If god wanted me to believe, the bible would contain anything provably right. Or at least not so many ridiculous and obviously false claims.
Yeah, it was very clearly written by people who didn’t know that much about how the world worked but did know that they could trick others into believing they were experts. And in the very first story, they added a warning to try to prevent others from figuring out things and proving them wrong: the original sin was eating from the tree of knowledge.
How that doesn’t scream, “Stay ignorant so I can continue to control you!” to everyone who reads it and isn’t a child who still trusts everything, I can’t understand.
It could have just said: Earth is round or in the past there were huge animals who got killed by me. Or anything we would later discover it’s true.
My problem would be that even if whatever god themselves came down to show themselves to me I’d just think I was hallucinating and going crazy.
Doesn’t help my family has history with schizophrenia so I’d legitimately just think “Oh it’s finally happening…”
The gods would know that and, assuming sufficient knowledge and power, know how to convince you that you’re seeing reality.
Wouldn’t be hard, just chuck a couple bricks of cash at me after appearing. If it’s actual god then it’s actual cash I can go and spend. That’s proof enough lul.
The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with the nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen it to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets killed on the next zebra crossing.
Love that book
Man, that is one trippy historical turn of events.
if your god exists and is all-powerful, why have they allowed other religions to flourish?
Something something mysterious ways, human freedom necessary to be judged, yadda yadda
Judged by whom? God? If he’s all knowing all powerful then he knows how I’ll do in his simulation before I begin.
This proves that all religions are at least partially correct, and the most popular religions are the most correct
if all religions are asserted to be partially correct, would that also not imply that the other part of each religion is definitely wrong?
why then would a set of all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful beings set in place a whole ethic that’s even partially incorrect?
Greek rules, the all powerful beings are petty jerks and basically cosmic internet trolls.
would that also not imply that the other part of each religion is definitely wrong?
Absolutely. Which justifies all the inter-religious wars. They’ve got to beat out all the heresies.
why then would a set of all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful beings set in place a whole ethic that’s even partially incorrect?
Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
ah, but you see, an omnipotent being can make omelettes without cracking eggs. the word can’t just isn’t in their vocabulary.
unless, of course, one admits that these beings are not really as powerful as one imagines them to be!
an omnipotent being can make omelettes without cracking eggs
Can you prove that?
these beings are not really as powerful as one imagines them to be!
If you’re inventing a fictitious being, it can be as powerful or not as you imagine. But if we’re posting a real thing, we’re forced to concede some logical limits.
“You’re not God because you didn’t do things the way I imagined them to be” doesn’t logically follow. No more than suggesting robots aren’t real because they don’t match what I saw once in an anime.
But if we’re posting a real thing, we’re forced to concede some logical limits.
ah, so gods do have limits, then, yeah? they aren’t all-powerful? agree?
All-Powerful is a paradoxical claim. You end up with the Hotpocket So Hot You Cannot Eat It.
And yes, I think we have an abundance of gods scattered across various paradigms and belief systems that are de facto not all powerful. Chronos was murdered by his own son after being tricked into swallowing a rock. Odin had to gouge out his own eye in order to understand the future. Pachamama needs a regular sacrifice of guinea pigs to do her job properly. Even the Abrahamic God(s) have limits, as illustrated by Book of Hosea, chapter 12:3–5, in which the Prophet Jacob beats God’s designated angelic champion in a wrestling match in order to win God’s blessing.
In fact, I’m challenged to name a god that isn’t limited in some capacity, as originally conceived.
No, it only proves all religions are at least partially insane.
If I wanted people to believei existed, I would simply appear on camera and give an interview
Just like Dr. Manhattan.
Which would then be questioned by people till time immemorial, with schisms appearing left and right and accusations of tampering with the tape going rampant. Also, mysterious ways n shit
Oh sure, but people will do this over subjects that are irrefutable, too.
That god can do it multiple times. It doesn’t need to be a one time thing.
Do it every 10 or so years and you will have everyone believing.
Why does god even care if we worship it?
According to the mechanics in popular franchises like D&D, a god can only be a god if they are worshipped.
Obviously need more mushrooms
Further, even if your god exists, that does not mean it’s worthy of worship. In fact, any being who desires worship is most certainly not worthy of it.
