Why would an all powerfull being want or need?
Online Now, this goes out to the theists. I don't want you talking about your particular god. I want you to strictly address the concept of "all powerful" and "perfect". Please focus only on those concepts when answering the following.
Why would an all powerful god want or need to be the center of attention? When you order food at a restaurant and after eating it you don't feel anything needed to be changed, you describe it as "perfect".
The words want or need show a deficit. If god has no deficits then it should not want or need anything.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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The question is somewhat confusing to me. I admit that I have not read everything written on this site but, shouldn’t we confirm the question of - Does a God need our praise? Before we ask why he needs it?
That's the point.
If god is all powerful, then by definition, he does not need anything, praise included. This only leaves want, but there's still a problem. When you want something, why do you want it? Because you don't have it. So, why did perfect god create a universe where he didn't have everything he wanted? If you answer that he wants us to have choice, then he has everything he wants, because we presumably do have choice. (That's another topic entirely.) If god wants us to have choice, then we do, because he's all powerful. If he doesn't want us to choose against belief, then either:
1) He cannot stop us from choosing poorly, and is not all powerful
2) He chooses not to stop us from choosing poorly, and is getting exactly what he wants, which makes the statement that he wants us to choose him nonsense.
3) He is lying.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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The problem with the theist is that they assume that we subconciously buy their fairy tale when all we are doing is saying, "If the example you give is "x" then this is the problem I have with the example you have presented me."
They cant wrap their head around that criticizing a claim doesn't mean we buy into it.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
because it chose to.
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And again, if he's all powerful, why would he want our measly human's belief and praise? Wouldn't we seem as nothing to him? Couldn't he just create 100 percent loving and praising human beings instead?
Isn't that a bit anthropocentric? Since when did a bunch of uneducated Jews writing a book a couple thousand years ago make humans the only entities in the Universe that matter?
Why does anyone choose to do anything?
Because they want or need the thing they choose.
Are you saying that he chose to want to create us?
Why?
Because he wanted to want to create us?
How could he want that?
Because he chose to want it?
So he wanted to want to want to create us?
This could get out of hand quickly...
No wonder they say god is infinite. =]
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
I actually had an extremely long conversation with my father this weekend on the topic of religion, and this came up (among many other things). The best answer he could give was "God wanted it to be that way, and it doesn't matter if it makes sense to us."
I was unsatisfied with that answer.
Hello!
I agree with the fact that he does not need anything.
I think that God wants us to choose freely, and then He wants us to choose good. In my opinion, we (humans) think in the same way, because it is more important to be free to make your choice than to make the right one.
I am saying that God wants us to choose good, but not more important than the fact that we should choose freely.
Please excuse my English, it is not my first language.
I don't really understand your analogy, are you saying that God is the food (which is "perfect" and doesn't need to be changed) or that we are the food? In the first case, I don't think that God should be changed, and in the second case we should both agree that we aren't perfect.
I think that wanting a good thing is not a deficit. I agree with the fact that God doesn't need anything.
And I think that God wants us to praise Him (not the rock band) because it is also better for us. If by Him wanting to be in the center of attention you didn't refer to praising God, please explain.
Please excuse my English, it is not my first language.
Yep that's what I'd be saying, an all powerful being would want only of choice.
Ahem... All powerful... doesn't need a reason, just can.
That's about it the size of it.
LOL, All powerful... ergo... can.
Yeah, impossible even. Without want he could not want yet logically want is presupposed in any action, omnipotence must include the logically impossible.
They say a lot of things, Arch.
Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist
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Circular reasoning.....
That's the one. =]
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
The point was that choosing to want to want to want to want to want... etc... is infinitely circular.
The question "why" is asking "for what reason" or "to what end".
The verb "can" is answering the question "is he able or is he not able".
That is not what I'm asking.
If he's all powerful, it is true that he can do anything. But his motivation for doing any of those things he has the power to do is a separate question.
He could only choose to do X because he needed X to be done or because he wanted X to be done.
If he needed or wanted of X, it can be inferred that he did not possess X, and therefore he was not perfect.
To replace X with "want", "need", or "choice" is to become infinitely circular in reasoning.
I'm glad we agree that it's logically impossible. =]
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Well really I'm just having fun with the topic there, apparently I took the last of these questions too seriously, and I aim to please.
To be more serious about it for just one brief stint it would seem a waste of omnipotence for it to not be used I'm inclined to say doing (or creating) as opposed to not doing would be the primary motive for an all powerful being to get out of the house and wield a little.
