Why Isn't The World More Perfect?

[Guest Rhino]

Why would God need to change his mind, if he knew the outcome in the beginning? If he did know the results ahead of time, then Jonah was being used as an instrument to ensure they coformed to his will. This would mean that Jonah had no real agency in this case. My prime example: the fish. While we may have agency, the fish did not. Which means it was god who performed this act and FORCED Jonah to peform his will. Not alot of agency for Jonah in this case...

 

 

Why does everyone always argue from the perspective that there is only one possible outcome? One possible future that God has seen. What if He's seen all possible futures. What if God's foreknowledge is more than just knowing what is going to happen, it's knowing all the possibilites of what could happen given every possible decision on every possible level?

 

I'm not saying that's how it works, just thinking out loud.

 

Just a thought.

 

r

[Ouroboros]

Of course that's a though. But consider this, if a chess player consider all possible moves in a chess game, and he does it before the game starts, wouldn't you say it has nothing to do with what actually will happen? For instance if I roll a dice and shout out the number that it's going to show before it stops, but I decide to cover all bases by shouting all numbers between 1 to 6, did I foretell the future?

[Anakin]

Why does everyone always argue from the perspective that there is only one possible outcome? One possible future that God has seen. What if He's seen all possible futures. What if God's foreknowledge is more than just knowing what is going to happen, it's knowing all the possibilites of what could happen given every possible decision on every possible level?

 

I'm not saying that's how it works, just thinking out loud.

 

Just a thought.

I see what you're saying. However, it leaves the question open if god is "all-knowing".

If god knows all, then it doesn't matter how many possibilities are out there. God would

know the exact course that will be taken. If there are many possible futures then that would

be limiting god's knowledge. In order for there to be many possibilities there would

need to be a lack of complete knowledge. I like the chess player analogy from HanSolo.

The player analyzes the board and considers all possible moves. He does not know the future

therefore for him there will be many possibilities. If the chess player is omniscient, the game is over

before it started. There are no possibilities. Every exact move that will be made is already known.

In order for there to be many possible moves for the players there has to be lack of knowledge.

That lack of knowledge removes the possibility of being all-knowing.

[mwc]

So, from reading these latest posts, it seems that it needs to be understood what being omniscient really is and go from there.

 

I've heard a few ideas. Off the top of my head I recall:

 

1) God simply had all knowledge, down to the smallest details, from the "beginning" (whatever that is for something that had no origin). This is what I would call the most common usage from my experience (and how I personally see things).

 

2) God does not really "know" everything as much as has access to all knowledge. This leads to the further assumption that he has an index of all "things" but no details of them until he decides to go "look it up." So he'd know of an "mwc" but until he researched me he wouldn't know all my details (even though he essentially possesses that knowledge already...I guess it's a recall issue). This allows god to "know" and yet not "know" at the same time (which to me sounds like a giant apologetic loophole).

 

3) A variation on number two which allows god to "forget" or "ignore" information selectively. He already possesses all information, and "knows" it as well, until there's something he doesn't want to know then he sort of gets amnesia. This has the problem of how does god know what he "forgot" in case he needs that information later.

 

4) One that was already offered by someone else that god knows everything that is and also everything that might have been or might still be. This way since god knows all possibilities he can then determine which path is the best path to take. This, to me, has the problem that there was a single start, everything branched into what would be an infinite number of paths and then all those paths collapse back into a single ending.

 

That's all I could think of for now. It seems that other than number one on the list that god really doesn't know everything all at once but is that a requirement of all knowing? Could you also be all knowing by simply knowing everything that the current situation requires? I know this is twisting the word a bit but no more than the people I got these ideas from in the first place.

 

After glancing back on this list it seems that knowledge is also bound with time. How does time work for god? Ignoring the fact that he should be inert existing outside time this means he exists in all points of time simultaneously meaning he's always in the present at all times without a past or future (all events take place in a single point in his view). He could also move linearly along the timeline with us but also has the ability to "know" everything else on the timeline or can randomly jump between points (like time travel in a way) to "see" what has or will happen making it look like he "knows" the future (this would be like having a book and either reading it "normally" start to finish in order or skipping around randomly or to the end to see what happens or who did it).

 

Anyone got anymore or some corrections?

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

mwc, I've been thinking about those things too, but you even put in a bit more.

