Read this and couldn’t help but think of THIS.
If there was a god, I’d have to punch it in the throat for being such an asshole.
So yeah, sometimes I do wish there was one. 
If you spend ~80 years living on Earth and then go to some perfect environment for eternity, who gives a crap about any of this anyhow? What’s it matter if you help people or hurt people, start tire fires or try to conserve? And that’s leaving out the whole “aren’t you doing someone a favor by murdering them?/why not kill yourself?” issue. If all the real stuff comes later, this life doesn’t matter. Some religions structure the whole thing as a reward or punishment, of course, but we’re talking about the more general idea of a god or eternal life rather than the doctrines of a specific religion. (And the idea of rewarding or punishing people forever based on what they did in 30 or 50 or 80 years is also kind of odd, but that’s another discussion.)
Like I said, it’s what you make of it. This is all you get.
Ah ok, you were speaking from the context of this thread (appropriately enough). I agree.
I thought you were saying the normal “Because life is so short, that’s what makes it worthwhile” or whatever: i.e. the kind of thing people say to make themselves feel better about mortality, but which doesn’t particularly stand up to scrutiny.
I don’t buy the morality logic at all. If that logic worked then I should be able to inflict pain on people now – with or without an afterlife. After all, if I don’t actually injure the victim, their pain will be a minute fraction of their lifespan. But why does that diminish the crime?
But the point about murder makes sense though. Acts which are certain to send someone to a better existence are broadly benevolent, though in practice of course there is no such certainty and in any case an individual’s wish not to die must be respected.
Because there’s no comparison between that and comparing 80 years to infinity.
Yes but why are we doing that comparison?
Causing pain = morally wrong.
It is irrelevant if that pain is one drop in an ocean of painless existence.
Voted it depends (and not technically an atheist either, though close enough). It might be cool if there was a ‘God’, some being that transcends the known universe and was responsible for the initial creation of either this universe or the ultimate first universe, and who perhaps creates universes to simply learn (and thus keep that knowledge in some sort of repository, that the ‘data’ would never be lost). THAT sort of deity would be kind of cool and would mean that the information of not only myself but, more importantly (to me) our entire species and all other life that has ever existed or will exist on this planet wouldn’t be lost when we (collectively, all live on this planet) ultimately die out.
A ‘God’ like the Christian/Jewish/Islamic/etc god, however, would be highly uncool, and I’d definitely, er, vote against such a being. 
-XT
That’s too absolute; I don’t think anybody believes it. But again, the issue here is that whatever pain and suffering anyone experiences in life is going to be dwarfed by an eternal, perfect existence. Whereas if you injure someone severely or cripple them for life, the effects of your actions will continue to be felt for as long as they exist.
I prefer this one because it has an option I can vote for (“depends on the type of god”).
You missed an option:
Don’t care.
To me I honestly don’t care fi there is or is not a god. So far I have seen no proof in one so I do not follow a mainstream religion. If a god reveals itself to me I may revise that position.
Why not? I don’t need one, and I don’t want one. Of any kind. I don’t care if it’s Thor and his hammer, or the omnimax super deity of common tradition. If they have the power to force me to do things I don’t want to do, no thanks.
This especially includes sending me to eternal damnation for not believing in them, or to eternal paradise for being teacher’s pet. Thanks, but no thanks.
Roddy
eta: I’m disappointed to see there are so many “atheists” who agree with “it depends”.
“Atheist” just means you don’t believe in gods, it doesn’t mean you are opposed to gods, or even to belief in gods. That would be a form of “antitheism”. I am both an atheist and antitheist, myself
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
“Atheist” just means you don’t believe in gods, it doesn’t mean you are opposed to gods, or even to belief in gods.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. I’m not opposed to the idea of a God or gods (I love reading about them in fiction, for instance), I simply have seen no convincing evidence that one exists, at least as portrayed in any religion I’ve ever read about or experienced. So, if I’m WISHING and all, I’d wish for a God or gods that I’d like to have exist…one that’s remote but is all about the search for knowledge. Sort of a universal/multiversal Great Library, or like some of the more out there theories about black holes where no information is destroyed. It’s a sort of immortality not only for myself, not only for human kind or even all life on Earth, but possibly every life form and sentient species that has or will ever exist in this or any other universe. THAT is a cool concept, and worth a wish anyway.
