There’s nothing new in that. Priests/shamans have been saying the same thing for thousands of years, whether the technology was the area’s loco weed and magic bones or copper plates and magic underwear.
That should have read “capital A Atheists”.
Does it reveal anything more than the fact that the majority of people on this board have grown up in the context of Abrahamic religious influences?
But it is different. it is a technological society demonstrably more advanced than us telling us they have information but they are withholding for purposes “unknown”.
They show us FTL drive but withold the tech, you seem to accept that, but you seem to assume they’d lie about “god”. Wouldn’t it be unwise to anthropomorphisize (I’m sure I’m butchering that word) alien behaviour?
As I’ve said in the other threads on this very subject in GD: We can’t distinguish “God” from “very advanced ETs”. So, nothing would convince me, as I’m not about to worship an ET.
You mean, like, Scientology?
Dismiss out of hand.
This is an updated hypothesis of the cargo cult phenomenon, including:
“Sorry. You’re not advanced enough to know what a sailing ship/steam ship/aircraft is, never mind pilot any of them. But the man standing next to me is a priest. You’re not advanced enough to understand it all, but he’s here to tell you our god is all-powerful.”
It’s all been done before.
Can I ask what this reveals and why it is significant?
We default to not believing in Zeus, Wotan, Isis, and Krishna also. But since Christians do also, they don’t see that as odd.
That’s the god almost every believer here is arguing for. And given the complete lack of evidence for any god, the only god most of us are going to bother arguing against is the one people are pushing. No one cares if I don’t believe in Anu or Osiris; almost everyone is already an atheist when it concerns those gods.
I don’t believe in Q either.
If Q existed, he would basically be a god. So that’s not really a good counter-example. Sort of like “no, that’s something Zeus could do if Zeus existed!” Uh, yeah, and?
…
I’d be happy with “We apologise for the inconvenience”, written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on the top of a significant mountain. I wouldn’t start *believing *anything, but I’d be happy.
This. Many of these things, if not a hallucination experienced only by me*, could only be the work of such creatures that the vast majority of civilizations that have existed in the world would call them gods.
If a mass hallucination experienced by everyone, it’s still a miracle*.
** Fucking mind-control, how does it work?
Or advanced technology. Holograms, brain implants, or maybe we’re all in a simulation and the “miracle” is just someone fiddling with a graphics program.
If we are all minds in a simulation, is the alien college student running the simulation a god?
A perfect world were no one suffers. If there was an all loving and all powerful being in existence this should be a given by default. I not only don’t believe, i believe that the god most religions worship is a complete asshole that should be fought against rather than worshiped.
Same standard I applied to God. This applies for Anu and Osiris as well. Also Odin, Zeus, Allah, Vishnu, Superman, Tarzan, and Spongebob Squarepants. If I receive sufficient evidence they’re real, I’ll accept the evidence.
Failing that, God pays Taxes on all his properties ( including back taxes.)
You don’t believe God exists but you hold him responsible for the state of the world? How do you fight something that doesn’t exist?