Yes, I agree it is logically impossible. But is logically impossible actually impossible? that's the question of Omnipotence.
Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist
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Ah, but you're forgetting the easy short-circuit that very, very few theists would like to have to resort to:
God's insane.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
You can either use a self-contradictory account (god knows everything, but he wants to test something), or something that raises a variation on the Euthyphro dilemma (whatever god does is consistent, because god defines consistency).
So we agree. A God has no needs.
This leaves the point of the question misleading and void.
As far as free will and a God's wants goes my freind Hamby, I love your logic. But the problem is that free will is not the same as free choice or freedom of actions.
Freedom does not come with free will. You have said we have no choice of our beliefs (that pretty much kills free will). I can't see free will or choice in the foods we like or our bodily functions... We are manipulated from the time we are born till the time we die by people around us from parents to teachers from spouces and children and enviromental stimula constantly.
Free will is often no more than the freedom to complain about what we can not control. You don't have to believe in God to understand this.
The logic of your statements only work if you have control. Do you believe you have control of the big picture?
If so than please give me good weather for the weakend, make Hillary bow out, change morning to make it come later in the day, or just make everybody do what I want. (Please don't take this last statement seriously- my sarcastic nature is just showing)
I think Brian was asking about omnipotence, but omnipresence and omniscience, which are often attributed to a god, are also very problematic. Our experience of the world, indeed our consciousness, follows evolution; which is dictated by survival and breeding patterns. Something doesn't have to be intelligent to be alive; there are circumstances for intelligence to develop. We don't necessarily know what those are, but let's look at what they are not. The boundaries of the human experience are defined; there are definite points where we end and the rest of the world begins; and it's important to know these, recognize, and respond to these points, for reasons of the aforementioned survival and breeding. If we do not act on what threatens what we are, we may cease to be.
Let's consider the experience of an omnipresent and omniscient god, who is everywhere, essentially is everything, and knows everything simultaneously. Imagine the surface a blank sheet of paper; now imagine that it's width and height extend into infinity; now imagine its depth extends infinitely as well. There is no longer a surface, because there is nothing left that is not that paper. There is nothing to know about the paper; it's just an undifferentiated white void -- indeed, is there such a thing as white when there is nothing to differentiate it? Now consider that the paper, of which there is nothing to learn, is actually also you. So it's you who extend in all directions, only can there really be a you when there is only you in the whole of existence? Would thoughts, consciousness, self-awareness, have developed when there would be no advantage from it? There'd be nothing to sort through, no distinction between knowledge and ignorance, and hence no knowledge; no distinction between thought and action, because there'd be nothing to accomplish via action that would not have been played out instantaneously, thanks to omniscience -- so there'd be nothing to do. Even if such a being came with intelligence right out of the box, it would have nothing whatsoever to give it a sense of identity, if indeed it's omniscient and omnipresent.
I believe you are right as far as intent.
I also believe that nowhere do we have less understanding then when we hear "Omnipresent". Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence are attributes that solely belong to a God. This is beyond man’s limited understanding. The comprehension of absolute truth, absolute wisdom, absolute mercy, absolute justice, absolute wrath, absolute love and all other possible virtues, (in their absolute) is not within our grasp.
Therefore to claim anything that falls outside of current knowledge or understanding does not exist by default is as simple minded as saying anything we don’t understand is caused by God.
A foolish attack against an indefinable attribute is not worthy of a serious response. If the science we so strongly believe in followed this path we would still be living in caves.
No idea what that means, or who you're replying to.
They're incoherent ideas with no basis whatsoever. It's merely taking a human valuation, and ramping it up to some arbitrary extreme. Without special pleading, those ideas, as pure concepts, describe what I've outlined. Not to say that they describe anything at all that does, or possibly could, exist.
Wrath is a virtue? OK... This is like watching Andy Dick swing a battle axe. All of these valuations are human, so if you eliminate us and our "grasp" from the picture, you don't have anything at all. It's like talking about popping a wheelie in the context of cranberry juice manufacture. You've eliminated the variables necessary to the dynamic, and tried to define it as the purest expression of it. It doesn't seem understandable because it's a broken concept.
This is an argument from ignorance.
If it's undefined, it isn't an attribute.
LOL. The path of... trying to actually trying to understand things?
Imbecile.
Why would an all powerfull being want or need?
The short answer is , Because I AM horny for M O R E ..... of my art .... Who ever said god was satisfied ain't godly .....
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Brian37 is gospel .....
Atheism Books.
Very disappointed in you closing, but not surprised. Your responces are standardized.