This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
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Notes -
Satan infamously tempted the Son of God with all of the world’s riches in exchange for obedience (Matthew 4:8). The Son of God declined and instead chose poverty, trial, oppression, and a torturous death in order to save his people. Rejecting riches in exchange for a promised land is deeply Abrahamic. It’s also very evolutionary, if we want to talk as strict atheists: they are making a bet that, if they succeed in winning against Israel, they will have a greater genetic proliferation than if they are evicted and sent to a random Arab nation.
A self-inflicted problem from head to Ghostly toe if I've ever heard of one.
Yes: That's what's necessary for God to be with us, and He loves us enough to do it.
To do the thing, He set up the rules to require Him to do? Not exactly making me feel the love, honestly.
You don't get to be the omnipotent, omniscient creator God, then also want kudos for solving some problem you created. The sacrifice of Jesus is only required because God wanted it to be so.
It's very theatrical I will give you that. God is clearly a drama queen if nothing else.
Not following, here.
Yes, that's what I just said. He wanted to be with us that badly. If He hadn't, He'd presumably have just not bothered with us or gone through that.
Still not sure what else you're implying. If God wants to marry us, which is rather what this whole thing is about, He wants a bride capable of choosing Him. That also means that we're capable of choosing to reject Him, hence everything else that happens.
Maybe you're suggesting that God could simply have created us capable of choosing Him and also incapable? If so I think your notion of 'omnipotence' is broken.
The original point was about God sacrificing his son to poverty, torture and death remember, thus illustrating His love for us. But since God is omnipotent, it was was entirely unnecessary. He could have snapped His fingers instead. It's theatrics.
Is Justice not a good enough answer? In the sense that when wrong is done, restitution must be made? If you accept it as a coherent argument that God's omnipotence doesn't allow him to make people love him of their own free will, it seems like you might also accept that God's omnipotence doesn't allow him to nullify the basic concept of justice either.
Absolutley it is. If there are universal laws that even God is bound by then that squares away a good chunk of inconsistencies. Finite God (in that God is merely hugely powerful but not truly omnipotent) is one of the more popular solutions to the problem of Theodicy.
Unfortunately, at least the Christians I was raised with (and I think most others?) insist that isn't true and He is entirely omnipotent.
Is the idea that a truly omnipotent God be able to, say, both exist and not exist, or redefine good and evil arbitrarily, while a God that could not do these things would be limited, hence not be omnipotent? ?
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