Where in the Bible is it stated that God is omnipotent and omniscient? I see a lot of atheists, myself included, asking this and pointing out plotholes. Isn't it just some Christian fantasy?
Edited to clarify:Thanks for pointing this out Štěpán Svoboda! My answer is only on omniscience according to the christian Bible and doesn’t include omnipotence. I’m sure the link below has a page on that though.Here are a few verses I found on a site(God is Omniscient). To be fair this really only becomes a “thing” when reading all of them and interpreting(good god, I wish I had the time for that) all of them in a way that says: omniscient.“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” Isaiah 46:9–10“Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD, or instruct the LORD as his counselor? Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding?” Isaiah 40:13–14“Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD” Psalm 139:4“O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways” Psalm 139:1–3“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you” Psalm 139:15–16“Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since he judges even the highest?” Job 21:22“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit” Psalm 147:4–5The list goes on…
If there is an omniscient God, how can humans have free will?
There is a difference between God knowing what we will do, in any given scenario, from eternity future, and Him forcing us to do it.I know the physical capabilities, and the personal characteristics of my dog, as well as the terrain of my backyard well. Therefore I understand the possible options that he has. He still has the free will to do many things within the parameters I’ve given him.If he can manage to get beyond the fence he has even more options. However, I know the likelihood of my dog running away, or getting hit by a car, ending up in the pound, abducted, starve to death, get eaten by a gator, etc. if he can manage to get out of my backyard.The rules and boundaries I’ve given him help provide for his needs, protect him from himself, protect him from everything else out there, and provide the basis for a good mutually beneficial relationship between the two of us. He can choose to go outside of those boundaries but will do so at his own peril.As is it with us and God.
What physical evidence exists that is used to prove the existence of God(s)?
I'll answer as a physicist.There is no physical evidence that there is a god. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But if you're looking to assuage doubt by looking for proof of god, the physical Universe will not provide anything unambiguous. First, physical evidence for a god is in principle possible. There are lots of ways that an omnipotent being could make its presence known to us. First and foremost, there could be no laws of nature. The fact that laws of nature exist is a remarkable thing. You could find that measurements are not repeatable and that there was no basis for empirical fact. You could measure the electron to have a mass of 511 keV/c^2 today and 512 keV/c^2 tomorrow. The hand of god could be directly influencing the outcomes of everything. We don't observe this. God could have been like the Greek/Roman gods whose existences would surely be noticeable. Most of us consider this laughable because it is so far divorced from reality, and modern religions have refined the notion of god so that it is now carefully constructed to avoid physical evidence. Ultimately, we observe that empiricism works which means that god has detached itself and that everything in the physical world that we've discovered seems to follow simple patterns. If god manifests itself in the physical world, it only wants to make itself manifest through subtle effects.Then there could be patterns encoded in observations that should be stochastic. For instance, there could a morse-code pattern in radioactive decay. There isn't. There could be patterns written in the cosmic microwave background radiation. We don't observe any patterns. It is possible that there are patterns in the cosmic neutrino background or the cosmic graviton background, but we don't know how to measure these yet. So therefore, a god, if it exists, has left us no physical clues that we've been able to untangle at this point. For me, I'll assume that no god exists until there is countervailing evidence, but it is an assumption, because you cannot disprove the notion of god or anything that doesn't require evidence to exist. But most religions are based upon faith, which is belief without evidence. I'm not trying to convince you what to believe one way or the other, only reporting on what we know about the physical Universe.
If God doesn't exist, how does anything exist?
If God doesn't exist, how does anything exist!Had Stephen Hawkings saw this question, he would have said " I don't know what happened before THE BIG BANG, but after that event everything follows a pattern, suggesting god is man made ". Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that he/she doesn't exists, however his/her presence has no evidence. Personally, the laws of equations and a fixed pattern to everything is the greatest clue of no such God. Answering to your question as to how everything exist, I think just because humans haven't understood the concept completely, we are not supposed to create a God. Many people argue that if God doesn't exist, then how is one "lucky" and the other not.I answer them with a mathematician's quote, "LUCK is a normal distribution function. Each one of us is equally probable to be lucky in our lifetime."Moreover, even Dan Brown in his book " Da Vinci Code" suggested that Jesus was voted as God. These people are not whimsical, but they have enormous renowned sources on which they depend to conclude such quirky arguments. Having said that, I still agree that those resources are contentious. Some philosopher had said, " Religion was created to inculcate harmony, whereas God was created to scare people of doing heinous crimes". But, on the contrary, in modern times the purpose of doing so seems completely failed. People kill in names of God, whereas harmony is shattered in the name of religion. Had I been the so called God, I would have , firstly, annihilated the concept of God and religion. The world without such philosophy will be much more stable. In sum, we should do what's good for humanity. Doing so is no less religious and serving humans is no less than praying God.
What is the lifetime of a god like?
Well, God is supposed to be omnipotent. Theists say he has existed forever and will exist forever.Bear that forever word in mind for the rest of this answer. Now, ask yourself what is the most effective nonviolent punishment used in western prisons today? Solitary confinement. This is bad enough when you have vision, hearing and the ability to do simple exercise. Imagine Solitary confinement where there is nothing to see, hear or do….for longer than you can possibly think of. God is eternal. He will have spent an infinite amount of time with nothing. I don't care how omnipotent you are, that is going to drive you insane.So there he is, metaphorically dribbling in his padded cell of nothingness. All of a sudden he creates the universe. Here we can see more examples of his hypocritical madness. A massive universe with his prized creation occupying a tiny blip in the backwaters of a very average galaxy. Killing for the sake of it yet banning his creation from following his lead. Getting angry with people for doing the things he set them up to do. Designing creatures that are so poorly made, those same creatures must surpass his power to put right, etc, etc, etc.And in an instant to his infinite existence, he gets bored and tears it all down in one terrible armageddon, to spend the rest of forever going ever more insane in his void of nothing.