What does God want me to do with life? and any response that I may receive how can I be sure it is coming from God?

If you believe in an omnipotent and omniscient god then the answer is simple, anything you do.... that's what he wanted you to do, since it's not possible for you to do something he either didn't know already that you would do, or that he didn't want you to do.

Everything is god's will, right?

The god I'm describing is neither omnipotent or omniscient.

Then I don't see how you could ever be sure about what god wants you to do. A non-omniscient, non-omnipotent god would resolve a lot of other problems though.

This is wrong, because that God doesn't necessarily make your choice clear.

It seems every time you mention the terms "omnipotent" and "omniscient" you also can't help but claim those qualities.

You're ignoring the wording of the OP, which was "What does God want me to do with life?".

Since it's not possible for you to do something that god doesn't want you to do, because by definition that means it isn't the perfect things to do and that would mean that god created something imperfect and that's not possible because god doesn't make mistakes or create anything less than perfect..... then anything you do is what god wanted.

And I think those concepts are doing a lot more work than you seem to appreciate. Your constant personal digs won't change anything about the right or wrong of this debate, but if it makes you feel good to do it, have at it.

To be sure it is coming from God, be God yourself: Don't live for food.

¨

All these are unwarranted conclusions that do not follow.

Not to mention that you're claiming to be able to recognize exactly what an omnipotent and omniscient being's definition of "perfect" and "mistake" is. Which is very dubious, and what I mean when I say that you tend to claim the traits of "omnipotent" and "omniscient" when debating them. It was not "a dig".

what if god made it so that you would do the exact opposite of what he wanted you to do?

Ask Judas.

When god created everything that will ever be he got it exactly right because he can't make mistakes. Nothing is by chance because nothing can happen that he didn't know was going to happen and everything that has ever been decided by anyone was designed to happen that way by god..

Even if you think you have a choice, you're just going to decide the thing he planned to happen. So free will is just an illusion.

No I'm not claiming anything of the sort, I'm simply pointing out that god can't make mistakes, whatever ever his intent was, he created it perfectly, it couldn't be otherwise. So I suppose you could argue that what we have is perfection.

Again, that does not follow. You are just assuming your conclusions. Also, there is no reason to suspect that you know what form omnipotency or omniscience would take.

In fact the idea that a non-omnipotent and non-omniscient being could reliably recognize or understand what those concepts are is rather absurd. Consider that an ant understanding a space station is not even on the same scale of potential understanding, because for all its unlikelihood we're still on a scale of finite values.


You are correct that you can't know what perfection is, so you can't say that it hasn't been made.

But other than that there are no requirements in omnipotency or omniscience to "create perfection", that's just you making assumptions.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm drawing conclusions from a set of defined conditions. I'm taking omnipotency or omniscience to mean literally all-powerful and all-knowing, I don't think that's unreasonable. If you have some other definition then use them but be clear with me about what you think they mean.

I've never said that free will can't exist at all, I said that it's an illusion under the conditions of god being omnipotent or omniscient, or that god isn't omnipotent or omniscient. That second option would also resolve the issue of the problem of evil and gratuitous evil, but that's a separate conversation.


So anyone who is not god, cannot understand god. This viewpoint really ought to cause you to simply shrug your shoulders anytime god comes up, how could you possibly have an opinion on any of it given that you are simply unable to, and incapable of, perceiving god? It's like some kind of 'mysterious ways' argument on steroids. If your intent here was to point out to me that I'm simply not able to understand god and therefore should just stop arguing about him, you could have done that in one sentence a long time ago. Why only bring it up now?

A perfect being, incapable of anything less than perfection, cannot create something less than perfect. And since god created everything, what we have must be perfect. That's valid, but I can see two problem with the first premise, whether or not a perfect being can create something less than perfect, or whether to not god is actually perfect. If he isn't that resolves a lot of problems, so I'd be happy to agree that god isn't perfect, even though I can't possibly understand him.....

The question in the thread is more directed to those who already believe in God. It's actually an important question to me. The idea of what I ought to be doing in life is a question close to my heart.

Stop being an a s s hole. That's it.

I've addressed your question assuming that god exists (a belief I don't actually hold), otherwise it's a meaningless question, and whether or not I personally believe in god is completely irrelevant, and should be to you too. Something is right or wrong regardless of what you believe or how important it is to you.

My life philosophy is to embrace the absurdity and try not to be a jackass. My favourite moral theory is Virtue theory also it doesn't help much past the idea of being nice to people.

Living for food = being an a ss hole = being an economist
Don't be the businessman in "The little Prince":

Three and two make five. Five and seven make twelve. Twelve and three make fifteen. Good morning. FIfteen and seven make twenty-two. Twenty-two and six make twenty-eight. I haven't time to light it again. Twenty-six and five make thirty-one. Phew! Then that makes five-hundred-and-one million, six-hundred-twenty-two-thousand, seven-hundred-thirty-one."

