The POO God

The POO God... Perfect Omniscient Omnipotent

Who's Yo Daddy? 

 Back in the pre-Abrahamic days, Gods were more or less "regular Joes," just like you and me, but with better accessories- Helmets, fashionably ornate breast plates, winged sandals, etc. But they had human emotions and foibles. Where Western religion screwed the pooch was inventing THE POO God, thereby creating the greatest problem that any thinking person has with religion, reconciling how a POO God allows/creates/sponsors evil in the world. There is a field of study solely devoted to this topic. It's called theodicy.

I Am That I Am

Perfect means "without fault or defect." If the POO God created the universe, then Earth  and mankind are EXACTLY the way he wants them, unless we want to believe that THE POO God could intentionally create something imperfect. Omniscience is " knowing everything." So God knows everything about everything, and of course knew exactly what was he was creating and what would happen. So without yet discussing culpability for evil, a True Believer must at least acknowledge that God knows (and knew in advance) every evil act ever done by any person, and every "act of God" natural disaster that has inflicted misery and death.



Omnipotent means that God is all powerful and

Ex Nihilo

aware of and is in control of everything throughout all space-time. 






This makes it impossible to consider that God may be napping or taking a five day Carnival cruise to the Western Caribbean. 





THE POO God, by definition, would be "all good", characterized by unlimited benevolence. Using the principal of "everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten," reasonable people could agree that the actions of God in the Bible are nothing short of horrific. It has been argued by Richard Dawkins that he is the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Since God knows everything, is everywhere, all powerful, all good, and perfect, we must believe that the human experience (with all its imperfections) is EXACTLY what God planned and wants. Uh-Oh, Lucy. You have some 'splaining to do.

A certain segment of True Believers tries to do an end run around this conundrum by inventing Satan, who is the opposite of God, or maybe not completely. 

Satan, of course, cannot be perfect or omniscient, but there are certainly those believing that Satan is omnipresent (Get thee behind me Satan) just waiting to be let in. This relationship may be like the principal and the Dean of men in a 1960s high school, where the principal was always a nice guy and it was the Dean of men would take out his paddle and whack people.

If God is not POO, he can only be ILL. Imperfect, Limited sight, Limited power. This brings us back to a more manageable level, not unlike the gods of Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology. But those pesky little desert nomads just couldn't leave good enough alone and they had to insist, "OUR God's POO doesn't stink."

Pride always goeth before the fallen man.