Project 42

The origins of the 10 commandments

2005-12-26T08:33:00.000Z

It would appear that after spending time in Egypt the Israelites plagerised the 10 commandments (and other parts of Hebrew law) from the Egyptian book of the dead, (Papyrus of Ani), (The Papyrus of Nu, Brit. Mus. No. 10477, Sheet 24) and (The Papyrus of Nebseni). After reading the book of the dead I was surprised to discover that the rules and laws contained in them are almost identical to the 10 commandments, apart from obviously the first commandment that refers to God (i.e there's only one God).

The book of dead was a guide on how to enter the after life used by ancient Egyptians. For example these are some of things that must be said before being allowed to enter the afterlife: "I have not committed sin" , "I have not committed robbery with violence", "I have not stolen", "I have not slain men and women", "I have not uttered lies", "I have not committed adultery", "I have not lain with men", "I have not blasphemed", "I have not cursed God", "I have not opposed my family and kinsfolk", "I have not borne false witness". The language it is written in is very similar to the old testament and Torah.

This is proof therefore that these laws do not originate from Exodus and God but actually predate it. In fact these type of laws have probably been around since the very first civilizations.

What are the 10 commandments?

2005-11-04T03:29:00.000Z

A silly question you might think, they are the set of rules that can be found in Exodus 20. Well you would be partly right, after Moses came down from Mount Sinai to find the Israelites worshipping the golden calf Moses smashes the stone tablets on which the commandments were written and is then told by God to re-write the commandments on another stone. Moses does this but the result is not an exact reproduction as Deuteronomy 5 is a similar but not exact copy of the 10 commandments for example the reason given for keeping the Sabbath is that after creating everything in 6 days God had to rest. But in Deuteronomy the reason given is that God freed the Israelites from Egypt.

Also there is disagreement between Catholics and Protestants as the exact numbering and interpration of the commandments:

Catholic commandments:
1. "... You shall have no other gods before me...e.t.c
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain...
3. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy...
4. Honor thy father and thy mother...
5. You shall not murder
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery
7. Neither shall you steal.
8. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.
9. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife
10. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house"....."Or anything that is your neighbor's."

Protestant commandments:
1. "...Thou shalt have no other gods before me..."
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain...
4. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy...
5. Honor thy father and thy mother...
6. You shall not murder
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Neither shall you steal.
9. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house...

So which set of commandments are correct Exodus or Deuteronomy and how do you interpret them the Catholic or Proestant version.

Is it possible to evolve into a god?

2005-10-14T03:33:00.000Z

As a follow up the last post I am now asking if it is possible to evolve into a god?
Evolution supposedly starts with bacteria and develops from there, but is there any limit to evolution? And have we reached it?

Evolution normally takes place over many generations, but as the human spices becomes more advanced both medically (advances in cloning e.t.c) and through technology (advances in nano-technology e.t.c), is it possible that we could "engineer" our own evolution.

This then leads to the question how much can we evolve or how advanced can we become? How advance can any spices become? Is it possible that a species could reach a perfection and in a way become a god?

There are a number of factors that influence evolution: the environment in which the species lives and other species (normally the predator and the prey) being just two. The only predator that humans have left to fear is itself (both through conflict and through the polliution of it's enviroment).

The only way that humans are ever going to survive let alone evolve is to stop killing itself through conflict and pollution.

The Atheist dilemma

2005-09-19T10:09:00.000Z

Just so this blog is not too one sided I will now present a dilemma for some atheists

If you consider the size of the universe (at least 10 billion light-years in diameter) and the number of stars within the universe (recently estimated to be 70 sextillion), there is huge amount of planets that will revolve around these stars. What are the chances that only one planet in the entire universe has life on it, and not just a single life form but billions of different life forms on the same planet. I agree that it is a possibility that this is the only planet that has or had life on it. There is the other possibility that life exists on other planets, even if it is just in the form of bacteria. Also as some recent theories suggest if life was brought to this planet by chemical elements present in comets, then consider the number of planets and the number of comets, there are great deal of impacts happening.

If you accept that other life forms (bacteria) exist on other planets, then you must also accept that it is possible for higher forms of life to exist. It is certainly possible that there are more highly evolved life forms than humans, that humans would consider to be almost godlike just as a snail might consider humans to be godlike (if of course they could consider).

