The real important question is : who do we have to tip in order for them not to jerk off into the Antarctic Crust ?
ETA : and who are we being delivered *to *?
More importantly, are there any pictures of the giant three-legged disk at the north pole?
I’d close the door in his face before he even got to the snapping fingers business.
By my definition, any being that actually cares whether lesser beings believe in him is automatically not a god.
I know there are religions that believe that God says anyone who doesn’t accept him as the one and only deity will be confined to eternal hellfire. My reaction to this is, “Really? How effing petty is that?”
What do you think all those black holes all over the place are?
Oh shit.
An omnipotent God could simply make me know He exists. Why would He need to go through the trouble of proving it thought some external stimuli? He could just make all athiests know of His existence.
No other idea makes sense. Anything I can see, hear, etc. that would otherwise be impossible - the burning bush, voices, God coming down from the sky to shake my hand, the Maple Leafs winning a Stanley Cup - is much more logically explained as a mental breakdown, causes by a tumor or disease or whatever, or by some unlikely natural phenomena.
So I just have to say, “Go dive into Sagittarius A and come back out intact*,” and that might be enough to make me believe – or finally rid us of this pesky god person.
First off, just to make sure he wasn’t wasting my time, I’d ask him to immediately give me the same powers I gave the main character in my book. If I suddenly found myself with powerful telekinesis, the ability to innately sense nearby movement, and a mild ability to sense emotions then I’d know he was either omniscient or had read my books, and that he has a certain amount of mad skillz.
Having crossed that hurdle, I’d invite him in, offer him a bottled water (which I’d fetch telekinetically), and ask him to explain to me which specific God he wanted me to believe he was. I imagine this would take him a while, and over the course of the discussion I’d also try and get him to explain the problem of evil, which has always been a big hurdle for Gods. As the discussion wound to a close, I would sadly inform him that the reality of the situation is that it’s actually impossible to uniquely identify anybody if one can’t confirm their unique similarity to some objective identifying source, like a photographic ID from a reliable issuing agency. As God is not (to my knowledge) licensed by any agency I consider reputable, it’s actually impossible for him to prove to me that he’s God and not God’s twin brother with identical appearance and powers. So it’s impossible for him to prove that he’s the specific God he claims to be.
That said, I’d thank him for his time, ask him if he’d like to hang out again, and obliquely inquire as to whether he’d be willing to help me with my weight problem.
This, without any of that curse of the monkey’s paw shit. Otherwise, just go back to Asgard and shut the fuck up. And take your colander hat with you.
I just caught a kid up the street bouncing a basketball out of the corner of my eye. And even though she’s downstairs, I can tell my wife’s pissed because she’s stomping around. All I need is the telekinesis.
If I ain’t tossing trucks around and detecting/catching bullets, the God’s half-assing it.
What can he provide if asked for evidence that’d irrefutably do the opposite?
Precisely the evidence he’s provided thus far.
HEYYYY WAIT!!!.. NOW THAT… THAT is bril… completely bonkers.
So you would say, “If you are in fact the God, prove that God does not exist.” Excellent.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I have an invisible leprechaun in my garage. What do I have to do to prove it to you?
No, you can’t hear him; he’s very light on his feet and chooses not to speak in the presence of those who don’t believe in him.
No, you can’t touch him; he’ll move out of the way if you get close.
No, you can’t smell him; he showers regularly, but only when no one’s around.
No, he won’t lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He could, and he used to do it all the time, but not anymore. He does pull off some magic tricks sometimes, like giving people the hiccups or helping the Celtics beat the Lakers. But he’s a bit capricious about those things; you can’t control or predict him.
So what do I have to do to prove to you that he’s real? Are you so closed-minded that there’s nothing that would convince you of my by-design untestable assertion?
You would think that placebos wont work if you tell the patient that they are deliberately been given placebos.
Surprise Surprise : They still work. http://media.virbcdn.com/files/43/FileItem-112335-kaptchukplacebocomponentsBMJ2008.pdf
So the concept of God, even if you prove to be fake by logic, will bring the feelings of well-being to the believer.
This is perhaps the difference in thinking in western and eastern philosophies.
Your garden variety atheist does not give a shit about that. We really do not care whether you participate in the shared delusion. That is entirely your concern – just fail to make it our concern. We find that a non-trivial number of religious people are dreadfully inept at failing to make it our concern, and some of them are worrisomely adamant when it comes to encroaching on the comfort of unbelievers, in the name of unsubstantiatable cause.
Snark aside, the Old Testament is full of examples of the Lord talking directly to ordinary humans. As we gradually developed the means to accurately document past events and conversations, these encounters dropped off pretty suddenly. the two obvious explanations are (1) He no longer wants to speak to us, or (2) He never did and the prophets of record were lying or crazy.
Frankly, if your cosmology or spirituality or sense of morality depend on the existence of anthropormorphic space gods, you’re doing it wrong.