"Five hundred million what?" asked the little prince.

"Eh? Are you still there? Five-hundred-and-one million--I can't stop . . . I have so much to do! I am concerned with matters of consequence. I don't amuse myself with balderdash. Two and five make seven . . ."

That's all Jesus did want to teach.

Nobody who is not omniscient can understand omniscience, nobody who is not omnipotent can understand omnipotency. This is not even a tricky proposition. It would like trying to download an infinite file to a finite harddrive, there just isn't enough capacity.

You could potentially understand aspects of such a being, but you would have to do it within your own finite framework and be limited by the confines of your own potential. You'd be cramming a number into a calculator too big for it to handle - not necessarily useless, but it's impossible to be exact.

And you can certainly not, like you do, claim to know what the motivation of such a being, what forms its creations would take or what parameters it chooses to operate within. Something you do in pretty much every post you make on this issue ad nauseum.

And you seem surprised by this and seem to think it poses a problem. It does not. We do not fully understand anything, that's just the nature of things. That we can't fully understand some hypothetical God isn't really a surprise when we can't even fully understand a dinner fork.

Here you are just assuming conclusions, doing circular reasoning and repeating yourself as usual.

I honestly want to know, if God exists and lets assume he does, what ought I do with my life? Because I don't have a clue what to do.

So you think qualities have been assigned to god that no one actually understands, that no one is capable of understanding, and yet they were able to assign them anyway. Nonsense.

Exactly what we do, otherwise we might as well not bother.

I'm not claiming to know anything about god's 'motivations', you're inventing things now. I won't explain what I have been doing, again, because as you point out, I've done that ad nauseum. Despite that, you don't seem to be able to accurately describe what I've said. This is problematic.

And yet we keep trying, what ya gonna do...... Feel free to bow out at any time if you feel the effort is pointless. Or we can assign various hypothetical qualities to god, and from them determine what is and isn't possible given those qualities.


No I'm not. I was going to say more but I think that will do actually.

Like I said, if you don't want to play along, don't, but shrugging and saying 'we don't and can't really know anything' is pointless and boring.

I think they are words that are close to meaningless that some people (like you and a bunch of theists) think contain actual descriptions. Consider that for us the difference between a sufficiently high level of power and omnipotent would be impossible to tell.

No, it is the point. If you refuse to acknowledge limitations of knowledge and understanding, then you are redeeming every evidence-lacking belief in existence.

I agree with the Jordan Peterson view that no matter what we say about what we think we believe, we act as if God exists. When tragedy strikes, we feel a sense of betrayal — a feeling that goes beyond our reaction to the singular event — instead of seeing it as an indifferent event within a meaningless reality. So assuming God exists is a good start because it’s more truthful in my view, and aiming at truth produces better results in the long run in my experience.

Next, why are you concerned about acting in a way that is acceptable to God? From your perspective (at least this was true for me way back when), God has betrayed you and is therefore more foe than friend.

The question is how to act. Should we rebel in an anti social, destructive manner? I say no because God judges us as foolish and pathetic for this behavior. All we have to do is pay attention after we behave that way to see that it’s true. We shouldn’t give God the satisfaction to see ourselves in this negative light. Should we try to make God feel sorry for us or perhaps make him feel guilty by ending it all and committing suicide? My response to that is to pay attention to all the atrocities throughout history. If that hasn’t made God blink, then our committing suicide isn’t going to make him squeamish, and we will again be made to look like a fool. Should we shrug our shoulders and cope with life defeated? Only if we want to be judged as weak, insignificant, and pathetic, which again we should not give God that satisfaction.

For me, the best path forward was to believe in myself and to “come to power” as Nietzsche would say, but to do it in a way that deprives God the ability to judge me in a negative light. When you take on this attitude, morality and ethical behavior become almost an obsession, but not because you are trying to virtue signal or avoid disproval from other people, and especially not as a way to please God. Rather it’s an act of defiance towards God. Does that make sense? Truth leads us to disciplining ourselves and willing ourselves out of insignificance and powerlessness by standing up to God.

I don't act as if God exists, nor do I see reality as meaningless. So the "we" is greatly exaggerated. I guess "some of us" didn't have the same ring to it.

I don’t deny that we are all capable of countless ways to avoid, deny, and be deceived even over an entire lifetime. When chaos/tragedy/suffering rips away those facades and ego inflations, we have the opportunity to follow truth to a deeper understanding of what is really going on.

I'm just glad I don't assume everyone who doesn't think exactly like me are just doing it because of inflated egos.

Because that's the kind of thinking that excuses anything.