"Nonsense" about Christianity

[Seven Words]

'Cause it felt like it?

Possibly.....but that doesn't really answer the question.

[Cail]

Why does it need to?

[Seven Words]

Christianity (according to EVERY Christian I have ever spoken to) contains answers for ALL questions a person might have. Yet this question arising from the very first page of the Word of God, cannot be answered meaningfully. To me, this is a serious problem, affecting the credibility (for want of a better term) of the faith. This issue may well NOT be an issue to many people, including non-Christians. But it demonstrates a logical flaw at the very foundation of the entire belief structure.

[Cail]

I'm not aware of any Biblical claim of the Bible holding all the answers to everything. I don't see the Colonel's secret chicken recipe in there either, doesn't mean I don't believe in it. If you accept an omniscient, omnipotent God, how can you possibly expect to understand His motivation(s)?

I'm not trying to belittle your beliefs, but you're hinging it on something that (to me and pretty much everyone I've ever discussed religion with) doesn't matter.

[Seven Words]

OK, that's a different question there....omniscient and omnipotent.

Saying it's beyond human understanding seems to me to be a cop-out. Why must God be beyond human understanding? For that matter, if God IS truly beyond our understanding, how can we know we're living according to His Will?

I just have no reason (meaning ANY objective demonstrable evidence) to accept the existence of the Christian concept of God. or ANY concept of God.

[Cail]

Got kids? Do you tell them why you do everything you do?

Seriously, the nature of any god, be it the Christian God or any other deity, is bound to be beyond our comprehension.

Why are you hung up on why He created? Seriously, what does it matter?

[Xar]

OK, that's a different question there....omniscient and omnipotent.

Saying it's beyond human understanding seems to me to be a cop-out. Why must God be beyond human understanding? For that matter, if God IS truly beyond our understanding, how can we know we're living according to His Will?

I just have no reason (meaning ANY objective demonstrable evidence) to accept the existence of the Christian concept of God. or ANY concept of God.

To backtrack a little bit... if you DID have any objective demonstrable evidence pointing out unequivocably to the existence of a Supreme Being, wouldn't that automatically deprive you of the freedom of not believing in Him, simply due to the fact you would KNOW God existed? If you had proof of God's existence, you might still not worship Him, but you would not be able to deny He existed in the first place, would you? And assuming you were not insane, and that, say, Christianity was entirely right about how to get to Heaven, you would be limited in choosing only one of two possibilities: the choice of behaving in the appropriate way and get to Heaven, or the "choice of Satan", so to speak... "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", or in other words, the choice of NOT behaving in the appropriate way (whatever the reason) with full knowledge you would be forsaking your eternity in Heaven.

I'm not sure whether I can get my point across... the way I see it, the moment God's existence can be unequivocably demonstrated, mankind's free will is greatly weakened because you only have two choices left to you.

[Seven Words]

I have my own beliefs. Changing my beliefs (which are, I freely admit, based upon SUBJECTIVE experiences) requires OBJECTIVE reasons. Sound logic and consistency are essential. I find both lacking in Christianity, as well as most other faiths. But if Jesus Christ were to appear to me and remind me of Scriptural passages I favored from when I was very devout as a child, that SUBJECTIVE experience would be more than sufficient, logic and consistency be damned (pun intended).

[rdhopeca]

OK, that's a different question there....omniscient and omnipotent.

Saying it's beyond human understanding seems to me to be a cop-out. Why must God be beyond human understanding? For that matter, if God IS truly beyond our understanding, how can we know we're living according to His Will?

I just have no reason (meaning ANY objective demonstrable evidence) to accept the existence of the Christian concept of God. or ANY concept of God.

To backtrack a little bit... if you DID have any objective demonstrable evidence pointing out unequivocably to the existence of a Supreme Being, wouldn't that automatically deprive you of the freedom of not believing in Him, simply due to the fact you would KNOW God existed? If you had proof of God's existence, you might still not worship Him, but you would not be able to deny He existed in the first place, would you? And assuming you were not insane, and that, say, Christianity was entirely right about how to get to Heaven, you would be limited in choosing only one of two possibilities: the choice of behaving in the appropriate way and get to Heaven, or the "choice of Satan", so to speak... "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", or in other words, the choice of NOT behaving in the appropriate way (whatever the reason) with full knowledge you would be forsaking your eternity in Heaven.

