• TIL Satan is a genie.

    Also, in these games, the folks going for “more wishes” are shooting low. The only wish you need, which also defeats the monkey’s paw, is “grant me omnipotence.”

    But: this is Satan we’re talking about. The Deciever, The Traitor. Not only is this a monkey-paw situation, but a Christian Satan is going to actively try to decieve you.

    I don’t think I’d even trust his answer about whether there’s a cost, so I’d pass on the winning lotto numbers, too.

    I’d say, “no thanks” and immediately convert to Catholicism, start going to church, and lead a clean life from here on out. If the orthodox Jews are right, I’m fucked anyway since my mother isn’t a Jew, so Christianity is the best bet.

    • PatheticGroundThing@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      Omnipotence without knowing how to control it could very easily instantly annihilate you, whether physically or mentally through complete ego death.

      • Sombyr
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        11 months ago

        Omnipotence means you can do literally anything, and anything includes having perfect control of your powers without knowing how to use them. It also includes the ability to continue to interact and exist as an omnipotent being even if you were completely, utterly, 100% destroyed.

        If you were omnipotent, you could just decide that every action you take will benefit you in some way and then, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re doing the right thing. You could even just choose not to lose yourself in your newfound power.

        You don’t have to know how to do something to do it when you’re omnipotent. You don’t even have to know the option to do it exists to choose that option. Because omnipotence means the ability to do literally anything, even when it makes no logical sense.

        Of course, none of this makes logical sense. It doesn’t have to, because omnipotence isn’t a scientific concept or anything. It’s a word we chose to define in a contradictory way. It’s like if we made a new word that means “somebody who can do things they’re completely incapable of doing.” Not even really a paradox so much as a word whose definition makes no sense.

        The weirdest part to me is that an omnipotent being must, by necessity, have the ability to create a being with powers exceeding omnipotence. Something more powerful than them. But they must also have the ability to overpower their creation, otherwise there’d be something they can’t do, and they would therefore not be omnipotent. That’s just a mindboggling thing to think about.

    • qooqie@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      This is the only true safe wish or questions. Nothing is pressing enough to ask just to get purposefully deceived and probably in such a way as to cause harm

    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeOP
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      11 months ago

      I thought if Judaism is correct gentiles can avoid Gehennom (purgatory) by following the 7 noahide laws?

      • GCanuck@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        And here I thought the Jewish faith didn’t have an afterlife?

        So much conflicting information in this religion thing. I think I’ll just avoid it all together.

      • Dunno. I haven’t studied it; all my info comes from informal conversations with a jewish friend of mine, a long time ago. I could also be misremembering what he said.

        It’s something I would look into, if faced with confirmation of a judao-christian afterlife, especially if I could concurrently cover multiple bases. I’d look at Islam, as well; could be they’re not mutually exclusive. I dread to think of how limited my diet would become… but faced with an ensured eternity in hell ¯\(ツ)