Now we get to on science-fiction-like scenarios such as these higher life forms creating their own artificial worlds with life on as an experiment. Is it not possible that we are part of such an experiment or similar scenario (I'm sure you've all seen the Matrix). I know that this sounds far fetched and I'm not saying that it is true, but what I am saying is that it is a possibility. In fact humans are already creating their own artificial worlds on computer and can already artificially create biological life.

Now of course we have come full circle because if you accept that all this is at least a possibility then you must also accept that this world and maybe this universe has been created by a higher life form.
The only difference between this and the traditional Judo-Christian God is that this life-form has not always existed and did not create everything, but had to evolve with its environment and so therefore is not quite perfect. So maybe this is not such a dilemma after all.

The purpose of a God is pointless

2005-08-29T21:09:00.000Z

Most people at some stage in their life ask questions such as what is the meaning of life? And what is my purpose in life? Well here's an even more interesting question, supposing for the moment that God exists and that God is an all powerful, all knowing, perfect entity. My question is: what is God's purpose in life? I know that this is a question that will probably never be answered but after thinking about it for some time it struck me that the existence of an all powerful, all knowing, perfect entity is pointless.

What is a god supposed to do with it's existence? Unlike humans God's existence is not about learning and gaining more knowledge because God already knows everything. Unlike other animals God's existence is not about survival because God is all-powerful so there can be nothing as powerful that can threaten God's survival. Unlike most species God can not evolve and adapt over time because God is already perfect. We can not claim that God exists just to protect and guide us humans because God existed long before we humans did. More specifically God (supposedly) has always existed, which is a long time to exist and personally if I were God I might get slightly bored and lonely during that time.

This is one possible answer to the question:

God could go round creating things such as galaxies and planets to pass the time but even that could wear a bit thin after a time. So God then makes humans and because God's existence is apparently pointless because of his limitless power God decides to give up some of his power i.e. Giving freewill to humans in order make his own life more meaningful. God then offers humans eternal life so they can keep him company and he will never get bored again. This would mean of course that God depends on us more than we depend on God because if God suddenly did not exist then us humans would carry on as if nothing had happened (i.e. People would still go round worshipping the non-existent God), but if humans suddenly stopped existing then God would be left all alone once again.

Another plausible story is that God became so bored and lonely with his eternal existence with nothing much to do that he killed himself.

These are just two possible answers both probably incorrect (maybe there is no correct answer), the question however is still an interesting one. Also if as some people claim God is out-side of time then God probably will not experience boredom, this doesn't however mean there is any more point to his existence.

God rewards liar's

2005-08-09T09:45:00.000Z

"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor" - Exodus 20:16

Genesis 27:
This is an account of God rewarding not punishing people for lying. Isaac wishes to bless E'sau his eldest son because he is getting old and his eye sight is failing him so he tells him to go and catch some game and make him some tasty food. However Rebekah Isaac's wife overhears and tells Jacob the younger son what his father had said, so they both come up with a plan to fool Isaac. They put the skins of goats and kids on Jacob so that his farther would mistake him for his brother when his farther touches him, he also wore his brothers cloths. The plan worked and Jacob gets blessed instead of his brother.

Jacob and his mother lied in order that Jacob would receive his brothers blessing. God blesses Jacob and makes him fruitful, Jacob isn't punished for lying, instead God rewards him for it.

The 8th commandment: broken by Jesus

2005-07-30T09:33:00.000Z

"You must not steal"

"He's not the messiah he's a very naughty boy"-Monty Python (The Life of Brian)

This passage (Luke 19, verses 29 - 36) is set just before Jesus enters Jerusalem, it describes how Jesus obtains a donkey in a less than lawful way. Jesus tells his disciples to go into a nearby town and take a colt (donkey) that no man has ever sat on. He tells them that if the owner asks why they are taking it they should say "the lord needs it". They do this and tell the owner that the Lord needs it. At no time do they ask the owner for permission to use the donkey and at no time afterwards is there any mention of it being returned to it's owner. Telling the owner that the lord needs it is explaining why they are taking it, it is not asking for permission and it is not giving the owner any choice in the matter. This basically amounts to the breaking of the 8th commandment: do not steal. This is robbing a (probably) hard working citizen of a valuable resource and livelihood, who knowns how much work it would have done in the future for it's owners.

Maybe I'm being too pedantic and maybe I shouldn't expect the word of God to be perfect and unambiguous. However one explanation might be that the bible writers did not regard such details as to how the donkey was returned very important so did not put it in the Bible. However the way in which it was taken is more tricky to explain.

