Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 2,4 (click to see context) from:
* With the revelation that [[spoiler:the homeless man was God]], Bruce's initial rescue attempt could be a SecretTestOfCharacter; seeing Bruce attempt to protect a man he didn't really know assured God that Bruce wouldn't just abuse his power to hurt others.
** Bruce is also a good fit for God in a different way. At the end of the movie, his news phrase changed to "[[spoiler:Be the miracle]]," which everyone said with him. How is he able to spread such a positive message to so many people? Because he's a news reporter!
** Bruce is also a good fit for God in a different way. At the end of the movie, his news phrase changed to "[[spoiler:Be the miracle]]," which everyone said with him. How is he able to spread such a positive message to so many people? Because he's a news reporter!
to:
* With the revelation that [[spoiler:the the homeless man was God]], God, Bruce's initial rescue attempt could be a SecretTestOfCharacter; seeing Bruce attempt to protect a man he didn't really know assured God that Bruce wouldn't just abuse his power to hurt others.
** Bruce is also a good fit for God in a different way. At the end of the movie, his news phrase changed to"[[spoiler:Be "Be the miracle]]," miracle," which everyone said with him. How is he able to spread such a positive message to so many people? Because he's a news reporter!
** Bruce is also a good fit for God in a different way. At the end of the movie, his news phrase changed to
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Misplaced, moving to the correct tab
Changed line(s) 29,59 (click to see context) from:
* One of God's rules is that Bruce cannot violate free will. However, that doesn't seem to extend to [[BornOfMagic artificial humans]] created by Bruce, whom he can just will into existence and made to do whatever he wants, like the Columbian coffee man in the prayer answering scene. If he wants to, he can kill everyone in the world and [[LoopholeAbuse replace them all with identical people that obey his every whim]]. Though he thankfully never does that, it's a loophole that God just left in there.
!!FridgeLogic
* Apparently no-one prayed for anything but to win the lottery that week. The entire city should have been rocked by things like everyone with any disease or deformity being cured as soon as they prayed, and that's just one minor result. Seems like people would have picked up on the whole "yes to all prayers" thing pretty quickly, especially full-time clergy.
** Mainstream media tends to do a skewed/inaccurate portrayal of God, compared to religious texts, for various [[TakeThat reasons]].
* Why does he have to listen to the prayers (despite being the almighty), that wasn't one of the rules that God gave him. Can't he just use his power to block it out (he probably did try though).
** I wonder if he could have used omnipotence/omnipresence to see acknowledge and decline all of them at the same time. TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.
** You're right, he shouldn't have had to, since that wasn't one of the rules. Of course, what he could have done is simply ignore the prayers once he's made them e-mails, since he no longer had the voices to annoy him.
** Could also be because Bruce only acquired God's powers without acquiring God's ability to process them; keep in mind that Bruce is still operating on a human level with a human body and mind, whereas God Himself would likely require omniscience as well as omnipotence to be aware of everything others were praying for.
*** That was part of what God was trying to impart to Bruce: that being God isn't just about the powers, but that there's responsibilities involved too. It's similar to what Mufasa was trying to impart to Simba ("Well, there's more to being king than simply getting your way all the time...").
* Why did moving the moon affect the world. God had only given Bruce power over the area he was in, so the moon shift and gravitational difference should have only affected the area where he lived. Everywhere else would have the moon stay the same, and nobody would see it as any bigger. (Why? It's divine power, it should be able to do that).
** Bruce didn't use his divine power to make the Moon look bigger. He used his divine power just to move the moon. He simply wasn't thinking at all of the consequences, or using his divine power to mitigate them.
** Not true. He was only given prayers from his local area, but nothing was ever said about geographical limits for his powers.
** Maybe Bruce's powers work like the Infinity Gauntlet in the sense that they only work within a certain area but can affect things outside the area.
*** No, they were never given a geographical limit. At no point is there ever stated to be such a limit, only a limit on where he's getting the prayers from.
