The Contradiction of an All-powerful, All-knowing God

[Super Universe]

I understand. When I first heard of Gnostic theology, this also made much more sense to me than Christian doctrine. The Quran makes more sense to some who then decide to convert to Islam. Then there's the Book of Mormon which other folks find sensible.

Some parts of it may support your own experiences. Parts of it may even be validated, like historical parts of the Bible. Doesn't mean you have to accept any parts of it which you can't verify.

A good narrative will use facts, validated historical evidence to make it more believable.

If I was going to create a book on metaphysical truth, that's exactly what I would do. I'd take my visions, dreams, inspirations provide reasonable interpretations and conclusions and intersperse it with verifiable facts historical evidence/documents. First hand accounts all in support of this narrative of truth. 100% intention on my part to provide beneficial information to my fellow man.

Would I have anything other than my visions, inspirations to base this on? Not really.

You have to judge for yourself what belief/set of beliefs is best for you to rely on. Personally, I was never satisfied with a good, convincing narrative. They are not really that difficult to create. It's a type of sophistry that sometimes even the narrator has convinced himself of its truth. In fact, conviction in one's own narrative folks find very convincing.

Believe what you feel is correct to believe but reserve any real conviction until you are able to verify every part of it is my position.

In any of my beliefs, I am ready to be shown I am 100% wrong but that requires proof and validation.

If you are just relating the truth according to the UB, fine. Anyone choose to accept the claims of the UB for what it's worth. You seem to be posting from a position of certainty about what it claims to be true however and you're not really.

You're speaking from the position of accepting a convincing narrative like any of the folks from any other of these various religions.

You need to be shown proof or validation? At the next level you will be taught the truth but if your expectation of proof is too high then nothing will ever convince you.

God will not force you to believe in Him because that would violate your free will to choose whether to believe in Him or not.

 

[Nakosis]

Space is time? There was no scientific principle for space being time. Even today that is an advanced concept that scientists have trouble with.

E=MC2 was not something he just came up with. No being in the universe, except God, can come up with an original idea. It's impossible. Now, that does not mean that beings cannot have new ideas "pop" into their minds but when it happens it's coming from God. In this way God controls your advancement. He does not want His children to grow up too quickly.

You can actually test it. The next time you lose your car keys, look for them everywhere, if you don't find them go and sit on the couch and read a magazine. The location of your keys might just "pop" into your head in a few minutes.

I seem to know the impossible? I don't, you just don't know how the universe really works.

It's almost as if my God was in my mind? He's in every mind. You're just too occupied with the relationship, the bills, the kids, work, the home, and the car.

Here's what I "believe".

The subconscious mind is quite powerful. The conscious awareness of self, the "I" you consider to be your identity consists of anywhere from 2 to 5% of your brain. The rest is all sunconscious activity. Stuff you have no conscious awareness of. The subconscious brain remembers everything, can think faster and has access to the raw data of perception.

Basically the subconscious mind is Goliath and the "you" which consists of your entire persona is David.

So yes the subconscious mind probably knows where you left your keys. Einstein's subconscious mind was probably working on the riddle of E=MC2 for days, weeks and the answer "popped" into Einstein's mind.

Your UB was created by someone's subconscious mind, along with the Bible, the Quran any number of religious dialogues between the conscious and the subconscious mind.

One's subconscious mind is smarter, faster, more knowledgeable than the conscious self.

If you want to believe in God, it's not a problem for the subconscious mind to create a God for you.

You want to test this? Immerse yourself into any religious belief, any ideology. Hang out with religious folks of the same believe. The subconscious will create experiences for you to support your beliefs, whatever they happen to be. All you need to consciously do is to supply the necessary faith and conviction.

Speak in tongues. Translate it all with certainty. Prophesize from your own visions. Have conversations with God. Write your own book. It's all possible with enough faith.

You are not aware of your subconscious mind. You don't know how powerful it is.

 

[Nakosis]

You need to be shown proof or validation? At the next level you will be taught the truth but if your expectation of proof is too high then nothing will ever convince you.

God will not force you to believe in Him because that would violate your free will to choose whether to believe in Him or not.

Why would God want me to choose whether to believe in him or not? I don't choose to believe in the truth of something. I accept it to be true when to has been shown to be true.

It's like me telling you, "Here is a light switch. If you flip it the light will turn on". "However, I'm not going to actually let you see this happen because I want you to be able to choose to disbelieve it".

