipotence.
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Snowflake
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falling, once again
Apr 2003
time: 23:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Interesting. So do we need God in our lives at all? |
Well the truth is that we might not need him in our lives at all, but it is better for the peace of mind to believe in him anyway, for this way we could be a little bit more sure about that unpredicatable fate.
quote:
Well, given the definition of universe (the set of all that exists), if God isn't within the universe, then God doesn't exist and wrt the "laws" of said universe, one of those "laws" would be that God was omnipotent.
Plus, I'm not assuming outside our universe. I'm really talking about the philosophical implications of omnipotence.
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You know the fact that we are not aware of something "exist" within the "universe" that are defined by our own awareness doesn't mean that something doesn't exist at all. We all know that there had been a time when people thought that the earth was the center of the "universe" and that they didn't know that Mars exist but we all know that Mars did exist at that time don't we.
Think about ants. They kind of live in a two dimentional world. They eat, sleep, work, fight, and play. There might be one ant that is very intelligent and he found out if he travels toward one direction he would eventually come back to his starting point. He even realized that their universe (the surface of earth) is without border but still limited. Another ants had attempted to climb up to a tree and looked at their world from an entirely different perspective.
However, there are things that they cannot understand. When a two year old accidently stepped on their nest they didn't know what had caused that disaster. When he saw the ants and picked up an ant and study it for a while, the ants didn't know how could one ant mysteriously disappear and reappear. They attibute all these to be miracles. Some ants had seen one of the child's foot, others had seen one of his fingers. They believed that they had seen god. They belived that he is omnipotent.
Later, the child grew up and lost his interest in ants. The ants were lost. They started to debate whether the god really exist and what would happen when he returns. But within their limited universe that is defined by their own awareness, how could even the smartest ant understand what is happening in the three-dimentional world?
Human beings are like ants that are living in a three-dimentional world. How could even the most intelligent of us understand what could be happening in a higher dimentional world? How could we ever find the conclusion about whether a god exist or not in an universe that is greater than our own awareness?
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:33
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quote:
You know the fact that we are not aware of something "exist" within the "universe" that are defined by our own awareness doesn't mean that something doesn't exist at all. We all know that there had been a time when people thought that the earth was the center of the "universe" and that they didn't know that Mars exist but we all know that Mars did exist at that time don't we.
Think about ants. They kind of live in a two dimentional world. They eat, sleep, work, fight, and play. There might be one ant that is very intelligent and he found out if he travels toward one direction he would eventually come back to his starting point. He even realized that their universe (the surface of earth) is without border but still limited. Another ants had attempted to climb up to a tree and looked at their world from an entirely different perspective.
However, there are things that they cannot understand. When a two year old accidently stepped on their nest they didn't know what had caused that disaster. When he saw the ants and picked up an ant and study it for a while, the ants didn't know how could one ant mysteriously disappear and reappear. They attibute all these to be miracles. Some ants had seen one of the child's foot, others had seen one of his fingers. They believed that they had seen god. They belived that he is omnipotent.
Later, the child grew up and lost his interest in ants. The ants were lost. They started to debate whether the god really exist and what would happen when he returns. But within their limited universe that is defined by their own awareness, how could even the smartest ant understand what is happening in the three-dimentional world?
Human beings are like ants that are living in a three-dimentional world. How could even the most intelligent of us understand what could be happening in a higher dimentional world? How could we ever find the conclusion about whether a god exist or not in an universe that is greater than our own awareness? |
What's your point? I'm not talking about our understanding of the specifics of the universe, I'm talking about the general definition of the universe - the set of all that exists. Anything outside that set, by definition, does not exist. However, I never said god was outside that set (even though I believe him to be, that isn't the point of this thread). "Universe" here doesn't mean "contiguous region of spacetime".
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Enigma_Nova
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quote:
Originally posted by HongHu
Human beings are like ants that are living in a three-dimentional world. How could even the most intelligent of us understand what could be happening in a higher dimentional world? How could we ever find the conclusion about whether a god exist or not in an universe that is greater than our own awareness? |
Then we evolve and extend our awareness.
Sometimes I wonder if we really understand, or if we only beleive we understand. Knowledge and Beliefs are, in working, almost the same (save for certainty).
Likewise, with perception, is there a way to know what crosses our mind's eye isn't a symptom of a mental disorder rather than reality?
How is it that we are certain of our emotions; chemically influenced as they are we may merely be being fed these emotions by implants.
And as for Logic? What causes us to be sure of causation, and implies that implications hold? A part of understanding as it is, Aristotle's Axioms are merely well-working beliefs.
Perhaps on a greater scale, How can we be sure of the sense of self, or the sense of existence? How can we know... at all?
The fact is, we can't. The Self, and indeed every concept we have, is a presumption and an approximation.
Thought in itself may be a fudge factor!
Now, to confuse it even more, attach an awareness to Reality (i.e. presume it is self-aware) and these confusions extend within it as well.
Now, with these flaws in knowledge, What if something were outside the confusions mentioned (i.e. it transcends awareness)?
For the life of me, I don't have a bloody clue what such a thing would be like!
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24-01-2004 01:35
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