* Grace must really be stupid. Her boobs grew suddenly, Bruce got a posh new car, Sam started using the toilet, Bruce started getting all sorts of unrealistic news scoops and generally had brilliant luck. Most obvious of all, Grace had orgasms every time Bruce said "pleasure" or "pleasurable" to her. How is it possible that she never worked out that Bruce had attained some sort of magical powers? He wasn't exactly being very discreet about it.
** It'd take more than a few admittedly bewildering occurrences for me to jump to the conclusion that I'm living with God.
*** Maybe not jumping to God immediately, but Grace certainly should have worked out that Bruce had some sort of powers. All the things happening were centred around their lives, and the orgasms were happening when Bruce said certain words, so it wouldn't take a genius to work out it was him doing it.
** It could be that part of God's arrangement with Bruce involved creating a form of 'perception filter' so that certain people wouldn't actually ''question'' Bruce doing all these things up to a certain point.
* What was God's plan if Bruce buckled down and was responsible, or just competent, with his powers? There's nothing stopping him from ending poverty, disease, and all other human suffering which he would be morally obligated to do if he ever figured that out.
** God is, among other things, omniscient. He didn't need a plan for if Bruce buckled down and did all that, because he knew it wasn't going to happen. Plus, all those things can't really end without ending free will, which Bruce explicitly couldn't do. And trying to artificially do all those things would lead to other consequences, which would've been a lesson in itself.
** He might have ended up running the world like a dictator, either overtly or secretly. There are fanfics where Bruce easily wins the Presidency. Really, with his powers and just a little more practice, he would end up running the world, and God (according to the rules of the scenario) would have to wait for Bruce to renounce them.
* Bruce has no need to violate free-will. He could merely use his powers to imbue himself with tremendous charisma and powers of persuasion, as well as insights into people's desires and motivation. People are still able to make decisions, but disobeying him just got a lot harder.
** Powers of persuasion would basically be mind control, presumably violating free will. Although he could of course use his powers to give himself knowledge of what he should say to get the result he wants. And he has other powers for other things. Got a specific girl you want to have sex with? Transform yourself into an exact copy of her boyfriend. Or better, change her memory to think that YOU are her boyfriend.
*** Changing a girl's memory would potentially affect free will, as he is affecting her ability to make her own choices with full knowledge of her life.
* The movie's point makes no sense. 'Being God is hard' falls flat because, well, he is God. He has power over the cosmos, is omnipotent and omnipresent.
** The moral is actually about the responsibilities of being God, humanity is inherently flawed as we seek too much of a good thing. It makes us spoiled, lack ambition and morals. The things that make people human is kindness, ambition and humility with each other. If God gave us everything then we lose our humanity and depend on him, if he ignores us then we lose hope. Bruce was God for over a week and he ruined his life and couldn't get a moment of peace due to the amount of prayers. When he said yes every prayer he caused a mass riot in his town. In the movie God sees humans with fascination and leaving them to their own devices, he wouldn't destroy humanity and rebuild it another time because they annoyed him too much. It wasn't in the film's budget and they wanted to keep it simple and uncomplicated.
* When Bruce upgrades his old, beat-up car, why was it parked outside his apartment in the first place? Should it not still be parked outside the diner where he parted the soup? Since, Bruce had either been teleporting (Such as to walk on water with God or to get to the top of a skyscraper), or walking (during the "I've got the power" montage). You'd imagine he teleported home after the "I'm Bruce Almighty" bit, meaning the car should still be at the diner. Or did he actually teleport back to the diner, and drive his car home? Seems unlikely to me, especially when he could just teleport straight home and get right to the night of sex he had planned. And even if he DID go back and drive his car home, why did he not upgrade it there and then instead of waiting until the next day?
