Allpowerful?

The notion that God is omnipotent probably came from one-upmanship: "My God is more powerful than yours, he can do x." "Well my God can do anything. He just chooses not to."

There is no logical reason why a god, if one even exists, must be omnipotent. Gods with limited local power over one solar system would make more sense since they could obtain information without violating relativity.

There is also no logical necessity that there be only one supreme God, or that gods could not reproduce or create other gods. There could be gods for every human society that believes in them.

Based on the idiocies of life on earth, my guess is that we were designed by either an incompetent god or a committee.

I have it on reliable authority that a camel is a horse designed by committee.

The creation already happened a long time ago. It took a long time.

I have to agree with terry on most points. However I think our imcompetence is our own, and probably humorous to god. Anyway, great food for thought, Terry.

God could make another being and give it as much power as he wanted, I guess.

Some things make no sense eg the tetris shape. Or this one:Can God make a meal that is too big for Him to eat?

But the thing is, none of that really matters. Why would he WANT to make a meal to big for Him to eat? What would be the point? The point is that he has power over relevant things, things that matter and affect us and Him. :wink:
That is my humble :wink: opinion.

My thoughts are perhaps this is what mankind is slowly evolving into.

And the question about the creating matter - we don't understand physics well enough to answer that. But you have to be careful framing questions that are like asking can an all powerful God make an odd number that is even. Power or omnipotency has no bearing on making a contradiction resolved.

And the word Omnipotent I see as a limited mankind's trying to categorise a being of much greater depth.

I agree with you G__day, but there are plenty of people who claim that god CAN make an even number which is odd. I have heard it more than once on this very site.

The Riddle of Epicurus
Is God willing to prevent evil, 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?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Mesquite: That is an interesting puzzle. This is how I see it.

God is able to help us but will not MAKe us do anything, because he does not want us ust to be His slaves. He wants us to experience everything our own way. So He does what we can, but when we carry on waging war, polluting our world and so causing disease and taking all the food for ourselves and away from others, unless he is to force us to do things using his power, what can he do? The human race tend to blame God a lot. Anybody but themselves... :wink:

Seeker, an allpowerful god could correct the adverse combinations of hormone levels and brain wiring that drive some human beings to prey on others. A person who is unable to control their own mind and actions due to flaws in their brain/upbringing/soul/character/God-given-whatever has less free will than one who was created without any biological compulsions to harm others.

An all-powerful god who withholds rain from starving nations and flood others, creates disease-causing organisms and parasites to torment innocent animals and babies, demands that people slaughter their neighbors and steal their land, and allows children to be abused by his own priests in his own house of worship is either insane or completely unethical, IMO.

If God does not want us to be slaves, why do you suppose that he told the Israelites that owning slaves was OK?

I don't blame God for the problems of the world. I blame the people who believe in him.

Ouch... now that's not really fair.
Perhaps God needs us to learn from sorrow and pain and other dilemmas. They are quite the educators.

I see it that God's promise to us of Free Will - means unhindered ability to choose - not "do good or else you'll get a lightning bolt up your bum 5 milliseconds later".

So God limits his actions to honour his pledges so that we can painfully perhaps have a chance to fulfill our destiny.

The Universe seems fundamentally non-determisitic all the way to a sub atomic level. Like free will it is evidence to me that our presence in the Universe is to create or test something currently unknown. We aren't fixed tools in and deterministic environment - we can be free thinkers in an unknown world.