What's the point of that? I'm not going to prove something to you which is easily proven to be true because I think it's important that you are capable of disbelieving it is true.

 

[Super Universe]

Here's what I "believe".

The subconscious mind is quite powerful. The conscious awareness of self, the "I" you consider to be your identity consists of anywhere from 2 to 5% of your brain. The rest is all sunconscious activity. Stuff you have no conscious awareness of. The subconscious brain remembers everything, can think faster and has access to the raw data of perception.

Basically the subconscious mind is Goliath and the "you" which consists of your entire persona is David.

So yes the subconscious mind probably knows where you left your keys. Einstein's subconscious mind was probably working on the riddle of E=MC2 for days, weeks and the answer "popped" into Einstein's mind.

Your UB was created by someone's subconscious mind, along with the Bible, the Quran any number of religious dialogues between the conscious and the subconscious mind.

One's subconscious mind is smarter, faster, more knowledgeable than the conscious self.

If you want to believe in God, it's not a problem for the subconscious mind to create a God for you.

You want to test this? Immerse yourself into any religious belief, any ideology. Hang out with religious folks of the same believe. The subconscious will create experiences for you to support your beliefs, whatever they happen to be. All you need to consciously do is to supply the necessary faith and conviction.

Speak in tongues. Translate it all with certainty. Prophesize from your own visions. Have conversations with God. Write your own book. It's all possible with enough faith.

You are not aware of your subconscious mind. You don't know how powerful it is.

The subconscious mind is not the subconcious mind. It's the soul taking a try at being a human. That's why our dreams are so often a mixture of a normal experience with something that does not make sense. The soul is attempting to test drive the mind.

The awareness of self is in the mind but your mind is not in your brain. You think that every experience you've ever had is saved inside your brain but that is not true. Every experience you've ever had is in your mind which is a file in your program stored with God. If your mind was stored in your brain then when you died and reformed at the next level you would not know who you are.

The subconscious brain does not remember everything. It can access everything.

Einsteins subconscious mind was probably working on E=MC2 for days? He talked with a universal engineer in a dream. And he got some of what he was told correct and some of it wrong. He was fantastic, for a human, with math, not so good on advanced theory.

My UB was created by someone's subcoscious mind? It wasn't. As I said the subconscious mind is the soul taking the mind out for a spin. The soul has very primitive instincts like curiousity. It does not know how to be a human or even what a human is. It has to watch and experience what you do to learn.

I can test your ideas by hanging out with people from any religious belief? Been there, done that. I did not accept them, even when one of them was my father. And the other Urantia Book people I've met on the internet are what I call "love and lifers." They don't want to work to fix things. They want to sprinkle flowers on everything.

I should speak in tongues? Why? Do people think that languages they do not understand have more truth in them?

I should prophesize from my own visions? They were not for you. They were for me. You have to get your own.

Have conversations with God? No one has conversations with God.

Write my own book? Why? There are 99 sheep in a field. One goes lost, does the sheep herder stay with the 99 or does he go after the one?

I am not aware of my subcoscious mind and how powerful it is? I am aware and I'm not too happy about it. I was dreaming that the Borg were in the house and I thought I was awake and saw a flash of light so I got up to look out the window to see if there was lightning but I could see all the stars, there were no clouds. Then I went to the front room to look out the window and see if there was lightning there. There wasn't. Then I went down the hallway into the living room and into the kitchen looking for the Borg. Only then did I realize that I was sleep walking and went back to bed and the flash of light was part of the dream.

 

[Super Universe]

Why would God want me to choose whether to believe in him or not? I don't choose to believe in the truth of something. I accept it to be true when to has been shown to be true.

It's like me telling you, "Here is a light switch. If you flip it the light will turn on". "However, I'm not going to actually let you see this happen because I want you to be able to choose to disbelieve it".

What's the point of that? I'm not going to prove something to you which is easily proven to be true because I think it's important that you are capable of disbelieving it is true.

Why would God want you to choose to believe in Him or not? Because that is the purpose of the universe.

You don't choose to believe in the truth of something? Sure you do. Does the Eiffel Tower exist or not? If you think it does then prove it to me.

You accept something to be true when it has been shown to be true? What constitutes proof? A picture?

It's like someone telling you "Here is a light switch. If you flip it the light will turn on but I'm not going to let you do it. You just have to believe?" What would be proof of God to you? A voice inside your head?