** Presumably, he teleported the car there.
* All of Bruce's problems while acting as a god were caused by him doing the wrong thing, aka. he didn't know what to do - he didn't have omniscience. Even if you argue that omniscience doesn't tell you what's the ''right'' thing to do, it should at least tell you what you need to do to achieve certain results. If he was given all the powers of God, it looks like *this* God lacks omniscience - which several of the statements God makes during the film also imply. He implied he doesn't know for certain how to make people love him without affecting free will, as an example. Adding to that, one of the themes of the film is supposed to be "Being God is hard.", which falls flat if what made it hard for Bruce was not using one of God's powers. As such, the film doesn't portray the Abrahamic god, who is (in modern times) agreed to be omniscient. This wrecks theodicy, but does solve the problem of evil.
** Because Bruce was omnipotent, he could have given himself omniscience. He was just too stupid to do that.
!!FridgeLogic
* Apparently no-one prayed for anything but to win the lottery that week. The entire city should have been rocked by things like everyone with any disease or deformity being cured as soon as they prayed, and that's just one minor result. Seems like people would have picked up on the whole "yes to all prayers" thing pretty quickly, especially full-time clergy.
** Mainstream media tends to do a skewed/inaccurate portrayal of God, compared to religious texts, for various [[TakeThat reasons]].
* Why does he have to listen to the prayers (despite being the almighty), that wasn't one of the rules that God gave him. Can't he just use his power to block it out (he probably did try though).
** I wonder if he could have used omnipotence/omnipresence to see acknowledge and decline all of them at the same time. TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.
** You're right, he shouldn't have had to, since that wasn't one of the rules. Of course, what he could have done is simply ignore the prayers once he's made them e-mails, since he no longer had the voices to annoy him.
** Could also be because Bruce only acquired God's powers without acquiring God's ability to process them; keep in mind that Bruce is still operating on a human level with a human body and mind, whereas God Himself would likely require omniscience as well as omnipotence to be aware of everything others were praying for.
*** That was part of what God was trying to impart to Bruce: that being God isn't just about the powers, but that there's responsibilities involved too. It's similar to what Mufasa was trying to impart to Simba ("Well, there's more to being king than simply getting your way all the time...").
* Why did moving the moon affect the world. God had only given Bruce power over the area he was in, so the moon shift and gravitational difference should have only affected the area where he lived. Everywhere else would have the moon stay the same, and nobody would see it as any bigger. (Why? It's divine power, it should be able to do that).
** Bruce didn't use his divine power to make the Moon look bigger. He used his divine power just to move the moon. He simply wasn't thinking at all of the consequences, or using his divine power to mitigate them.
** Not true. He was only given prayers from his local area, but nothing was ever said about geographical limits for his powers.
** Maybe Bruce's powers work like the Infinity Gauntlet in the sense that they only work within a certain area but can affect things outside the area.
*** No, they were never given a geographical limit. At no point is there ever stated to be such a limit, only a limit on where he's getting the prayers from.
* Grace must really be stupid. Her boobs grew suddenly, Bruce got a posh new car, Sam started using the toilet, Bruce started getting all sorts of unrealistic news scoops and generally had brilliant luck. Most obvious of all, Grace had orgasms every time Bruce said "pleasure" or "pleasurable" to her. How is it possible that she never worked out that Bruce had attained some sort of magical powers? He wasn't exactly being very discreet about it.
** It'd take more than a few admittedly bewildering occurrences for me to jump to the conclusion that I'm living with God.
*** Maybe not jumping to God immediately, but Grace certainly should have worked out that Bruce had some sort of powers. All the things happening were centred around their lives, and the orgasms were happening when Bruce said certain words, so it wouldn't take a genius to work out it was him doing it.
** It could be that part of God's arrangement with Bruce involved creating a form of 'perception filter' so that certain people wouldn't actually ''question'' Bruce doing all these things up to a certain point.
* What was God's plan if Bruce buckled down and was responsible, or just competent, with his powers? There's nothing stopping him from ending poverty, disease, and all other human suffering which he would be morally obligated to do if he ever figured that out.
