Get thee behind me, Satan.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. Pi is not a property of the physical universe. It has been mathematically proven to be irrational. What about the proof would change?
I may just be misunderstanding what you’re saying, but to me “make pi rational” sounds like the same kind of thing as “make triangles have four sides.”
It strikes you as odd because it’s a ridiculous argument.
From my two-year-old niece’s vantage point, her parents can do everything. They know everything. And they do all kinds of inexplicable things that might as well be supernatural, since they defy her reasoning ability.
And yet she disobeys her parents quite frequently. Despite being damn-near magical, their powers are not enough to keep her from exercising her will.
Yes, if people were confronted with the face of God, they would cower in fear and be like sheeple. For a couple of freakin’ days. Eventually the novelty would wear off, they would be desensitized to the whole experience, and they would go back to doing whatever they want to do, because why the fuck not? Just like how rebellious teenagers do what they want to do, knowing there’s a good chance their parents will find out and be upset with them. Just like jackasses speed on the highway despite all the survelliance technology that exists to capture them. As long as God allows some transgression to occur without apparent repercussion, you can expect God’s children to transgress. Whether they “see” God or not.
No. That’s the sort of cosmic trickery I DON’T expect from an actual god. This is what I’d expect from someone trying to trick me or who wants me to think they are a god. No, for an actual god to demonstrate they are a god (or some sort of very advanced being) would take more. What exactly? Not sure to be honest. But some sort of advanced technology or magic that is beyond my own ability to dream up. Perhaps a demonstration of time travel, or incredible healing or biological manipulation far beyond my own imagination. Sure, it could still be an advanced alien, but at a certainly point, what difference to me, personally. There is a level that some being of advanced and powerful technology or magic that could convince me they were a god, though not sure what the point of convincing me would be.
While I like the idea of God knowing what it would take, I’d go with writing some message - to be defined by me - in the stars, to be confirmed by the entire population of the world and the Hubble.
Now if we lived in a simulation, this could happen also, but if God wrote or controls the simulation, that would be just as good as him being a real God.
Then we could discuss the problem of natural evil. And he could tell the fundamentalists that they are full of shit.
Emphasis mine. I disagree with that sentence. That was true hundreds and thousands of years ago, but increasingly, since the development of the scientific method, phenomena described as “supernatural” are actually non-existent; that is, they are beliefs without evidence, or they are delusions. There are certainly things that science cannot definitively explain, and probably always will be, or things for which there are only tentative hypotheses, but none of those things are what we typically call “supernatural”.
Supernatural phenomena are things that are not only unexplained by science, but refuted by science, or at least, rendered so astronomically unlikely that they can effectively be dismissed because they are essentially extraordinary beliefs supported by exactly zero credible evidence. Things like ghosts, or the anthropomorphized gods of traditional religions both old and modern, and the magic these gods are supposed to be able to work. And those things are, in fact, non-existent. The only kind of “god” that can reasonably be hypothesized is one so abstract that it’s ontologically meaningless, like saying that “god” is the wave function of the universe. One finds that when atheists like Richard Dawkins attack the idea of God, what they are really attacking is the beliefs of institutionalized religions.
Not the same thing. If every process for calculating pi started returning infinite zeroes after 32 digits, and if this only happened after some entity told me they were gonna make it happen, I’m just saying, I’d be impressed.
Pi is more than a definition, and is therefore not the same thing as “every triangle has four sides.” If, however, I started adding up the internal angles of triangles, and found that suddenly they equaled 100 degrees, I’d also be pretty impressed with whoever told me they were gonna do that. That just seems like it’d have more deleterious effects on the universe, though; the pi thing would be a harmless demonstration of power.
An omniscient god, moreover, would spell the possessive form of “its” correctly. 
An omnipotent omnibenevolent god would rid the world of orthographic nitpickery.
If the spelling’s being done by an omnipotent god, my guess is that however God spells anything is going to be the way that it’s spelled.