 

[robocop (actually)]

Could God be all-knowing, all-powerful and dead?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Hello, Scott! Hope you're well.

Can I assume you know this because of the bible, which is the word of God? So therefore God must know this. But you said God has chosen Not to know our choices in advance.

It's a contradiction.......

Not really.. Saying you know how a situation is going to progress or end, doesn't necessarily mean that you know who will accomplish it. God doesn't look at a person and see the choices he's going to make, but God in His wisdom can tell how it might turn out. We can do the same thing, sometimes: say we're driving, and we pass someone who is texting while driving. We might say, "That person's gonna get into an accident." And then they do. The circumstances simply lent themselves to the foretold result!

But let’s put that aside. Let’s say someone is going to be as bad as Hitler or Pol Pot and kill millions. And God has chosen not to know. That would grossly negligent and he would be responsible for more evil in the world, and still would eventually punish the bad person. Why would he choose not to know in advance and then just send him straight to hell?

Most people aren't aware of this, but there were issues raised in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-6). One of them was that man should make his own choices....that he doesn't need God to tell him what to do. So, for the most part, God has stayed out of man's affairs. Yes, He knows we need Him (He has given us some guidance and enlightenment in a book, if we're willing to follow and try to understand it - the Bible).

But the issue needs to be settled once and for all. If He stepped in every time and stopped a tyrant from hurting others, He would be defeating His side of the issue!

But, Ezekiel 18:4 lets us know that, no matter how people die, even if they suffer most or all of their lives, it only lasts 70 to 80 years, i.e., their lifespan. Then they belong to God ("All the souls, to me they belong.") Their future life prospects rests with God. In the near future, -- because after 6,000 years, the issue is almost settled, -- God will step in; and those dead will be resurrected (John 5:28-29; 6:44), and enjoy life here on Earth as Jehovah intended, in happiness. Revelation 21:3-4. Isaiah 65:17.

Yes, your Grandparents, and their parents, and their parents, will be reunited. Just about every family relationship will be restored, those who are willing to live in peace, under God's authority. 1 Corinthians 15:24-28.

Hope this helps.

 

[scott777]

God doesn't look at a person and see the choices he's going to make,

I'm well thanks.
So you mean God isn't all-knowing?

 

[Hawkins]

No god can be all-knowing and all-powerful.

This not a new argument, but I’d like to hear any fresh takes on it.

If a god is all knowing, he must know in advance everything every person is going to do and can therefore judge them even before giving them life.

If he judges they should go to hell, there is no reason to give them life. In fact, that would simply allow them to do whatever bad things they are going to do, so the decision to give them life would itself be a sin and a contribution to evil.

If he judges they should go to heaven, there is again no possible reason for them to have a life, which would be a comparative punishment.

Therefore, if any god is all-knowing and all-powerful, none of us would be alive.

Wrong premise.

God's ultimate goal is to build an eternal Heaven. Those qualified to enter must be under open witnessing and qualified openly by an open judgment!

Heaven is an eternity for humans to live with a sin incompatible God. Law is thus set up to specify what are not allowed and not tolerable by the Holy God. A serious covenants are thus signed off for various scope of humans in different period of time for them to be qualified under the circumstance that they can no longer abide by God's Law to its full. You don't need to abide by God's Law to its full (as you can't) as long as you can be qualified by the covenant applicable to you, as salvation comes from the blood shed by God the son Jesus Christ.

 

[Oeste]

Well, the Bible tells us that God doesn't judge us before we're born but only after we die. Otherwise, there would be no judgement like the ones mentioned in Revelation.

God does predetermine but He can sometimes change His mind after the fact like He did with the city of Nineveh. They repented so God did not destroy them.

God enjoys His creation, He loves what He does; else He wouldn't do it.

I suppose He decided to do things His way instead of what you suggest. I know that He created for His glory.

Every once in a while you go through a thread and find a breath of fresh air.

Thanks for the breather, DavidFirth.

I wish I had more time to spend on forums like these...perhaps one day...

 

[Oeste]

What I always find interesting is that first theists make the claim that we cannot understand god because he is so above us, and then second theists claim to know god by informing everyone who doesn't believe in him all they know about him.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Through His word the bible we know of His character and thoughts, but that doesn’t mean we know God Himself. Isaiah 55:9 puts it this way: “"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

If we want a god we know and/or completely understand we can always create one in our own image...which, come to think about it, is exactly what the pagans did.

