Against all I stand for... - This is NOT funny, and an insult...

[Sperrit]

But if God can do anything then that means that he can fail, since failing is part of being able to do ANYTHING.
How ironic.

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[Ming]

Edited by Doot = OH MY GOD MING! I am so sorry! I meant to quote your message and I hit the edit instead, now I'm editing it to this apology. Please please pleae forgive me. You had a wonderful point and I totally disintergrated it!

~bows for forgiveness profusely~

[Shino]

[Sperrit]

Indeed, God is full of paradoxes. I think that's why people put so much emphasis on Faith. Without it there really isn't a whole lot to believe it. That's why I'm not overly fond of literalists. They usually replace Faith with doctorine or tradition, something static that has nothing to do with the living religion, which is really sad considering a good hit with the hammer of logic makes all that stuff fall right over. Faith is truly the pillar of religion. I just wish more people would believe in that.

- 2 cents -

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[D-Trix]

in regards the heavy rock dilemma...here's a summary of the problem and one of the ways people have tried to deal with it.

Believer: "God is omnipotent!"
Skeptic: "Oh yeah? Can God create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?"
Believer: "Shit."

it looks like the believer has to give up omnipotence - to say that God can both create the rock and lift it is to contradict yourself.

however, there's a way out. the popular answer is to introduce the concept of Logical Possibility. in formal logic, a set of statements are Consistent if they don't contradict one another. obviously, the statements "God is omnipotent" and "God cannot lift this rock" contradict one another. something is Logically Possible if and only if it is consistent. to say that something is NOT Logically Possible means that it is contradictory, and therefore cannot come ot be in any possible world. the result is that the example with the stone is inconsistent, and therefore not Logically Possible.

the Sketpic's objection is: "Can an omnipotent God create a rock which he can't lift?" but the notion of a rock that can't be lifted by an omnipotent being is, according to the believer, incosistent. God cannot make that stone any more than God can make 2+2=5. the notion of "omnipotence" must therefore be understood to mean "the power to do anything which is Logically Possible." since the rock is not logically possible, the example does nothing to disprove God's omnipotence.

this is a pretty strong response, i think, but it seems wierd to be ascribing limits to omnipotence - even the limits of Logical Possibility, which really aren't limits at all. but Skeptics need not fear, because there are plenty of other reasons for rejecting belief in an omnipotent God. i actually reject the notion of 'omnipotence' entirely, but that's a discussion for my Tough Questions thread, assuming anybody cares enough to hear it.

~Ted

[Sperrit]

An interesting idea, really. Limited omnipotence. But it wouldn't really be omnipotence, then, would it? You can't have unlimited power with limits, can you? Yet another contradiction.
Of course, as far as the rock problem is concerned there's always the issue of what is meant when one thinks about God LIFTING things. I mean, the concept of lifting is one that is confined to the physical universe, and I think every religion that has a God would agree that God is not a being that is limited by physicality, or, going further, even EXISTS in the physical world. If we think of it like that the question becomes rather odd: "Can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?"
Does God lift ANYTHING? Does he even have a body for which TO lift it? And if he could lift it with his mind then it wouldn't matter how HEAVY it was, would it? It's an interesting question.

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