A Problem with God

[Robbo]

I got a problem in my head and I wish Duffitusta was around to help me because it's gonna need a cross between a philosophy graduate and someone well versed in logic to maybe get a handle on this problem.

The problem itself isn't a complex one, in fact, it's alarmingly simple but it made an unexpected appearance in my brain about a week ago and it won't leave me alone, hence this post and request for help.

Let's assume there is a god, let's also assume that if there is a god, he/she can do anything he/she damn well pleases.
In other words, god is omnipotent ....nothing is beyond the power of him/her upsatirs....so far so good?

Well, you'd think so but I got a nagging problem and it's to do with time and causality; in reality, it might well be I am not thinking straight and some bright-ass punk can point me in the right direction, let's hope so; any way, here it is:-

Let's take an incident, any incident, it doesn't matter, and for the sake of exploring this problem, let's talk about something that everyone will remember and would have wished didn't happen, the deaths of those two girls in Soham a few years back.
It horrified all decent people; I am pretty sure that seeing that pic of them with their football jerseys on bought home the tragic waste of life and the misery inflicted on their respective families.

Whenever I see cr@p like that, it makes my insides turn and depresses me and I sorta play a game in my head where I imagine if I could go back in time to just before that incident, then I'd kill that Huntley guy who murdered them thus allowing the girls to live on happily.
Of course this is impossible ... but if I had a word with him upstairs, he could let me go back and I'd do the necessary bad stuff to ensure the kids' safety.
I of course realise all the moral problems associated with this but let's ignore them for a bit please.
This all sounds a bit weird but bear with me please ..... it will all fall into place soon enough.

And so, God rewinds time for me, I pop back in time, strangle Huntley and the girls live on ....job done - the world's a better place for allowing those two girls to live on. I might have a problem with God afterwards for killing Huntley but I'll deal with that as and when...

Well, here's the thing .... if we think about that new time-line whereby the girls live on, there will be no murders, nobody on earth will know a damn thing happened apart from some nonce called Huntley is found strangled somewhere, just me and God know, he could of course wipe my memory of the whole incident but that possibility is academic here.

And so, this is the dilemma, if we propose God can do anything and everything, and the thing we ask him to do is to rewind time, he can of course do it.

He can certainly rewind the time-line back and the following time-line doesn't have the murders in it but...the murders still happened in the original, the time-tape just got rewound and events went onto to do something else.

I am suggesting here, God cannot undo events that have happened, he can certainly rewind the tape to a place prior to the event and then another time line is embarked upon but then those girls still got killed albeit in the original time-line, it just got rewound to create a new one....you can talk about differing time-lines etc but if you think about it, these are still academic because the event still happened !!!

It seems as though God can't do everything...or can he/she?

 

[paintballJett]

I am not all that intelectual (single l to show it), but am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

God could wind back time for you and Huntley will get his just deserves but the girls will still be murdered (by some other scum) as everything happens for a reason. The amount of people that were effected by two young girls from Soham did some greater good, ( - probably turned a few imprisoned criminals stomaches so much so that they go on to do good themselves - brought the surrounding community and national community together in some way).

These Soham girls are now in heaven where they belong and the murdering scum no doubt is where he belongs.

(I do not believe in God - however I am not so ignorant to say that this cant be true) I believe if there was a God he/she can do anything but anything that he/she does, cannot effect what needs to happen.

My 2p normally roll down the drain anyway. Maybe your mind can fish out what it needs to work out yourself what you believe.

 

[Dusty]

You are saying in one breath to assume that god is omnipotent, but in another breath saying that god can't undo an event which is already done and dusted. Which is it?

