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My Question on omnipotent

Omnipotent this is a big word what does it mean?
I could google it, I have an idea what it means but if I have it wrong well then I could look like a fool. You do not come across it very much in Ireland.

RaymondNoble 3 Sep 2
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15 comments

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Q, as in the Star Trek charector considered himself Omnipotent. As good of an example as any since no omnipotent beings exist.

1

Omni = all
Potent = powerful
All-powerful.

With respect to god, omnipotence means god is entirely non-dependent on anything or anyone in any way. He does not have to get permission, justify himself, or plug in somewhere for a recharge.

It is basically just a way of saying "might makes right" so that people will not have the temerity to question god's Mysterious Ways even when they seem irrational, unfair, and/or unjust. Because god's ways are really the clergy's ways, back here in the real world.

That's why you have Catholics responding to the Pennsylvania AG report with fasting and prayer rather than taking actual responsibility, making sure that guilty heads roll, or doing anything rational to actually substantively address the problem.

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Deepak Chopra said that, "God," is a loaded term. There is much baggage to the term concerning good and evil and all of the myths. If you do not want to include the baggage, you might say, "omnipotent being," meaning all powerful.

MrDMC Level 7 Sep 3, 2018
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Ghostianity, And Humanity; what more can I say?

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go to the US and ask Trump!

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I regardless of the exact definition would place this in the area where i go out and have fun and feel remarkably safe anywhere. I could also put the word in any thought i had about why things happen and work with it as a limiting statement. It is perhaps a descriptive that occurs when charting i guess philosophy, I think.

3

Omnipotent = all powerful. A common invalid inference is that an omnipotent being can therefore do anything whatever; but this does not follow. Rather, what follows is that an omnipotent being can do anything that it takes power to do. So, for example, from the fact that no being can draw a square circle (or create a rock so big the it cannot move it), it does not follow that there is no omnipotent being, for these are logical impossibilities--rather than things that cannot be done because because of a power deficiency.

5

Viagra is supposed to help with the omnipotence problem.

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You could google it in a fraction of the time it takes to write about it. Strange to me so many people on this website don't seem to know how to use google and keep asking questions that they could easily look up themselves.

At least there aren't homework problems here as one finds all over Quora these days.

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a word you can never use without knowing your wrong

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All powerful. If God is all powerful, could God make a rock to heavy to lift?

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Omnipotent means all powerful.

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Impervious to all lest...Harlots.

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Ummm, all powerful. You know like our U.S. president 🙂 🙂 🙂

lerlo Level 8 Sep 2, 2018
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I had to learn the "essence box" at a young age... God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. All powerful, all seeing, and all knowing.

Lauxa Level 5 Sep 2, 2018

For me it was omnipotent (all powerful) omniscient (all knowing) and omnibenevolent (all good). Knowing everything and being all powerful kind of implies being everywhere and everywhen, although, my fundamentalist overlords wouldn't object to the attribute of omnipresence (present everywhere) but just didn't emphasize it. Probably a good thing, too, as they heaped enough guilt and shame on people without turning god into a voyeur as well.

The 3 "omnis" I listed are also the basis for the "Problem of Evil" (which I prefer to call the Problem of Suffering, plus, the initials POS are a nice double entendre). Which states that god cannot be all powerful, all knowing and all loving and stand by and permit any amount of human suffering. Logically he must not be at least one of those things, if not outright malignant.

Attempts to wiggle out of this powerful logical conundrum are called "theodicies" (thee-ODD-iss-ees) and no one has ever actually constructed one. I enjoy watching theists struggle with this inescapable trap -- although they usually hand-wave their way out of it, or think they do, it's still good clean fun watching them squirm.

@TheMiddleWay Point taken, and I don't really disagree. However, fundamentalism generally does not see a god who is not literally omnimax as a god worth worshipping. Ironically they soften their literalist leanings to give themselves wiggle room, but they would normally not see it as possible for god to, say, make a rock so big he couldn't lift it. Their hand-waving argument there would be that god's ways are beyond mere human understanding and they have faith that it all makes sense even if it doesn't seem to.

And the fact remains that even if god is subject to a self-imposed limitation, it's still a limitation, and he's still rendered less than all-powerful. And they DO teach that god is entirely non-dependent and non-contingent on anything or anyone else and acts totally without any constraints -- else he would not BE god. And it is on them to deal with the cognitive dissonance of that, not me. In fact I delight in increasing their cognitive dissonance around it.

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