[Serious] If I met Him...

[no one]

Worship? I wouldn't even let that ninny pick the corn out of my shit.

[Angrboda]

I've concluded in the past year that there can be no positive evidence of God, not even hypothetically.  So any belief would have to be rooted in unreason.  But I also believe that unreason is at the root of the human experience.  Life begins with irrationality, and reason is an after-thought at best.  So, I guess it would depend upon what I was presented with.  I suspect that forming an adequate judgment of any being that I might accept as God is beyond my paygrade.  Which presents additional problems.  As many of the great theologians have argued, any knowledge we have of God is mere shadow, analogy, an assemblage of what he is not in a brain not equipped to wrap itself around even the idea of God.  So I could probably go either way.  Any belief, though, would probably be strongly limited, and possibly short-lived.

Jor/Angrboda, who or what do you suggest people could trust to guide them between the apparently insurmountable cliffs of paradox on one side and the devouring abyss of absurdity on the other? Given the human condition you rightly describe, I see no shame in cautiously calling on all sense-making tools with humble recongnition that each is, to greater or lesser degree, flawed.

Calling on sense-making tools that don't yield sensible answers is senseless. Conservatism of thought and a tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity yield richer rewards. Answers that fail you are no better than no answers.

[Nay_Sayer]

Him? Interesting.

[zwanzig]

@John 6IX Breezy

1. Fair enough. Any discussion I might have in regards to belief or faith or deity is only interesting to me in the subjective. I don't care to get off into the weeds of philosophy and higher mind contemplating in a purely objective argument. I care about the discussion as it relates to the utility in people's lives, in MY life. In that way, the "debate" on the issues may have already proven fruitless before we started. But I prefer this as a group of folks at a barbecue rather than Greek philosophers arguing the nature of thought and existence at the capital steps. So, biased? Yes, I'll take it.

2. Again, as far as utility and an Abrahamic God perspective, THAT God exists for worship. If we get into the philosophical at the expense of utility and actual day to day use, I'll step out of that particular discussion because it's boring. I am a 30 year old man with a dog and a country farm, with family that I would do anything for. And I don't find worship or faith in imagination compelling. That's where we're at.

3. I'd need you to define your terms better, please. In regards to the Trinity. Because every branch of Christianity likes to put its own spin on that conundrum. In Mormonism, where I came from, they are pantheist because they believe Jesus Christ is a totally separate being than God, that he's the actual born son of God and that they were always separate in this way. After my shelf broke, I looked into Christianity but the further I looked the more dissatisfied I became with the answers to these questions. I stopped believing that Jesus even existed as I researched the Bible and found that the things that were written about him were not first hand accounts by the book's titled authors.

Have you ever seen Jesus Christ? Have you physically had a conversation with him? Can you allow me to experience these things? I will not accept "feelings". In Mormonism, that is the basis of your testimony, did you know? The Holy Ghost is that "still small voice" inside your head. it is how you talk to God and Christ, through these inner feelings. It is how you are monitored to keep even your thoughts pure so you remain worthy. Spirituality now feels like an attack to me, trying to turn my inner voice, my intuition, and my own thoughts into agents and tools for God. I will not accept this "personal Christ" who would try to superimpose himself upon my inner world, possessing me and puppeteering my own inner feelings for his use. So. Have you physically touched Christ and how can I also do so?

In the end, even if you gave me a step by step to touching Christ physically and meeting with him, I would not be able to see him as anything other than another man, a physical being. Even if he showed examples of his powers. Sooo...an alien? Which I will not accept as a "God" nor will I worship.

[John 6IX Breezy]

In the end, even if you gave me a step by step to touching Christ physically and meeting with him, I would not be able to see him as anything other than another man, a physical being. Even if he showed examples of his powers. Sooo...an alien? Which I will not accept as a "God" nor will I worship.

Why do you think you have this either/or approach? You seem to want the term God to describe something unrealistic, otherwise anything that begins to sound realistic you will no longer give the label of God to.

In my observations, scripture uses many different labels for "that being" of which God is just one. For example, Rock, Father, Healer, Shepherd, Potter, King, etc. Each label carries with it some particular aspect that describes him, without necessarily confining him to it (God isn't a literal rock). In many ways the term God probably serves the same function. It is as artificial as the term king, and yet it helps us understand his nature in some way. So personally, calling that being an extraterrestrial is acceptable insofar as that term is compatible with the biblical description.

