(October 5, 2017 at 6:21 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Ok, so let's suppose that God really does exist and that He proved His existence to you. He showed up and did exactly whatever was needed to convince you personally that He is real.
You had a conversation with Him for many many hours, over the course of many days in a row, and He even showed you things... like certain things in the future of humanity so you could see how everything will ultimately fall together. He took you back in time so you could see particular events, including many moments from the life of Jesus. He showed you what the afterlife is like, fully answered every single one of your questions about why He allows certain things to happen, etc, and cleared up all misconceptions and misunderstandings you have had that made you think He was bad.
Let's say you came away from all that realizing God isn't who you thought He would have been, but is actually completely good. Would you then want to be with Him? Want to follow His ways? Feel remorse for the times in your life when you acted wrongly?
...Or would you feel angry and continue on hating the idea of God (even after learning He actually is good), hating the idea of having to "answer" to a higher being, etc?
Thank you for this Thread, CL. Honestly, it would be pretty cool to make contact with a sentient lifeform who is more advanced than humanity, provided that this life-form is friendly: it would be awesome to see how this lifeform views/understands the reality around us, because IMO, it would show people that reality does not revolve around human thought patterns and sense-making processes; thus, humbling humanity's self-importance/conceit.
Out of curiosity, if such a being presented itself to humanity, then how could humanity be sure that this being isn't just showing each individual human precisely what it wants to see in order for them to believe in it? Also, as per your op, if such a life-form presented itself, then what happens if all of humanity, especially practitioners of the worlds major religions, were wrong about it and completely misunderstood its intended message? In your opinion, would humanity's theists engage such a lifeform with an open mind, or would they deny that this lifeform is the supposed god that they worshiped because it did not conform to their preconceptions and expectations of what a god is? Would you be open to a completely new definition/understanding of what god/supernatural actually is?
P.S. I apologize for my inquisitiveness and by no means am I expecting you to respond to me. I just found your thread to be interesting, as it made me curious. Thanks again.
