I'd like to ask my fellow atheists if they would be happy to learn there was a god.
August 28, 2017 at 2:48 pm
Are you an atheist just because being a fair minded, truth preferring kind of person the prospects of an extant god just look so thin (okay, non-existent)? Or does your skin crawl at the prospect of there being such a thing?
I have to imagine the answers will depend on how we define "god". So I'll try to come up with some god descriptions for you to more specifically register your approval or opprobrium. Please vote for each aspect/type of god which meets with your approval. In the end, if there are any at all which meet with your approval, you might want to say which combination you'd require to be happy to meet such a being .. assuming that was possible.
Geez .. what's a god? This will have to be Christian centered because of my own limitations.
1) The biblical god in all his tyrannical, OT bad-assedness.
2) Just the loving hippy of the NT.
3) One that is concerned with human conduct and hands out eternal bliss or torture in a life-exit interview.
4) One that listens to 'prayers' or reads your mind and chooses life events with your development in mind; the 'world' for this sort of god is a kind of theater with no independent or necessary existence.
5) An all-powerful one that created everything from nothing just the way it is on purpose but has covered his tracks to make natural causes more plausible.
6) Not all-powerful, one possessed of some creative powers but not limitless, creating some forms but all from pre-existing substrata, not from 'nothing'.
7) One that is drastically older (approaching eternality?) and has seen it all but relates to you-as-consciousness as a kind of benevolent big brother and values your companionship without judgements or need for your worship.
I have to imagine the answers will depend on how we define "god". So I'll try to come up with some god descriptions for you to more specifically register your approval or opprobrium. Please vote for each aspect/type of god which meets with your approval. In the end, if there are any at all which meet with your approval, you might want to say which combination you'd require to be happy to meet such a being .. assuming that was possible.
Geez .. what's a god? This will have to be Christian centered because of my own limitations.
1) The biblical god in all his tyrannical, OT bad-assedness.
2) Just the loving hippy of the NT.
3) One that is concerned with human conduct and hands out eternal bliss or torture in a life-exit interview.
4) One that listens to 'prayers' or reads your mind and chooses life events with your development in mind; the 'world' for this sort of god is a kind of theater with no independent or necessary existence.
5) An all-powerful one that created everything from nothing just the way it is on purpose but has covered his tracks to make natural causes more plausible.
6) Not all-powerful, one possessed of some creative powers but not limitless, creating some forms but all from pre-existing substrata, not from 'nothing'.
7) One that is drastically older (approaching eternality?) and has seen it all but relates to you-as-consciousness as a kind of benevolent big brother and values your companionship without judgements or need for your worship.