Believers... you can't have it both ways.

[sp88]

[Arbiec]

I thank God that he made me an Atheist

[Arbiec]

See my username; enough said.

I have a friend that is very concerned about my lack of belief/faith/worship. We talk a lot and our conversations do not turn sour; we are good friends. She recently brought up the topic again, and our conversation went like this:

Me: "Is God omnipotent (all powerful)?"
She: "Yes."
Me: "Is God omniscient (all knowing)?"
She: "Yes."
Me: "So, God knows about children being molested and raped, and he could stop it, but he doesn't. Such a deity is not worthy of my worship."

My friend just rolled her eyes as if I were being ridiculous. (I honestly don't understand why). A short while later she came back and we had this exchange:

She: "Should you be held accountable for what your (adult) children do?"
Me: "No, of course not."
She: "Well there you go."
Me: "Are you saying that God should not be held accountable for what man does?"
She: "That's right."
Me: "The is a huge difference here. #1, I never claimed to be omnipotent or omniscient. #2, If I knew that my (adult) children were molesting kids, and I had the ability to stop them or at least report them, then I absolutely should be held accountable, and I should be punished for doing nothing."

I got a shoulder shrug...


You can't have omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence.

Thank you for reading.

An alternate quasi-scientific view:
If you accept the quantum view of reality (specifically many worlds interpretation) then all things that can happen do happen in some version of reality. A God may well be a higher being for whom omniscience could mean awareness of all realities not just one and omnipotent may mean that actions that God takes lead to effects across all realities not just a single reality.
If that was to be true, benevolence starts to take on a different meaning, one that our limited view of reality could not appreciate. That benevolence may involve trying to positively influence the multiverse as a whole. God's main choice would be to act or not to act; to create or not to create.

I am not a religious man, but I do have a daughter who is autistic and has cerebal palsy. When times get tough I think on the multiverse and consider that for all the realities where the positive things I dream of for her are true (including the ones where she is queen of the universe) there must also be a reality where the bad things happen. She can either exist and have bad and good across the multiverse or not exist and have nothing neither good nor bad.

I don't atribute that to a God but it does give me pause for thought.

[sp88]

I am not a religious man, but [.....] I think on the multiverse

so .... you're a norse paganist?

[Frosty]

so .... you're a norse paganist?

This is probably posted here already but I like it.

[Arbiec]

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and everything but..
Like, you whine like a bitch.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
I went off to get a beer."

[kogi]

Ah. The "Problem of Evil" as Atheist tried to convey misses a key assumption: Not only is God omniscient and omnipotent but she is also a loving God. That is the problem of evil. Why do God permit evil in the world? Either she is not omnipotent, or she is not a loving God (all-good). Scholars have tackled with this problem for centuries. One suggestion has been that free will is inherently good and supersedes the notion of omnibenevolence. That is, free will is more important that divine intervention.

[BondJmsBond]

That is, free will is more important that divine intervention.

Could be, imagine a world where God has us all act in a certain way, in accordance with her wishes.

There would be no yang, just yin. One couldn't experience joy without sadness to offset it, etc, you get the picture.
Sameness would pervade all, and it would be ...Hell.