I'm not sure whether I can get my point across... the way I see it, the moment God's existence can be unequivocably demonstrated, mankind's free will is greatly weakened because you only have two choices left to you.

How do you figure that? Even if He steps off the ocean water into New York City this afternoon, you still have as many choices as you did before He did so. Otherwise, how much free will would people who believe in Him have, including those who claim to believe while committing murder? Proof of His existence does not change anyone's freedom. They are equally clear to believe or not, or to claim to believe or not, and continue as before.

What HAS changed is the objective viability of the consequences of their actions.

[Xar]

I have my own beliefs. Changing my beliefs (which are, I freely admit, based upon SUBJECTIVE experiences) requires OBJECTIVE reasons. Sound logic and consistency are essential. I find both lacking in Christianity, as well as most other faiths. But if Jesus Christ were to appear to me and remind me of Scriptural passages I favored from when I was very devout as a child, that SUBJECTIVE experience would be more than sufficient, logic and consistency be damned (pun intended).

Once you had an epiphany due to the unmistakable visitation of God (or Christ, or...) in all His glory, what would you do? If you knew without any doubt that God is real (and, let's say, that Christianity was right all along)? Either you accept that faith (an acceptance which is cheapened by the fact that you did it only because God visited you in no uncertain terms, or in other words, that you chose to "join the winning side" only once you knew they were such) or you reject it. Let me offer a comparison: imagine there were a dark cave, and inside it someone told you there could be either an enormous treasure, or a very hungry predator. You have no clue as to which of the two possibilities is true (in fact, you don't even know what the treasure really is, although you know it's very valuable). You don't even know if either of the two is possible: it might be that the cave is empty. As things stand, you simply have no way to know unless you enter the cave. Now, if you put different people in this situation, they'll react differently. Some will enter no matter what; others will refuse to enter, again no matter what; some will try to come up with ways to find out what's in the cave; some will try to talk to the person who brought them there, hoping to coax truth out of them; others will try to figure out logically whether entering is worth whatever treasure is at the end; and so on. Their responses will be as varied as the people who take part in this.
But now let's change the rules. Let's say you're brought in front of the cave, only now the cave is lit and you can clearly see there's a wondrous treasure inside. You are told you can go in and take the treasure, there are no traps and no guardians. Now, if you place the same number of people in front of this cave, the responses will be much less varied: a few will ponder what strings may be attached to the treasure, and even fewer will just refuse to go in, either thinking it's a trap or because they simply don't want the treasure. But by and large, most will enter to get the treasure. Don't you think, however, that those guys in the first cave, who chose to enter it despite the fact they didn't know what was inside, however foolhardy many of them may have been, earned the treasure more than those for whom taking it was so simple?

Personally I think that I'd rather choose to worship God or not without knowing for sure whether He exists, and in so doing braving the dark cave not knowing what's inside... if nothing else, in case I'm right and God is there, I'll know it was my own free decision to do so, and I'll feel that finding God was much more valuable precisely because of the risk I took to find Him.

[Cail]

Personally I think that I'd rather choose to worship God or not without knowing for sure whether He exists, and in so doing braving the dark cave not knowing what's inside... if nothing else, in case I'm right and God is there, I'll know it was my own free decision to do so, and I'll feel that finding God was much more valuable precisely because of the risk I took to find Him.

Well put.

[Xar]

OK, that's a different question there....omniscient and omnipotent.

Saying it's beyond human understanding seems to me to be a cop-out. Why must God be beyond human understanding? For that matter, if God IS truly beyond our understanding, how can we know we're living according to His Will?

I just have no reason (meaning ANY objective demonstrable evidence) to accept the existence of the Christian concept of God. or ANY concept of God.

To backtrack a little bit... if you DID have any objective demonstrable evidence pointing out unequivocably to the existence of a Supreme Being, wouldn't that automatically deprive you of the freedom of not believing in Him, simply due to the fact you would KNOW God existed? If you had proof of God's existence, you might still not worship Him, but you would not be able to deny He existed in the first place, would you? And assuming you were not insane, and that, say, Christianity was entirely right about how to get to Heaven, you would be limited in choosing only one of two possibilities: the choice of behaving in the appropriate way and get to Heaven, or the "choice of Satan", so to speak... "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", or in other words, the choice of NOT behaving in the appropriate way (whatever the reason) with full knowledge you would be forsaking your eternity in Heaven.

