All knowing all powerful beings...

[Prometheus]

...who choose to be ignorant delusional serfs DISCUSS

[Stevehattan]

They can't exist. It's just one big fat contradiction to be all powerful and knowing, and remain capable of making mistakes or doing anything stupid or wrong in general.

[bradybaker]

Yep, those two properties are mutually exclusive. If you know everything that will ever happen you are powerless to change it.

[Prometheus]

fascinating excuses, please continue

[Rakkantekimusouka]

Like the United States government -- or ideally at least -- there is a system of check and balance in the world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and will always be broken somehow before it has the chance to potentially destroy completely. It is far better to have an army of men with a card each then to have one man with a deck of cards at his disposal.

[Prometheus]

power is horrifically misunderstood, give a man absolute power and you will see who he really is and his true morality. So if you say power corrupts you are just admitting that most people are corrupt and evil at the core of their being. I don't disagree. this is fun DISCUSS MORE

[Belisarius]

They can't exist because noone can be all-knowing. If an entity was all powerful and somehow all-knowing, there would be no external system of morality that would allow them to make mistakes. BradyBaker: Does the fact that this being knows what choices he will make them determined acts and not choices? Is free will(power) only randomness?(keep responses to this brief as we don't want to turn this into a discussion about determinism.

[bradybaker]

Ok, let's look at these properties as if they existed in two separate entities. 1) All-powerful - this being would obviously have free will, with it's unlimited power it could create, destroy and alter anything that it wanted to. 2) All-knowing - this being obviously exists in a deterministic world. It would know every detail of every single event that has ever and will ever happen. It is powerless to change any of these events because it has already anticipated its own involvement. Now combine the two. Is it possible for a being to have free will in a deterministic world? I think not. And don't give me that crap about God being exempt from logic.

[Prometheus]

I hate language.. all-powerful within the context of what the universe allows in its laws, ergo there can be no other being more powerful, perfection basically all-knowing OF HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS, NOT OF EVERY SINGLE ATOM IN EXISTENCE AND WHAT IT HAS DONE IS DOING WILL DO. as for free will, there is no freedom from the absolute laws of reality, like a high velocity ball of metal going through your skull. I thought this thread would make me laugh and shiz but now you people are just making me angry and hateful, buh bye.

[bradybaker]

Originally posted by Prometheus all-knowing OF HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS, NOT OF EVERY SINGLE ATOM IN EXISTENCE AND WHAT IT HAS DONE IS DOING WILL DO. So, all-knowing doesn't mean that you know everything? I thought this thread would make me laugh and shiz but now you people are just making me angry and hateful, buh bye.[/b] Good riddance.