If God is all powerful & mighty

[DODI]

can he make a rock so big that He Himself cannot lift it?

[Dookus]

1. Can he make a

chimichanga so hot he can't eat it?

[pacifictiger]

2. is this question for real?

there is no up or down in terms of the vacuum of space, the universe, or whatever you want to call it. God, the unknowable, that energy that created the universe cannot be defined in our language. That is why there are so many religions. It is man's feeble attempt to explain a power that is too big for any mind to fully comprehend.

[DODI]

6. It is a real question posed by George Carlin

Class Clown -- great comedy album.

[JanMichael]

3. Can he make make a hooker that he can't...

...do whatever with either???

Or a toothpick so big that he can't pick his teeth?

As an omnopotent being I would have to say...Um...That's impossible!

[mindless]

4. Make a Burning Bush in 2004?

[TXlib]

5. If God is everywhere...

Is He in the toilet?

(from Questions That Will Get You Spanked In Sunday School, Vol. III)

[The Traveler]

7. Paradox

The problem with this paradox is it informs us of the limitations of human reason (and gives a big hint re: Goedel's Theorem) but allows us to explore nothing of the nature of God.
When we talk about God, we simply don't know what we are talking about. One may have experience of a phenomenon I term "grace" but that leaves one with nothing that can be shared with another human in rational terms. Attempts to do so are worse than futile, which is why early Christians focused on a) cultivating the experience and b) testifying about it and c) teaching others how to have it for themselves. Alas ... that form of Christian practice was deemed heresy circa 600 A.D. and most of its practicioners offed in some seriously horrible ways.

I recommend a book called the "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light" ... or was it "The Time Light Bodies Take to Fall". Anyway its a really good book .. focuses on the linkage between sexuality, sexual poltiics and religion. While I don't agree with a lot of his premises, and subsequent research has modified some of the archaeological information on which it was based, it still provides ample food for thought.

[TXlib]

8. Welcome to DU, robg!

[dweller]

9. The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light

William Irwin Thompson

http://www.williamirwinthompson.org/pages/1/

"There seems little chance of getting out of this century with the same human nature with which we entered it."
William Irwin Thompson, The American Replacement of Nature


excellant read, i enjoyed it many years ago. I wish i had a copy, but as many of the books i enjoyed were available in the university library...

peace,
dp

[Dookus]

10. Hi Robg...

and welcome to DU.

That book sounds interesting. I'll check it out.

The REAL issue, though, is not the paradox of the question, but of the premise. Omnipotence and omniscience simply cannot exist, at least within the framework of "god" we're given.

[opiate69]

14. That's rich..

"When we talk about God, we simply don't know what we are talking about."

I know of a few million Christ-nutcases who apparently didn't get that memo... lol

[OneBlueSky]

11. taking this a step further . . .

would a benevolent God permit the existence of the Devil, or of Hell? . . . I don't think so . . .

[DivinBreuvage]

13. So what would YOU do with a Hitler or a Stalin?

or a wife-beater, or a child molester, or any other of the human scum whose existence has darkened the earth by the tens of millions since the dawn of time? Let them go into nothingness? Deny them the ecstasy of being in your grace? God is supposed to be just, too, you know. I say: let them fry.

A quick few lines from Vachel Lindsay's The Congo:

Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.

Where would you put King Leopold?

[Exultant Democracy]

17. "Tho the Angels are bright, the brightest of them fell."

If there is a god, either he is so beyond or ability to reason that we can not understand, or he is a little bit of a jerk.

[Nikia]

19. That line bothered me a bit too but it is a good warning

Unfortunately in the Bible it just isn't Lucifer who fell. We have King Saul and Judas who were deemed close to God, the ones that he had "chosen". That always bothered me.
In our human experience, I think that it is a warning that the risk of majorly unrepairably messing up in a harmful way increases the better (in terms of our goal politically, religiously, economically, or other aspects)we get. It's just sort of like the movies Spiderman. "With much power comes much responsibility."

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Lift or move?

Seems like Newton proved that there are no immovable objects and all forces are irresitable. In space, a dust particle hitting even the biggest body changes it's momentum at some tiny level. So unless the object has infinite mass.

Energy to "Lift" depends on gravity, so what planet/object is God "standing" on?

[Muesli]

15. Since the Truth is God

and not the ars logica, you're wasting your time.

I'm no believer, but isn't it a bit silly to try to outsmart a omnipotent being with inherently flawed logic?

"this sentence isn't true," is one of those flaws. As someone said, your sentence is just a limitation of the logical system.

[DODI]

16. Actually, I just wanted to see if anyone recognized this as

a George Carlin quote. On class clown he said a friend of his used this question to drive priest crazy.

[Muesli]

18. Didn't recognize it as such

But I did see a Simpsons episode when Homer asks Flanders something similar.

"Could Jesus himself microwave a burrito so hot, he himself could not eat it?"