The 10th commandment - a jealous God

2005-07-14T09:50:00.000Z

“You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour."

This commandment is basically saying do not covert and that jealousy is wrong, not bad advice as jealousy is not the best of traits a person can have. Why then a few pages latter (Exodus 34:14) is God described as a jealous God?

“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”.

If jealousy is so bad why is God described as having this less than perfect trait? Shouldn't God follow his own advice and not desire anything that belongs to any man including their worship of other gods? Just a thought.

Is God a god of Peace or a god of war?

2005-06-20T09:36:00.000Z

After my last post I decided to see what the Bible had to say on the subject of God's nature and God going around killing people. As you might expect it gives two different accounts: 1. God is a god of Peace (Romans 15:33) "The God of peace be with you all. Amen." 2. God is a god of War (Exodus 15:3) "The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name." Is it possible to be both? I suppose it is possible but this would mean that for God to have both a loving, peaceful side and a violent side, God can not then be all Loving and all peaceful at the same time.

Going by the evidence in the Bible there is definitely a violent side to God's nature as well as the examples in my last post here are some more examples:

God helps Joshua commit genocide against the Amorites in order to conquer the Canaanite cities by throwing hail stones at them from heaven (Joshua 10:11 "As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.") God then makes the sun stand still because there isn't enough time in one day to kill everyone (Joshua 10:13 "So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!").

If that wasn't enough bloodshed and killing they then decide to go on and Conquer the Southern Cities: (Joshua 10:29 "Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. The LORD also gave that city and its king into Israel's hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.")

These acts of violence and genocide are then repeated against the cites of Lachish (Joshua 10:32-33), Eglon (Joshua 10:35), Hebron (Joshua 10:37) and then Debir (Joshua 10:39).

This amounts to ethnic cleansing and any one committing this type of act today would surely be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Don't forget that these actions were fully supported by God: (Joshua 10:40 "So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded").

Obviously not satisfied that enough people haven't already died, the northern cites are then destroyed: In Joshua 11:1-4 the Northern cities (Hazor, Madon, Shimron, Acshaph, the northern mountains, Arabah, the western foothills and in Naphoth Dor, Canaanites in the east and west, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, the Jebusites in the hill country and the Hivites) all unite against the Israelites and are consequently ALL killed (totally wiped out).

So it is possible that there are two side to God's nature (peaceful and violent) but it certainly doesn't look like God is ALL loving and ALL peaceful, if God were all loving and all peaceful then God would have no need to commit acts of violence and go round killing everyone. Also this is more evidence to support my previous post that throughout the Bible God consistently breaks the 5th commandment.

Inconsistencies with the 5th commandment

2005-05-31T10:42:00.000Z

"You must not murder" (Exodus 20:13)

This perhaps should have been the first commandment and is a perfectly good rule to have, but while I was reading the bible I found there to be a number of inconsistencies and contradictions surrounding it.

The first problem occurs just a few paragraphs after the commandment was given, Exodus 21:12 goes as follows:

"Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death."

also (ex 21:14) "But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death".

So we have a commandment saying do not kill and then a few paragraphs latter it says that a person found breaking this commandment is to be put to death, but surely putting that person to death would be directly violating the 5th commandment. It also means technically that the person responsible for killing the murder should also be put to death and then the person who kills that person and so on...
The death penalty is also the punishment for breaking a number of the other commandments as well. I personally am opposed to the taking of human life, this includes both murder and the death penalty, doesn't the Bible say that the human body is sacred and therefore taking a human life is a sin. The murderer is still a human and still has a right to live‚ the person who executes the murder is also then a murderer.

Murder is quite a common theme that runs through out the Bible and you may (or may not) be surprised to find out that it is God is responsible for the majority of the deaths that occur. You can't expect every one else to follow your commandments if you go round breaking them yourself and setting a bad example, which is exactly what God does throughout the Bible. (I thought that God was supposed to guide humans along the right path and that we are supposed to follow in Gods foot steps).
God kills the first born of all the Egyptians in Exodus 12:29 which can be seen mass murder and isn't an act of a loving God (I'm sure there were other ways to deal with the Egyptians without having to resort to murder - also imagine the signal this is giving to humans i.e. when all else fails it's ok to kill people). Worse still than this in Genesis 7:11 God kills every living thing on the earth apart from a select few, this amounts to genocide and ethnic cleansing on a mass scale and is worse than anything that Hitler or Stalin ever did. There are numerous other accounts of God killing people in the Bible and all seem to dispute the fact that God is all loving, also it shows God to be directly breaking the 5th commandment. Another example is in Numbers 15:32 were a man is found gathering sticks on the Sabbath, this is the first time that the commandments had been broken and again carries the death penalty.

