If having a god meant an afterlife and that afterlife wasn’t conditional on a lot of arbitrary, retarded-ass rules, I’d consider it. Otherwise, no. It’d just be another natural force in the face of which we are helpless, only with intelligence to make destroying deliberate.
You are really asking for two questions:
Do you wish there was a God (as in, one gets created right now)?
Do you wish there always had been a God and that I believed?
In answer to the second one, if I found out there was a God and he let the world get to this state, it’s no god I would worship. It’s also not a God that I would accept if he went around punishing people for their sins. I’m sorry, if he made us, then he put all of these flaws in us. If we go to the watchmaker analogy, it’s the watchmaker getting pissed that the watch dies after a year because he put shoddy workmanship into it.
In answer to the first one. I have an inherent problem with a God being created right now. Say a vastly superior alien intelligence comes along and solves our problems and starts dishing out judgment and morality at the price of eternal peace and prosperity.
Well, we have in effect reached out our own glass ceiling as a species. There is no way we’ll ever take care of ourselves or fix things in our world. No way we’ll come to a humanist point of view on our own, and we need to come to a humanist point of view for world peace.
Not only that what if one day we do aspire to reach the powers of this God? Will it let us? Or will it keep us down forever?
And I have major problems with a concept of an afterlife. Seems to me if everyone was convinced this was the only life we got, we might be inclined to make this one a paradise on earth. Suffering is not noble, as too many religions say - it’s just suffering.
No, I do not wish there was a God.
Voted “it depends”.
The God of most of the world’s religions is a nutcase and I’d be disappointed (oh, and terrified) even if he currently considered me one of the good guys, and was offering me a reward.
But of course I can think of hypothetical entities where everything would be great.
While I’m waffling, IMO the God thing is only important by proxy.
e.g. It would be great if there were a (good) afterlife.
Now that, conceptually, doesn’t entail a supernatural father figure. But historically people have seen things that way, so if you were to say “I wish there were a (good) afterlife” they take it you mean “I wish there were a God, and that God created a (good) afterlife”.
We don’t need an afterlife for that.
Touching a hot stove hurts. 
You may want to reconsider your analogy.
Hire a publicist! (Or, you know, be satisfied with doing good for its own sake.)
They have normal, low-key services. I assume the believers pray and the atheists meditate or think about things or just wait for them to get going again. 
I don’t think they do that.
Nobody else is going to. If you want any, you’re going to have to do it.
I can’t remember, it’s been so long since I’ve been. But if they do pass collection plates, I reckon that the money goes to the same places that it does in more devout churches. Pay the minister, buy new hymnals, repair the leaky roof, have the organ tuned…
Please excuse this hijack/quasi-rant, but I’ve noticed a trend lately in atheist threads to tout Unitarian Universalism. I know the old joke “What’s a Unitarian Universalist? An atheist with kids.” But what if, unlike the people who consider themselves “Spiritual but not religious,” you’re “religious but not spiritual?” You want the structure but not one mote of supernatural phenomenon/happy-dust?
I’m an atheist (with no kids at home any more) and I went as far into UU as the membership seminar. But there were a few things that veered me away at the starting gate:
I’m an atheist because I don’t have a high tolerance for bullshit (and this includes my own bullshit). UU was free of traditional Christian dogma, but not of bullshit: Wicca bullshit about fairies and Buddhist bullshit about Khama and reincarnation; Metaphysical/pseudoscientific bullshit: “we are all just stardust!” (yes, technically correct I suppose, but so the fuck what?)
OK, scolding myself for my intolerance of the inherent, oftimes redeeming nonsense in the human condition, what was still keeping me from feeling at home in UU?
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The unrealistic optimism. The UU’s I encountered tended to be nice, middle-class suburban people. Much, much more tollerant of ethnic and gender minorities than their Christian counterparts, but still heavily invested in the “life is so nice” never-never land of their class. At each service the group would share the things for which they were thankful, or were troubled by. To listen to them, I got the impression that “my mom had breast cancer” was the UU’s concept of the worst possible thing that could happen to any human being.
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Misandry-lite. Plenty of clubs and events for the female members, something doing almost every night of the week, and mild male-bashing in those parts of the sermons where the jokes get plugged-in. For the male memebers, ther was a once-a-month breakfast at Ihop. If your’re an atheist male joining UU in hopes of gaining a soical life, all you have to look forward to is yardwork and hanyman jobs on the chuch grounds.
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Too many UU’s just weren’t…there. Every conversation I ever had with a UU would be derailed within minutes into “Oh, you should read this book I read on that topic.” Great, I read a lot myslef. But I also have a life outside of books and I think that’s a better basis for human connection. Sheesh, there’s more to conversation than raw information.
Later, I went to a Quaker meeting and was much happier with it. Some Quakers are heavily Christian, but in the big cities much more relaxed. I just sat there in the quiet for an hour with a hundred of so other people who checked their egos at the door. No sermon, no preaching. And they practice what they don’t preach: a lot of things I’m in agreement with: pacifism; anti-death penalty, poverty and ignorance redress. And after the service, they usually have a nice potluck with pefectly nice conversation. I mean, fuck, they even call themselves the Society of Friends.
Again, sorry for the hijack, but I wanted to point out that UU isn’t the silver bullet for socially isolated atheists.
If the God were “all good” as the Abrahamic ones are supposed to be I would want one. But not the Abrahamic God as it is written about because that is so far from what I want it is isn’t funny.
Good points you’ve made. “Touching a hot stove hurts. You may want to reconsider your analogy.” You’re right… I just want them to know what they did to me specifically. “(Or, you know, be satisfied with doing good for its own sake.)” I am, but it would be REALLY cool if someone or something saw my good deeds!
What about an after-life where one gets to see all their dead relatives and friends? That would be nice.
You couldn’t pay me to go to a UU church or any other kind, but it makes sense as a suggestion for the OP.
It would, although that’s a separate question from the god thing. But it’d also make living kind of pointless.
The very concept of a God flies in the face of everything I believe.
Damn you Marley… how did you get to be so smart.
Why would it make living pointless? What’s the point now?
Sounds like you’re looking for some Karma.
Too bad that’s as real as gods.
If I could have a hand in designing god and heaven, (no hell for me) I would like one. Yours, I’m sure I would not like.
Because, why would a god put us here on Earth if he/she/it could keep us in an after-life? If you think it’s a test then why would god test us? If god were cool, he would let us hang in his crib all along… there’s no need to be tested since god is the creator. God would know if we are doomed to fail or succeed.
No way do I ever wish there was a god.
Personally, I try to be good because it is the right thing to do. People who are good in order to get rewarded are being good for the wrong reason.
On a public toilet wall, “Why would an all-powerful being create an imperfect being, then punish it for being impefect?”
I could care less about gods.
But I sure wish I could see my departed loved ones again. 
Me too, but I’d want to see them as they were, not as they are now. Because eww.
I don’t believe there is one but part of me, what I call my “little kid” wishes there was one so I could play helpless and let this deity take care of all the dirty work in my life. I could “let go and let god” (as the AA folks say) and not have to sweat anything. It would all be “god’s will” (where have we heard that before?) and so it would all be good, even the bad parts.
The more I listen to my “little kid” within, the more I realize how flippin’ crazy religious folks are. Basically adults living in a child’s fantasy world.