Is God omnipotent ?

P

Plato

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How do we mix the concept of an omnipotent God who loves us on one side with the existence of misery ?

A possible argumentation is that God is powerfull, he created every living thing and everything else, but he is still limited, he can't prevent bad things from happening all over his huge universe that he made.
But does a limited God fit our definition of God ? Can we accept that God has his mistakes ? This makes him look a lot more like us or like the Greek Gods whose bickering and fighting was the cause for all the misery on earth.
If it has it's limits then it must be subject to rules, who created those rules ? Since we don't believe in anything higher than God he must have created them himselve but this means before that he was truly omnipotent. But if he was omnipotent then he must still be it because he is limitless in time as in space (by definition of omnipotent). This contradiction reders our premise that god is limited false so God knows no bounds.

So if God is omnipotent he must inflict pain and misery while loving us at the same time because nothing can happen or can exist without his omnipotent conscent.
He works indeed in mysterious ways...
 
If that's your reason to justify pain and suffering upon the earth then you are as ignorant as your religion. Tell me this, what will your omnipotent god do to you when you die?
 
Oops! Almost forgot to answer your question. God does not exist so therefore it can not be omnipotent, simple really when you take time out to think about it.
 
HELLO, HELLO, IS ANYONE HOME??? GOD DIDN'T CREATE THIS MISERY, WE DID. WE DID, AND WE DID IT ALL BY OURSELVES (ok, with a little nudge from Satan). You're not aware of the concept of free will? You want to somehow blame God for the mess that we've done? HA! Nice try, but your ego is getting in the way of your view. God doesn't FORCE anything, we do. Would you love Him more if He forced you to?
 
Lori,
tell me..how does free will and predestination go hand in hand?????
 
I don't see any real reply to my mail here !
I see Lori getting upset, I see generalhurrss simply dismissing the discussion as being irrelevant since god doesn't exist, only Flash kind of asks the same question I do.

Let's look at my 'proof', does it make sense ? Have I made a mistake and if so where ?

Lori, if God is the omnipotent, supreme being then he also made free will which allows us to do evil things. But is this a contradiction in terms ? How can one design ( which means totally controlling it ) something like freedom ? Doesn't this mean that freedom must be something that had to exist already as a predisposition ?
So god didn't create everything, some things like freedom, love, hate must have existed before his creation. But if all these things existed independently, how can we still speak of an omnipotent supreme being ? This brings us right back to my previous proof of omnipotence.

As it stands there are only two options here I think, or God doesn't exist since then we have our freedom, or freedom is an illusion that God pretended to give us.

[This message has been edited by Plato (edited May 26, 1999).]
 
Hey Plato!

I don't know the answer to your question however, I can tell you how to find the answer....(I did it myself and it really works) the only catch is, if you ask the question in this manner, you might not be prepared for the answer. Are you ready?

This is what you do, when you get in bed and are about to go to sleep, get your body "all comfy", relaxe your mind, and... "ASK GOD himself" (don't laugh)I'm serious! If you don't get an answer, ask Jesus.

Once you do this (and you really mean it!) you will get an answer. I'll give you a "hint" while your asking this question to GOD or JESUS think about the answer you believe to be true, the "feeling" you get after that thought is your answer. For example, if your belief, is in the negative direction, (and the answer is positive) you will be overcome with a feeling of "dred" (as if you are lost without a map) on the other hand if your belief, is in the positive direction, (and the anwer is positive) you will be overcome with a feeling of "achievement" (as if you just won the nobel prize!)

There is one more instance, if (while you are laying there) you are given no answer "at all" then....you probably have a bad connection, and will have to try it again with an "open mind."

Let me know how it turns out for you. O.K?
 
Sirius B,

that is just amazing ! How do you know these things ? And also, what kind of questions can get an answer this way. If I would do the same thing with say what is the product of 5 and 6 and think real hard about 31.

[This message has been edited by Plato (edited May 26, 1999).]
 
LMAO@Plato... good one man :)

sorry Sirius B..no disrespect...
Sirius B..tell me.. just how do you get
a good connection to God? Maybe I need
a better modem?????
 
Hello Flash,

(America is beginning to wake up I see)
I just read your last entry to Lori, so you feel more related to the Indian concept of God as a force (May the Force be with you LOL).
I must admid that this could also be a way out of the free will versus predestination problem. But with this you don't believe in a personal god any more who has a Will and could have goals to achive. That is like saying, he is there but doesn't bother with us. Or am I seeing this wrong ?
 
Well, here i go, contradicting myself (Just for the record, i'm not sure where i stand on the existance of God so i may be doing this alot)

NEway, what i believe is that God isn't omnipotent at all- we only created him to be that because when we began identifiying religion as a major force in our life we began to let ourselves slip and began blaming all our problems on him and asking him to make wrong right (etc- you get the idea) So i guess essentiall what i'm saying is that, God only watches us, he doesn't control and alter out lives.