 

[Oeste]

God's gift of free-will choices means God chooses to Not to know our choices in advance.

Incorrect, God is NOT an ignoramus. If God “does not know” then He is stupid about some things or silly about others. The key to understanding this is to know when scripture speaks anthropomorphically or when it speaks literally, rather than allowing someone or something to lead us into believing God is ignorant about you, me or any other aspect, characteristic, and/or trait of His creation.

Yes we have free choice, but “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD” (Psalm 139:4). If your assertion is true then Psalm 139:4 is a lie!

God is NOT limited by his creation, or by our choices. “God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” 1 John 3:20


Any idea that God is or has been continuously, voluntarily, or blissfully ignorant informed is nonsensical and unbiblical. You are describing a pagan rather than scriptural Deity.

 

[Oeste]

Good job! Many can’t seem to understand that the concept of the immortal soul, and the concept of the Resurrection, are contradictory beliefs! One catn’t be “alive somewhere”, then also “brought back to life”! The concept of being resurrected is found throughout the Scriptures; immortality is not.

Sorry Hockeycowboy, but the resurrection is of our bodies, because it is our bodies that die, not our souls. There is nothing “contradictory” about this.

Besides, we’ve been through this before. Your organization teaches you “cease to exist” when you die with one side of its mouth:

5 What happens at death is no mystery to Jehovah, the Creator of the brain. He knows the truth, and in his Word, the Bible, he explains the condition of the dead. Its clear teaching is this: When a person dies, he ceases to exist. ​

and that you are “unconscious” when you die with the other.

Thus, Lazarus said nothing about his experience of death because the dead are unconscious.​

That is contradictory, because something that has "ceased to exist" can’t be unconscious and something "unconscious" cannot possibly have "ceased to exist."

They are mutually exclusive concepts and neither you nor any other Witness have explained how both can be so. Your Organization needs “new light” on this confusing, contradictory and non-scriptural teaching.

 

[ChristineM]

I deliberately tried to cloud the conversation and failed? Says the confused one.

I seem sure of God's mind and intentions? I'm sure of some things, not so sure about others.

I don't see the conflict in knowing impossible to know things? There is no conflict. Look up the Akashic Record and we will go from there. I will walk you through it. Maybe you should start a new thread on it?

Red herrings are a tactic used by the hard of thinking to convince themselves that they are quite clever? That must be it. Yep. That has to be it.

We keep throwing red herrings in the hope that one day? One day what? You humans always think you are important to the universe. That it cannot go on without you. It can and it does.

Am I aware that the brain is capable of multi-tasking? It cannot multi-task but it can make decisions very quickly if it has to. You can only make one decision at a time but well known tasks can be done very quickly. This is why people don't always hear what others say, because their mind is elsewhere. And it is why people get into accidents when they are talking on the phone while driving.

How do I breathe while reading a magazine? The same way I breathe while sleeping.

You would ask God if the claims that I made have any relevance outside SU's mind? He answers "Some do." Now what?

The dual slit experiment is designed to show that photons have both wave and particle properties? Correct, but that's not all. It shows that the universe only forms when there is a viewer. How does the universe know you are viewing a certain part of it?

The dual slit experiment is only a quanutm fraction of how the universe works? The universe is particles so if the dual slit experiment explains that a non-three dimensional wave forms three dimensional particles only when viewed that means what then?

Calling myself an assembly of chemicals is a pretty accurate description? I was not referring to myself.

I am far from confused, at least i know the difference between general relativity and mass energy equivalence.

Yet you dictate as though you are the dictator.

Of course you don't see the conflict, look up the definition of impossible. And once again you throw in another red herring to confuse the issue.

Glad you agree.

And another red herring, total OTT bs because you have nothing relevant. First, are you not human? Second, ask the universe how important the humans on one minuscule planet of trillions of planets are and the universe will reply "uh!"

Why do you limit the actions of the brain? The complexity of the brain, the processing power of the brain? Its as though you delight in putting yourself down. The higher brain of course is limited by multitasking, however the brain has lower functions that operate simultaneously (multitasking). But perhaps, you not being human and all, you have problems breathing, seeing, hearing at the same time as contemplating the vagaries of god dun it.

I.e. you breath by multitasking

No it doesn't, you are bastardising Schrödingers cat analogy and mass energy, you seem to have much contusion over mass and energy.

The dual slit experiment is performed with photons, what about gluons, bosons, electrons, protons, neutrobs, prions etc? Non three dimensional wave? How is this observed in a three dimensional universe?