** God is, among other things, omniscient. He didn't need a plan for if Bruce buckled down and did all that, because he knew it wasn't going to happen. Plus, all those things can't really end without ending free will, which Bruce explicitly couldn't do. And trying to artificially do all those things would lead to other consequences, which would've been a lesson in itself.
** He might have ended up running the world like a dictator, either overtly or secretly. There are fanfics where Bruce easily wins the Presidency. Really, with his powers and just a little more practice, he would end up running the world, and God (according to the rules of the scenario) would have to wait for Bruce to renounce them.
* Bruce has no need to violate free-will. He could merely use his powers to imbue himself with tremendous charisma and powers of persuasion, as well as insights into people's desires and motivation. People are still able to make decisions, but disobeying him just got a lot harder.
** Powers of persuasion would basically be mind control, presumably violating free will. Although he could of course use his powers to give himself knowledge of what he should say to get the result he wants. And he has other powers for other things. Got a specific girl you want to have sex with? Transform yourself into an exact copy of her boyfriend. Or better, change her memory to think that YOU are her boyfriend.
*** Changing a girl's memory would potentially affect free will, as he is affecting her ability to make her own choices with full knowledge of her life.
* The movie's point makes no sense. 'Being God is hard' falls flat because, well, he is God. He has power over the cosmos, is omnipotent and omnipresent.
** The moral is actually about the responsibilities of being God, humanity is inherently flawed as we seek too much of a good thing. It makes us spoiled, lack ambition and morals. The things that make people human is kindness, ambition and humility with each other. If God gave us everything then we lose our humanity and depend on him, if he ignores us then we lose hope. Bruce was God for over a week and he ruined his life and couldn't get a moment of peace due to the amount of prayers. When he said yes every prayer he caused a mass riot in his town. In the movie God sees humans with fascination and leaving them to their own devices, he wouldn't destroy humanity and rebuild it another time because they annoyed him too much. It wasn't in the film's budget and they wanted to keep it simple and uncomplicated.
* When Bruce upgrades his old, beat-up car, why was it parked outside his apartment in the first place? Should it not still be parked outside the diner where he parted the soup? Since, Bruce had either been teleporting (Such as to walk on water with God or to get to the top of a skyscraper), or walking (during the "I've got the power" montage). You'd imagine he teleported home after the "I'm Bruce Almighty" bit, meaning the car should still be at the diner. Or did he actually teleport back to the diner, and drive his car home? Seems unlikely to me, especially when he could just teleport straight home and get right to the night of sex he had planned. And even if he DID go back and drive his car home, why did he not upgrade it there and then instead of waiting until the next day?
** Presumably, he teleported the car there.
* All of Bruce's problems while acting as a god were caused by him doing the wrong thing, aka. he didn't know what to do - he didn't have omniscience. Even if you argue that omniscience doesn't tell you what's the ''right'' thing to do, it should at least tell you what you need to do to achieve certain results. If he was given all the powers of God, it looks like *this* God lacks omniscience - which several of the statements God makes during the film also imply. He implied he doesn't know for certain how to make people love him without affecting free will, as an example. Adding to that, one of the themes of the film is supposed to be "Being God is hard.", which falls flat if what made it hard for Bruce was not using one of God's powers. As such, the film doesn't portray the Abrahamic god, who is (in modern times) agreed to be omniscient. This wrecks theodicy, but does solve the problem of evil.
** Because Bruce was omnipotent, he could have given himself omniscience. He was just too stupid to do that.
to:
* One of God's rules is that Bruce cannot violate free will. However, that doesn't seem to extend to [[BornOfMagic artificial humans]] created by Bruce, whom he can just will into existence and made to do whatever he wants, like the Columbian coffee man in the prayer answering scene. If he wants to, he can kill everyone in the world and [[LoopholeAbuse replace them all with identical people that obey his every whim]]. Though he thankfully never does that, it's a loophole that God just left in there.