 

[Chris RIP]

There is a movie called "The time machine" robbo, where a guy tries to save the life of his wife by traveling back in time. he does this over and over again and every time he saves her she dies of something different and in a different way.
If people die or get killed it has a reason, same as everything does. Unfortunately we cannot do anything to change this and even if we would try we would fail miserably...
Apart from that, to get to your point about the timeline, how do you know that we are not in one right now? how do you know that we are not hooked up to machines and we just imagine to be in this world? sounds stupid i know but think about it lol maybe "the matrix" has a good point? What is the meaning of life? why are we here? what is our purpose? are we alone in this universe? maybe there is someone else just like me thinking about the same thing somewhere out the on a different planet looking at the stars wondering if we are unique and "alone" lol

There are alot of things in this world that we cant explain and to make it all more complicated is that we as humans have been given a very very powerfull tool which is our brain! Just remember that there is a thin line between a genius and someone that is just purely insane and we all have a bit of both in us (apart from people like matt1971 who are just plain and simply stupid as f**k)

but to be fair, if i would be given the oportunity to travel back in time to save a couple of people i would go for it! straight away, not a second thought given lol BUT if you would be able to do this, then you could do this every time and then it would be just as bad as there would still be thousands of people dead... so you got yourself in a dilemma again

 

[Duncan Berry]

i maybe misunderstanding your topic but it seems to your problem lays with time travel itself rather than god.

if god allowed you to travel back and stop something from happening, you change the timeline and so the incident never happened which means why would you and god have allowed you to go back in time to prevent the incident from happening, as in this new timeline the event that triggered your timetravel never happened.

one theory is parallel timelines. for every action one is played out in a alternative timeline. by you going back in time you would be creating a alternative timeline in which huntley never murdered the girls and so the old timeline, the one in which you used to belong becomes redundent (at least to you). and you now continue down this new timeline with only you and god knowing that you altered it.

in effect the timelines are like alternative dimensions.

Now in seems far fetched but if god is omnipotent what is stop him from having the power to create new timelines and severe other ones.


now if im completely off please forgive me for getting the wrong end of the stick

 

[TEKLOFTY]

I am with Duncan, IF God is omnipotent then he will simply create a new timeline and thus the girls will never be murdered.

 

[Robbo]

You are saying in one breath to assume that god is omnipotent, but in another breath saying that god can't undo an event which is already done and dusted. Which is it?

Dusty, that's the problem mate, if we assume (and it's not such an outrageous assumption, in fact it's quite logical) then why can't he/she undo an event ........ he can rewind time yes but that does not unhappen what happened ...the world just continues on a different time-line where there are no murders.

 

[Dusty]

Let's assume there is a god, let's also assume that if there is a god, he/she can do anything he/she damn well pleases.
In other words, god is omnipotent ....nothing is beyond the power of him/her upsatirs....so far so good?

This kind of makes the rest of the problem redundant........

To set the record straight, i am not even remotely religious. I believe in doing the right thing and living a life based on Christian beliefs but thats as far as it goes.

*edit* i was typing as you replied.

Based on the above statement God can click his or her fingers and make it so it didn't happen.
I see your logic in the rewinding the tape so to speak, but if God is indeed omnipotent he can simply chop that section of history out and restart the movie. onipotent means just that. Nothing is beyond the power of him/her upstairs.

and God is a HE. Doesn't even sound like a girls name..........

 

[evoonline]

i like paintballjett believe that whatever happens happens for a reason. if god is real then he/she has a funny way of going about things but i seriously doubt that if there was a higher power out there watching us then all the bad in the world would be allowed to go on unanswered for so long.

 

[TEKLOFTY]

This kind of makes the rest of the problem redundant........

To set the record straight, i am not even remotely religious. I believe in doing the right thing and living a life based on Christian beliefs but thats as far as it goes.

*edit* i was typing as you replied.

Based on the above statement God can click his or her fingers and make it so it didn't happen.
I see your logic in the rewinding the tape so to speak, but if God is indeed omnipotent he can simply chop that section of history out and restart the movie.

This, omnipotence by definition is ultimate power so he/she/it can do whatever he/she/it wants.