I'm not sure whether I can get my point across... the way I see it, the moment God's existence can be unequivocably demonstrated, mankind's free will is greatly weakened because you only have two choices left to you.

How do you figure that? Even if He steps off the ocean water into New York City this afternoon, you still have as many choices as you did before He did so. Otherwise, how much free will would people who believe in Him have, including those who claim to believe while committing murder? Proof of His existence does not change anyone's freedom. They are equally clear to believe or not, or to claim to believe or not, and continue as before.

What HAS changed is the objective viability of the consequences of their actions.

Which is the exact reason why the number of viable choices people can make is so drastically altered. Faced with an objective truth, you can only accept its implications or reject it: what other choices do you have? But when you ARE faced by an objective truth, there is an even more fundamental issue to realize: whether you accept what it means or not, you have no choice but to believe in it. If you were unequivocally faced by God, you could still choose whether to worship Him or not, of course; but whatever the choice, it wouldn't change the fact you would not be able not to BELIEVE in Him anymore... After all, if you'll forgive this, when faced with a chair which you can touch, see, smell, and so on... well, you can choose to sit on it or not, but that doesn't change the fact you know for certain the chair is there. You CAN'T deny the chair's existence.

[Linna Heartbooger]

One fundamental question that leaps to my mind about Christianity stems from the very beginning of the Bible. I'll try and lay it out in simple step by step logical phrasing...not out of condescension or sarcasm, but for maximum clarity.

1. In the Beginning was God.

2. God was/is perfect.

3. God created.

Why is there a #3? Perfection, by definition, cannot be improved upon....why would a perfect Being need to create?

Oooh, ooh, ooh! I wanna take this one! Meee, mee! *raises hand and waves it vigorously in the air!*

What philosophical framework do you think you tend to work from, Seven? Where do you think that you got that assumption from? That perfection would cause one to have no desire to create? It sounds like you're concerned that the Christian God seems like a "needy" god who was seeking love to fill His own needs?

Since I'm doing an analogy that's human rather than divine, I'll say "a wonderful person" rather than "a perfect person." Wouldn't a wonderful artist desire to CREATE something wonderful? If an artist is a good artist, and is in a emotionally-healthy sort of place, isn't it that person's NATURE to create? Wouldn't a wonderful gift-giving, loving person want to pour out their love and to see someone else happy? I know that's by no means an airtight argument, but let me know what you think.

Also, aren't you assuming that God created us as EXTENSIONS of Himself rather than as separate beings capable of giving and receiving love? Have you been around alot of parents who treat their children as extensions of themselves, rather than separate persons with their own desires and personalities?

I am not trying to say this should invalidate anyone's faith...it is simply one of the first and biggest reasons I don't share the Christian faith.

Of the Christians who I have discussed faith with, the answer has been (when they would answer), "We simply have to believe, we can't know why because He is so much greater than we are." Which isn't an answer at all.

I'm sorry your question gets trivialized alot... I think it's a great question.

[rdhopeca]

To backtrack a little bit... if you DID have any objective demonstrable evidence pointing out unequivocably to the existence of a Supreme Being, wouldn't that automatically deprive you of the freedom of not believing in Him, simply due to the fact you would KNOW God existed? If you had proof of God's existence, you might still not worship Him, but you would not be able to deny He existed in the first place, would you? And assuming you were not insane, and that, say, Christianity was entirely right about how to get to Heaven, you would be limited in choosing only one of two possibilities: the choice of behaving in the appropriate way and get to Heaven, or the "choice of Satan", so to speak... "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven", or in other words, the choice of NOT behaving in the appropriate way (whatever the reason) with full knowledge you would be forsaking your eternity in Heaven.

I'm not sure whether I can get my point across... the way I see it, the moment God's existence can be unequivocably demonstrated, mankind's free will is greatly weakened because you only have two choices left to you.

