You have to love America! :P

The omnipotence paradox is a lovely argumentative tool which is often shrugged off by theists and faith-heads who cannot contemplate a world where suddenly... omnipotence is logically impossible. The common excuses are either "God is above that," or my personal favorite, "We can't understand it." It might not be that we can't understand it, instead, it's more likely that we don't want to understand it. When viewing the evidence against, and the rather scarce assumptions for the existence of God, it is impossible to logically say that there is a high probability of God existing. The omnipotence paradox is simply another bit of evidence against the Judeo-Christian vengeful, omnipotent monster who apparently delivers "morality" to humanity to separate it from the animals (How shocking it must be then, to see altruism in animals, modeled as early as the early 1900s by mathematical equations!).
Unfortunately, anyone who truly believes in that sort of thing is just blindly fooling themselves.

And Alsch...so what you're saying is we aren't allowed to question why. Great. Why not just destroy any OTHER semblance about what being human is all about while we're at it. One of the most important things is to question why. To simply tell me to not do so basically illustrates my point for me.

I'm not telling you to not ask why, but that you won't really get an answer, at least one that isn't really vague or corny. Obviously, some of the extremist and slightly warrior-like christians will try to fight you tooth and nail. It's just that the belief of god is just that: belief. You can't look for proof, because there is none.

That's kind of my point right there, you know.

Either way, I must still ask why, purely because that's what I do. I'm human. I think, therefore I am. Questioning why is the most fundamental thing. If I can't question the idea of a god, then that's basically saying "follow god blindly."

That's kind of my point right there, you know.

Either way, I must still ask why, purely because that's what I do. I'm human. I think, therefore I am. Questioning why is the most fundamental thing. If I can't question the idea of a god, then that's basically saying "follow god blindly."

Shut up and move along with the flock, heretic.

I'm really not sure if you were pejorating me or agreeing with me there.

stop asking hard questions before lightning hits you in the head

dogma is always fun.
"Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed or doubted. While in the context of religion the term is largely descriptive, outside of religion its current usage tends to carry a pejorative connotation — referring to concepts as being "established" only according to a particular point of view, and thus one of doubtful foundation."

Regarding a dogma:

A dogma basically describes what everyone needs to measure things (relative to this dogma; Does it fit? and if so, where?)
So, when asking the question why (or how), you expect someone to give a satisfying answer, in other words an answer that fits your dogma. If it doesn't, the question has been 'evaded', or to be more precise, the question has been answered according to another dogma, which 'hears' the exact same words as an entirely different question.


Regarding 'understanding':

One understands a 'thing' or situation by having it stand up to a certain 'measure'. That 'measure' (dogma, see above) is man-made and never complete for two reasons.
Reason One (if following logic, which incidentally is another dogma): Every dogma in history has been replaced or extended. A dogma is simply not there to stay, even if that is the intention of those who developed it.
Reason Two: For a dogma to be 'complete', it must be able to explain itself from within itself, meaning, the explanation has to use the measuring tools the dogma itself provides. But then the 'logic' starts to run in circles. And if something 'outside' the dogma is used to support it (and it is very seductive to look beyond, just remember when a child asks for the explanation of a simple thing and then goes on to question the explanation...), well, then the dogma proves with this 'not' to be complete simply through that outside explanation.

Dudes, you follow?

Regarding a dogma:

A dogma basically describes what everyone needs to measure things (relative to this dogma; Does it fit? and if so, where?)
So, when asking the question why (or how), you expect someone to give a satisfying answer, in other words an answer that fits your dogma. If it doesn't, the question has been 'evaded', or to be more precise, the question has been answered according to another dogma, which 'hears' the exact same words as an entirely different question.

When I ask 'why', I expect an answer as to why. Not 'It's too difficult to comprehend, so stop asking why'. I consider 'stop asking why' to be an evasion of the question If someone can give me a plausible explanation as to why, should an omnipotent being exist, it would bother to create a life-giving ball of rock floating alone in an otherwise nondescript area of the cosmos and then see fit to fill it with foul, cretinous abominations who, above all else it gave sentience to, and then more specifically gave them the ability to destroy itself and said world, as well as the inclination and the notion to do so, as well as the dogma you so eloquently described. If someone can provide such an explanation, I'm happy to hear it.

Reason Two: For a dogma to be 'complete', it must be able to explain itself from within itself, meaning, the explanation has to use the measuring tools the dogma itself provides. But then the 'logic' starts to run in circles. And if something 'outside' the dogma is used to support it (and it is very seductive to look beyond, just remember when a child asks for the explanation of a simple thing and then goes on to question the explanation...), well, then the dogma proves with this 'not' to be complete simply through that outside explanation.

Then no religion is successful. None can answer my question. Because no-one can answer my question. And if they, who profess to be correct in that there is a divine creator, cannot give even a hypothesis as to what purpose those creatures I described serve, then, well, basically, there can't be a divine creator because nothing is created for no reason.

Someone who says that 'it's too difficult to comprehend', usually thinks that it's too much work to explain it, so the other one understands, and not, that it is too difficult. One has to work hard to understand the other one enough, so that an explanation can be given in the other ones terms, or, enough of your own way of looking at things must be conveyed.

...there can't be a divine creator because nothing is created for no reason.