(num 15:35)"Then the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."

He doesn't directly carry out the murder but commands others to instead and is a very nasty way to die.

Another account of God commanding the Israelites to carry out ethnic cleansing is in Deuteronomy 2:33-34 - "the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. ³⁴ At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed themmen, women and children. We left no survivors.."
Here God Commands that all people inside the city of the Amorites (including children) should be killed because they are a wicked people. This isn't a very moral thing to do no matter how wicked the Amorites were and again involves violating the 5th commandment.

Another interesting thing to note is that while God is always portrayed as all loving and the devil portrayed as all evil and sinful, the amount of times that the Bible actually records that the devil has done an evil act is very little compared to the amount of evil acts God carrys out. The devil certainty doesn't go round killing people like God does (and not on the scale that God does) which shows that God actually breaks the commandment (and sins) more times than the devil does.

Examining the 10 commandments

2005-05-05T08:28:00.000Z

1st commandment: (Exodus 20:2)
I am the lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
"You shall have no other gods before me."
I have always thought this commandment was a little strange because it seems a bit petty and childish that an all powerful God should be so bothered whether humans believe and worship or not. The reason is probably that, freewill and what people believe is the one thing that God does not control, and God wants people to "follow the right path" by believing. Still, shouldn't God respect the fact humans are free to believe in and worship "other gods" and to choose not to worship at all? You may think that God does indeed respect this freedom, however Leviticus 26:14-44 goes into great detail in explaining some of the punishments for not following the commandments, some are particularly nasty punishments that you wouldn't expect to come from an all loving God, who, remember is punishing you for your free choice and doesn't give the impression of respecting peoples freewill at all. For example some of the punishments include: wasting disease, fever, failure of the eyes, seven punishments from God, plagues, having to eat your children's flesh, seven more chastisements and the destruction of whole cites. It also talks several times about the use of the sword which I can only assume to mean the death penalty. Quite graphic in some places but are they to be taken literally? There is room for interpretation with some of them but others are more specific. Even if it's not to be taken literally the basic idea is that God will make you suffer (also the death penalty is the punishment for breaking a number of the commandments).

There are people who will say that all "sins" should be appropriately punished and that this is an appropriate punishment for breaking one of the most important commandments. I disagree, not that people should be punished appropriately, which they should, but the fact that the passage in Lev 26 is an appropriate punishment. It is appropriate to not allow non-believers into heaven but there is no need to unnecessarily 'torture' them (and kill them) as well. It could be seen as emotional blackmail - repeatedly punishing people until they become a believer, but I may have misinterpreted it and as I'm not God I don't know the reasoning behind it.

More Insest

2005-04-17T19:00:00.000Z

On a pervious post Anonymous said...
"the old testament was only a history of the Hebrew people, and not of anyone else."
This is a good point and raises the question of if the flood was a flood of the whole earth or just the area local to the Hebrew people. The Bible seems to indicate that it was the whole earth because it says "Every living thing on the face of the Earth was wiped out" (Gen 7:23) also if it was just the local area then the birds that Noah sent out would have found land.

There are sevral other accounts of insest happening and God not punishing any one: Lot's daughters both have sex with their dad but there is no account of them being punished(Gen 19 -30). Abraham's Son (Isaac) marrys his cousen as does his son (Jacob) (Gen 24:67 & Gen 29) yet no one is punished.

New Pope

2005-04-04T22:00:00.000Z

I hope the new pope will have a more humane and modern view towards HIV/AIDS and contraception than the last pope did.
The Church in Africa is extremely powerful, unlike the African continent which is one of the poorest on the planet.
In Africa "An estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV and approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred in 2004"avert.org Yet "the overall provision of condoms to sub-Saharan Africa is only 4.6 per man per year"avert.org. I'm not saying that the church is the main cause of this but it certainly isn't helping the situation.

The reason the Catholic church is so against contraception is because it is supposedly stopping potential life from starting. However by not using contaception it is likely to end even more human life by the spread of AIDS. I don't have the exact figures but you are probably just as likely to get HIV by having unprotected sex than you of getting pregnant, or worse to get pregnant and then give birth to a child who has HIV. The point is that the use of condoms in Africa will probably save more lives than the prevention of "potential" lives.

