It really makes no sense in most religions for God to be omniscient. The whole reason for the existence of free will is that he wants to test you, but if he is omniscient he already knows what you will do, so there is no free will at all. It therefore makes no sense for hell to exist because there is nothing you could possibly have done to stop yourself from becoming a sinnger.

I'm actually not a religious person but I attend a catholic university so I had to study for an obligatory theology exam.
For the exam I had to ream a book titled: "The Religious Sense" written by Luigi Giussani (a catholic priest).
I've found the book very interesting, it definetly hasn't converted me, but it changed a bit the vision I had about religions. In other words it helped me clear my mind on what being religious really means.
So I suggest everyone who wants to elaborate on this argument to read it.

http://books.google.it/books/about/The_Religious_Sense.html?id=WYF3Y_zT8zoC&redir_esc=y
Review: "Giussani challenges us to penetrate the deepest levels of experience to discover our essential selves, breaking through the layers of opinions and judgments that have obscured our true needs. Asserting that all the tools necessary for self-discovery are inherent within us, he focuses primarily on reason, not as narrowly defined by modern philosophers, but as an openness to existence, a capacity to comprehend and affirm reality in all of its dimensions. Part of the so-called new religious revival, The Religious Sense avoids any sentimental or irrational reduction of the religious experience. It is a forthright and refreshing call to reassess our lives."

In awser to the OP, it's very reductive to think the meaning of beliving in god is about believing in an omiscent being, the meaning of religion is more like believing there is an anwser that explains everything, that gives a meaning to all reality.
For christian, and for many other religions as well I guess, god is considered the creator so he knows everything about reality because he has created it. Also, according to christian religion, god knows everything about a person and his inner feelings and needs, still he gives any person the free will to decide whether to believe and follow him, or not.

If a being knows everything then by definition it knows everything. If it didn't know that it knew everything then it wouldn't know everything.

So yes something that knows everything must know that it knows everything by definition. As if it didn't, it would not know everything.

 

Now whether it is possible to know everything, is another argument all together.

Player1x3 said: Jay520 said: How could someome truly know he/she knows everything? It's not possible! It's not possible to say there's nothing which exists outside of your scope of knowledge. Becuase you have no knowledge of what lies there Just because a human brain fails to grasp the concept of omniscience (as well as many other 'omni' concepts) doesn't mean that it's not possible

Well, just because a human brain fails to grasp the concept of a supposed big bang appearing out of nowhere doesn't mean that it's not possible.

I'm not saying that we can disprove the existence of a god, but with the same reasoning we can't disprove the big bang theory (not being caused by a deity) either.

 

Our brain is extremely limited when it comes to understanding logic outside of our four dimensions. For that reason I would rather settle with not knowing how the world was created rather than saying "I know that an omniscient being created the universe", but I can also understand that people find comfort in believing that they know.

Jay520 said: But he can only base this on His knowledge. How does He know if His knowledge truly consists of everything?

Because he is omniscient!

But I see we've moved onto whether or not an omniscient being can even exist, and that's a totally different question.

Jay520 said: ninetailschris said: The argument falls when you you make the argument that assumes he doesn't know x at all. This goes against the very definition omniscient. There is no argument to assume he doesn't know anything and seems to be very circular coming from your mind and not actual reality of the definition. If I knew everything it would be incoherent to say that I don't know something. It's like saying is possible to eat 5 if you can't eat 5 then you can't eat everything. But it cannot know if it doesn't know. No being can know if there exists things which it doesn't know.

This is wrong: I know there are things that exist I dont know. What really is going on is this:  I don't know what the things I don't know are.

Example:
One of the things  I didn't know existed was red food dye with the name Carmine also known as Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470, or E120 -
(I knew something was the reason for red dye but I never knew what it was I didn't know Carmine existed)

It is made by killing insects in hot water (after which they are dried) or by exposure to sunlight, steam, or the heat of an oven. Each method produces a different color,

You need to kill 70000 cochineals for 1 pound of color.

Now that I know I don't eat alot of stuff that is dyed with this crap.
_

So now that I know red dye is made by doing something like this. My horzion broadened I now know there is other stuff out there I have no idea about. Because I found out therre is at least 1 thing (carmine) I had no idea about at all.  Now I know there is a process to create  blue dye/green dye etc.  but I don't know what the process looks like.  This is something I know it exists but I dont know how it works.
 
I know there is a possibillity of life on mars but I am not sure if it really exists or not.  This is something I know that might exist because people mentioned it before

Then there is things I or no other human for that matter even thought about. Like no person in 1492 was thinking about mobile phones. Or a neanderthal pretty much had no idea that deep in the sea there is something called  lantern fish.   This is why I know there is something I never heard of that exists but before I find out what it is I have no idea what it is.

To everyone saying "It uses Its knowledge to know scope & limits of that knowledge." I don't buy that. How could something use its knowledge to know that there is nothing outside of its knowledge? To verify that there is nothing outside of your knowledge, you would need a perspective outside of your knowledge - which is impossible.