 

But here's what I'd like to know, how does God store all the information? We know that all data of any kind has to be represented in a storage of some kind. RAM in the computer, nerve cells in the brain. So how can God store in his brain data for all possible outcomes (futures), and all possible pasts? Is he then just an infinite possibility machine without any direction? How can he have free will if he's going to make the decisions for all possible outcomes anyway? The ramification of this is that the data is exploding in volume, not exponetionally but in power of every possible outcome, which is infinite. So the data storage is infinite in the power of infinte in the power of infinte in the... (infinite formula).

 

Your 4th point actually sounds similar to Hawkins flexiverse.

[mwc]

mwc, I've been thinking about those things too, but you even put in a bit more.

 

But here's what I'd like to know, how does God store all the information?

Hmmm...I don't know. A really cool PDA?

 

Your answer brings up yet another thought. Now we need to find yet another attribute of god and explain it. Not only what does god know but how does he know it? This, to me at least, seems to be the basis for all the claims that god is infinately complex and unknowable. Trying to understand what a god might be and how that god might work is what is unknowable. If god were to reveal itself then these answers should be a lot easier but just speculating creates an impossible task. I've been in on meetings where the customer wants to keep adding "one more little thing" but they don't realize that seemingly simple item raises the complexity almost exponentially in some cases (sometimes to the point where an entire redesign is needed). This seems to be the nature of what people call god. The premise sounds simple but the implementation is extremely complicated to the point of being impossible. Just like the customer in the meeting, people don't see the problem with their expectations but with your limitations of implementation (meaning it's my fault I don't understand god instead of the definition of god is unrealistic).

 

So how can God store in his brain data for all possible outcomes (futures), and all possible pasts? Is he then just an infinite possibility machine without any direction?

This seems to be the case. By allowing god all possibilities it really diminishes his ability to exersize the control that is attributed to him. The same applies to jesus and final judgement. Really he boils down to a simple binary sorting machine. Do you believe in me yes or no? If yes, go to heaven else go to hell. There's really no judgement at all.

 

How can he have free will if he's going to make the decisions for all possible outcomes anyway? The ramification of this is that the data is exploding in volume, not exponetionally but in power of every possible outcome, which is infinite. So the data storage is infinite in the power of infinte in the power of infinte in the... (infinite formula).

To me no matter who knows what the future is, whether it's me you or god, that forces that future to occur. If we ignore what I just said though and simply accept that god knows all possibilities and "guides" us to the "best" paths then that doesn't remove individual freedom so much as group freedom which is just as bad. If we, as a whole, can't nuke the planet so no one is left for jesus to return for then our freedom is not complete. We should be able to obliterate ourselves entirely robbing god of the outcome in Revelation but we cannot since those events must supposedly occur (if I were Satan this would be my plan since if I simply destroyed the earth all the billions of unsaved souls would be mine and god could not destroy me or pass judgement on anyone since the predicted end times never could come).

 

The problem, as you know, when dealing with infinite and eternity is that they're really meaningless when it comes to these things. What is infinate storage? It can't be defined, and for us, it could never be accessed (how do you tell a computer to reference an infinite address in memory?). The counter argument is that god is infinite so what you describe is well within its capabilities. If you could know all the possible possibilities past, present and future then you've created an extremely large yet finite set. This could be addressed of course. But this assumes that all possibilities could be known. What if there's a piece of knowledge that exists but god is not aware that he is unaware of it? He would assume all knowledge but not actually have it. How could god ever know he really knew everything since there's no way to verify this? Essentially stating that there are an infinite number of things to know, even though god might have infinite knowledge storage ability, would mean that god could never know everything. It's odd how infinite appears to equal infinite but since they can't cancel each other out this proves they're not equal and therefore simply defining god as infinite does not mean he can know the infinite number of things there are to know and it also means he never will. So god either doesn't know everything or the amount of knowledge to obtain is finite and therefore gods knowledge is finite (even if it is massive).

 

To put the above a slightly different (and hopefully more concise) way. If we're correct and PI is an infinite, non-repeating, number then god cannot know what PI is anymore than we can. He could quote digits for all eternity and never know the complete answer.

 

Your 4th point actually sounds similar to Hawkins flexiverse.