No? Who then?

 

[Oeste]

If a god is all knowing, he must know in advance everything every person is going to do and can therefore judge them even before giving them life.

Absolutely!

If he judges they should go to hell, there is no reason to give them life.

I don’t see why. We have many people living in “hellish” conditions now. No one claims they should have their life taken away nor do they claim men and women should not "give life" by having them sterilized. And yes, I understand that “hellish” is not the same as “hell”, but the concept still applies

In fact, that would simply allow them to do whatever bad things they are going to do, so the decision to give them life would itself be a sin and a contribution to evil.

This is simply another argument for abortion, but instead of asking mom to abort a defective baby you ask God to abort a defective mankind.

If he judges they should go to heaven, there is again no possible reason for them to have a life, which would be a comparative punishment.

Yes, that is the same argument given to many mothers…it would be hell to let the baby live. It would be a form of punishment. It is a sin to let it live and “… a contribution to evil”.

I'm sure if Satan didn’t make the same argument before God he likely thought about it.

Therefore, if any god is all-knowing and all-powerful, none of us would be alive.

And mom would have had that abortion.

Quite simply God knew how we would turn out but decided to have us anyway because He loved us. Yes, he could have created human automatons but decided to give us free choice instead. And He didn’t condemn us to die in His creation but to live, which is why He gave us His son.

Scott77, your argument, while interesting, strikes me as a variant on “Designer babies”. Mom aborts the first fetus because he’ll go to prison, the second fetus because he’ll be a banker, but the third she keeps only because he’ll be a professional basketball star.

 

[Nakosis]

Why would God want you to choose to believe in Him or not? Because that is the purpose of the universe.

You don't choose to believe in the truth of something? Sure you do. Does the Eiffel Tower exist or not? If you think it does then prove it to me.

At least there is pictures of it. Not having been there myself, I really don't have knowledge of it. However, I'll tell you what, If you want to pay for the air fare, I'll travel with you to Paris to find out for certain, hows that?

You accept something to be true when it has been shown to be true? What constitutes proof? A picture?

Falsifiability. IOW after doing whatever I can to disprove something, when I've failed in that, I'm pretty certain that I can rely on it.

It's like someone telling you "Here is a light switch. If you flip it the light will turn on but I'm not going to let you do it. You just have to believe?" What would be proof of God to you? A voice inside your head?

Consistency. I mean if everyone who claims to have spoken to God had the same message that would be pretty evident that something is going on. However what I find is everybody has their own idea about God. Folks will take something like the Bible interpret it according to their own experiences and influences to create for themselves a concept of God to believe in.

I've done that, can do that with any number of various religions. I've gotten to the point I can create pretty much any God I want to. Just I'm aware of doing it.

You want to believe in a God "channelled" by Wilfred Custer Kellogg. Ok, that's fine. I'm quite capable of creating my own God to channel from. However you'd rather believe in the God created by Wilfred for some reason.

 

[DavidFirth]

Every once in a while you go through a thread and find a breath of fresh air.

Thanks for the breather, DavidFirth.

I wish I had more time to spend on forums like these...perhaps one day...

Thank you.

 

[Nakosis]

The subconscious mind is not the subconcious mind. It's the soul taking a try at being a human. That's why our dreams are so often a mixture of a normal experience with something that does not make sense. The soul is attempting to test drive the mind.

The awareness of self is in the mind but your mind is not in your brain. You think that every experience you've ever had is saved inside your brain but that is not true. Every experience you've ever had is in your mind which is a file in your program stored with God. If your mind was stored in your brain then when you died and reformed at the next level you would not know who you are.

The subconscious brain does not remember everything. It can access everything.

Einsteins subconscious mind was probably working on E=MC2 for days? He talked with a universal engineer in a dream. And he got some of what he was told correct and some of it wrong. He was fantastic, for a human, with math, not so good on advanced theory.

My UB was created by someone's subcoscious mind? It wasn't. As I said the subconscious mind is the soul taking the mind out for a spin. The soul has very primitive instincts like curiousity. It does not know how to be a human or even what a human is. It has to watch and experience what you do to learn.

The only difference here is that you've added a supernatural element to the story. That's up to you. Since the supernatural can't be validated I don't use it in my explanations.

I can test your ideas by hanging out with people from any religious belief? Been there, done that. I did not accept them, even when one of them was my father. And the other Urantia Book people I've met on the internet are what I call "love and lifers." They don't want to work to fix things. They want to sprinkle flowers on everything.