!!FridgeLogic
* Apparently no-one prayed for anything but to win the lottery that week. The entire city should have been rocked by things like everyone with any disease or deformity being cured as soon as they prayed, and that's just one minor result. Seems like people would have picked up on the whole "yes to all prayers" thing pretty quickly, especially full-time clergy.
** Mainstream media tends to do a skewed/inaccurate portrayal of God, compared to religious texts, for various [[TakeThat reasons]].
* Why does he have to listen to the prayers (despite being the almighty), that wasn't one of the rules that God gave him. Can't he just use his power to block it out (he probably did try though).
** I wonder if he could have used omnipotence/omnipresence to see acknowledge and decline all of them at the same time. TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.
** You're right, he shouldn't have had to, since that wasn't one of the rules. Of course, what he could have done is simply ignore the prayers once he's made them e-mails, since he no longer had the voices to annoy him.
** Could also be because Bruce only acquired God's powers without acquiring God's ability to process them; keep in mind that Bruce is still operating on a human level with a human body and mind, whereas God Himself would likely require omniscience as well as omnipotence to be aware of everything others were praying for.
*** That was part of what God was trying to impart to Bruce: that being God isn't just about the powers, but that there's responsibilities involved too. It's similar to what Mufasa was trying to impart to Simba ("Well, there's more to being king than simply getting your way all the time...").
* Why did moving the moon affect the world. God had only given Bruce power over the area he was in, so the moon shift and gravitational difference should have only affected the area where he lived. Everywhere else would have the moon stay the same, and nobody would see it as any bigger. (Why? It's divine power, it should be able to do that).
** Bruce didn't use his divine power to make the Moon look bigger. He used his divine power just to move the moon. He simply wasn't thinking at all of the consequences, or using his divine power to mitigate them.
** Not true. He was only given prayers from his local area, but nothing was ever said about geographical limits for his powers.
** Maybe Bruce's powers work like the Infinity Gauntlet in the sense that they only work within a certain area but can affect things outside the area.
*** No, they were never given a geographical limit. At no point is there ever stated to be such a limit, only a limit on where he's getting the prayers from.
* Grace must really be stupid. Her boobs grew suddenly, Bruce got a posh new car, Sam started using the toilet, Bruce started getting all sorts of unrealistic news scoops and generally had brilliant luck. Most obvious of all, Grace had orgasms every time Bruce said "pleasure" or "pleasurable" to her. How is it possible that she never worked out that Bruce had attained some sort of magical powers? He wasn't exactly being very discreet about it.
** It'd take more than a few admittedly bewildering occurrences for me to jump to the conclusion that I'm living with God.
*** Maybe not jumping to God immediately, but Grace certainly should have worked out that Bruce had some sort of powers. All the things happening were centred around their lives, and the orgasms were happening when Bruce said certain words, so it wouldn't take a genius to work out it was him doing it.
** It could be that part of God's arrangement with Bruce involved creating a form of 'perception filter' so that certain people wouldn't actually ''question'' Bruce doing all these things up to a certain point.
* What was God's plan if Bruce buckled down and was responsible, or just competent, with his powers? There's nothing stopping him from ending poverty, disease, and all other human suffering which he would be morally obligated to do if he ever figured that out.
** God is, among other things, omniscient. He didn't need a plan for if Bruce buckled down and did all that, because he knew it wasn't going to happen. Plus, all those things can't really end without ending free will, which Bruce explicitly couldn't do. And trying to artificially do all those things would lead to other consequences, which would've been a lesson in itself.
** He might have ended up running the world like a dictator, either overtly or secretly. There are fanfics where Bruce easily wins the Presidency. Really, with his powers and just a little more practice, he would end up running the world, and God (according to the rules of the scenario) would have to wait for Bruce to renounce them.
* Bruce has no need to violate free-will. He could merely use his powers to imbue himself with tremendous charisma and powers of persuasion, as well as insights into people's desires and motivation. People are still able to make decisions, but disobeying him just got a lot harder.
