The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:40 pm**

I’m agnostic. In my view, God must be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Children with cancer make me believe that God is not those things. Therefore He/She is not God. No?

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:54 pm**

commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:40 pm I’m agnostic. In my view, God must be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Children with cancer make me believe that God is not those things. Therefore He/She is not God. No?

Well, not everybody who uses the words "benevolent," "omniscient" and "omnipotent" understands them in the same way, or thinks they entail the same things. So maybe the first question to consider is what you mean by each.

For example, by "omnipotent," which (on the surface) seems to mean "can do anything," would you say that God is able to do inherently irrational or contradictory? Because those would seem to be "things." And would you suppose that it would entail that God could lie, sin, deny Himself, and so on? Or would you have a more refined and precise idea of what you mean when you say God is "omnipotent"?

Are there any terms or limits on "omnipotence"? For the word is not used in the Biblical account of God; so we should surely have to be careful that a word we're imposing from outside of that account is justly being applied.

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm**

what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 7:24 pm**

Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp

We cannot help but be the evolving best that we can possibly be, given entropy.

Let me speak to the misunderstanding of Gnostic Christians hating matter.
I wrote this to refute the false notion that Gnostic Christians do not like matter and reality that the inquisitors propagated to justify their many murders of my religion’s originators.

The Gnostic Christian reality.
Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.
[And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

"If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.

If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.

Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be, given our past history, or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, because it is the only possible world, given all the conditions at hand and the history that got us here. That is an irrefutable statement given entropy and the anthropic principle.

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 7:49 pm**

Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp

Ah...a kind of "aircraft carrier" for diseases?

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 8:34 pm**

Greatest I am wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 7:24 pm
Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp
We cannot help but be the evolving best that we can possibly be, given entropy.

Let me speak to the misunderstanding of Gnostic Christians hating matter.
I wrote this to refute the false notion that Gnostic Christians do not like matter and reality that the inquisitors propagated to justify their many murders of my religion’s originators.

The Gnostic Christian reality.
Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.
[And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

"If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.

If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.

Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be, given our past history, or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, because it is the only possible world, given all the conditions at hand and the history that got us here. That is an irrefutable statement given entropy and the anthropic principle.

if one is always searching, one never finds contentment

-Imp

Posted: **Thu Jun 25, 2026 9:15 pm**

Here's how you work this one out. If god's end game did not require him to put us through so much nonsense, and it was logically possible to just put us all in heaven on the first go'round and skip all the bullshit, then that nonsense and bullshit is gatuitous.

Therefore, god is a sadist or there's something we don't know about the rules by which god is allowed to create creations, and we have to go through all the nonsense and bullshit first.

But this is counterintuitive because i can logically imagine never suffering, smokin' herb, and playing drums for eternity. Now, if i can imagine it without rendering a logical contradiction, god should be able to do it... but bro ain't doin' it. WTFs up with that?

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:11 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:54 pm
commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:40 pm I’m agnostic. In my view, God must be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Children with cancer make me believe that God is not those things. Therefore He/She is not God. No?
Well, not everybody who uses the words "benevolent," "omniscient" and "omnipotent" understands them in the same way, or thinks they entail the same things. So maybe the first question to consider is what you mean by each.

So by “omnipotent” I mean all-powerful and having the power to do anything. And yes, this means the power to do evil. By “omniscient” I mean knowing everything, By “benevolent” I mean (always) kind. These definitions are what these terms mean to me. These qualities are the core characteristics that I feel should apply to God.

If God were always kind, the power to do evil would be irrelevant. However, if God could do acts of evil, I should probably fear God more than I should feel comforted by God.

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:13 am**

Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp

Maladies inflicted by the existing God?

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:47 am**

promethean75 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 9:15 pm Here's how you work this one out. If god's end game did not require him to put us through so much nonsense, and it was logically possible to just put us all in heaven on the first go'round and skip all the bullshit, then that nonsense and bullshit is gatuitous.

Therefore, god is a sadist or there's something we don't know about the rules by which god is allowed to create creations, and we have to go through all the nonsense and bullshit first.

But this is counterintuitive because i can logically imagine never suffering, smokin' herb, and playing drums for eternity. Now, if i can imagine it without rendering a logical contradiction, god should be able to do it... but bro ain't doin' it. WTFs up with that?

I would put it similarly. Either god is a sadist or god has no power to prevent evil or god is not God.

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 3:42 am**

commonsense wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:47 am Either god is a sadist or god has no power to prevent evil or god is not God.

What if God knew that the absolute best way to maintain the functional integrity and believability of this soul-creating dimension of reality that we call a "universe"...

(believable to its inner inhabitants, that is)

...is to stay hidden and make the universe seem as if were a naturally occurring phenomenon?

What do you think would be one of the more convincing methods that he (her/it) could employ to help her (him/it) stay hidden?

In other words, setting aside its unfathomable size, what is it about this universe that makes you question whether or not God exists?
_______

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 5:26 am**

commonsense wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:11 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:54 pm
commonsense wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 4:40 pm I’m agnostic. In my view, God must be benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Children with cancer make me believe that God is not those things. Therefore He/She is not God. No?
Well, not everybody who uses the words "benevolent," "omniscient" and "omnipotent" understands them in the same way, or thinks they entail the same things. So maybe the first question to consider is what you mean by each.
So by “omnipotent” I mean all-powerful and having the power to do anything. And yes, this means the power to do evil.

"Anything?" Does it include the power to do the self-contradictory, like creating square circles? Or is it reasonable to suppose that God is not obligated to do the absurd?

And if "anything" includes evil, then the God of the Bible is not, by your definition, "omnipotent" at all, since it is Biblically clear that God does not do evil, cannot lie, cannot deny Himself, cannot break His own word, and so on. It's quite explicit about that, actually.

However, we should pause here: it's not at all clear that the inability to do wicked or stupid things ought to count as a lack of "potency." After all, what sort of an entity is compelled to act against His own nature and will? That surely wouldn't be the God of the Bible. The Biblical God is described as one who never has to act contrary to his own will and nature -- and that that feature is perhaps the best summary of what it means to be truly "omnipotent": being so powerful as to never have to act in any way that you are not inherently oriented toward doing.

Or to put it another way, take something like lying. Men find they have to lie because they lack the power to make what they wish to be true, true. But God, since He never lacks such power, has no need to lie: what he says always is true, and He never lacks the wherewithal to bring it about. That's what many Theists understand by "omnipotence."

That's the problem with a word like that. It's an invented word, a word people use differently, and is not used at all in the Biblical account. So at best, it's a kind of theological place-holder, an attempted description of a feature of God that might work in some cases, but something that, on your definition, wouldn't fit at all.

So now I'm not sure which God you're hoping to indict. Your description no longer fits the God that Christians and Jews believe in. Other religions would have to speak for their own, I suppose.

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 7:18 am**

I's sooner believe a cosmic vampire created the universe than the pathetic ill-natured, half-crazy tyrant of the OT who engrosses all the symptoms of a demented human.

I am that I am has a lot of missing details. The ones we know of forces many who believe to wish that he wasn't.

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 1:01 pm**

commonsense wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:13 am
Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 5:14 pm what if the only purpose of humans is to provide a host for a variety of maladies?

-Imp
Maladies inflicted by the existing God?

who am I to doubt Loki?

-Imp

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2026 3:37 pm**

Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Jun 25, 2026 8:34 pm
if one is always searching, one never finds contentment

-Imp

How would you know, unless you have done the deed.

Did you understand the f****** logic and truth I put?

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