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"How the Bible disproves its own version of God"

Bit of Philosophy for you

The Bible claims God is:

All powerful (omnipotent)
All knowing (omniscient)
All loving
everywhere at once (omnipresent)

However because of the existence of pain the bibles version of god can only be three of the four things.

either Gods not all powerful (eg. can't stop pain)
not all knowing (doesn't know how to stop all pain)
not all loving (he couldn't care less)
not everywhere at once (cannot get to everywhere pain is)


What do you reckon? I don't exactly believe in God but its an interesting discussion.

Also:

BEARDS. wrote:
> ... requires a belief in
> the Bible .... God is said to be
> both omnibenevolent and omnipotent...

And this belief that god is omnibenevolent and omnipotent is based on the bible.


> Ireneaus's theodicy removes the idea of Heaven and Hell as it's
> completion requires all mankind to eventually achieve the likness of
> God. Because of this, after death souls are sent to purgatory where
> they are refined until mankind on earth has developed into God's
> likeness.

Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but heaven and hell were actually tucked in there some place in the bible, yes? Near the back? Maybe we skipped a couple of pages and missed them?

Soo, we can point out the inconsistancy between god's omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and existence of suffering.

But nobody thought to point out that the theory is based on the assumption that the bible is TRUE, then goes on to state that the bible is in fact FALSE?


I could be wholly wrong here, but in my humble opinion that theory is a crock of... inconsistency.

:^)

Dunno, I've never yet found anyone who could provide a convincing answer.

Yes, he may well have created the universe and all the life in it, but what the **** was he doing it FOR? Some kind of Super-being trans-dimensional science contest?

In a curious way it reminds me of an a-level biology experiment - we had to breed fruit flies to try to get particular physical characteristics, by controlling the genes passed on.

More or less what this theory supposes god would be trying to do. Only with man's morality rather than eye colour.

I had one question back in biology, I think it still applies:

Why bother?

I need to know this for the 10th, so I might as well try and recall it now. I'll ignore the theodicy of Augustine, that requires a belief in the Bible, which a good 98% of people here lack. So, here we go...

According to several philosphers, the problem with the classic Judaeo-Christian idea of God is that there is an inconsistancly between his perfection and the world he created. God is said to be both omnibenevolent and omnipotent, thus when he created the world he should have created a world free of suffering of all types because he is omnibenevolent, and he could have done this because he is omnipotent. As the world "clearly" exhibits signs of evil, this leads to an inconsistancy.

This unbalanced triangle only seems to allow the existance of the world in it's present state if you remove one corner. Either God is not omnibenevolent and doesn't care if we suffer, or God is not omnipotent and is unable to stop us suffering. The third option is that evil does not exist in the world, and it is merely good beyond our understanding. This is where theodicies lie, philosophical arguments that attempt to bypass the inconsistant triangle by suggesting that a perfect universe could be designed in no other way.

The theologian Ireneaus suggested that the purpose of Humanity was to ascend to the state of God, however, this could only happen if man were allowed to develop freely and achieve this growth by himself. To ascend to this higher state of existance, man must develop characteristics like God's own, but he cannot be forced into making these choices. Hence, mankind was created with moral freedom, we can make both good and evil choices, but only by making the right choices can we develop.

Some people argue that God in his omnipotence could have created a world where only the right choices are available, but unless people do fail, we would gain nothing and would be little more than mindless drones. Ireneaus felt that only by overcoming problems and making positive choices can man redeem himself and achieve transcendance.

Thus, evil and suffering are necessary parts of the world as they allow mankind to grow in power, understanding and freedom. Evil and suffering are soul-refining, they allow us to achieve a state that is as one with God, so they are necessary for the development of man and could not have been left out of the universal design.

Ireneaus's theodicy removes the idea of Heaven and Hell as it's completion requires all mankind to eventually achieve the likness of God. Because of this, after death souls are sent to purgatory where they are refined until mankind on earth has developed into God's likeness. It allows for evolution, and doesn't describe all followers of other religions as foolish heathens or some such thing. It values greatly the free will we are in possession of and in some way detaches us from God's direct influence.



I'll leave it there for now. If you pick holes in that, I might use another one.

no, but a slight swelling

Borat Sagdiyev wrote:
> Notorious Biggles wrote:
>
> Any serious questions?
>
> yeah, this thing here on my shoulder, is it a pimple or a boil?

Any sign of yellow on it?

Notorious Biggles wrote:

> Any serious questions?

yeah, this thing here on my shoulder, is it a pimple or a boil?

Hedfix wrote:
> Bit of Philosophy for you
>
> The Bible claims God is:
>
> All powerful (omnipotent)
> All knowing (omniscient)
> All loving
> everywhere at once (omnipresent)
>
> However because of the existence of pain the bibles version of god can
> only be three of the four things.
>
> either Gods not all powerful (eg. can't stop pain)
> not all knowing (doesn't know how to stop all pain)
> not all loving (he couldn't care less)
> not everywhere at once (cannot get to everywhere pain is)
>
>
> What do you reckon? I don't exactly believe in God but its an
> interesting discussion.

Firstly who has read the bible fully? Completely? Didnt think so. If you ever do, you realise that pain is allowed by God to prove that his way of living is the best. Sin and hence death and pain and bad stuff came about because of the Devil, who was an angel who, using his free will which God endowed all living things with, turned bad because he wanted to be more powerful.

He is all knowing if he wants to be, but he would rather be accepted as being sovereign, with people knowing and admitting to that rather than having created a race of drones.

He does care. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he sent his onlybegotten son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but having everlasting life."

Being a spirit would mean that God is everywhere all at once as he would have no dimensional boundaries.

As for you who raised doubts over the accuracy of the translation of the bible, compare a really good translation (i.e. not a King James or Jerusalem bible) with the oldest available manuscripts. Still virtually word perfect even after 1000's of years.

And the bible does not ever contradict itself. Things are often taken out of context to appear that way however.

And the bible does actually support science. In Isaiah 40:22 it talks about "the One dwelling above the circle of the earth"... Back when that was written in 778-732 BC everyone in the world knew for a fact that the earth was flat, that it could be sailed off of and that it was held up by four elephants standing on the back of a huge tortoise. Yes that was a belief of some people. The laws regarding hygeine given in Leviticus were not accepted by modern society until the 1800's when disinfectant was first used.

I really do not believe that I evolved from a monkey. Or even that any of you lot did.

Science can not explain the creation of earth. Evolution is just a theory. And as for the big bang, the flaw with using E=mc^2 is that there has never been a proper explanation of where the energy came from first.

I can not make people believe or disbelieve in a God, but I can show where religion has diverged away from the bible, and what it really says and how it does not contradict itself. I can show how wild the theories regarding the origins of life actually are.

Any serious questions?

RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Garlic Bread!? wrote:
> "And on the 7th day, god rested, then later toyed with Adam and
> his naked bird..."
>
> The Holy Trinity?
>
> :-D

Hoho.

Well there are many thoerys that the earth itself is hell. Through death we become one with god and so on.
Of course, as already said, we wouldn't know until we're actually dead.