** Powers of persuasion would basically be mind control, presumably violating free will. Although he could of course use his powers to give himself knowledge of what he should say to get the result he wants. And he has other powers for other things. Got a specific girl you want to have sex with? Transform yourself into an exact copy of her boyfriend. Or better, change her memory to think that YOU are her boyfriend.
*** Changing a girl's memory would potentially affect free will, as he is affecting her ability to make her own choices with full knowledge of her life.
* The movie's point makes no sense. 'Being God is hard' falls flat because, well, he is God. He has power over the cosmos, is omnipotent and omnipresent.
** The moral is actually about the responsibilities of being God, humanity is inherently flawed as we seek too much of a good thing. It makes us spoiled, lack ambition and morals. The things that make people human is kindness, ambition and humility with each other. If God gave us everything then we lose our humanity and depend on him, if he ignores us then we lose hope. Bruce was God for over a week and he ruined his life and couldn't get a moment of peace due to the amount of prayers. When he said yes every prayer he caused a mass riot in his town. In the movie God sees humans with fascination and leaving them to their own devices, he wouldn't destroy humanity and rebuild it another time because they annoyed him too much. It wasn't in the film's budget and they wanted to keep it simple and uncomplicated.
* When Bruce upgrades his old, beat-up car, why was it parked outside his apartment in the first place? Should it not still be parked outside the diner where he parted the soup? Since, Bruce had either been teleporting (Such as to walk on water with God or to get to the top of a skyscraper), or walking (during the "I've got the power" montage). You'd imagine he teleported home after the "I'm Bruce Almighty" bit, meaning the car should still be at the diner. Or did he actually teleport back to the diner, and drive his car home? Seems unlikely to me, especially when he could just teleport straight home and get right to the night of sex he had planned. And even if he DID go back and drive his car home, why did he not upgrade it there and then instead of waiting until the next day?
** Presumably, he teleported the car there.
* All of Bruce's problems while acting as a god were caused by him doing the wrong thing, aka. he didn't know what to do - he didn't have omniscience. Even if you argue that omniscience doesn't tell you what's the ''right'' thing to do, it should at least tell you what you need to do to achieve certain results. If he was given all the powers of God, it looks like *this* God lacks omniscience - which several of the statements God makes during the film also imply. He implied he doesn't know for certain how to make people love him without affecting free will, as an example. Adding to that, one of the themes of the film is supposed to be "Being God is hard.", which falls flat if what made it hard for Bruce was not using one of God's powers. As such, the film doesn't portray the Abrahamic god, who is (in modern times) agreed to be omniscient. This wrecks theodicy, but does solve the problem of evil.
** Because Bruce was omnipotent, he could have given himself omniscience. He was just too stupid to do that.there.
!!FridgeLogic
* Apparently no-one prayed for anything but to win the lottery that week. The entire city should have been rocked by things like everyone with any disease or deformity being cured as soon as they prayed, and that's just one minor result. Seems like people would have picked up on the whole "yes to all prayers" thing pretty quickly, especially full-time clergy.
** Mainstream media tends to do a skewed/inaccurate portrayal of God, compared to religious texts, for various [[TakeThat reasons]].
* Why does he have to listen to the prayers (despite being the almighty), that wasn't one of the rules that God gave him. Can't he just use his power to block it out (he probably did try though).
** I wonder if he could have used omnipotence/omnipresence to see acknowledge and decline all of them at the same time. TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.
** You're right, he shouldn't have had to, since that wasn't one of the rules. Of course, what he could have done is simply ignore the prayers once he's made them e-mails, since he no longer had the voices to annoy him.
** Could also be because Bruce only acquired God's powers without acquiring God's ability to process them; keep in mind that Bruce is still operating on a human level with a human body and mind, whereas God Himself would likely require omniscience as well as omnipotence to be aware of everything others were praying for.
*** That was part of what God was trying to impart to Bruce: that being God isn't just about the powers, but that there's responsibilities involved too. It's similar to what Mufasa was trying to impart to Simba ("Well, there's more to being king than simply getting your way all the time...").
