The problems of God

Spiritual Leo said:
After studying endless hours on the subject of Philosophy of Religion, I have just came to the conclusion that God either does not exist or God is unknowable to human-beings. Let me begin with the first problem: The omnipotence of God. Now if God were all powerful, would he have the ability to create a boulder too heavy for him to lift? Either he has the power to create the boulder and not lift it or he can create a boulder which is liftable; therefore not unliftable. In both cases he has a great limitation. so in my view, it is logically impossible for god to be omnipotent.

Is it possible for God to be omniscient? Yes. Omniscience doesn't contradict itself, but when combined with omnipotence, it creates limitations.

For instance, would God have the power to change his all-knowing mind? If he had the power to change his mind, he would not be omniscient because he would have to change his divine plan. If he lacked the ability to change his mind, then he would not be omnipotent.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The God of Abraham: If the God of Abraham was omniscient, then he would have a past, present, and future mind; therefore he knew that Satin would have gone against him before it happened. Also, he would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge before they did it. Now if he knew all this was going to occur, would he do anything to prevent it?

This was all one Divine plan. If this was one divine plan, then he must have planned to fail humanity.

Either we have an indifferent creator who looks at human nature without a concern or a creator who lacks the ability to help us, however I don't believe he exists at all. That's the last option.

Imagine an all loving creator who had the ability to help humanity. . . would the world be the way it is now if we had such a creator?

Often in the Bible, Quran, and Torah, God says, "wait for me and I will come." --- If God was omnipresent, then wouldn't he exist everywhere and in everything? Why would we have to wait for him?

If God was good-willed and loving, then why did he damn the nations or flood the world?
Click to expand...

i think you should study other religions besides the abrahamic ones. Abrahamic religions are really poor philosophically
 
Interesting discussion. If there is no God then why be civil? Why care about wrong or right? I find a lot of the time good and evil are subject to who it is happening too. If your on the receiving end of a bad event it's considered to be evil. And the same applies to good. I find it fascinating that people who are doing well always thank God. And those that are not doing well pray to do well. I see the world as perfect. There is no good or evil. Life is as it should be. How it has evolved. Mankind decides what it does. We as humans have free will. We can choose our actions. The animals cannot choose. They do as they have evolved too. They follow their instincts. As I go through life and watch my own children I can see the folly of humanity. We reserve for ourselves and do not give to others what we reserve for ourselves.

Unlike the animals we can choose our own path. We do not have to follow our instinct. We can choose to be something more than just an animal. I ponder this a lot. Why do we get to choose? Why is it that we get a choice at all? There is something that makes more special than the animals. There is a reason for us to exist.There has to be. Even if there is no God look at all the good things that can come from believing in a God. God stops you from thinking for yourself. The idea of God takes you outside of yourself. It makes you think about others. There are plenty of flawed people in this world. And without God none of them would be able to be forgiven. It seems that the ideas of forgiveness come from God. When I try to think like Christ and act like him it takes the focus off of myself and it gets me to think about others who are on this planet with me. It helps me forgive them. It gives me the ability to move past others transgressions. And it helps me forgive myself.

To me even if there is no God the concept of God is worth following. I have lived life the other way. Only thought of myself. Seeking vengeance against my fellow man. It does not work. My true self wants to be filled with peace and love. And even I fail at understanding. This life is not about you in the end. It's about the other lives you touch. Look at how many years ago Jesus walked the Earth. And even if he is not the Son of God look at all the good his teachings have done for the world. Yes there are those who have done horrible things in his name. Man is flawed in his beliefs. You cannot blame God for the follies of man. We still get to choose. And it's our choice either way. Heaven or hell on Earth it's really up to us in the end to make the place we want of this planet. A little understanding and compassion goes a long way...​
 
Yeah i think there's validity in spiritual enquiry

The existence of God is gonna depend on your interpretation of what god is and if you are using religious texts, how you want to interprete god from them.

Is man made in the image of god or is god made in the image of man?

You could call reality itself god
But then how do you define reality? Science hasn't figured that one out yet. Some of the scientific theories are pretty wild; for example that there are many dimensions existing in the same space at the same time like frequencies or that the universe is a hologram!

Or you could call god our higher selves or the source of everything (whatever that source is)

I don't think a rejection or revision of the commonly held interpretation of the bible means that someone needs to be godless; does god even need to be clearly defined?

The dead sea scrolls were found in the 1950's but over half of the 800 scrolls were not released for public viewing until 1991; the reason being that the elites who run various countries have an interest in controlling religion as it is often one of the primary moulders of perceptions particualrly regarding how people feel they should behave.

Is it godless to critically analyse ancient texts to test them for validity or is it godless to blindly follow what you are told by authority figures?

