Claims of God Being Omnipotent in the Bible

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Two things.

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First, you yourself denigrated the value of eye witness testimony in your post. Not sure what the purpose is of trying to re-elevate it here.

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No, I denigrated uncorroborated and unverified eyewitness testimony, and the reason for that should be obvious. Also, eyewitness corroboration of letters and paintings/sculptures made at the time are a means of verification, and not held as the primary evidence.

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Second, the comparison at hand is not to Jesus Christ, but to whoever djufo claims informed the Sumerians.

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The inclusion of Jesus was another analogy, in this case to show the unreliability of "eyewitness" accounts that are unverified. However, djufo claimed he had evidence that Sumerian cuneiform supported Biblical events, and I am still awaiting that evidence. The attempt by djufo is not the first attempt to use the Epic of Gilgamesh as evidence for a worldwide Flood, and it has always been refuted by historians, as well as the sciences of archaeology, geology, biology, botany, hydrology.Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed quoteEdited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.

So God is a failure as a leader? He's a General who orders his troops over the top and only a handful of them go? Even human leaders are more inspiring than that.

Human leaders inspire humans to do human things, like fighting for the freedom of capitalist exploitation so that their kids can inherit the family business. Jesus is a leader who tells everyone under His charge that they don't have to deny themselves if they don't have a heart for it.He even lets everyone know beforehand that only a minority of them will graduate training.He is a good leader, however, in that He took the bullet for everyone in the class...even the dropouts who chose not to hang. I hardly call that autocratic. You people seem to assume that there is a better outfit to become involved with...one that has no leaders, mass consensus, and individual liberty rather than groupthink. We are living in times like that now. Time will tell which philosophy is the better one.

You're beginning to sound like me. That's just it though. The ones who choose not to go over the top get shot for cowardice. That isn't a free choice. It's funny how Christians (American Christians anyway) espouse individualism here on earth but reject it for eternity. I'm not convinced you can separate omnipotence from autocracy.

I can imagine the conversation now.... GODs Chosen General: We wage war not against flesh & blood but against principalities,powers, and wickedness in high places! We have met the enemy and he is us!
Private Ringo Excuse me, but can i see some I.D.? I'm not convinced that i'm fighting the right foes here. All of the gods I've ever known failed to live up to their press release...and who am I listening to, anyway?Satans army has better food and free beer! Who are we to judge them as the enemy? General Ringo, why must you always be so contrarian? Can't you just listen to me? I AM knocking at the door of your conscience.Ringo Looks to me like you have your servant Phat writing this script and I know he is not fully inspired to write it. I'm sorry, General...I and my critically thinking friends have far to many questions to join this outfit! Humans have discovered far too many contradictions and inconsistencies in the stories we have about your God! Religion is for the birds! General Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Now fight the good fight, private and you will inherit eternal life!Ringo So if the birds don't sow nor reap and yet get fed, why are your representatives always asking for my money? Frankly I'd rather give my spare change to the vagrants in the park. Those men are real,down to earth types...no religious facade there!
General I don't want your money! I want your heart and soul!
Ringo No can do. I don't know enough about you or your army to sign up...So what can Gods General do? Will Ringo end up in hell for rejecting that which he doesn't trust nor know enough about?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Chapter and verse please. Chapter and verse please. Chapter and verse please. Remember it must be verses where Jesus says, not John.

I suppose the keyword here is "under His charge". This would mean the Disciples, right? So far it appears that the action of following Jesus is quite voluntary. Im attempting to prove that Jesus never makes anyone do anything. Lets continue... Well...I suppose Jesus urges His followers to encourage each other to deny themselves and go and do...but I'm still unconvinced He is making us do anything! Lets continue... He makes it clear that it will be their decision to deny themselves and follow Him.hmmmm...the more I read the more I see no support for my statement. Im not giving up yet, thoughI can empathize with the Disciples, however. After all, what do they get out of the deal?? Evidently Jesus promises eternal life. So far, I cant prove where He told anyone it is ok to opt out.all I can say is echoing this scripture. Im not convinced that one has to deny themselves. Shouldnt such an act be voluntary? OK I have one for this:

Have you forgotten who created those principalities and powers? God is on both sides, just ike He was in World War One.Maybe He's only in it for the carnage. He ought to know as well as we do that in war nobody wins.

I think you have Him confused with The Rothschilds! The only way to allow free will was to allow a war (spiritually) otherwise he would have created perfect creatures with no ability to rebel and no opportunity to learn.

Read your history. Gott mit uns. There's no such thing as "free will" - not when the only "choices" are slavery or torture. Why do you conflate learning with rebellion?

I have noticed a pattern--in general--between believers and nonbelievers. Believers by and large want an authority in their lives and/or believe that they need one. Unbelievers seem to by and large think that autonomy is life's greatest gift.

No Phat, you're extending your own beliefs to non-believers, thinking that they must be equal and opposite. Good and evil and all that. God and the devil. Binary. Silly.Non-believers just get on with it. The majority don't worry about such stuff, it's all just life and we try to make the best of it. It's just nothing that ordinary people think about. It's just....normal and real, like traffic jams and bills.Autonomy isn't life's greatest gift, life is life's greatest gift.

you messed up my pattern, but I sense you have an honest answer. I will incorporate that into my database.

Hmmm. I sense you still don't get it.Because atheism - and I'd say a agnosticism too - is an absence of belief, it has no analogue with the way a believer thinks and behaves. The way you think about the world and go about your physical life with its churches, meetings, prayer groups, sing-songs, bible readings, evangelisms, aphorisms before dining, God bless America etc etc has no equal with 'us'.When you try to imagine how it is for us, you get it wrong by thinking it's somehow the opposite of the way it is for you, or that we give the same amount of time and effort to being atheist/agnostic as you do to being a believer. Well we don't - it's just an absence. There's no church, no prayer, no thought process no congregation; nothing to reinforce our non-belief on a daily or hourly basis; there's just life.Very, very few of us atheist/agnostics spend our time talking and thinking about this stuff - these boards are an aberration. In a day to day existence being atheist is as interesting as not having sugar in your tea.I think too, that your views are tempered by being in such a strange society, a while back in the USA I got asked in a matter of fact way what church I attended. That's not a question I've ever been asked before in my life. In Northern European countries the assumption is that you're a nice liberal agnostic/atheist.

Nobody ever asked me that either when I was an atheist. Were you perhaps in a Southern state, somewhere in the "Bible belt."?