* Why did moving the moon affect the world. God had only given Bruce power over the area he was in, so the moon shift and gravitational difference should have only affected the area where he lived. Everywhere else would have the moon stay the same, and nobody would see it as any bigger. (Why? It's divine power, it should be able to do that).
** Bruce didn't use his divine power to make the Moon look bigger. He used his divine power just to move the moon. He simply wasn't thinking at all of the consequences, or using his divine power to mitigate them.
** Not true. He was only given prayers from his local area, but nothing was ever said about geographical limits for his powers.
** Maybe Bruce's powers work like the Infinity Gauntlet in the sense that they only work within a certain area but can affect things outside the area.
*** No, they were never given a geographical limit. At no point is there ever stated to be such a limit, only a limit on where he's getting the prayers from.
* Grace must really be stupid. Her boobs grew suddenly, Bruce got a posh new car, Sam started using the toilet, Bruce started getting all sorts of unrealistic news scoops and generally had brilliant luck. Most obvious of all, Grace had orgasms every time Bruce said "pleasure" or "pleasurable" to her. How is it possible that she never worked out that Bruce had attained some sort of magical powers? He wasn't exactly being very discreet about it.
** It'd take more than a few admittedly bewildering occurrences for me to jump to the conclusion that I'm living with God.
*** Maybe not jumping to God immediately, but Grace certainly should have worked out that Bruce had some sort of powers. All the things happening were centred around their lives, and the orgasms were happening when Bruce said certain words, so it wouldn't take a genius to work out it was him doing it.
** It could be that part of God's arrangement with Bruce involved creating a form of 'perception filter' so that certain people wouldn't actually ''question'' Bruce doing all these things up to a certain point.
* What was God's plan if Bruce buckled down and was responsible, or just competent, with his powers? There's nothing stopping him from ending poverty, disease, and all other human suffering which he would be morally obligated to do if he ever figured that out.
** God is, among other things, omniscient. He didn't need a plan for if Bruce buckled down and did all that, because he knew it wasn't going to happen. Plus, all those things can't really end without ending free will, which Bruce explicitly couldn't do. And trying to artificially do all those things would lead to other consequences, which would've been a lesson in itself.
** He might have ended up running the world like a dictator, either overtly or secretly. There are fanfics where Bruce easily wins the Presidency. Really, with his powers and just a little more practice, he would end up running the world, and God (according to the rules of the scenario) would have to wait for Bruce to renounce them.
* Bruce has no need to violate free-will. He could merely use his powers to imbue himself with tremendous charisma and powers of persuasion, as well as insights into people's desires and motivation. People are still able to make decisions, but disobeying him just got a lot harder.
** Powers of persuasion would basically be mind control, presumably violating free will. Although he could of course use his powers to give himself knowledge of what he should say to get the result he wants. And he has other powers for other things. Got a specific girl you want to have sex with? Transform yourself into an exact copy of her boyfriend. Or better, change her memory to think that YOU are her boyfriend.
*** Changing a girl's memory would potentially affect free will, as he is affecting her ability to make her own choices with full knowledge of her life.
* The movie's point makes no sense. 'Being God is hard' falls flat because, well, he is God. He has power over the cosmos, is omnipotent and omnipresent.
** The moral is actually about the responsibilities of being God, humanity is inherently flawed as we seek too much of a good thing. It makes us spoiled, lack ambition and morals. The things that make people human is kindness, ambition and humility with each other. If God gave us everything then we lose our humanity and depend on him, if he ignores us then we lose hope. Bruce was God for over a week and he ruined his life and couldn't get a moment of peace due to the amount of prayers. When he said yes every prayer he caused a mass riot in his town. In the movie God sees humans with fascination and leaving them to their own devices, he wouldn't destroy humanity and rebuild it another time because they annoyed him too much. It wasn't in the film's budget and they wanted to keep it simple and uncomplicated.