This of course raises the essentially subjective values-based question of what constitutes “nitpickery”, and more fundamentally, the phenomenological question of what kind of world we want to live in, orthographically speaking. Some might enjoy the lawlessness of the Wild West; others might prefer a more refined experience based on the rule of law, and might even respectfully carry around their copy of Fowler’s, and the linguistic commentary of William Safire, both of which they consult with biblical reverence.
This actually inspires a very interesting thought.
Growing up in the church, it was instilled in me that God is both all-knowing and all-powerful. It was almost seen as blasphemy to wonder if he has any limitations.
If a Christian and an agnostic met someone who claimed to be God, but her or his powers–while impressive–were clearly limited, who would be more likely to be skeptical? I’m thinking the Christian would be.
“What do you mean, you can’t turn water into wine? Wouldn’t a real god be able to do that?”
“No, I can’t do that. But I can make the stars spell out your name in every alphabet that has ever existed. Isn’t that something?”
“Call me when you can turn those stars into wine, Lucifer. Cuz that’s something my Jesus can do. My Jesus can do everything.”
I don’t think every Christian would be like this. But a lot would be.
A real god would smite all that shit.
Turning water into wine would be the first and most important task I would require of any putative god, and I would judge the authenticity of his godness based on what he produced. I would expect nothing less than a first-class Premier Cru Bordeaux, the kind that even the vintage section of the wine store keeps in a locked climate-controlled cabinet and sells for well into the three figures.
Make world peace happen, bring us all joy and happiness and the richness of a meaningful life. End systemic suffering, eliminate cruelty and hatred and oppression and exploitation. Solve hunger and fix the energy crisis and show us how to leave in equilibrium with the natural world.
If you can’t do that, I don’t much care whether or not you can make dead people alive again or fly or walk on water or prove you can be omniscient or whatever. Those stunts might make you a good Marvel Comics character or something but they don’t make you God.
If he/she/it existed - there would already be ample proof of its existence that would stand up to scrutiny and objective reasoning/process.
Parlor tricks don’t concern me - no matter the scale. Water to wine? piffle - my dad does that in his basement as a hobby.
It amazes me to this day that people accept without question a 2000 year old text as 'THE WORD OF GOD" when they would dismiss, summarily, anyone that ran around today making the same absurd claims as those written down… “that burning bush talked to me” would be met pretty quickly with derision and a healthy dose of medications and therapy.
If one burning bush appeared with the voice of Samuel Jackson, I would reconsider.
Samuel l Jackson as principal Firebush in The 10 Commandments: “What happened here was a miracle, and I want you to fu***** acknowledge it!”
About the only thing that would prove to me that ‘god’ was omniscient and omnipotent is if he bestowed ALL his powers upon me, so I can actually experience them and confirm for myself that, with all his powers, I am omniscient and omnipotent.
That said, it would be comparatively simple to prove to me that one is a god, in the sense of being a tremendously powerful being, possibly in charge of a particular aspect of reality. They’d just have to do something suitably impressive within their sphere of influence. If they’re trying to prove they’re, say, the God of War, then, I dunno, have World War III break out and me somehow be the hero of the war, like a video game protagonist mowing down all opposition before me. Or if they’re trying to prove they’re the God of the Sea, then create a massive waterspout encompassing 2/3 of the pacific ocean and yet have all sea travel through that region miraculously come through unharmed.
And all things considered, I don’t really care about the details of how they achieved this power; if they have sufficient power, to me, they are effectively a god. If the physics of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it are so far beyond me that it wouldn’t be possible to explain it to me, even if I spent the rest of my life being taught to understand, then they are definitely a god as far as I am concerned.
The thing is, this whole question is something of a misdirection.
If you were to ask me: “How could God provide evidence to support his existence?” there are a million ways from writing in the sky to a fountain of youth. Heck, just showing up.
But proof is a different matter: I try to leave room for doubt about essentially everything. And if God wanted to prove he can pee over an infinite wall…yeah I don’t know how he could prove infinite abilities to little old me.
Meh… smiters gonna smite.