1.a - Check the list twice...
3.a - Raise him from the dead (also note, God didn't sacrifice Jesus - the people in power at the time did and Jesus went willingly)
8? - Whacha got against the tooth fairy?
9? - Which Santa? The one of legend? Or the ones that hang out in the department stores?
10 - Noooooooooooo!
11 - YES!!!!!!!!!!

@Rorschach: both versions of Inferno are comedies. Larry and Jerry's version is populated with more modern characters (or at least characters known to people today) - Vlad the Impaler/Dracula, Henry the Eighth, a Mafia hit-man, a shuttle pilot, a science fiction writer. Some of the punishments they endure are ... appropriately funny. Vlads punishment is particularly errr... pointed.

Niven has been described as being a "big roomy mind at play". It shows. From Dante's description, Hell is built in a giant funnel shape. The red-hot coffins (with sinners locked inside) are about halfway down. Now they're red-hot and are bound to give rise to thermals. If only you could gather enough materials to build a hang-glider...

@draugnar - the romans may have crucified crist, but surely God sacrificed him? He is God afterall, if he had wanted to have stopped the crucification I'm sure he could have done.

Whilst I'm God, I'm not unreasonable and will give the Tooth Fairy a repreive just for you.

8 - now becomes....Take a gay lover (that'll confuse some of my followers)

9 - the santas in department stores.

you mean Christ?

yes Christ.

So, if I know a crime is being commited but refuse to get involved and stop it, that makes me the criminal? That's your logic, Maniac. Allowing something to happen is not actively participating in it's happening. I allow my dog to take a crap in my own yard, but I'm not taking a crap in my yard when he does.

That's a baloney argument and you know it. God is omnipotent and omniscient. God is directly responsible for everything that happens.

Well, he would be, if he were real...

But Draug, when you're allowing your dog to take a crap in your own yard you're effectively sacrificing your yard (to dog shit).

You'd have to be careful not to let anyone know you had God-like powers. If something bad happened and you could have stopped it but didn't then you're responsible and the bastards will sue you and you know you can't win in court! (Why can't you win in court? Because the Devil has all the lawyers!).

What if you've got Daniel Webster defending you?

I've given it some thought and maybe I would change my first answer. Now I would clarify some of God's initial commandments, I think people have had some issues with interpretation over the years.

1 - Thou shall not Kill.
Except really bad people or people we think are really bad but really arn't. We should try to limit the people who arn't bad dying and give them postumus pardens later on to make them feel better.
Except people who we are at war with.
Except people we arn't at war but think we might be at war with later.
Except the elderly.
Except the unborn
Except animals
Except ourselves

For the avoidance of doubt, we are allowed to catch our sperm in rubber bags. This does not constitute killing.

I'll work on the other commandments later. I need to rest now.

figle:

you misunderstand me. with omnipotence you would presumably be capable of proving something beyond any doubt. i would prove the truth beyond any doubt. there would be no such thing as misinformation in my universe, though ignorance would still be an issue, since i would not want to elevate everyone to omniscience.

also draug for all of maniac's insensitivity, the "logic" you ascribed to him is right.

there is also legal precedent for it. manslaughter by inaction i think its called.


it means that if someone is getting stabbed right in front of you, and all you have to do is say "hey stop" and he'll stop, but you don't, you're responsible for the dead guy who got stabbed to death.

you have to acknowledge that.

your redoubt, if you want to take it, that theists can and do take, is this:

ok yes god is responsible (DIRECTLY) for a great many evils, but we don't understand god and his motives, if we could, he would be no god at all.



My question is this: who says God can't lie to us? Pretend for a second Christianity is true, that there is a God like that who did all those things and Jesus etc etc.

But, basically what you have is this really powerful guy saying "I never ever lie."

And then you have the human race saying "okay I believe you."

But as diplomacy players surely we know that could be a ruse... what if God is none of the things he says he is... what if he is just a space alien.. etc.

You never know..


Ok anyway if I was God I would also make unhealthy foods taste bad and healthy foods taste good.

I would also eliminate the concept of "us and them." This would possibly entail altering the laws of evolution, but I'm ok with that. The laws of evolution are cruel and harsh. So I would probably change them.


I would also eliminate the concept of time marching on and on. I would make it possible for time to be slowed, stopped, reversed, or skipped.

What I mean to say is I would make time travel possible. I would also create an immortal embodiment of every human consciousness, past and present.

They would live together on a replica Earth, the difference being that they don't die.

Not heaven, just life after death.

However I would not inform the people of Earth about this place and I would also bring bad people to me to be rehabilitated. If they could not be rehabilitated I would reverse time and prevent their existence.

Evil is necessary for the sake of appreciating good, but if indeed there exists such a thing as "pure evil," I would change that.

I would also issue an inspired document that affirms human rights as rights endowed by me, God.

@Maniac - The Hebrew word translated as "kill" is actually "ratsach", which nearly always refers to intentionally killing without a valid cause (i.e. murder). As pretty as the language is, the KJV is a poor translation from a scholarly point of view.

@Draugnar - Ratsach - In Prov. 22:13, it describes something a lion will do to the slothful man. If a lion can't kill for food or because it is threatened then maybe we shouldn't either.

@Thucy "for all of maniac's insensitivity" - when was I insensitive?

Instead of relying on a specific scripture to define a word which can have different meanings depending on construct, how about studying Hebrew for a while (like I did). Ratsach means to kill without just cause, when it refers to a human actions. Now, you can argue war is unjust. Fine. But killing in self-defense or the defense of the innocent is not against the commandment. As far as the ederly and unborn and such, I am actually in agreement. Where the killing of animals is concerned, that depends on the motivation (i.e. the cause). For food, God provided for killing for food long before he gave Moses the commandments. Killing for sport or torture is also wrong and I agree with your sarcasm on that as well.

I guess what would be insensitive was your first post.

I.e. essentially making fun of people's beliefs. Wrong or not, it doesn't make it not insensitive.

It's akin to being prejudiced towards racists or intolerant people. You may think its right but really... it's not.

Anyway that's not that important. I would also agree Draug mostly.

But I would say for my own part, I think the only sort of killing that is ever justified (fully justified anyway) is killing in self-defense when the kill was not intended to kill the person.

Its the doctrine of double effect

@draugnar - maybe our discussions about the meaning of 'ratsach' only serves to make my point that 'thou shalt not kill' was either too vague or was misinterpretted (on purpose or otherwise).

@Thucy - "Wrong or not, it doesn't make it not insensitive." i'm not sure if this is a double, treble or quadruple negative, but I think I take your point.

I don't share analogy that it's akin to being prejudiced against racist or intolerant or the intolerant. If America believe that people should drive on the right, and I state that people should drive on the right, I'm not being insensitive, and even if I were they are entitled to come back at me with the reasons why they believe people should drive on the right.

You argue in one of your posts that if God allows something to happen then he is responsible for that thing happening. Therefore God sacrifised his son, makes the world live in poverty, creates religions tensions, etc etc, etc. Again anybody who disagrees with me is welcome to come back at me and say, God allows such things because....

That said, If anybody is offended by my comments then I do apologise. I'd be interested to know if I have offended anyone, or whether Thucy is defending people who don't feel offended.

oh no i dont agree with the logic of your points maniac. but the tone of it was certainly along the lines of one those inherently-belief-mocking:

"Talking snake zombie worship religion" -type comments. If you don't think that sort of thing is insensitive, well, then, I guess that's what makes you insensitive in the first place lol.

not that big of a deal. to me anyway