Antitheism

[Gordon]

Sounds to me like this all-powerful omni-God is, ironically, powerless in that once the ball is set rolling it will follow the planned course no matter what and if this omni-God did intervene then it would imply it got it wrong in the first place.

Makes all those who get involved in praying for divine intercession look daft: since no matter what they pray for either the die is already cast or their omni-God makes mistakes that require correction along the way, and s such isn't really 'omni' at all.

[Udayana]

Sounds the same as confusing determinism with fatalism?

[Nearly Sane]

Sounds the same as confusing determinism with fatalism?

I think there is a category error here. In one sense if someone was a deterministic then logically they would be a fatalist but if determinism is true whether someone is is is not a fatalist, is determined and not necessarily logically driven.

[Udayana]

Yes, one could be either or both. What I meant was wrt. Gordon's post: It could be that xxx set off everything with initial conditions in a determined universe but included it's own future intervention.

(Of-course it is daft, as the premises are false).

[Gordon]

Yes, one could be either or both. What I meant was wrt. Gordon's post: It could be that xxx set off everything with initial conditions in a determined universe but included it's own future intervention.

(Of-course it is daft, as the premises are false).

Even if so then, presumably, it would know in what circumstances it would intervene and what the intervention would be - but this isn't really intervention: at best it is a plan which gives the appearance of intervention.

The 'omni' notion seems like a mess of contradictions.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Gordon,

Even if so then, presumably, it would know in what circumstances it would intervene and what the intervention would be - but this isn't really intervention: at best it is a plan which gives the appearance of intervention.

The 'omni' notion seems like a mess of contradictions.

Yes, it's a curious notion that a god who can only act as His nature requires Him to act can be persuaded to change His mind if people pray hard enough for it to happen. It's a curious notion too that such a god would have a mind to change at all come to think of it.

Divine morality is an oddity too when you think about it. Should we conclude that whatever happens is necessarily good because "God is goodness" so He must make it that way, or does this god allow bad stuff to happen because that's the price He's prepared to pay in exchange for giving us "free" will?

And if that is the price He's prepared to pay how can He be all good as innocent people get hurt that way, and while I'm at it what about the example of someone unable to exercise this supposed free will - a sociopath for example - who sets fire to the orphanage? Why wouldn't an all good god stop him at least?

And then we have innocent people getting hurt when the causal agent of their hurt has nothing to do with "free" will - why would an all good god allow a village to be swept away by a tsunami for example?

Why to put it another way would such a god arrange things so that the world appears to function exactly as you would expect it to function if there was no god at all?

All very rum indeed if you really want to posit a god of the omnis I'd have thought.