This assumption is part of your own dogma; you do not care to look outside of the circle where this assumption holds true. You simply 'assume', i.e. 'believe'. The truth of this assumption has been proven with the tools of logic, from 'within' the circle. Any 'outside' reasoning is discarded by the dogmatic. The dogmatic does that, because there is a limit for everyone to include EVERYTHING in ones causal thinking. It's just not possible. So it's enough to take some and leave the rest. This is obvious only when cozy dogmatic views collide. Another dogma questions the own, dangorously. And since it is composed of what has been learned over the years, the stability of this foundation is important to feel save. Besides. If you live with one kind of worldview so long, it's proven itself to be 'true', since you lived by these assumptions and they worked out. You are still alive. But that holds for every dogma, unless it gets you killed. Strangely enough, people who have a hard time with their live, whose expectations from life where very disappointed, who found that many things just turn out bad, those people have it easiest to change their view.

Sûl.

What good would it do God to create humanity, then? What would the point be in creating humanity?

I am well aware of the cognitive dissonance theory, though.

What good would it do God to create humanity, then? What would the point be in creating humanity?

I am well aware of the cognitive dissonance theory, though.

That's a rhetorical question. Why is the sky blue? There is no way anyone here is qualified to speak on God's behalf on why he created humanity. You're just trying to be funny now.

I can actually tell you why the sky is blue from a scientific point of view .

true true.

its easier to find a good explanation why the sky is blue than to find a reason that god made us and he exists.

Maybe we should also consider the difference between 'reason', 'use' and 'cause' for something, or the difference between varying vantages while travelling on a road. They have all been used to explain any kind of phenomenon, depending on what exactly was the meaning of the words used to describe a question.

I just remembered a pretty wide all-encompassing question ('What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?') which had a simple, definite answer ('42'), which only starts to make sense, if you are able to understand the question, or if you narrow it down, making it not all-encompassing anymore.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?

What good would it do God to create humanity, then? What would the point be in creating humanity?

I am well aware of the cognitive dissonance theory, though.

According to the Catholic Church, God created humanity to share in his never ending love. (not my point of view)

Hows about we pose the question presented by a few video games such as Alundra and Black & White?
What if gods didn't create us? What if we created the gods?

That's actually what I believe. From the earliest Pantheistic religions, people have just been worshiping things that they could not explain. For example, having no knowledge of meteorology, they could not explain why it rains, hence a rain god.

That's a rhetorical question. Why is the sky blue? There is no way anyone here is qualified to speak on God's behalf on why he created humanity. You're just trying to be funny now.

It's not rhetorical. I've not even heard a hypothesis that's worth half a shit in answer. Sure, it might not be the correct answer, but I've not even heard a plausible possible reason stated. Just "don't ask why."

According to the Catholic Church, God created humanity to share in his never ending love. (not my point of view)

Oh yeah? Well when's he gunna start sharing it? If he did, he'd probably get more ppl believing in him.


And as for the B&W phenomenon, I do like that idea. Gods disappear if nobody believes they exist anymore. Although occasionally they make a comeback, as with that Nova Roma community...

Edited by Paradox, 05 April 2007 - 09:05 PM.

i always love to talk about the Warp in these situations, the parallell dimension of energy and souls that you have in 40k.

basically the parallell dimension is a sea of energy compared to our own universe of mass, but these energies are very morphable by the minds of the sentient creatures of the physical universe. if you have humans with alot of emotions like rage and envy and all the seven big ones, the warp would create entities that has nothing else to do with their existence but to amplify those emotions that empowered them. possessing people, spreading warp energies into reality which basically breaks it pretty darn quickly, killing of people to get their souls into the warp to feed themselves, ah the joys of lovecraftian fiction. (need cthulu smiley for these convo's)


its one of my personal favorites for a quasi-scientific explanation of an afterlife and/or gods. but mostly because of its pretty grim outlook on humanity

i do believe there are religious cults who believe that the brain is a sort of communication-device with a parallell dimension where our souls exists. i can't recall what it was called, but i knew a guy who was into that 5 years ago.
But he was a total drug-head which had sniffed a few too many cans of bugspray in his younger days and still was on other drugs, but he sure still had enough brains to get the best grades those few times he was in class. but his personality was mostly wiped out and replaced by a sort of emulated one, so it was a kinda disturbing guy to talk to.

http://www.npl.washi...v/altvw111.html
http://ufo.whipnet.o...ng/theory2.html
http://www.sciencene...010922/bob9.asp
http://abyss.uoregon...ures/lec17.html

The list goes on, try reading alot of them and understand the best you can, I try my best. It's deep science but on such a grand and deep level that it makes an individual ask "How deep does the rabbit hole go?"

How macro does the level of science become? If you step backward from the situation more and more and see how large "existance" gets, than it's not that hard to think it's feasible that God exists. God, on some level, must exist, if not who is making the rules of existance? Do they just make themselves?

Multiple dimensions, creation of matter, differant sets of physics rules based on which dimension those rules are appied to. It's so complex that I personally find it hard to not consider the existance of God as feasible.

I will never be able to logically prove it one way or the other, but I'm not close minded enough to believe some intelligent macro level force may have had a part in it. It certainly isn't organised religion, that I'm sure of.