# Atheists: If there had to be a god, what would you want it to be like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 5, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280 "2020-10-05T18:37:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/41 "2020-10-07T19:14:18Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I would like a god who makes an incontrovertible announcement: “I am god almighty, heed my words. I’m going to spend the remainder of time just really working on myself for a change. Do not bother me for anything, you’re entirely on your own.” That’s actually exceedingly clever. I like it. It simultaneously solves the “is there/isn’t there?” question once and for always. There is. Now get on with your lives. And also solves for once and for always the question of who is favored/unfavored and what behavior is rewarded/punished. By establishing that none are favored or disfavored; nothing is rewarded or punished. Everyone and everything is neutral in the face of infinite perfect eternal unaltering absolute indifference. Now go forth and do whatever. That’s probably the only solution that’s truly compatible with human nature. Something in the human mind needs to invent god-like thingies. Now we know there’s no need to invent. And armed with the clear unvarnished word of the god-like thingie, we now know that any religion we’d choose to invent would be false from end to end. Humanity could do far worse (and is) than being in that place. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/42 "2020-10-07T20:53:47Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And armed with the clear unvarnished word of the god-like thingie, we now know that any religion we’d choose to invent would be false from end to end. Pshaw, people would say he’s a false god, and he wouldn’t say anything to contradict them. Then they would be free to invent whatever they please. Sort of like how most people prefer their own gods over my styrofoam cup (which _does_ exist). (Well, existed. I’m not sure what happened to it.) ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/43 "2020-10-07T21:10:36Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Pshaw, people would say he’s a false god, and he wouldn’t say anything to contradict them. Then they would be free to invent whatever they please. Hey, She’s God, right? She can make you believe in Her. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/44 "2020-10-07T21:11:55Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > And also solves for once and for always the question of who is favored/unfavored and what behavior is rewarded/punished. By establishing that none are favored or disfavored; nothing is rewarded or punished. Everyone and everything is neutral in the face of infinite perfect eternal unaltering absolute indifference. Now go forth and do whatever. But would it really be that simple? Don’t you think someone would come forward saying “Nuh-uh, that wasn’t god!” or, “Nuh-uh, he was just testing our faith. Of course he wants us to still follow the Bible. In fact, this event was prophesied in _Daniel_, so that PROVES I’m right!” And to be fair, as an atheist, I would have to admit some doubt myself that such an entity, having made such an announcement, was god. If The Entity can’t actually convince everyone—and I mean everyone, for all time—that it’s god, then what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/45 "2020-10-07T21:16:39Z")
Well, that would be a _radically_ different approach from the noninterventionist indifferent approach that **HMS\_Irruncible** ’s god seemed to be espousing, but yes, one presumes that the god could indeed mess with people’s minds if they so chose. Unless they can’t. People like to assume that gods are all-powerful, but a lot of them weren’t. (Most of them, in fact.) And being able to put yourself on global loudspeaker and call yourself mighty really only implies that you have the ability to put yourself on global loudspeaker and call yourself mighty. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/46 "2020-10-07T21:18:59Z")
I was thinking that **HMS\_Irruncible** ’s God would make the announcement, make sure we all believe it, then fuck right off. The post did say and “incontrovertible announcement”. What happens if an incontrovertible announcement is received by an immoveable skeptic? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/47 "2020-10-07T21:21:28Z")
Hmm, I didn’t pay enough attention to the “incontrovertible” part - taken literally everybody would be required (for some reason) to accept that the voice did indeed come from a mighty (and mightily apathetic) god. But the god didn’t say they were the _only_ god! Checkmate, suckers! ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/48 "2020-10-07T21:23:43Z")
I think the important point is that She would fuck right off and we could all get on with our lives, minus the religious strife! Sounds like a God I could get behind. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/49 "2020-10-07T21:25:15Z")
If one _has_ to have a god (aside from my styrofoam cup, which exists whether you like it or not) then I agree that one could do a _lot_ worse than one that does nothing more than eradicate atheism and send all of philosophy and science into a tizzy. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/50 "2020-10-07T22:03:44Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Pshaw, people would say he’s a false god, and he wouldn’t say anything to contradict them. Then they would be free to invent whatever they please. > [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > But would it really be that simple? Don’t you think someone would come forward saying “Nuh-uh, that wasn’t god!” or, “Nuh-uh, he was just testing our faith. Of course he wants us to still follow the Bible. In fact, this event was prophesied in _Daniel_ , so that PROVES I’m right!” > [@RitterSport](#): > > Hey, She’s God, right? She can make you believe in Her. I’m with RitterSport: if that’s really a God capable of having created all this to order, then that God can simply make humans so that humans believe that God said that – just like humans believe in the danger of falling down. (Think you don’t? Try slipping at the top of the stairs; or even imagining it clearly. Every bit of the back of your head will remind you that you believe in falling, and that it’s dangerous – even if you’ve never taken a bad fall, and every time you did fall you weren’t significantly hurt.) That’s what I also took “incontrovertible announcement” to mean. God would have to make that belief binding on future generations, of course. Otherwise our descendents would shortly be in the position of ‘but the Bible says that God spoke to Adam and Eve!’ – which is unconvincing to quite a lot of us. > [@begbert2](#): > > I agree that one could do a _lot_ worse than one that does nothing more than eradicate atheism and send all of philosophy and science into a tizzy Don’t forget that She also eradicated any belief that God ordered or wanted humans to do, or not do, anything in particular. Atheism would be gone – but so would most forms of religion. – wait a minute, I just re-read HMS\_Irruncible’s post. And that’s not actually in there – just that God’s not going to be bothered with us in the future; which wouldn’t mean some people might not continue to think that God had left instructions in the past. Or even possibly set up an automatic heaven and hell that worked, like the rest of the universe, without God’s further invention. @HMS_Irruncible, do you want to amend your suggestion? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/51 "2020-10-07T22:11:04Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That’s what I also took “incontrovertible announcement” to mean. God would have to make that belief binding on future generations, of course. Otherwise our descendents would shortly be in the position of ‘but the Bible says that God spoke to Adam and Eve!’ – which is unconvincing to quite a lot of us. Yeah, I figured that the announcement would be “incontrovertible” (somehow) even to people who heard about it later. In theory people who never hear about it at all could be immune to the effect, but as soon as somebody tells them the Neutral News - bam! Incontrovertible. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > – wait a minute, I just re-read HMS\_Irruncible’s post. And that’s not actually in there – just that God’s not going to be bothered with us in the future; which wouldn’t mean some people might not continue to think that God had left instructions in the past. Or even possibly set up an automatic heaven and hell that worked, like the rest of the universe, without God’s further invention. @HMS_Irruncible, do you want to amend your suggestion? There’s also no indication that there aren’t _other_ gods that are more active/vindictive running around. In fact it’s more plausible that such gods exist - we know that _one_ god exists, so gods existing isn’t nearly as impossible as might otherwise be believed. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/52 "2020-10-07T22:23:52Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > …as soon as somebody tells them the Neutral News… This made me LOL. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/53 "2020-10-07T22:27:16Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That’s what I also took “incontrovertible announcement” to mean. God would have to make that belief binding on future generations, of course. Just because someone knows what they themselves are saying is a lie, doesn’t mean they won’t keep on saying it. And it doesn’t mean others won’t keep on insisting they believe them even if they don’t. In other words, I don’t think the only thing keeping a religion like Christianity going is that there aren’t enough atheists in the world. Or enough deists who are convinced that god _functionally_ no longer exists. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/54 "2020-10-07T22:31:29Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > @HMS_Irruncible, do you want to amend your suggestion? Nah it’s abundantly fine as it is, as are all my utterances. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/55 "2020-10-07T23:07:44Z")
Like the word of god?! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/56 "2020-10-08T11:49:41Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > And being able to put yourself on global loudspeaker and call yourself mighty really only implies that you have the ability to put yourself on global loudspeaker and call yourself mighty. Wow do we have a lot of evidence of the general truth of this statement this year. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/57 "2020-10-08T11:54:47Z")
Ref the various folks who commented on my comment … Yeah unless the godlike thingie continually reimplanted the Truth in each new generation then people, being people, would quickly reinvent the whole edifice of coercive fantasy-based religion. Not because god. But because people. Of course if indeed the godlike thingie is all-powerful, it could simply apply a software patch to human nature so the question _stays_ answered; that’d be the lazy way to solve it’s problem of not being bothered by humans UFN. The resulting slighty different human nature would be more like mine: “Besides as a painfully obvious con-game, what possible motivation could anyone have for inventing such nonsense?” ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/58 "2020-10-08T12:53:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The resulting slighty different human nature would be more like mine: “Besides as a painfully obvious con-game, what possible motivation could anyone have for inventing such nonsense?” I think you just answered your own question. Or at least provided one answer that is necessarily going to be more plausible than what is supposed to be the truth: that there is a god, it wanted to interact with us, but only long enough to say, “Peace out.” At present, the god claim is so extraordinary, otherwise so at odds with what we know through science, that it really would take more than the global loudspeaker approach to _warrant_ belief. Now, that’s not to say I wouldn’t personally be convinced myself, only that it wouldn’t be warranted, in my view, to be so convinced if that was the only evidence (but I grant that I, too, can be irrational and so I might fall for less than conclusive evidence). And I know theists tend to have a hard time wrapping their head around this—that even truly extraordinary evidence of some much more powerful or advanced being(s) would not warrant belief in what they take for granted off thousands of years of tradition with dubious roots—but then we don’t have any of those around here (those theists), do we? This is a safe space for atheists, no doubt created for us out of loving concern by **Velocity**. Anyway, that’s why in my first reply to this thread, I said I’d want god to comport with the natural world at least. So that way to the extent there may be evidence of it (and that’s not a given), such evidence would withstand repeated scientific scrutiny. No f_ck f_ck games, you know? None of this “here today, gone tomorrow” stuff. It’s either detectable, or it isn’t. A most extraordinary natural phenomena, yes, but natural (or at least with a consistent degree of natural elements) nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/59 "2020-10-08T14:01:01Z")
@Velocity, any comments to all of these responses? “Hmm, this is interesting and gives me lots to think about.” “I’m wondering if you’ve thought about a god that did this…” “I’m not an atheist, but here’s my take on God…” ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2020, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280/60 "2020-10-11T22:15:39Z")
Just like the one we have: so unobtrusive that you could swear it doesn’t exist. Dan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-if-there-had-to-be-a-god-what-would-you-want-it-to-be-like/922280.md?page=4)