Ja Ne, Ghost
 
Ok Ghost, that's fair enough but if God just watches us, why bother including him in the picture at all ? There must be some interaction between god and the universe (creation maybe ?) otherwise one can dismiss him as non existent.

The problem with my first mail is that if there is a unique god and he created the universe, he must be omnipotent. If someone can disprove my previous deduction this just stands as a logical consequence. This has nothing to do with religion of any kind, I am just talking hypothetically.

So please, assuming I don't get a clear connection with god (since he just might not be home) could anyone help me on this ?

[This message has been edited by Plato (edited May 26, 1999).]
 
LOL..RE:may the force be with you

well, I believe that the spirits that I am
referring to do help... I mean I am assuming
that.. like stated in the other posts..
I felt them at my brothers house for the
blessing... so obviously they were there
to do that.
ummm am not quite sure what you mean by
personal god and will.. unless you are
talking about God, as Lori sees God of the
Bible ect... If that is the case..no, I
think that this God of the Bible is alllll
made up...Kind of what people think of as
Greek mythology... So no, he is not there..
since he is not there...he doesn't bother
with because he does not exist.
clear as water or mud?? LOL
 
Plato,
According to the scriptures god created everything so how could anything exist before god?
Hatred, etc came about when Adam ate form the tree of 'truth' or whatever and everything became clear to him so god made us imperfect. Have you read the bible?
 
I did read the bible, generalhurrss. God (as it stands in the bible) also created the apple and the tree of good and evil since he created everything.
But this doesn't work for freedom now does it ? At what time did God create freedom ? As a matter of fact the word freedom isn't in the genesis story at all. (I have it lying in front of me as I write this) I does say that God created man in his own image. Interpreted as you want...

------------------
greetings,
Plato
 
Plato,
As of my reply to your question 'is god omnipotent?' if omnipotent means all powerful then is it not all powerful to create a universe such as ours, how omnipotent can a god get? Of course I speak hypothetically as I am a non-believer in a single creator.
Your other point on freedom. I would imagine that the concept of freedom was not an issue in genesis as freedom is a desire to someone imprisoned or held against their will. Was anyone held against their will in the chapter of genesis? Freedom is to be free and in your god's eyes we are free, he did not make the laws upon this planet we did when we voted so and so into governmental power. Man denies freedom from his own kind therefore we created freedom.
We are pretty good at screwing things up for ourselves.
You did not answer my question from long ago. What will your omnipotent god do to you when you die?
 
"Hey", (Plato/Flash) tee-hee, tee-hee,tee-hee

I get the "eerie" feeling that you don't think my way of "connecting" to the "omnipotent-one" is plausible? It could happen. ( C'mon you guys,lighten up)

The whole idea is no "one-person" has the answer (how many times have you heard that?) If no one really knows, then my form of contact could be just as "valid" as anyone elses...yes? By the way, I tried the connection method with the product of 6 and 5...somehow I keep "feeling" 29 (LoL)!
 
With regard to God and freedom:

Here's my 2 cents. Everything about humans is physical, including our personality, thoughts, tendencies and moods. That means, everything we ever do is only a very complex chain of physical reactions. Thus, assuming causal physics, everything that was ever done, is being done, or will ever be done is a direct consequence of the time-evolution of the entire physical system that is the universe. Given that, the entire history of the universe was embedded in its initial conditions, even including me writing down this sentence. Therefore, if the universe was created on purpose then an omnipotent creater had control over absolutely every last little detail. In this sense also, 'free will' is only an illusion, and human behavior is only unpredictable in the sense that, for example, complex weather systems are unpredictable. (although I wager our behavior is even more complex than any weather system)

To summarize, the universe is only a pre-recorded movie playing itself out, and we are only some of the countless actors in it. How's that for you guys? :)
 
Sirius B! Hey man, I've made that connection! Works every time. I've never found a dog easier in my life! LOL! It's good to know that there's at least one other Jesus freak out here.

Flash, the answer to your question IS Plato's question = omnipotence. Forget our dimensions; forget time. Boris has a real nice take on the concept.

Plato,
I'm still smiling even when I sound pissed. A little frustrated sometimes, but not angry. I get your point. It took me a while, but I see where you're coming from. Obviously, though, God did create the concept of free will, even if it was a result of creating other things, like spiritual laws. Laws are made to be broken, and that is a trite saying, but is really very true. If no choice, then why laws. It kind of takes the fun out of it. God = the truth, whatever that is, and whatever He made it to be. It comes back to the notion of the dictator. I guess He didn't want to be known as a dictator, and probably purposefully. I view spiritual laws the same way I do natural laws. They are the truth. We didn't make them up, they just existed when we got here, and we HAVE to follow them, and not f them up, or we create imbalance, and one that compounds over time. It seems that you are trying to visualize or at least conceptualize omnipotence. You must be smarter than I, my friend, because the concept is way beyond my gray matter. Good luck though!
 
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