Does not knowing need to be the beginning of an existentialist panic or can it be the beginning of a lifelong journey of spiritual discovery?

I just watched tonight an interesting documentary called 'Merchants of Cool' (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/frontline-merchants-of-cool/) which is about how corporations are constantly trying to define what 'cool' is so that they can sell products to kids, but by marketing what they have decided 'cool' is they actually then tell kids what 'cool' is and the kids then try to match that!

It's kind of the same with religion which evolves to keep people hooked and following it. Also there is a bit in the documentary where a marketing company pays a teenage boy to let them into his house so they can get into his head a bit and find out what makes him tick.

They ask him about his clothes and at one point he points to some suits and says that's what he wears in church. I doubt the marketer who was questioning him goes to church. I thought how society had that lad wrapped up in two big arms which were smothering his independant thought. One arm was the corporations who were controlling every aspect of his external world, shaping it and pushing an empty psuedo-culture onto him and the other arm is the church which is controlling the boys brain and telling him what their version of reality is.

And that's the problem...the elites have got it all wrapped up. It falls to the individual to do their own spiritual searching, but to do so they have to first break out of the constraints that society puts on them and take their own life and spiritual journey into their own hands. A tough thing to do when many adults are saying 'this is the way it is'
 
muir said:
The god of the bible 'Yahweh' was found by Moses when he fled Egypt and hung out with the Midianites. Moses had been part of the Egyptian royal court and was educated in its mysteries
Click to expand...

Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM who I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I Am, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. - Exodus 3:13-15
 
Spiritual Leo said:
The God of Abraham: If the God of Abraham was omniscient, then he would have a past, present, and future mind; therefore he knew that Satin would have gone against him before it happened. Also, he would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge before they did it. Now if he knew all this was going to occur, would he do anything to prevent it?

This was all one Divine plan. If this was one divine plan, then he must have planned to fail humanity.

Either we have an indifferent creator who looks at human nature without a concern or a creator who lacks the ability to help us, however I don't believe he exists at all. That's the last option.

Imagine an all loving creator who had the ability to help humanity. . . would the world be the way it is now if we had such a creator?

Often in the Bible, Quran, and Torah, God says, "wait for me and I will come." --- If God was omnipresent, then wouldn't he exist everywhere and in everything? Why would we have to wait for him?

If God was good-willed and loving, then why did he damn the nations or flood the world?
Click to expand...

1. The 'Flood' was local - http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/localflood.html
2. Old covenant vs New Covenant - http://www.tentmaker.org/tracts/OldVsNewCovenant.html
3. Articles on God and Evil - http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/criticisms_evil_suffering.html

[video=youtube;Jb9CYYdxBQQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb9CYYdxBQQ&feature=channel_video_title[/video]
 
GracieRuth said:
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about semantical paradoxes, as I kind of view them as artificial problems. However, if you want to read more, it's called the omniscience paradox -- a simple google should bring up the history of ways philosophers have responded to it.

As to the problem of suffering, the saying goes “The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for the existence of everything else.” (Rabbi Milton Steinberg)
Click to expand...

The atheist has to account for the existence of everything else while the believer in God has to account for the unjust suffering in the world? What about the Agnostic who believes that religious dogma is a falsification of reality? I hold no belief in religious dogma, but there is a possibility that we may be able to live on in some way. Energy, for instance, can never be destroyed and I believe that it is also against the laws of physics for information to be lost, so there is a possibility that we can live on through a form of energy or maybe even a spirit. Our nervous system which creates our consciousness runs on bioelectricity and biochemisty; therefore our consciousness is a high form of energy which has to possibilty to live on.


As for religious dogma, I cannot believe in books which are filled with evil. (Bible, Quran, Torah, ect...) Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, and some other religions seem nice.

I find comfort through meditation, not prayer.
 
Spiritual Leo said:
As for religious dogma, I cannot believe in books which are filled with evil. (Bible, Quran, Torah, ect...) Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism, and some other religions seem nice.
Click to expand...

Here's a word of advice: Do not attempt to critique what you do not know nor understand without investigation or consulting experts on the subject first, otherwise you're attempting to run before you can walk. Investigation is not based on what is nice, but what is true. Its about following the evidence, and testing its validity. I wouldn't suggest building opinions based on the caricatures from those that oppose whatever it happens to be in question. That in itself is dishonest, disrespectful and biased way to look at the truth of the matter. I'm tempted to ask whether or not you have investigated the books mentioned above (the Qur'an composes of the Torah, later writings of the old testament, the gospel and writings of Muhammad, the Torah is the first five books of the old testament).
 
Matariki said:
Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM who I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I Am, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. - Exodus 3:13-15
Click to expand...

That was a smart move by god because if you know a gods name then you have power over it!