The Problem of Incest

2005-03-25T11:26:00.000Z

In Genesis the creation of Adam and Eve the first two humans is described, it says Eve is "the mother of all the living" Gen 3:20 (NIV) (i.e. All humans are descended from Eve). Now we come to the first problem in Gen 4:17 it describes Cain (Adam and Eves son) having intercourse with his wife, the only explanation for the sudden appearance of Cain's wife is that she is one of his sisters (or Eve). Even if this passage were not in the Bible the only possible way to populate the Earth with just two people is if someone has incest and intercourse with another member of the family (because there is only one family). Now if we skip a few chapters to Leviticus 18:6-21 God clearly forbids the act of incest "No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. Lev 20:11-12 describes one of the punishments for committing incest as death and also describes it as "a perversion". Lev 20:17 forbids incest between brother and sister saying -"it is a disgrace."

This could be explained by saying that incest was allowed because all humans were 'pure'. This however is not true, if you look at it from a biological view point even if both the mother and farther are 'pure' it doesn't mean their offspring will be 'pure' because there is always a small chance of genetic mutation occurring. If you look at being 'pure' from a spiritual view point then again it is not true, in fact the first humans in the bible were committing sins and were just as impure then as humans are today. For example Adam and Eve commit the first sin by eating the apple in Gen 3:6, Cain murders his Brother in Gen 4:8 and as described above there must have been a lot of incest happening. So the argument that incest would have been allowed because humans were pure does not stand up.

Another possible explanation that again does not stand up is that Incest was allowed because God had not yet forbidden it. Even if God had not told humans that incest was wrong and sinful, God must still have held the view that it was wrong, yet God did not punish anyone, but we see an example of God punishing some one for sinning even before God has communicated that it is a sin in Gen 4:11 were Cain is punished for the murder of his brother. In Gen 4:8 Cain breaks the 5th commandment ("You shall not murder") (Ex 20:13) but God has not yet given this commandment but still punishes Cain. So it seems that God is inconsistent when it comes to punishing people.

There is a simple and logical way God could have populated the Earth while completely avoiding the problem of incest. If several humans had been created from the ground instead of just two then there would have been no need for incest to occur as there would be no need to have intercourse with a family member, now you would think that this solution would have occurred to an all-knowing God wouldn't you.

Paticcasamuppada

2005-03-14T09:35:00.000Z

While I was reading some of my collage work about Buddhism, I came across the teachings of the Madhyamaka School which seems similar to my last proof. It is based on the teaching of Nagarjuna (the most famous Buddhist philosopher), and his concept of Sunyata (emptiness) which denies the belief in God and the soul and also takes into account the possibility of God always having existed which I admit, my second proof did not (any suggestions on this problem would be appreciated). I won't go into all the details as it is quite complex but here's a summary of part of the teaching.
There is nothing that exists in its own right- eternally and unchanging, what does exist does so in an inter-relationship so that everything is an effect. There is no uncaused cause that causes effects (i.e. God) because a cause would have to be uncaused to be a cause; it can't so it must be an effect because something that is uncaused is unconditioned and it cannot logically cause some-thing that is conditioned. Hence every thing is Paticcasamuppada (dependent Co-origination).

I recently read a criticism of this concept that argues that if everything is an effect and there can be no uncaused cause then logically this would mean that there is no starting point at which everything was created (because this would be an uncaused cause), this actually agrees with the Buddhist teaching "This cycle of continuity (Samsara) is without a visible end, and the first beginning of beings is not to be perceived" - Buddha. It goes on to say "the eternal sequence of creators -- which becomes logically absurd. This seems a bit strange because they didn't seem to think that God existing eternally is logically absurd.
also "(an) infinite number of creators would mean there was an infinite number of creations and created things including things that cannot be destroyed since they would constitute things that exist. If that is so, then the universe would have had an infinite number of created things in it and it would be full. But it is not full. Therefore, there has not been an infinite regression of creations.

There are a lot of flaws in this statement firstly, the infinite effects will not all be happening simultaneously but over a period of time i.e. over infinity. Now the nature of infinity means that an infinite number of effects spread over an infinite period of time, the universe will not become full. It also wrongly states that there are things that can not be destroyed (I have no idea why this assumption would be made), one of the principle ideas behind Buddhism is that there is nothing that exists that does not change or last forever.