How do you figure that? Even if He steps off the ocean water into New York City this afternoon, you still have as many choices as you did before He did so. Otherwise, how much free will would people who believe in Him have, including those who claim to believe while committing murder? Proof of His existence does not change anyone's freedom. They are equally clear to believe or not, or to claim to believe or not, and continue as before.

What HAS changed is the objective viability of the consequences of their actions.

Which is the exact reason why the number of viable choices people can make is so drastically altered. Faced with an objective truth, you can only accept its implications or reject it: what other choices do you have? But when you ARE faced by an objective truth, there is an even more fundamental issue to realize: whether you accept what it means or not, you have no choice but to believe in it. If you were unequivocally faced by God, you could still choose whether to worship Him or not, of course; but whatever the choice, it wouldn't change the fact you would not be able not to BELIEVE in Him anymore... After all, if you'll forgive this, when faced with a chair which you can touch, see, smell, and so on... well, you can choose to sit on it or not, but that doesn't change the fact you know for certain the chair is there. You CAN'T deny the chair's existence.

How do you explain, then, the actions of those who already accept the truth of God's existence? If your argument were true, and the objective truth that God existed would radically limit the choices of man, do you explain the horrible choices of some of those who already accept that truth?

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

[Vraith]

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

I was writing a response to the stuff before, then saw this one, and have to say PRECISELY! The only change if you know for SURE is a good one..then peoples actions [good or bad] have an actual basis for judgement instead of a wished, fantasized, assumed, hoped, authoritarian, or dreamed basis. Religions only call it a test of faith (those that do, some don't believe in this) because they don't know either...A human cop-out for what might be the most important question. [And why would God spend so much time testing the faith of already-believers, instead of revealing himself to those outside the faith?]
There are good ways to answer this problem [Cail for instance...multiple paths...though some Christian groups would say he's going to hell for that, others disagree]

[rusmeister]

How do you figure that? Even if He steps off the ocean water into New York City this afternoon, you still have as many choices as you did before He did so. Otherwise, how much free will would people who believe in Him have, including those who claim to believe while committing murder? Proof of His existence does not change anyone's freedom. They are equally clear to believe or not, or to claim to believe or not, and continue as before.

What HAS changed is the objective viability of the consequences of their actions.

Which is the exact reason why the number of viable choices people can make is so drastically altered. Faced with an objective truth, you can only accept its implications or reject it: what other choices do you have? But when you ARE faced by an objective truth, there is an even more fundamental issue to realize: whether you accept what it means or not, you have no choice but to believe in it. If you were unequivocally faced by God, you could still choose whether to worship Him or not, of course; but whatever the choice, it wouldn't change the fact you would not be able not to BELIEVE in Him anymore... After all, if you'll forgive this, when faced with a chair which you can touch, see, smell, and so on... well, you can choose to sit on it or not, but that doesn't change the fact you know for certain the chair is there. You CAN'T deny the chair's existence.

How do you explain, then, the actions of those who already accept the truth of God's existence? If your argument were true, and the objective truth that God existed would radically limit the choices of man, do you explain the horrible choices of some of those who already accept that truth?

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

Two thoughts:
One, if Godzilla is standing over you, you would be overawed - you might even go wee-wee in your drawers. Room to say "I don't believe in Godzilla and I'm going to go on living as if he didn't exist" just doesn't exist any more. You will adapt to the revelation - the new reality - and run like $#@!
Two: if that Being demanded special respect and obedience to certain precepts, you would be left with submission or rebellion. The first, roughly speaking, is heaven, the second is hell.
The horrible choices you refer to are made by people who precisely do not have such an epiphany - a clear manifestation of God 'standing over them'. They are acting, like we all are, on faith or lack thereof - and nearly always the latter.

[rusmeister]

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

I was writing a response to the stuff before, then saw this one, and have to say PRECISELY! The only change if you know for SURE is a good one..then peoples actions [good or bad] have an actual basis for judgement instead of a wished, fantasized, assumed, hoped, authoritarian, or dreamed basis. Religions only call it a test of faith (those that do, some don't believe in this) because they don't know either...A human cop-out for what might be the most important question. [And why would God spend so much time testing the faith of already-believers, instead of revealing himself to those outside the faith?]
There are good ways to answer this problem [Cail for instance...multiple paths...though some Christian groups would say he's going to hell for that, others disagree]

Actually, there's another answer to that last question, Vraith, and you can find it in the story of Abraham being told to sacrifice his son Isaac.