As far as worship is concerned. My understanding is that it is offered because of what he did (creator, redeemer), not necessarily because of who he is (divine being).

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps those aspects describe us, instead, and our hopes for what a god might do for us in the lanes of those interests? Suffering people hope for a just ruler, a King. People who wish to create or be changed invoke The Potter. Healer, Father, Rock - all of these things are common expressions of the divine.

Do you think an alien species could be compatible with your understanding of the biblical description?

There's no shortage of objections to what it's asserted to have done or to what it's asserted be - and, are we suggesting that character is irrelevant to worthiness of worship? If an evil god accidentally did you a solid, would the positively valued act confer worthiness for worship?

[John 6IX Breezy]

I disagree with your premise, but I agree these terms describe aspects of God that are of interest to us or understandable by us. Not only does communication require that you know your audience, but conceptual metaphors are embedded into our cognition. One idea is understood in terms of another, and abstractness in terms that are concrete. If God exists this is precisely how he should be describing himself to us.

[R00tKiT]

What proof would I need in order to accept the existence of a supernatural being that we'd call a God? 
I'd need to speak to them directly and I'd need a demonstration of their power that couldn't be explained by the natural laws of our world(I know, I'm making very vague parameters but the more specific we get the more into the weeds I get trying to define what "counts" as empirical data, when really I want to understand the dependability of my own logic train; if we have to go there to get here, then we'll get into it).

Your demands are actually logically invalid. You could be speaking to a tremendously powerful satan pretending he's God, this same Satan displaying power that cannot be explained by natural laws. And needless to say, the latter thing is an appeal to incredulity.
So, nothing you mention points to a god, even if it does happen.

But if they did that, I would no longer consider them a God worthy of worship. Like, we're talking a God who's the Biblical God, creator of everything, and He's gotta waste His time doing parlor tricks for me?

standard category mistake. God is supposed to be a timeless being so .. timeless minus (gazillion years wasted with creatures) is still timeless. so the word waste is undefined for a deity.

I'd need to speak directly to deity in order to confirm they were real

What? Do you need to speak directly to members here in the forum to confirm they're not disguised robots.. for example?

Like, even the need and desire for worship seems like such a petty, insecure thing.

As far as I know, it's not mentioned anywhere in any religious text that the Abrahamic god needs our worship. It's certainly not the case in Islam. The word need is a figment of your imagination, it's not in the article of faith of any serious religious person. If it were the case, if an all powerful deity somewhat needs every human being to worship it i.e. depends on the act of worship to sustain itself / some properties of itself, then it could do that in a sleight of hand by making us worshippers by default, and negate free will, in which case you wouldn't have enough freedom to post this thread . not really difficult for a deity, huh ?

It's actually the other way around. We need to worship god. If we don't, we'll worship something inferior to god, be it an idol, an ideology, an addictive habit, possessions, an object of affection, etc. The Qur'an describes anyone who -knowingly- rejects worshipping god as someone who worships his own desires.

What proof would I need in order to accept the existence of a supernatural being that we'd call a God?

You might be interested in reading this thread of mine. I kind of answered this question from my own POV.
https://atheistforums.org/thread-61984.html
Sheers

[The Grand Nudger]

I disagree with your premise, but I agree these terms describe aspects of God that are of interest to us or understandable by us. Not only does communication require that you know your audience, but conceptual metaphors are embedded into our cognition. One idea is understood in terms of another, and abstractness in terms that are concrete. If God exists this is precisely how he should be describing himself to us.

If the descriptions we have are the thing god should do, or the best we can understand, than I have severe doubts about the competence of both.

I agree with you, nevertheless. People who believe in and hope for a person-alike god would consider person-alike descriptors a good thing. If you have any reason to interact with people, it helps to be person-alike. The obvious question being, then - if it were actually a massive psychic squid from four galaxies over priming it's dinner for digestion, it would probably help to describe itself as a warm and caring and person-alike thing as well. How do we tell between the two - outside of a reference to what a thing is, rather than what it does?

[John 6IX Breezy]

Our cognition is embodied. Our understanding of anything in the universe is processed and filtered through our person-alike forms and functions. Herein lies the wisdom of the Christ story: God (whether a psychic squid or not) became person-alike. He became comprehensible and familiar in the person of Christ.