The mistake you made is you didn't accept them. You didn't have faith and so there was no conviction for your subconscious, or souls as you like to call it, to work with.

For me faith is easy. It doesn't require any validation, you just choose what to believe in. Your subconscious mind/soul takes care of the rest.

I should speak in tongues? Why? Do people think that languages they do not understand have more truth in them?

Well they are both interesting experiences. Seeing how your subconscious mind/soul can create these events for you. You are there just consciously watching the event unfold without any volition on your part. Experiencing it once might make you a believer.

I should prophesize from my own visions? They were not for you. They were for me. You have to get your own.

I wasn't asking you to prophesize for me. Seems you already know how this works.

Have conversations with God? No one has conversations with God.

Not even the celestial beings? Then how the heck did they get their information on God?

Write my own book? Why? There are 99 sheep in a field. One goes lost, does the sheep herder stay with the 99 or does he go after the one?

What? I'm not sure what you're implying here. I assume the shepherd can watch the flock and still find time to write a book.

I am not aware of my subcoscious mind and how powerful it is? I am aware and I'm not too happy about it. I was dreaming that the Borg were in the house and I thought I was awake and saw a flash of light so I got up to look out the window to see if there was lightning but I could see all the stars, there were no clouds. Then I went to the front room to look out the window and see if there was lightning there. There wasn't. Then I went down the hallway into the living room and into the kitchen looking for the Borg. Only then did I realize that I was sleep walking and went back to bed and the flash of light was part of the dream.

Well partly aware. The subconscious mind can create a reality for you to experience. This is actually happening all of the time. Not just in your dreams.

 

[scott777]

Absolutely!



I don’t see why. We have many people living in “hellish” conditions now. No one claims they should have their life taken away nor do they claim men and women should not "give life" by having them sterilized. And yes, I understand that “hellish” is not the same as “hell”, but the concept still applies



This is simply another argument for abortion, but instead of asking mom to abort a defective baby you ask God to abort a defective mankind.



Yes, that is the same argument given to many mothers…it would be hell to let the baby live. It would be a form of punishment. It is a sin to let it live and “… a contribution to evil”.

I'm sure if Satan didn’t make the same argument before God he likely thought about it.



And mom would have had that abortion.

Quite simply God knew how we would turn out but decided to have us anyway because He loved us. Yes, he could have created human automatons but decided to give us free choice instead. And He didn’t condemn us to die in His creation but to live, which is why He gave us His son.

Scott77, your argument, while interesting, strikes me as a variant on “Designer babies”. Mom aborts the first fetus because he’ll go to prison, the second fetus because he’ll be a banker, but the third she keeps only because he’ll be a professional basketball star.

No, it’s nothing like another argument for abortion, since an all-knowing god must know before conception, in fact he must know everything even before the creation.


“Quite simply God knew how we would turn out but decided to have us anyway because He loved us.”

This is rather funny. So you think God loves even the greatest sinners and the greatest genocidal maniacs, he loves people who he knows will have to go to hell afterwards, and people who hate him and try to destroy him. He loves Satan Worshipers.

So his incredible logic is that if he determines someone is destined to be the very worst, he still gives them the gift of life, still allows them to take away life from many others, then puts them in hell at the end. Is he a bit retarded?

 

[scott777]

At least there is pictures of it. Not having been there myself, I really don't have knowledge of it. However, I'll tell you what, If you want to pay for the air fare, I'll travel with you to Paris to find out for certain, hows that?



Falsifiability. IOW after doing whatever I can to disprove something, when I've failed in that, I'm pretty certain that I can rely on it.



Consistency. I mean if everyone who claims to have spoken to God had the same message that would be pretty evident that something is going on. However what I find is everybody has their own idea about God. Folks will take something like the Bible interpret it according to their own experiences and influences to create for themselves a concept of God to believe in.

I've done that, can do that with any number of various religions. I've gotten to the point I can create pretty much any God I want to. Just I'm aware of doing it.

You want to believe in a God "channelled" by Wilfred Custer Kellogg. Ok, that's fine. I'm quite capable of creating my own God to channel from. However you'd rather believe in the God created by Wilfred for some reason.

Please Barnacle Bill, when you've finished with your barnacles, would you mind reducing your huge image of baby in car, which is so big, I think it may be slightly bigger than God and its starting to make me religious.