Are we sure this is God, and not Satan in his guise of Tempter?
Interesting question.
I wouldn’t change a thing. Removing any behavioral consequences would only increase the behavior. Removing pain and suffering would make joy meaningless.
Theoretically I’d prefer it if babies and small children never got sick and died, because that’s the hardest question to answer - they’ve done nothing to bring it upon themselves. But at what age would starting a “death possibility” make sense? You’re guaranteed 10 years & then who knows? 15 years? So during that first period it’s OK to do anything and there will be no consequences, and then all of a sudden mistakes are lethal? That wouldn’t work.
I suspect that fear is an important part of raising babies.
Are you sure there’s a difference? 
If god is a concept, then there’s no substance. There are plenty of things that we “know” about that don’t become “too human”. A smart follower, as you put it, would have to wonder why so many choose to worship something that has no tangible payoff that can’t be gotten without believing (i.e., kindness to others, etc) and no evidence that it’s anything more than a concept.
Yeah, shutting it all down would be pretty tempting. At the very least starting over again without all the people.
Wouldn’t work in my case. Who wants to find out that God actually is a middle-aged white guy?
First off…kill the original God. And Satan. Replace the stagnant, unjust tyrany of the universe/afterlife with a proper democracy. (I’ll appoint Abe Lincoln and Cincinnatus as heads of the interim government.)
Failing that (or, right before that)…go Old Testament on the world’s ass. Think “Flood 2.0” or “Passover Plus.” Maybe I’ll do some lightning-smiting. Maybe I’ll create a virus that only attacks evil assholes and kills them in the most gruesome and painful way imaginable. Maybe I’ll send an army of ghostly skeleton-warriors on phantom horses to ride over the world and slaughter the wicked. Maybe a river of molten steel or three.
Then, dump a lot of the world’s major holy sites in the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and the larger underwater craters of the Bikini Atoll.
Publicly appear in front of the faithful, and tell them to try thinking for themselve’s and to loosen the f*ck up for Me’s sake.
Order the Pope to greenlight gay marriage. In fact, he has to perform the first few hundred Catholic ones himself. And he must dance for me. Dance!
Repeat the above with other major religious leaders.
Declare that all religious rites and traditions that seem suspiciously like obsessive-compulsive rituals or misremembered, now pointless traditions are now null and void.
Appear to Muslims looking exactly [url=http://www.uriasposten.net/pics/JP-011005-Muhammed-Westerga.jpg]like this. Complete with the little burning fuse sticking out of my “hat.” Actually, I’d first appear like this as I gathered the worst radical Islamists* in the world together, slew them, and ate their brains on live TV.
Announce that, as a god of wisdom and creation, I consider all art and science to be good things. Denounce those who argued against evolution…it was one of my greatest inventions, after all!
Work on some new commandments…complete with an appendix and author’s notes.
Actually, maybe it’ll be more like the “13 General Guidelines, in Rough Order of Importance.”
I’m sure I’ll think up some more, later…
*I think that’s the right number of syllables to add on to the end to make it clear I mean “psycho ‘muslims’” and not “normal, regular muslims.”
Keira Knightley.
I know this is the stuff everybody says you can’t do because it eliminates free will, risk and consequence. I think I’d be ethically obliged to do it, though. Those reasons would prevent me from doing it all at once, but I would allow for some accidents and circumstances that would lead to major breakthroughs in medicine, food and irrigation, and I’d slow the progress of disease.
I’d consider a policy in which everybody who is going to die on my watch (but is not suffering) gets an extra 24 or 48 hours. More for their families than for them.
I’m sorry, the canonical answer is “two chicks at once”.
-
Twice-daily sex for all consenting adults.
-
All the underdogs win, until they are no longer considered the underdogs.
-
I find myself a solid boyfriend who adores me despite my many faults.
-
Everyone speaks two languages fluently: their native language and one universal world language.
-
Everyone can read minds on the last Friday of every month.
-
I improve our electoral system, so that candidates from several parties (not just two) have a fair shot at winning.
-
I outlaw commercials.
-
Rudeness, inconsideration, and self-absorption become felonies.
I notice a lot of people seem to be having trouble remember the free will restriction. Handing down a commandment telling them to do something is one thing… imposing concrete legal penalties for actions or outright changing their dispositions is another.
I haven’t sat down and worked out a full list or anything. But I imagine first of all I’d be inclined to announce that everyone will suffer as much pain as they have caused to others, and then invite everyone to watch George Bush and Tony Blair for a while. This would be deeply satisfying. I’d also have some very special and exact punishments ready for most of the so-called ‘teachers’ I had at school, and see how much they enjoy time-easting sadism.
Next, I think I’d tinker with the world in my God-like way so that justice and fairness are actually part of how the world works, and not just concepts listed in the dictionary.
I think I’d also tinker with people’s minds just enough so that choosing to live in a kind and thoughtful and generous way was far more common than it is now, and so that people had the gift of rational thought.
Then I’d wave my hand and make my Windows-based PC work properly all the time, without crashes or glitches (I know, I know, I’m being ridiculous now).
First I’d get ahold of the that Joan Osborne chick and tell her a thing or two. 
Then I’d abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.
And yet, one never sees them both at the same parties…
This is kind of a trick question. It’s really asking, " What do you think God can do in a day, and do you believe? " Kind of a Genie in bottle/three wishes arrangement.
Were I a vengeful god, I’d wish painful decaying diseases on the boys who beat me up for years in school. They’d all die on the same day, and sixty seconds before they died, they’d find out why. However, most folks want god to be non-vengeful. So.
I’d change the ratio between military expenditure and human resources expenditures for the next twenty years. Heal people up. Get people fed and healthy. Get some water flowin’ where the earth is dry, and so on.
Of course, I’d want to know who got to be god the day before, and day after I did. That way, I’d know who to watch out for. 
Cartooniverse
You don’t need to be God to do that.
I think revealing myself as God would be a bit much for people. More fun, I think, would be to create an alien civilization at about the same technological development as us, and put them maybe ten or twenty light years from Earth with their radio & TV signals just now arriving here. That would shake us up a bit. They’d be close enough for us to talk to them, but far enough away we couldn’t throw bombs at each other anytime soon.
Create a world for each individual that would be the way they think the world should be.
I’d only do two things. One is to make every person irreversibly empathic. Every time a person causes another person any sort of pain or trauma the first person feels it to the exact extent the other one does. Likewise, any amelioration of pain or causing of pleasure redounds to the causer as well. Do something horrible like pushing the button and killing a whole bunch of people means you feel every death and every bit of pain and fear of each person involved, as well as the emotional pain of their friends and families. Doubt anyone would be mentally capable of drooling out of a chosen side of his mouth after trying that trick once. Sex will become a whole lot more fun than it already is.
Second thing I’d do is make it impossible to conceive a child without both parents consciously and wholeheartedly choosing to make it so.
I figure everything else would work itself out after that. No free will is abridged.
Don’t figure there’d be too many prayers to answer after that…