If there were something outside and unrelated to your knowledge, you would have no clue of its existence, you would think that you're omniscient. But of course you would have no way of *knowing* that (Knowing suggests that you could use a perspective which covers both things you know and things you don't know. Otherwise you have no way of verifying if there is anything you don't know. But that's impossible). And because its impossible to *know* such a thing, its impossible to be omniscient.

GameOver22 said: kain_kusanagi said: It's all a matter of perspective. An omniscient being looking in on our universe from the outside can know all there is to know about our universe. From our perspective it knows all that there is to know. It could even know all there is to know about all universes, but we wouldn't see a difference if we could even understand that level of knowing. You assume that an omniscient being has a limit to it's ability to know. A truly omniscient being could in fact know all things past, present and future. It could exist in all places at all times. It could be all things and know what it is to be those things. An all powerful and all knowing being could even create a version of itself that doesn't know all things and then reintegrate to experience not knowing something. Or it could just know that all ready. This. Its really about frame of reference. For a temporally situated being with a subjective view point, I think I would concede that they couldn't know everything because of their inability to view all possible observations. For non-physical, objective beings, I would say omniscience is still possible because, as you said, its possible for them to view everything with no constraints on their observations.

How could a being know he had no constraints? It may appear that his observation unlimited. But from his perspective, there could be things outside of His perspective. Of course he cannont verify that. Which leaves the being with at least one fact he does not know. Therefore he cannot know everything.

Here's a quote the articulates my point we better than I am.

" All intelligent sentient beings must realize that without verification from other beings than itself or from science, it cannot know if it is correct in its world view. It doesn't matter how intelligent or knowledgeable a being is - if that being wants to verify its knowledge to make sure that it is correct then it needs to look to something more intelligent than itself, or to science. But what if you are the creator of science? You couldn't then use your own construct to test if your own construct was true, it would be an invalid test. If god attempted to find out if it did indeed know everything, it would realize that it has no way to know. How does it know it knows everything? It merely thinks it does. God has no test, method or possibility of finding out if it does indeed know everything. It could itself be a created being, with another creator hiding secretly behind it. It wouldn't know. In short, it does not and cannot know if this is true. God does not know everything and is not omniscient. In fact, no being can know everything because no being, however creative or perfect, can verify that its own knowledge is complete"

IIIIITHE1IIIII said: Player1x3 said: Jay520 said: How could someome truly know he/she knows everything? It's not possible! It's not possible to say there's nothing which exists outside of your scope of knowledge. Becuase you have no knowledge of what lies there Just because a human brain fails to grasp the concept of omniscience (as well as many other 'omni' concepts) doesn't mean that it's not possible Well, just because a human brain fails to grasp the concept of a supposed big bang appearing out of nowhere doesn't mean that it's not possible. I'm not saying that we can disprove the existence of a god, but with the same reasoning we can't disprove the big bang theory (not being caused by a deity) either.   Our brain is extremely limited when it comes to understanding logic outside of our four dimensions. For that reason I would rather settle with not knowing how the world was created rather than saying "I know that an omniscient being created the universe", but I can also understand that people find comfort in believing that they know.

I think BBT (with or without a deity) can be studied and be proven right or wrong using scientific method. A concept of omniscience can't, because we would always end up going in circles

Jay520 said: GameOver22 said: kain_kusanagi said: It's all a matter of perspective. An omniscient being looking in on our universe from the outside can know all there is to know about our universe. From our perspective it knows all that there is to know. It could even know all there is to know about all universes, but we wouldn't see a difference if we could even understand that level of knowing. You assume that an omniscient being has a limit to it's ability to know. A truly omniscient being could in fact know all things past, present and future. It could exist in all places at all times. It could be all things and know what it is to be those things. An all powerful and all knowing being could even create a version of itself that doesn't know all things and then reintegrate to experience not knowing something. Or it could just know that all ready. This. Its really about frame of reference. For a temporally situated being with a subjective view point, I think I would concede that they couldn't know everything because of their inability to view all possible observations. For non-physical, objective beings, I would say omniscience is still possible because, as you said, its possible for them to view everything with no constraints on their observations. How could a being know he had no constraints? It may appear that his observation unlimited. But from his perspective, there could be things outside of His perspective. Of course he cannont verify that. Which leaves the being with at least one fact he does not know. Therefore he cannot know everything.

That's the whole point of omniscient being is that ther is no constraint to question how it's possible is to make a complex question out of something simple but not liking the results. It seems like you don't like the idea but doesn't mean it isn't true. It's like if someone said how could the big bang happen couldn't just never happen because it seems so unlikey to x person. Has no effect on truth it's just seems like argument from amazement.

On the topic of how can we tell if something is omniscient being that is flawed question because there would be no way for a human tell of what is and isn't omniscient being it would have to be omniscient being to tell us because we don't know everything like it does.