Never heard of this. I'll have to go look it up.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

Your 4th point actually sounds similar to Hawkins flexiverse.

Never heard of this. I'll have to go look it up.

 

mwc

Just read about it recently.

 

Hawkin's and Hartle's Flexiverse is build on the idea of superpositions of quarks. All possible outcomes exists until an observation is done. They have a hypothesis that the universe have existsed in all possible outcomes, until we're observing it now. So in essence, the past is not what makes us, but we are making the past.

 

If this is true, then let's say in the future there will be a super-being left when the universe collapses or whatever happens to it. That super-beings observations establishes his past, which is us, our time. So a completely and extreme idea here is that that being is the sleeping god. He doesn't exist now, but he will one day, and his actions then are what is making us now. But we all are him, and he will be us. I know, it's just a stupid idea.

[mwc]

I finally found an article on the whole flexiverse thing (that I didn't have to pay to read) and it is strange but not really more than any of the other quantum physics things I've seen.

 

I have to agree that it's hard to go from the beginning to now since we have no idea what the beginning was like. The theory also works within the strangeness of what (little) I know of quantum physics.

 

What I don't see is that we're making our own history. To me it looks like they're saying that all the possible universes are simply the same universe with different quantum states. This would be like a multiverse in a way. When we look at how things are right now, all the possibilities cancel out until we're left with the universe (and it's history) that allows us to see what we see. To choose our own past to me says that if we suddenly all decide to see things a different way that a different past will take the place of the one we observe today in order to make that new view a reality. I took it to mean that if I were in a different quantum state (and therefore in a "different" universe) that doing the exact same thing would cause a collapse into the history that made that universe possible. So our history is not in a constant state of flux although all histories, in essence, are. It also seems to indicate that the more accurate our measurements are the better the cancellation effect becomes giving a more accurate view of our cosmic history.

 

Further, unless your theoretical "sleeping god," is with us in this quantum state that his observations would collapse a universe that makes his universe possible. There might be a version of "us" there but it wouldn't really be us since we're in a different state. It also means this being could somehow destroy his universe and it probably wouldn't affect us at all.

 

But I could be wrong. I only read the article a few minutes before posting all this.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

I think you're hitting one of the points that I have a problem with too with the flexiverse. How can an observations be the same as making or choosing? It's just an observation.

 

The sleeping god doesn't have to be with us, since we're not with the past. We're the "collapsed" result of the past.

 

The flexiverse is a weird theory. I always like to keep my options open.

 

I was trying to find a free article for you, but couldn't. The reason I didn't quote the whole article is because of the copyright, and it's a pay site. So if you have the other free link, I can compare the contents and fill in if somethings missing or different.

[mwc]

The flexiverse is a weird theory. I always like to keep my options open.

Yep, but I think this about most quantum physics. It's still a hell of a lot better than trying to explain the godhead though.

 

I was trying to find a free article for you, but couldn't. The reason I didn't quote the whole article is because of the copyright, and it's a pay site. So if you have the other free link, I can compare the contents and fill in if somethings missing or different.

I found the entire article quoted in Google groups. THe folks in usenet don't really care about copyright so much. If you want to look I think I just used flexiverse as the keyword.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

Then it's probably a copy of the article in New Scientist.

[mwc]

Then it's probably a copy of the article in New Scientist.

Yep it is.

 

mwc

[EdwardAbbey]

God is good, they say. In fact, Christians go much further and say that God is perfect. If so, why did he create such an imperfect world? You will probably cite "The Fall" saying the world was perfect before sin entered it, but this just raises more questions:

 

1. Why did a perfect God allow sin to be created? John 1:3 says "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." Couldn't an omnipotent deity keep sin out?

 

2. What was the purpose of the Flood? Genesis 6:7 says "So the LORD said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air - for I am grieved that I have made them.'" So isn't perfect God admitting he made a mistake? And in what way was the post-Flood world less wicked than the pre-Flood one?

 

3. Why does a loving, forgiving, perfect, omnipotent god need a sacrifice of blood for sin? We are suppose to forgive freely, but God didn't. He required blood.

 

There are other questions related to this theme, but I think that's enough to get us started.

 

Good questions. But about the only answers you're going to get from fundies are nothing more than cop out responses. They will go out of their way to prop up the God myth.

 

The overall answer is that such a God is impossible and does not exist.