Video: the incoherence of omnipotence

[Elixir]

All I can figure is that eternal torture holds no chance for rehabilitation. So what's the point? And what a waste of resources! How much does it cost to torture someone for a year? x eternity = ?
It's obviously a hollow threat designed to keep the sheeple in line, tithing away.

let 'em all suffer eternally

Don't different denominations have different opinions about that?

I'll take the one that prescribes torture term limits - an hour or so max would seem fair.

 

[Jobar]

Anyone who believes there's an eternal Hell cannot believe in a benevolent God, I think.

Unless you hope that all may repent, as I do.

And I agree that a 3-O God is shown to be impossible by the Riddle:
~The Riddle of Epicurus~
Is God willing to prevent evil (suffering), but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil (suffering)?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

He is both able and willing, and eventually...

"There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Re 21:4)

And if there was no suffering at all, what would there be to reward?

Regards,
Lee

I didn't know you were a Universalist, Lee. I have more respect for Christians with Universalist leanings.

But I have to agree with Tom Sawyer that "eventually" isn't going to solve Epicurus' riddle.

Tell me this. Do you think that God's omniscience means he knows all actions of all created beings, from everlasting to everlasting? Most Christians of my experience would say 'yes'- God knows past, present, and future.

And if this is so, God knew that sin would enter the world He created. If He were truly benevolent, why did He create such a world?

I'm sure your answer will involve free will. But I put it to you that it's impossible for true omnipotence and omniscience to create a truly free being; God cannot hide from His own knowledge. Thus no matter how free our choices might seem to us, God knew those choices in every detail, from everlasting to everlasting; indeed, He created the choice Himself.

 

[untermensche]

This is a problem of trying to apply the concept of infinity to a real world situation.

It is like saying you have infinite marbles in your basement. "They are very small".

Infinity is not a real world concept.

It is not something that can be achieved.

Infinite power is not a thing you can achieve. It is not a thing you can have.

 

[Learner]

There's at least one slight problem. I might not take your arguments all that seriously if you tried to do that. Even if you're not doing Thor.

I've noticed, with your fascination for elves

 

[bilby]

And if there was no suffering at all, what would there be to reward?

Regards,
Lee

As I said to the cops, "If I hadn't set him on fire, how could he have been glad when I poured a bucket of cold water over him?"

 

[ruby sparks]

 

[ruby sparks]

All I can figure is that eternal torture holds no chance for rehabilitation. So what's the point? And what a waste of resources! How much does it cost to torture someone for a year? x eternity = ?
It's obviously a hollow threat designed to keep the sheeple in line, tithing away.

let 'em all suffer eternally

Don't different denominations have different opinions about that?

I'll take the one that prescribes torture term limits - an hour or so max would seem fair.

In the non-canonical Book of Elf (now lost, allegedly) the punishment for unbelievers is twenty minutes light tickling with The Holy Feather of The Ultimate Elf (sometimes called 'god') with a two minute tea-break in the middle.

Now all you need to do is start a denomination based on that and bingo, problem solved, more or less.

Imo, theology is only difficult if one insists on making it seem difficult. There is and always has been a lot of latitude when it comes to making stuff up to suit this or that preferred bespoke version.

See also: "smorgasbord" and "there are more than 40,000 denominations of extant christianity alone". Don't even start me on non-christian ones or ones that have passed out of fashion or those yet to be invented.

 

[Lion IRC]

40,000?
It's worse than even that.
Every individual has their own personal one-on-one relationship with Jesus which is effectively better than denominational religion.

 

[ruby sparks]

I hadn't thought of that. Thank goodness there's allegedly only one real, polyamorous Jesus, I guess, right?

 

[ruby sparks]

Not all suffering is beneficial, though I can see how it might all be beneficial, if...

I'll ignore the built-in contradiction here, and instead ask you a question.

Would you agree to my breaking one of your legs with a baseball bat? Yes, you'll suffer pain and agony, but God will wipe away your tears some day, so you will therefore benefit from your suffering.

In fact, you'll get twice the benefit if you let me break both of your legs.

That has got me thinking. Would I find this supposed 'heaven' place more rewarding if I did a spell in this supposed 'hell' place first? Maybe those who say us unbelievers will be cast into a lake of burning sulphur (the one lee didn't get as far as mentioning in his bible quote) have our best interests at heart after all. As it says in the Book of Inocch (now sadly lost), 'he that putteth on his winter coat indoors shall not getteth the full benefit of it when he goeth out'. More pain more gain, I guess. Maybe it's a bit like in the story where this supposed 'god' chap sacrificed his only son......... for a few of our earth days.

 

[ruby sparks]

I also thought of a follow-up question:

https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?13221-A-question-for-theists&p=512305#post512305

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, I claim God bears suffering, in such a way that it's primarily him we sin against when we sin. Thus Jesus' outlandish claim to forgive sins.

I'm not following your point. The question was in relation to children getting raped. You're saying that when that happens, God is the real victim and it's his suffering we should be focusing on and not the kids?

 

[lee_merrill]

Do you think that God's omniscience means he knows all actions of all created beings, from everlasting to everlasting? Most Christians of my experience would say 'yes'- God knows past, present, and future.

Yes, he is omniscient.

And if this is so, God knew that sin would enter the world He created. If He were truly benevolent, why did He create such a world?

Out of love, he wanted to show his love and his glory.