Proof of the non existence of God part 2

2005-03-04T04:14:00.000Z

A number of people have responded to my proof, one of the arguments is as follows: "God is not limited to the same parameters that creation is confined to. For one, He is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere at all times" and another response was" A big problem with this argument is that Allah (the creator of everything) does not in any way assume the shape or form of HIS (Allah's) creation. This means that Allah is not inside HIS (Allah's) own creation. How can somebody who creates something be in the realm of his own creation? "

The main arguments seem to be that God would not be part of or be inside God's own creation and that if God made the rules then surely God must be able to break the rules. These are both good points to make and at first seem to disprove my theory. However they make the assumption that God created the universe.

The next logical step therefore is to prove that God did not create everything:

For God to be the creator and originator of everything that exists, God must have created everything out of nothing (i.e. nothing existed before). By definition this would mean that nothing would have to exist. But if nothing existed then God also would not exist.

Proof of the non existence of God

2005-02-23T09:22:00.000Z

Before we can prove that God does not exist we have to define what God actually is, so we will define God as omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful). So to be God you must have both the attributes of being omniscient and omnipotent, so to prove the non-existence of God we must prove that God is either not all-knowing or not all-powerful.

We will first assume that God exists and try to prove that God is not all knowing. So if God knows everything then this includes knowing all that has happened in the past and all that will happen in the future and this means knowing what our actions will be before we actually do them. This means however that we cannot have free will over our actions because if God knows what we will do before we actually do it, then it will happen anyway and means we do not have any choice in the matter. This doesn't prove that God is not all-knowing but means that either our sense of having freewill is an illusion or God does not know everything and therefore is not God.

We will assume for now that everything that exists is contained within the universe, including God. This means that everything must follow the laws of the universe, including God. But if God is subject the laws of the universe it means that God can not be all-powerful because God's power will be limited by the laws of the universe. Now you could say that God is not part of the universe, so let's assume that there are things which exist out side of the universe, there are now two possibilities. 1: that these things and the universe are contained in something else which is bigger, or contained in something else which is limitless, but are still subject to some sort of laws. If this is the case then God's power will still be limited by the laws that govern these other places and so cannot exist. The 2nd case is if these things outside of the universe follow no laws, this means there will be no laws to limit Gods power, it also means however that if there are no laws outside of the universe then everything outside of the universe is random because without any rules an entity cannot interact with another entity or with itself (so anything can happen when these things interact with each other or themselves). For example let's say that God wants to create a planet outside of the universe but because there are no laws anything might happen, God could instead make a giant bowl of cold custard with tins of baked beans inside with out meaning to, or just by thinking God could cease to exist. So in the 2nd case God's power is not limited by physical laws but is instead powerless.

So if there exists laws then Gods power must be limited and subject to these laws and if there are no laws then God is powerless, either way God is not all powerful which means that it is impossible for God to exist, instead only a very powerful life-form can exist.

Introducing the blog

2005-02-17T06:41:00.000Z

I have been meaning to do something like this for some time now, it is my attempt to ask some philosophical questions and to try and get some answers, it is not intend to offend anyone, although some people will consider it to be blasphemous (i.e. questioning the existence of God), would they still consider it to be blasphemous if, as a result of my asking these questions I came to the conclusion that God does exist.

I do not follow a religion or set of beliefs blindly just because that is what I have been brought up to follow, as it does not show any critical thinking. Therefore in order to consider a set of beliefs I must first examine and be critical of them.

Introducing myself

2005-02-12T23:06:00.000Z

This is my first post for this blog, so let me tell you a little about myself first.
I consider myself to have had a fairly religious childhood, I was brought up as a Protestant who attended a Catholic primary school and my family went to church every Sunday.

In my last two years of Secondary school I began to question my beliefs both in Christianity and in God, so I decided to look more closely at it's teachings and history. The more I looked the more I became disillusioned, as I read the Bible I found there to be numerous contradictions and inaccuracies. The history was even worse, to name but a few of my problems with it are: using force to spread the religion (the crusades)(what happened to 'But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you'. - Matthew 5:44 (NIV)), burning innocent people for having different beliefs (the witch hunts) (what about to 'Love your neighbor as yourself. - Mark 12:31 (NIV)), and trying to stunt the progress and advancement of science (Galileo)(as a scientist I'm a bit upset by this).

At collage one of the subjects I took was Religious studies, this is where I became interested in the teachings of Buddhism. I have also recently become interested in Islam.