God, being outside of time, "knew" what Abraham would do. It was Abraham who didn't know it and needed to know where he stood. The testing is for our sakes, not God's. A faith is not worth much that requires nothing. It is when the stakes are incredibly high, when everything depends on it, that faith matters.

I wonder why you include the word "authoritarian" together with "assumed", "wished" and "fantasized". Authoritarian is essentially the opposite. It merely involves acknowledging that there is authority in the world that knows more than we do. If you know how little the individual knows, it ought to be obvious that we must all accept some kind of authority to know anything, and it begins with accepting parental authority as children. The child who does progresses far more than the child who doesn't. Thus, Christians like me who accept a Church as authority admit that there are repositories of wisdom beyond anything we could personally hope to accumulate or even understand. But we find that what we do understand makes sense of everything that we know - that it really is true, just as the parent tells the child that soon spring will soon come and buds burst forth on trees, and lo, they do just that!

The Church, for example, tells me that all men are sinners, that all violate the moral pressure we feel inside us that we call 'conscience' to do what we (the selfish ego) want in spite of that, that we place our good ahead of others, and lo, I find it to be true (esp when I drive in traffic)! Etc.

[rdhopeca]

Which is the exact reason why the number of viable choices people can make is so drastically altered. Faced with an objective truth, you can only accept its implications or reject it: what other choices do you have? But when you ARE faced by an objective truth, there is an even more fundamental issue to realize: whether you accept what it means or not, you have no choice but to believe in it. If you were unequivocally faced by God, you could still choose whether to worship Him or not, of course; but whatever the choice, it wouldn't change the fact you would not be able not to BELIEVE in Him anymore... After all, if you'll forgive this, when faced with a chair which you can touch, see, smell, and so on... well, you can choose to sit on it or not, but that doesn't change the fact you know for certain the chair is there. You CAN'T deny the chair's existence.

How do you explain, then, the actions of those who already accept the truth of God's existence? If your argument were true, and the objective truth that God existed would radically limit the choices of man, do you explain the horrible choices of some of those who already accept that truth?

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

Two thoughts:
One, if Godzilla is standing over you, you would be overawed - you might even go wee-wee in your drawers. Room to say "I don't believe in Godzilla and I'm going to go on living as if he didn't exist" just doesn't exist any more. You will adapt to the revelation - the new reality - and run like $#@!
Two: if that Being demanded special respect and obedience to certain precepts, you would be left with submission or rebellion. The first, roughly speaking, is heaven, the second is hell.
The horrible choices you refer to are made by people who precisely do not have such an epiphany - a clear manifestation of God 'standing over them'. They are acting, like we all are, on faith or lack thereof - and nearly always the latter.

You are dodging the question. How do you justify the behavior of people who claim to believe in the scenario outlined? Basically the argument is "once you see objective proof of God, your choices are limited", when reality shows us that those who already believe are making a great amount of choices, some poor, some wonderful.

And if you are not, well, the Church at several times over its history has said, "God is great, let's go kill as many people as we can because they don't agree with us" (I believe your Chesterton even said that this was justifiable). I suppose we can then put God on the same level as Godzilla, and those people who saw Him and believed pissed their pants before deciding to pull their swords and go marching on to the destruction of all "sinners" in their path. I am quite certain they were not acting on a "lack of faith", at least not in how its presented historically.

Oops, that's right. Only your Orthodox history is accurate. The rest is merely dreck on paper. I forgot that little detail.

[Xar]

How do you explain, then, the actions of those who already accept the truth of God's existence? If your argument were true, and the objective truth that God existed would radically limit the choices of man, do you explain the horrible choices of some of those who already accept that truth?

Seems to me the choices to kill, do harm, etc etc would still be available to people. I don't see any practical limitation to the choices availabe at all.

Two thoughts:
One, if Godzilla is standing over you, you would be overawed - you might even go wee-wee in your drawers. Room to say "I don't believe in Godzilla and I'm going to go on living as if he didn't exist" just doesn't exist any more. You will adapt to the revelation - the new reality - and run like $#@!
Two: if that Being demanded special respect and obedience to certain precepts, you would be left with submission or rebellion. The first, roughly speaking, is heaven, the second is hell.
The horrible choices you refer to are made by people who precisely do not have such an epiphany - a clear manifestation of God 'standing over them'. They are acting, like we all are, on faith or lack thereof - and nearly always the latter.