What you are saying there ties in nicely with my point.

Moses DOES go and try and convince the tribes (later to form the confederation of tribes that would become the israelites) that his god is THE god and that it has precedence but that doesn't tie into historical evidence which points to many gods being worshipped by the tribes which had moved into egypt. These tribes inevitably were influenced by Egyptian beliefs in their stay in Egypt as well....the bible talks about worshipping a golden cow (probably the Egyptian god Apis)

As the bible says Abraham drove his herds and people into Upper Egypt. he did this because the delta was fertile and there was a climatic change around that time that had seen lands around egypt dry up.

The movement of Abrahams tribes were probably originally from Sumer. Sumer had suffered a massive flood in its past; evidence of clay several metres thick has been uncovered by archaologists, told in the epic of Gilgamesh, which was probably later incorporated into the bible during the exile in babylon. Some survivors of the flood had possibly made their way to Egypt long before Abraham taking with them knowledge of building and various religious/magic knowledge

What all these groups have in common is hierarchies where the people at the top whether royalty or priesthood held the keys to certain mysteries which were not shared with the common people who instead were educated through tales and parables

Jesus probably came by these mysteries via the Qumran community and was empowering others with the knowledge by initiating them (turning water into wine) with the aim of freeing Israel from Roman occupiers and corrupt Sadducees.

The Qumran community were very pious and saw themselves as the upholders of the covenant with Yahweh which had crystalised during the exile in Babylon and became focused around rebuilding the temple and liberating israel through right behaviour and faithfulness to Yahweh

I have a fair bit of respect for Jesus; he was a potent revolutionary and evidently extremely brave, especially after he had seen a fellow member of the Qumran community beheaded by the authorities (John the Baptist)

Some gnostics have an interesting view of Yahweh (Jehovah) as matter or reality itself and as a demiurge or creator god which stands between them and the real god (the true light and source of all). They seek to transcend matter which they see as potentially evil. They seek to do this by becoming a christed soul / christ consciousness by drawing the holy spirit into themselves. others believe that we are all one consciousness and therefore part of 'god'

Jehovah=JHVH (the tetragrammaton) = Yod He Vav He
Jesus = Yeheshua
Shin= hebrew symbol for spirit, which can be drawn into a person like the dove descending to jesus on his baptism by John. When Shin is introduced into YHVH you get:
Yod-He-Shin-Vav-He / Je-Ho-Shin-Va-H= Yeheshua (Jesus) the christed soul / christ consciousness

Jesus was travelling around initiating people into the mysteries of the qumran community to build up a support base for an insurrection. To get into the kingdom of heaven that was to come after the climatic end time battle you had to be resurrected into life which was the third degree of the Qumran community. Anyone who was uninitiated was termed 'dead'

Lazarus was a community member that was lapsing ('dying') so jesus brought him back into the fold, back into 'life'. He did not bring a corpse back to life

There is a fairytale version of the bible which is often made up of a literal view which has corrupted events, and has corrupted jewish terms such as 'messiah', developed by Hellenised gentile converts and by elites who sought to use the christ myth to control their populations; for example they merged the emerging religion of christianity with the prexisting and older cult of Mithra.

There is no doubt an extremely interesting story at the heart of it all which speaks to us of things that are fundamental to us as human beings, but this story has been clouded with bizarre elaborations by people who have hijacked the story for their own ends
 
Last edited:
Matariki said:
Here's a word of advice: Do not attempt to critique what you do not know nor understand without investigation or consulting experts on the subject first, otherwise you're attempting to run before you can walk. Investigation is not based on what is nice, but what is true. Its about following the evidence, and testing its validity. I wouldn't suggest building opinions based on the caricatures from those that oppose whatever it happens to be in question. That in itself is dishonest, disrespectful and biased way to look at the truth of the matter. I'm tempted to ask whether or not you have investigated the books mentioned above (the Qur'an composes of the Torah, later writings of the old testament, the gospel and writings of Muhammad, the Torah is the first five books of the old testament).
Click to expand...

The Bible and Torah I have reviewed for a while now. The quran I have some knowlege on from my friend who follows Sunni Islam and has explained to me over and over again that his religion is about peace. It's not that I have one problem with the God of Abraham, it's that I have many because I OPENLY don't understand it. I cannot make the claim that I understand something which self-refuting in my view. And as for the kalam cosmological arguement and the ontolological arguement. . I have no problems with them, but I don't see how it specifies on one God(The God of Abraham). It just gives us reason to believe that there is a creator of the universe.

Moreover, the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical explains Abrahams willingness to sacrafice his own son for god. Here is a link for you: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/the-teleological-suspension-of-the-ethical/

You shouldn't jump to the conclusion that I haven't read around the subject. . . I have heard good arguements on both sides, but I Personally see no reason for the belief....

