my "unified field" theory for science and christianity

Interesting posts.

On the line of omnipotence and omniscience:

Someone already stated that an omnipotent being could impose limited omniscience on himself. A good example I can give is this: when playing a RTS (real time strategy) game, I can have the option of using Fog of War. FOW has two levels. Areas that you haven't explored, and areas that you have explored, but have no units currently to see what's there. If I have the ability to turn FOW on and off, then I can limit my in game "omniscience". Perhaps God can adjust a slider on his Omniscient-o-meter. Or maybe he has a console with various options like "FULL BLAST GOD MODE (all options checked)" or "Normal God Mode (ability to see everything currently happening)".

My point is this. If a being has all power (omnipotent), then he/she could impose limits on himself/herself at will. I think the only limit God could not give himself would be something that completely negates his power, because that would be a paradox and it would probably destroy everything in existence. My two pennies for today.

Since this thread has gone in to the realm of trying to decipher how omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, & omni-benevolence all fit together. I think this post might be illuminating.



[edit on 28-11-2009 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by Avenginggecko
reply to post by Mr No One

 

But a god that reacts in sync with time isn't an omniscient god. If you knew everything that was, is, and will be, then you wouldn't have typical emotional reactions that follow consequence - reaction.

For example, let's put you in god's shoes. You get lonely, you want to make a friend. You know that by making this friend and putting him in your backyard, he will eat your magical fruit, kill your son, and then continue to poison the land and spill other's blood.

You create him anyway because you know he will adore you.

Why do you get mad when he does the above? You knew his actions were coming, and you did them anyway because you know he'll love you. Unless the god of the literal Bible is putting on some kind of dramatic play for an audience we can't see, it doesn't make a lick of sense. That's one of the logical fallacies of the (literally interpreted) Bible.

You have to keep in mind that the guys who wrote the creation/God story weren't the kind of guys who sat down and worked out the technicals concerning plot structure, logical development or circumstantial impact. These were guys who thought the sky was a blanket of blue stuff that covered them during the day and that it turned into black stuff at night, and inside that stuff clouds and lights swam around with all kinds of human agendas on their cloudish and lightish minds.

Nothing we can come up with will ever square the Bible with anything that resembles what we've learned about reality since the thing was written, and we need to stop bothering. It's a book written by people who knew less about physical science than a 10 yr old kid does today. And I'm referring to a 10 yr old kid that's not doing that well in school at the moment. The writers of the Bible were flinging it as fast as they could, and just tossing out whatever they thought would stick against the wall. the fact that most of the USA struggles to force it to make sense with what we all know about reality says more about us as a society than it says about anything else.

Until this schism is finally knocked off, this nation will be a complete psychotic mess. We know that the Bible is a book of parables that were written by people that had no idea what brought reality into existence, and until we allow ourselves to accept that, we'll be never be sane as a society. A people's vision of its own relationship with reality is fundamental. If that vision is completely at odds with itself, that conflict permeates everything else that emerges and causes it all to become unstable.

Tearing down the psychological construct of biblical infallability is probably the most important single contribution that anyone could ever make for the health and well-being of the American culture. Once that's done, at least we'll all be sharing one believable version of what reality could possibly be. From there, the rest will be workable.