And if it doesn’t inherently include things like “created the universe”, “all-knowing”, etc., why call it “God”? That’s a term with some baggage.
It really comes down to how you define “God”. What you’re looking for is a set of claims. How could this god prove to me that they “created the universe”? That seems exceedingly difficult to prove. I might be charitable and assume it to be true if they demonstrated some similar miracle, but proving it seems a bit… impossible?
In reality, if someone says, “I’m god, and you should bow down to me”, if they then decide to prove it by, say, writing a message in the stars that anyone can see, well, I’m probably bowing down, because whether or not they actually created the universe seems secondary - clearly they’re in a position to fuck my shit up in all kinds of interesting ways, has a bit of an ego, and I’d better do whatever they want and whatever I can to get on their good side.
Given the utter paucity of evidence for any supernatural events (or indeed, any events that are hard to explain given the framework of science and purely naturalistic events), this is all purely hypothetical. In fact, it feels like kind of a waste of time to even consider. All available evidence seems to indicate that this kind of thing just doesn’t happen. God doesn’t heal amputees.
If I were to wake up in the morning a polyglot - able to speak, read, and write all the world’s languages (hell, I’ll settle for the top 50) - then I would be hard-pressed to offer a non-God explanation.
I’m not picky. Manifesting something out of the aether, writing something in the stars, predict the behaviour of random passerbys, grant me a superpower, stop time, create life… Any of that goes, as long as it’s directed by my whims of that specific moment and performed instantly of course.
This wouldn’t necessarily prove the being is “the” God, as in the YHWH of the Bible, or the Allah of the Quran, or Amaterasu etc etc ; but at least a being powerful enough for me not to try and fuck with. For a time.
My parents took me to church (Christian, Protestant, Congregationalist*.)
When I was 16 I asked my Sunday School teacher if there was any evidence for God. He replied there wasn’t and that you needed faith.
I didn’t have any faith and had found contradictions in studying the Bible.
So I became an atheist.
As far as proof goes, to me it’s simple.
There are many different religions, usually divided into different ‘factions’*.
This is what you would expect if there was no God, just people hoping there was.
Meanwhile every single person on Earth believes in gravity.
So if God exists, all he has to do is prove it every time anyone asks him to.
You have not been keeping up with the flat-earthers, some of whom believe that our bubble is accelerating upward, so gravity is just an illusion. So, almost every single person, but not quite.
Which God?
My atheism is less that no universe-creating-supernatural-being exists, but that no earthly religion has anything useful to say about it if it did exist.
Some dude comes up and wants to convince me that he created the universe… so what if you did? I mean, I’ll take the money and toys and shit, but if you want everyone to worship you, you have to convince them, not me. I’ll even follow whatever stupid rules you have on shellfish and mixed textiles, but let’s not pretend that you need me to be your prophet.
I’m as atheist as they come, but it would be pretty easy for a being to persuade me that they were either God, a god, or something sufficiently powerful that I wasn’t interested in disputing whatever they wanted me to call them. Make me fly. Instantly transport me to a foreign country. Rearrange the stars. Cure cancer. That sorta thing.
Hell, I’ll even go the magic trick route. Make whatever I ask for appear in my living room and then change it at my direction a couple of times. After the yellow 72 Cutlass pops up, changes color to blue, and then is replaced by a talking elephant, I’m a believer.
I guess I’m pretty easy. But hell, I haven’t even seen a persuasive image in a burnt piece of toast!
The surface of the earth is a big pizza, with the Antarctic ice wall as its crust. The sky is a big dome enclosing the pizza. Somewhere beyond the foggy, unexplored boundary of the ice wall, the dome of the firmament meets the surface.
Hence, the shape is bubble-like. And this describes the entirety of the universe. There is no turtle, or stack of turtles, because “underneath” has no meaning.
Well, it would have to be something a human can’t do. IMO once we’re talking about aliens, the Matrix, etc., it all becomes equally ridiculous so I’d have no problem accepting that entity was essentially god.
Let’s say he did everything the Lord of Light does in Game of Thrones, especially with the bringing people back from the dead stuff. I’d probably believe it.