Here is an interesting alternative for you: Just because something is in the absence of evidence does not mean that it is evidence of something being absent. Some scientist said it a while back.

Now I have jumped back and forward for years with this subject, so maybe one day I will find my way.

The one "Spiritual" awareness I feel is when I meditate....
 
This argument is so old......... and boring............ Let's have better one, Someone needs to prove that apples are rubbish and that Bowties are cool.
 
Why are you trying to shut down what had been a pretty interesting discussion?

If you find it boring then start another one somewhere else on the exciting topic of apples or bowties
 
Spiritual Leo said:
I hold no belief in religious dogma,
Click to expand...
Essense is not form. However, for us to experience essense, to enjoy essense, and especially to share essense, we must give it form. This is why it is written, "Build Me a tabernacle, that I may dwell among you."
You think you have no religious dogma, but I see it all over your posts. The difficulty you are creating for yourself is that you are generating a form which only you will recognize. It will work in a great many ways, but you will not be able to share with others. I would feel so sad if I couldn't share the joy, the peace, the splendor with others.

I find comfort through meditation, not prayer.
Click to expand...
When I recite the Shema, that is prayer. When I just have a nice informal chat with G-d, that is prayer. When I meditate, that is prayer. When I bake bread, that is prayer. Your box for prayer is so very tiny! If meditation works for you, then follow that path, but don't worry about whether or not it is prayer. It is not relavant what label you give it, only that you DO it.

Now I have jumped back and forward for years with this subject, so maybe one day I will find my way.
Click to expand...
You will. Just keep swimming! Swimming swimming swimming@!
 
Last edited:
Bowties ARE cool.
 
muir:
What all these groups have in common is hierarchies where the people at the top whether royalty or priesthood held the keys to certain mysteries which were not shared with the common people who instead were educated through tales and parables
Click to expand...
First, tales and parables are the best and most appropriate form in which to encode values. A story can easily incorporate paradox, where prose can only present paradox as a conflict. But what I really wanted to share is that the WHOLE PURPOSE of the Pharisaical movement was to take Judaism from the priests and rabbis and give it back to the common man.
 
Jehovah=JHVH (the tetragrammaton) = Yod He Vav He
Jesus = Yeheshua
Shin= hebrew symbol for spirit, which can be drawn into a person like the dove descending to jesus on his baptism by John. When Shin is introduced into YHVH you get:
Yod-He-Shin-Vav-He / Je-Ho-Shin-Va-H= Yeheshua (Jesus) the christed soul / christ consciousness
Click to expand...
Am I the only one who has problems with this?
 
Last edited:
Matariki said:
2. Old covenant vs New Covenant - http://www.tentmaker.org/tracts/OldVsNewCovenant.html
Click to expand...
Please don't take this the wrong way. You have a superb mind. However, this website is an embarrassment. It quotes from the NT to define the OT, instead of going directly to the source (quoting the OT to define the OT). If I want to learn about Hinduism, I don't ask a Catholic. If I want to learn about the Tao Te Ching, I don't read the Quran. If you want to learn about the Sinaitic Covenant, get out the Sinaitic Covenant and read it. Shalom!
 
GracieRuth said:
Essense is not form. However, for us to experience essense, to enjoy essense, and especially to share essense, we must give it form. This is why it is written, "Build Me a tabernacle, that I may dwell among you."
You think you have no religious dogma, but I see it all over your posts. The difficulty you are creating for yourself is that you are generating a form which only you will recognize. It will work in a great many ways, but you will not be able to share with others. I would feel so sad if I couldn't share the joy, the peace, the splendor with others.
Click to expand...
[MENTION=4576]GracieRuth[/MENTION]

I guess in some way I may have some form of religion because I enjoy certain religious practices. In the above statement, you said that I cannot share this feeling of peace with other and you are right in some ways. What I can share is my care for people and my ability to listen to anyone without making them feel uncomfortable, so people generally feel comfortably open around me which is why I never really argue against their own views on religion. I specifically raise the questions in a forum board because I cannot be a dream crusher(I'd feel horrible inside).

I'm ok with religion, but I really just don't have a good understanding of it. After going from a Christian into a Spiritual person then into an agnostic person and finally an atheist.

Now I am back once again to agnosticism. I do find it possible that we can live on in some way, just nothing man has written. God, as described, is unjust, evil, and unforgiving.

I like to hold onto the idea that if we are all going somewhere after our physical life ends, then we all must be going to the same place wherever that is.

I just wish that we would use our compassion, intelligence, and information to take ourselves into a blissful reality. Peace is achievable on the individual level, so we have the ability to achieve it universally. I just really think we all need to work together instead of making competitions and competing against..

-Take Care
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top