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." (John 17:24)

I'm sure your answer will involve free will. But I put it to you that it's impossible for true omnipotence and omniscience to create a truly free being; God cannot hide from His own knowledge. Thus no matter how free our choices might seem to us, God knew those choices in every detail, from everlasting to everlasting; indeed, He created the choice Himself.

But God knows his own future free choices, and they are not therefore un-free.

Regards,
Lee

 

[lee_merrill]

No, I claim God bears suffering, in such a way that it's primarily him we sin against when we sin. Thus Jesus' outlandish claim to forgive sins.

I'm not following your point. The question was in relation to children getting raped. You're saying that when that happens, God is the real victim and it's his suffering we should be focusing on and not the kids?

God is primarily the one suffering, and the focus is on both. God bears suffering, which does not make it explicable, but gives me at least, hope--hope that God knows what he is doing in creating a world in which evil and suffering occur.

Regards,
Lee

 

[ruby sparks]

Out of love, he wanted to show his love and his glory.

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." (John 17:24)

I have no idea how you reconcile that idea with him supposedly setting up a world where those who essentially don't love him go to eternal punishment without remission (or even at a pinch suffering for 'ages' (aions)) but I guess that's your bag.

I'm guessing that you simply don't believe that. Which again, is your bag. I guess you might be playing down the retribution and the harshness of the punishments in the bible and believing that they are corruptions of 'real, original' christianity (in the case of the usage of hell in the NT) or somehow justified in the case of the OT God when it came to running swords through the bellies of pregnant non-believers etc.

But even then, it doesn't square up for me. First, I think there's probably too much pick 'n mix and rose-coloured spectacles going on vis-a-vis how a bunch of eastern mediterranean and middle-eastern theists really viewed the world way back then and what their conception of justice actually was, and second, I've helped bring up two little creations of my own, and something about even the mild version of the arrangement that you might believe in doesn't smell right to me. I would never, for instance, have punished them, in any way, for not loving me back, even if it hurt me when they didn't. In a nutshell, I think insisting that they love me would not be justified, since imo they should be free to choose not to if that is what they want and what makes them happy. I made them. I don't own them.

Now, you might say that in many cases, loving one's parents will tend to make a child happy, but it isn't always the case (and I might ask why would it have to be that way). And anyway, 'love me or you'll suffer' or even 'you need to love me to be truly happy', if it's an arrangement I set up from the get-go, well, I'd surely have to admit that I wasn't compelled to set it up that one particular way. I could, if I'd wanted, have created a world where there was no suffering at all (and no need for it as a pre-requisite to appreciating happiness) or at the very least no suffering specifically for not loving me back.

I know you'll have an answer, and my guess is it'll be well-intentioned, but I also guess that I'll be scratching my head afterwards, because I will think that (a) it's flawed and (b) it's probably a wonderful delusion, the product of the minds of humans, many of whom are/were pretty well-intentioned also.

 

[ruby sparks]

Asking to be loved and worshiped by one's creations is not, imo, unconditional love. And I don't think getting that love under a threat of any sort of sanction is or can be receiving a love freely given.

 

[Atheos]

Asking to be loved and worshiped by one's creations is not, imo, unconditional love. And I don't think getting that love under a threat of any sort of sanction is or can be receiving a love freely given.

That's an excellent point. I think it is also incoherent for this being to expect to be loved by people who never have an opportunity to meet it face-to-face; who only get 3rd-hand accounts of who it is with unverifiable claims of things it supposedly did and will do. A being that behaves in all aspects the same way it would if it did not exist.

 

[ruby sparks]

I could even ask, where do I and many other people get the idea that it isn't right to punish anyone, in any way at all, merely for not loving you, no matter how wonderful you might think you are or how misguided it may be to think it the right or best way to treat others, in terms of their own good? Not from following the example of the god described in the bible, it would seem, except possibly in some sort of 'do as I say not as I do' way, or by picking only certain verses out and not others. So, whether in the final analysis it's the right idea or the wrong idea, from where does the idea come then?

Worth noting that in several OT texts, dishonouring one's earthly parents was punishable by death! So where oh where did I get the daft idea that one of my daughters cursing me last week (she's an adult now) was not a capital offence? Not from the bible.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, I claim God bears suffering, in such a way that it's primarily him we sin against when we sin. Thus Jesus' outlandish claim to forgive sins.

I'm not following your point. The question was in relation to children getting raped. You're saying that when that happens, God is the real victim and it's his suffering we should be focusing on and not the kids?

God is primarily the one suffering, and the focus is on both. God bears suffering, which does not make it explicable, but gives me at least, hope--hope that God knows what he is doing in creating a world in which evil and suffering occur.

Regards,
Lee

OK, what exactly is the hope there, because I'm not following you at all.

You're essentially saying that God has a plan and everything that occurs is a step in that plan leading to a greater good which will make it all worthwhile, correct? I'm not getting how it is that having a step in the plan which says "... and now we let this child get raped" is conceivably superior to an alternate plan which has the step "... and then we stop this child from getting raped" in it. If you have a plan with that child rape step in it, it would be a bad plan, regardless of whatever else the plan is doing.

 

[Atheos]

This is a thread about the incoherence of omnipotence. The idea that an omnipotent being would be compelled to resort to undesirable steps to achieve a goal is more than a little chink in the armor of omnipotence.

An omnipotent being should be able to achieve a goal without having to compromise its desires. If suffering is part of the plan of an omnipotent being to achieve a desired result then the omnipotent being by definition wants the suffering.

That's fine, but it means the god in question has a malevolent streak or lacks the intelligence to know what sort of suffering it is engendering.