While I’m at it I’d like a beach filled with scantily clad love muffins peeling me grapes while throwing little pickles at me (while I’m standing there wearing sun god robes, obviously). Oh, and a pony as well…
-XT
I dont want a god so much as I dunno, extra lives like in video games, or the chance to see us get to the stars, or be able to get to eventually have the ability to do miraculous things like fly, travel in time, undo past sins, world peace or whatever.
But Id much rather have those things without a benevolent dictator be part of the equation. To me god is a solution for magic wishes, and Id rather just do that without them being part of the wish.
Otara
You know how wishes work. You’d end up having human sized muffins with arms and legs throwing pickles at you, while being dragged to the altar in sacrificial robes where you’ll be sacrificed Aztec style to Huitzilopochtli, and the ceremony will be presided over by a pony from My Little Pony wielding the sacrificial dagger in its mouth.
I would want the new God to be a logical thinker. Example: If two opposing sporting teams both pray to God for a victory, before waiving His divine hand over one of the teams, God would first consult His bookie.
Does anybody remember The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, as envisioned by Kurt Vonnegut in Sirens of Titan?
O all-powerful, all-omniscient God, how can we serve You? How can we worship You? What can we do for You that You couldn’t possibly do for Yourself?
That can happen anyway, can’t it? Ask the Dinosaurs.
God is like that gay uncle we never talked about in the fifties.
It doesn’t bother me that God doesn’t exist. When I was younger and God was a premise, I was a bit angry that God was so fucking coy. I mean, come out of the closet already, enough people believe in you, you can make an appearance, say hi, shake a few hands already.
But then, you never really showed up. Maybe it’s a bit rude to say “fuck you for canceling your concert tour, I bet you don’t even really exist!” I mean, you could be missing. You could be dead. Your plane may have crashed on an invisible island somewhere populated by people with serious communication issues.
Or maybe you are just so fucking polite and meek that you won’t make an appearance until every single person on the planet invites you to the party, and everyone can agree on what outfit they want you to wear, and in what order they get to spend time with you in the photobooth. But then it occurred to me.
God isn’t a person. God is a position. The question isn’t where or who is God. The question is what does God do?
Peter Parker says, great power, great responsibility. Einstein says, everything is relative.
The inescapable conclusion is that the question becomes besides the point. The situation in which God exists or does not exist are experientially the same.
If God existed, the most responsible thing to do would be to stay in the background, in a form that is accessible by believers only to the extent that it doesn’t infringe in the nonbelievers, helping humanity gradually learn to take on greater power and responsibility hand in hand until we reached the level God was at.
God would want the benefits and the burdens of divinity to be shared more or less equally by everyone. God is all about the fairness. Let’s all be God.
If God didn’t exist, it still made sense for humanity to gradually learn to take on greater power and responsibility hand in hand until we reached the level we ascribe to God.
God not existing isn’t that much different than God having taken the training wheels off and having sent me down the sidewalk riding off into the sunset on my own little adventure.
So no, I don’t mind much at all.
From one of my Atheist friends: “forget about God, sometimes I find myself hoping there is a Hell.”
I didn’t vote, because I require an “I don’t care if there is a god” option. It wouldn’t change the way I live my life, the choices I make, or the people I enjoy. It wouldn’t even have a significant effect on my understanding of the world. There’s lots of stuff I don’t believe in that technically could exist, I suppose.
I saw an announcement for the sesquicentennial celebration for one of our local Lutheran churches today and I thought, “I bet that would be fun to go to.” Lots of [del]good food[/del] ham sandwiches and lime jello and Norwegian coffee, some singing and a children’s presentation. I’d get a kick out of it. I could go and be welcomed, but I’d feel a little dirty about it, y’know? So I came up with the idea that churches should each adopt an atheist or two, just let them come to the social events, maybe volunteer to drive the old people to services or take collections, but without all that yammering at them about fairies and elves and gods and whatnot.
Ah, we can dream.