The definition of omniscience is the ability to know what is possible to know, when it is possible to know it. By that definition, God is definitely omniscient. What we can only guess at (as the Bible does not address this) is when it becomes possible for God to know what we will have for lunch a week from next Thursday.
What the Bible does tell us is that God knows the number of hairs on our head; He knows when a sparrow falls; He knows what is in our hearts.
You make it sound like belief in God is useless
Christian’s always get stuck on human actions as evil because humans are easy to blame. We’ve repeatedly brought up natural disasters, disease and other forces outside of human actions. We’ve also brought up Gods shared responsibility due to his foreknowledge of our nature upon creation. So you’re question is oversimplified and set up for the easy answer by ignoring the hard question.
And yet you’ve spent this whole thread telling us “how it is” that we are uninformed, asking the wrong questions, need to read the bible/study Hebrew, etc.
No that’s not the point. If I release venomous snakes into a pool of people, I share responsibility even if the snakes make the choice to bite.
He miserably failed because evil came right back after his mass murder fun
That would mean God is boind by some external force and not all powerful.
Then that means God is bound by some external force of possibility that pre existed God’s own creation. That doesnt make any sense. If God is eternal, timeless, and created the world, but is bound by some external force that limits his possibilities, then you are treading into polytheism.
Did God set the rules of what is possible to know? Or did those possibilities exist before God? Or have those possibilities always existed outside of God? When you actually think about this, it makes the concept of the Biblical God even more confusing. It’s just not worth rationalizing ancient mythology as reality.
I wouldn’t have minded God getting rid of evil by use of the flood - sin-natured man - if he’d done it.
But he didn’t!
He destroys everyone but leaves a sin-natured family alive, and they just start procreating and evil remains in the world because God didn’t eradicate it completely. This has never made sense to me.
How did the author intend his story to be understood? He flat out tells everyone. Mankind had been given a good thing, and they were messing it all up. Mankind took responsibility for their bad ways. Nor does the author flinch about telling how after the flood Noah started stumbling as well.
Today, JK Rowling tells a story and says that Voldemort is the bad guy. Do you take the position that Voldemort is really quite innocent, that it is all Dumbledore’s fault?
Yes. Harry Potter. The bible is harry potter.
I rest my case, Your Honor.
Then accept your loss graciously. The Bible tells the story of mankind’s relationship with God. It started with Adam and Eve when everything was good. By Noah’s time, the relationship was in trouble, testified to by man himself. When presented with an opportunity to start over, man began messing up once more. Take a look at Alex’s post. It is what he notes as well, except he blame the mess on God instead of considering the part mankind keeps playing.
Biblical authors are attempting to point people in the right direction, towards good.
What do you perceive as working better today? People blaming someone else if something goes wrong in their lives–or, people taking responsibility for what becomes skewed and fixing it rather than looking around for someone to blame?
Today, who are you blaming for what went wrong/is going wrong in your life? (Besides the God you do not believe in, of course.) Based on the willingness and quickness I see in placing blame here in a thread, I am guessing there is someone in real life as well.
That’s a good story. But I prefer harry potter
God. The almighty. Creator of all. Just isnt responsible for any of the messes of his creation. But hey if you want to blame the 6 year old for having leukemia I guess that’s ok? Evil isnt bound to human choice. Black plague. Next time yellowstone erupts I guess it’s our fault too.
I don’t blame God for anything. I don’t believe in fairy tales, remember?
I’m asking about the incnsistancies in the story you believe in. Your defense is interesting. Especially comparing the Bible to Harry Potter.
That I can certainly agree with you since the lack of evidence points to them both being works of fiction.
Perhaps we are finally getting somewhere. Back in ancient times there were no newspapers, no Encyclopedias, not even an Internet–if you can believe that. Lessons and information was passed on in the form of stories. Yes, I understand that a small segment of Christianity (especially in the 1970s) tried to convince everyone that the Bible should always be taken literally. Atheists gobbled up this idea like it was their favorite flavor of ice cream. They offer it as vindication for why they became atheists and why everyone else should become atheists as well. To this day, atheists act like all people of faith read the Bible literally.
Now you know something else about how people of faith think. Many of us grew up understanding it was the moral/theme of Bible stories that should be taken literally, but not always the story itself.
Yes. They are just stories. Just like Harry Potter. The difference is that people dont pray to harry potter and believe harry potter is real and try to rationalize every inconsistency in harry potter, just so they cant admit it’s a fiction.