You are dodging the question. How do you justify the behavior of people who claim to believe in the scenario outlined? Basically the argument is "once you see objective proof of God, your choices are limited", when reality shows us that those who already believe are making a great amount of choices, some poor, some wonderful.

And if you are not, well, the Church at several times over its history has said, "God is great, let's go kill as many people as we can because they don't agree with us" (I believe your Chesterton even said that this was justifiable). I suppose we can then put God on the same level as Godzilla, and those people who saw Him and believed pissed their pants before deciding to pull their swords and go marching on to the destruction of all "sinners" in their path. I am quite certain they were not acting on a "lack of faith", at least not in how its presented historically.

Oops, that's right. Only your Orthodox history is accurate. The rest is merely dreck on paper. I forgot that little detail.

I think the problem is that you're moving away from what the statement originally intended. Let me try to rephrase it:

If you had objective and irrevocable proof of God's existence (and presumably also learned with certainty what He judges "good" and "bad"), you have only one fundamental choice: worship Him or not. All the choices you mention (murder, kill, etc.) are a CONSEQUENCE of choosing not to worship Him in this scenario - that is, you consciously choose to commit harmful actions DESPITE knowing for sure that to do so will prevent you from gaining Heaven. I think in this case it's much easier to visualize the array of choices you have as a tree, rather than as a list: at the root of the tree in this scenario is the unescapable conclusion that God exists (because you have irrevocable proof, so you cannot deny that); the trunk splits into two trunks (either you choose to act in a way He deems "good", or you choose to act in a way He deems "bad", essentially either accepting or rejecting Him); each of these two trunks then splits into a multitude of lesser branches (on one hand, to do charity, to help your fellow man, to do no harm, and so on; on the other, to murder, to steal, to kill, to cheat, and so on).

In the situation we have in truth, this tree analogy changes significantly: the tree we described above is simply a trunk of the larger "tree of choices" we have in this world. At the root now you have three questions: is there something beyond the material universe? Is that God? What does He want? From this fundamental question you have not just two trunks, but a multitude of them: all the possible ways humanity has analyzed this question, all the belief systems and religions, as well of course as the currents of atheism and agnosticism. You can choose to follow any of these trunks, and each of them has its own array of "good" and "bad" choices, which very often conflict with those of nearby branches. Therefore, in this scenario, your initial array of choices is much more varied (you no longer can only choose to accept or reject God: you can choose how, following which system, if any). Additionally, because all of these belief systems and religions are, at most, based on documents and personal epiphanies but neither you, nor anyone else has irrevocable, umistakable evidence of their truth, you cannot even be sure that the branches which split from the trunk you have chosen - in other words, what that religion or belief system considers "good" or bad" - are actually true. In fact, given that you have no objective, substantial proof of which ones are good and which ones are bad, you can get quite confused at times, if you don't know how to recognize them (hence why people, trusting other people with the judging, make mistakes: their own leaders sometimes can't distinguish good from bad, no matter how learned).

I would also add that to use Christian zealots to refute points made by others is very easy, and equally misleading: it would be as if I used the example of Slobodan Milosevic to say "that's why I think atheism is bad", or Al Qaeda militants to say "that shows Islam is an abomination". I can easily point you in the direction of just as many good and conscentious Christians as the zealots you have mentioned - probably more, actually. But it's in the nature of zealotry that the zealots are always more outspoken than the moderates, which leads people to believe they are the majority, whereas they normally are the minority.

[Waddley]

'Cause it felt like it?

Seriously, I don't understand why or how you can take issue with that. An omniscient, omnipotent entity can pretty much do whatever it wants.

No, it can't. An omniscient being knows exactly what it is going to do, and knowing what it is going to do is like being locked into doing exactly that thing and therefore it can't be omnipotent. The two adjectives are mutually exclusive because you can't be all powerful if you can't change what you are going to do, and you can't change what you are going to do when you know exactly what you're going to do.

Mind=blown.