Quillette: Progressive Creationism: A Review of ‘A Dangerous Idea’

[Antiboyscout]

How do you know? You are not omnipotent.

Omnipotence means you have unlimited power. If you're omnipotent, you by definition, are able to make yourself completely clear right off the bat.

First, just because God does not follow your morality does not make God immoral. You wish to dictate to others instead of letting them figure out things on their own. God cannot be because God does not make the decisions I would is the height of arrogance.

Second, can God create something too heavy for God to lift? Why does omnipotence create this inherent contradiction? Maybe the problem is not with God but with the term.

First, the problem isn't about morality. The problem is that all these scriptures say that they are perfect and divinely inspired or written. If a god is omnipotent, the scripture is self-declared to be perfect, and there are all kinds of errors that need to be explained, the only conclusion following the premises is that they didn't want to be clear to begin with. This leads to a pile of other questions (particularly if being honest is one of the things the scripture says to do).

Second:

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3413.html

Only the Quran claims to be the direct word of God. Divine inspiration is not the same thing.

[Darth Wedgius]

I've heard two definitions of omnipotence. There's the classic "Can do anything" definition, which leads to the make-a-rock-too-heavy-to-lift paradox, and then there's the "Can do anything that can be done" definition, which I think avoids it. For the second, "omnipotent" would mean having all power that exists, rather than all power that could exist.

[Madner Kami]

I've heard two definitions of omnipotence. There's the classic "Can do anything" definition, which leads to the make-a-rock-too-heavy-to-lift paradox, and then there's the "Can do anything that can be done" definition, which I think avoids it. For the second, "omnipotent" would mean having all power that exists, rather than all power that could exist.

So being a normal human being then, given we can do everything that can be done or are working hard on doing things that should be doable? The second definition of "omnipotence" makes the word completely pointless.

[Darth Wedgius]

I've heard two definitions of omnipotence. There's the classic "Can do anything" definition, which leads to the make-a-rock-too-heavy-to-lift paradox, and then there's the "Can do anything that can be done" definition, which I think avoids it. For the second, "omnipotent" would mean having all power that exists, rather than all power that could exist.

So being a normal human being then, given we can do everything that can be done or are working hard on doing things that should be doable? The second definition of "omnipotence" makes the word completely pointless.

Not at all. If God could create a rock ex nihilo, that's something a human cannot do, but it doesn't lead to paradoxes in and of itself.

[Madner Kami]

I've heard two definitions of omnipotence. There's the classic "Can do anything" definition, which leads to the make-a-rock-too-heavy-to-lift paradox, and then there's the "Can do anything that can be done" definition, which I think avoids it. For the second, "omnipotent" would mean having all power that exists, rather than all power that could exist.

So being a normal human being then, given we can do everything that can be done or are working hard on doing things that should be doable? The second definition of "omnipotence" makes the word completely pointless.

Not at all. If God could create a rock ex nihilo, that's something a human cannot do, but it doesn't lead to paradoxes in and of itself.

Except you can't create a rock out of literal nothing (no energy or matter-conversion). If you can do that, you are plain back where you started out: Magic and magic can do things that are physically impossible and this automatically leads to paradoxes.

[Darth Wedgius]

I've heard two definitions of omnipotence. There's the classic "Can do anything" definition, which leads to the make-a-rock-too-heavy-to-lift paradox, and then there's the "Can do anything that can be done" definition, which I think avoids it. For the second, "omnipotent" would mean having all power that exists, rather than all power that could exist.

So being a normal human being then, given we can do everything that can be done or are working hard on doing things that should be doable? The second definition of "omnipotence" makes the word completely pointless.

Not at all. If God could create a rock ex nihilo, that's something a human cannot do, but it doesn't lead to paradoxes in and of itself.

Except you can't create a rock out of literal nothing (no energy or matter-conversion). If you can do that, you are plain back where you started out: Magic and magic can do things that are physically impossible and this automatically leads to paradoxes.

Magic doing the otherwise impossible doesn't have to lead to paradoxes. Only if magic can do anything you want. If God can create a rock that He cannot lift, the rock creation is something humans can't do, but if lifting that rock is impossible then by this definition of omnipotence you don't have a paradox.