* When Bruce upgrades his old, beat-up car, why was it parked outside his apartment in the first place? Should it not still be parked outside the diner where he parted the soup? Since, Bruce had either been teleporting (Such as to walk on water with God or to get to the top of a skyscraper), or walking (during the "I've got the power" montage). You'd imagine he teleported home after the "I'm Bruce Almighty" bit, meaning the car should still be at the diner. Or did he actually teleport back to the diner, and drive his car home? Seems unlikely to me, especially when he could just teleport straight home and get right to the night of sex he had planned. And even if he DID go back and drive his car home, why did he not upgrade it there and then instead of waiting until the next day?
** Presumably, he teleported the car there.
* All of Bruce's problems while acting as a god were caused by him doing the wrong thing, aka. he didn't know what to do - he didn't have omniscience. Even if you argue that omniscience doesn't tell you what's the ''right'' thing to do, it should at least tell you what you need to do to achieve certain results. If he was given all the powers of God, it looks like *this* God lacks omniscience - which several of the statements God makes during the film also imply. He implied he doesn't know for certain how to make people love him without affecting free will, as an example. Adding to that, one of the themes of the film is supposed to be "Being God is hard.", which falls flat if what made it hard for Bruce was not using one of God's powers. As such, the film doesn't portray the Abrahamic god, who is (in modern times) agreed to be omniscient. This wrecks theodicy, but does solve the problem of evil.
** Because Bruce was omnipotent, he could have given himself omniscience. He was just too stupid to do that.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 21 (click to see context) from:
* Minor meta one, but during the classical "If he's God, then I'm Creator/ClintEastwood." But, it starts out with an unseen gunman shooting at his back windshield. Implying that the real Clint has to deal with people shooting at him on an every day basis.
to:
* Minor meta one, but during the classical "If he's God, then I'm Creator/ClintEastwood." But, bit, it starts out with an unseen gunman shooting at his back windshield. Implying that the real Clint has to deal with people shooting at him on an every day basis.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 21 (click to see context) from:
* Minor meta one, but during the classical "If he's God, then I'm Creator/ClintEastwood." Bit, it starts out with an unseen gunman shooting at his back windshield. Implying that the real Clint has to deal with people shooting at him on an every day basis.
to:
* Minor meta one, but during the classical "If he's God, then I'm Creator/ClintEastwood." Bit, But, it starts out with an unseen gunman shooting at his back windshield. Implying that the real Clint has to deal with people shooting at him on an every day basis.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
***That was part of what God was trying to impart to Bruce: that being God isn't just about the powers, but that there's responsibilities involved too. It's similar to what Mufasa was trying to impart to Simba ("Well, there's more to being king than simply getting your way all the time...").
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 29,30 (click to see context) from:
* One of God's rules is that Bruce cannot violate free will. However, that doesn't seem to extend to [[BornOfMagic artificial humans]] created by Bruce, whom he can just will into existence and made to do whatever he wants, like the Columbian coffee man. If he wants to, he can kill everyone in the world and [[LoopholeAbuse replace them all with identical people that obey his every whim]]. Though he thankfully never does that, it's a loophole that God just left in there.
to:
* One of God's rules is that Bruce cannot violate free will. However, that doesn't seem to extend to [[BornOfMagic artificial humans]] created by Bruce, whom he can just will into existence and made to do whatever he wants, like the Columbian coffee man.man in the prayer answering scene. If he wants to, he can kill everyone in the world and [[LoopholeAbuse replace them all with identical people that obey his every whim]]. Though he thankfully never does that, it's a loophole that God just left in there.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 29,30 (click to see context) from:
** One of God's rules is that Bruce cannot violate free will. However, that doesn't seem to extend to [[BornOfMagic artificial humans]] created by Bruce, whom he can just will into existence and made to do whatever he wants, like the Columbian coffee man. If he wants to, he can kill everyone in the world and [[LoopholeAbuse replace them all with identical people that obey his every whim]]. Though he thankfully never does that, it's a loophole that God just left in there.
to:
