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Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike worship different interpretations of what originated as the same God; also known as the God of Abraham, or Yahweh.
Taking that into account, if this matchup were even possible, Jesus' victory would be in the bag; assuming positive values, X < Y+X. I don't believe one can assign a negative value for something like strength.
That means you are an idiot. It actually does make sense to you. You can't form a counter argument unless it makes sense to you. Is it that you think he is wrong, or that the words that he typed out don't belong together?
There really isn't a way to understand it per se; we're talking about a hypothetical scenario where two deities who should, logically, be either mutually exclusive or very much the same entity, facing off head to head as separate entities.
The Christian God and Islam's Allah are based on the same god, with the same capabilities. We'll call the influence of God/Allah's strength on the equation X.
The Christian God is lending his strength to his son, Jesus. We'll call Jesus' independent strength Y.
So on one side, we have X.
On the other side, we have X+Y.
As 'strength' can't really be a negative, we're looking at numbers greater than or equal to zero to represent each of these.
Jesus wins with Gods help if Jesus' strength is nonzero. If Jesus' strength is zero, it's a dead heat.
Allah's Islam and Christianity's God share the same roots, and as such would have equivalent capabilities, but the two entities are made distinct in this scenario; they really couldn't be otherwise for this to play out as suggested.
A victory in Allah's favor would require specific limitations to the amount of power granted to Jesus, and Allah using his own full power; the nature of the assistance is not clarified- the assistance could be in the form of nullifying Allah's own 'supernatural' abilities, after all.
That's why I noted "if this matchup were even possible" as a hypothetical scenario; even if Allah and the Christian god were to be considered distinct entities, nothing suggests that either would have any advantage or disadvantage over one another; Jesus would be the tipping point in that hypothetical scenario.
If Allah and the Christian God were to be considered the same entity, then Jesus w/God still wins, if only by default, as that scenario would be one where the christian interpretation of god was correct, and the 'Allah' they would be against would not be another deity, simply a flawed interpretation of one.
If Allah and the Christian God were to be considered the same entity, then Jesus w/God still wins, if only by default, as that scenario would be one where the christian interpretation of god was correct, and the 'Allah' they would be against would not be another deity, simply a flawed interpretation of one.
Jesus doesn't have to be the actual messiah for this scenario. He could just be a crazy guy. In which case, the Christian interpretation of God does not have to be correct. So, could go either way as the Jesus Y factor in your equation would be negligible.
Jesus doesn't have to be the actual messiah for this scenario. He could just be a crazy guy. In which case, the Christian interpretation of God does not have to be correct. So, could go either way as the Jesus Y factor in your equation would be negligible.
But doesn't the face-off specifically state that Jesus has God's assistance? Turning down the obvious troll potential, I'd assume for the sake of this that God isn't going to lend his assistance to some crazy guy. But, you're right that it doesn't necessarily mean Jesus has to be the actual messiah; but at worst, in this scenario he would be a favored prophet whos divine status was a misattribution by man.
That said, if Jesus is not the messiah, but just a prophet, then the contribution of Y is pretty much negligible compared to X; that would leave it as more or less a dead heat.
I don't believe that the debate itself specified the nature or extent of the assistance. I would presume, if the opponent was another deity more or less equivalent to God, that God would not be stingy in empowering his champion.
But still- it doesn't matter whether the difference between consensual assistance and unconditional devotion is understood or not, because the terms of the debate do not define it as being one or the other.
I'm NOT taking either side, despite what the rules of this debate are. All I can say is, THIS IS THE DUMBEST ARGUMENT!!!
Two things:
1. If you have a god against a god, how is someone going to fight air to tip over the fight. What could Jesus POSSIBLY do to hurt FUCKING ALLAH!!! I mean you could ask the same question about Allah and Muhammed vs God. FIGHTING GOD IS LIKE FIGHTING FUCKING AIR!!! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR FUCKING SKULLS ALREADY EVERYONE!!!
2. This is a childish immature argument, that should be reserved for talking about comical superheroes. If anyone actually SAYS, in ANY WAY and I quote, "what if Jesus was really a comic book superhero," I'm going to say that you are FUCKING INSANE OUT LOUD ON MY COMPUTER, EVEN IF I'M IN SCHOOL IN MY COMP SCI CLASS!!!
I MEAN IT!!! There has to be SOME rational argument here. Hence, you are all wrong.
Also OT: The whole trinity deal somewhat confuses me. Maybe I'm forgetting it, but I'm not personally aware of scriptures that establish God as being composed of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Specifically, I'm not aware of scriptures that differentiate between the Father aspect and the Holy Spirit aspect, nor am I aware of scriptures that establish Jesus as being an aspect of God himself.
I know Jesus is quoted as having said 'My father and I are one' or something to that effect, but that doesn't establish membership of God; When people use the phrase 'we are one' it is almost never a case of the two being the same person, but rather simply indicating accord and a common cause.
Jesus actually in John 5:19 it says that whatever the Father does the Son does as well making it known that the Son does whatever the Father does making them both the same person.
Take for example the 3 branches of government. We have judicial, executive, and federal. They are all part of the government but they are still labeled a government and not something else.
That statement doesn't establish them as the same person without serious subjective interpretation. If it says 'Whatever the Father does, the Son does as well' it would seem to suggest that they are two different people undertaking the same action. That's in-line with the statement 'we are one' as in having an accord.
As a father myself, I can certainly tell you that what I do, my son does as well- or tries his best to. That doesn't make us the same person by any stretch.
Comparing the branches of government to the aspects of God is interesting though; it certainly seems like some form of checks and balances is in play with the trinity, after all, if it's accepted to be true. The branches of government are defined by their individual powers and their checks and balances; the judicial branch does not have the power to create or enforce laws. The executive branch does not have the power to create laws or pass judgement. The legislative branch does not have the power to enforce laws or pass judgement. None of these, individually, can be called a government. Does the same hold true for the Trinity? Are the capabilities of God distributed amongst the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
A lot of people have issues with the idea of God being omnipotent and omniscient; the problem of evil being just one of the larger aspects of this dilemma. But if it's a Trinity, where no aspect is individually omnipotent or omniscient, it would make more sense. The problem of evil does seem like something that could pop up in a world designed by what is essentially a committee; even if, in aggregate, the trinity is omnipotent and omniscient, dissent between the non-omniscient non-omnipotent members of the Trinity could answer for a lot of problems. It might also answer for some of the 'changes' in the way God deals with humanity as chronicled in the bible; all it would take would be for the 'tiebreaker' vote to shift.