Nothing is impossible for god?
Offline Hey guys, sorry I haven't been on in a good while, been really busy with classes and what not. Ok, so I would like to ask for some help from those more eloquent than I. I'm writing a paper for my religions class trying to answer "Was Abraham a man of faith or crazy?" based off of what happens in Genesis 12-23. I'm arguing (not surprisingly) that Abraham was a man of faith, faithful to his schizophrenic delusions. Everything was going fine until I get to the part where his 90yr old wife Sarah gets pregnant after being told she would by 3 men. This is the one part where his delusions seem to interact with other people. I point out that it is impossible for Sarah to get pregnant because of menopause, and that it is more likely that either her reported age is wrong or the story is a complete work of fiction.
This is where I need your help. I just KNOW somebody in the class is going to stand up and say "Well nothing is impossible for god, so it's completely believable...." I have a really nasty gut reaction to this but I don't know how to articulate it. It just seems like that is such a slippery slope when you claim that all number of absurd things are entirely possible with god. Thoughts?
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Well, according to the Bible, god can't defeat enemies that have iron chariots. But I don't see any but the most delusional theist arguing that god can overcome a logical impossibility.
It takes a village to raise an idiot.
Save a tree, eat a vegetarian.
Sometimes " The Majority " only means that all the fools are on the same side.
The difficult we do now.
The impossible we do later.
The answer is very simple. The entire Old Testament is a work of fiction.
There was no Adam, Noah, Abraham, people in Egypt, David, Solomon, temple or Israel. As those cover all the important parts they suffice to reject the entire OT as fiction.
But there is no need to stop there. There is no physical evidence for anything recited any place in the OT.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
www.ussliberty.org
www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
You might point out to the true believer that in the O.T. god is directly responsible for about 3.5 million deaths whereas Satan racked up a big goose egg (0). Yahweh is lucky they didn't have war crimes trials back then. Certainly the O.T. didn't have much use for freedom of choice, freedom of speach, freedom of assembly , they were down right un-American.
If their god works in mysterious ways, remind them it's no big mystery in being a genocidal figment of their limited immagination.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
You can prove that statement wrong with a very simple counter-question:
If he wanted to, could God create something that he couldn't afterward uncreate?
If no, then something is impossible for God.
If yes, then something is STILL impossible for God.
Therefore, not everything is possible for God, because omnipotence is a self-defeating concept.
Therefore, standard methods of truth assessment apply, and we're back to MedievalGuy's point.
Short and sweet. I hope it helps.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
I totally understand your dilemma because I have had to write papers on religion and explain the basic foundation of the belief system of 'god'....
The image of 'god' is completely flawed because in the bible, 'god' made NUMEROUS 'mistakes'...
when he first created adam and eve, he supposedly created them in 'his' image, and specifically told them NOT to eat off of the tree of good/evil..he never gave them the option of eating it - he told them DON'T DO IT...
when they disobeyed him, they 'somehow' started a chain reaction and started what is now considered to be 'free will'.... free will was never mentioned in the bible before this, so in turn, god made the mistake of creating us humans and believing that we would do as he said.. the bible even states that he was 'unhappy' or 'disappointed' with adam and eve..... (why would he be disappointed if he were completely aware of what would happen in the future, and why does the bible give him human emotions if he is supposed to be an infinite, omnipitent being?)
if he was an all knowing, perfect god; he would have known the outcome of the situation, or would have explained 'free will' from the very beginning...
We couldn't be created in his own image because he 1)isn't supposed to make mistakes, and 2)is supposed to be 'perfect'... humans are the EXACT opposite.
I would just focus on the 'mistakes' that god has made in the bible such as the adam and eve theory, the tower of babel mistake, the fable of the virgin birth, the reason why his very own son, jesus, felt that god had foresaken him on the cross, etc...
also focus on the more obvious fact that if nothing were impossible for god, millions of babies and children wouldn't be killed, widespread disease, terrorism, pain, hunger, war, all of these things would not exist because none of it would be impossible for god to fix...
he would zap away the devil in a heartbeat, and reveal himself to the world...
there should be NO reason that an all knowing, all loving, powerful, caring, and compassionate god would let these horrific things happen on a daily basis if 'nothing was impossible for him to do'....
throw that at the class and see how stupid they feel, and listen to the illogical way they'll try to rationalize that....
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
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...there was a time when I would have been happy with a clear "revelation" which didn't have to be deciphered. Maybe that's your comeback: would the real divine opinion please stand up?
Conor
Meh, were I a Christian, I would probably answer "Yes, he can. And yes, he could still also uncreate it if he wanted, that is just the mystery of God, and if you read the Bible with an open mind (barf) you will understand"
To be honest with you, there are far better than I to advise you on tactic regarding this particular story. But, a good overall mindset is to always consider the source(the book itself and its age and it's outragious fantastical claims). Always keep in mind that it was written for the people of that time and each generation thought their super hero was comming back during their generation.
It took over 1,000 years and 40 authors with books left out. You and I know it is merely a work of fiction people falsely buy as a factual history book.
Just another tidbit about Abe. Abe, according to the bible was the first to curcumcise himself, but not as a child, but as a man. If it was such a great idea, why didn't god have Adam do it? And what choice to real life babies have? Is a baby's suffering required to appease god? If not, why did god allow forskins? Why do men have nipples?
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I would argue that discussion of fictional characters and events is made trite and superfluous when both are so poorly described and inhabit an equally poorly constructed narrative. The task is further hampered by the use of the term "crazy", a word with several connotations but no specific clinical application. One of its connotations - an inability to behave logically - is actually synonymous with "man of faith" in the sense that the latter phrase has been employed in the question, making the question itself even more irrelevant.
I would conclude my short "essay" therefore with a request that further invitations to me to apply my critical faculties to anaylsing fictional events should at least be directed against worthy literature and, more importantly, phrased intelligently.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy