What would "god" need to do in order to prove that she really existed?

[Lithrael]

"Do you mean you could've proven yourself at any time?"

"No, no, not any time. Only when it was funny!"

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I got the reference

 

[theprestige]

Right, and an efficient god with a sense of humor would know he/she/it/they needs to prove it to the atheists. The believers don't need any proof and should be rewarded for their good faith. They, instead, get to say "told you so" over and over, and won't your face be red? And he/she/it/they can play with you like a puppet on a stick till the day you die, since for all you know now, a snap of the figurative fingers will send you straight to Hell. What fun!

Begs the question that there's limited resources or a pressing need that calls for efficient action. Which brings us back to the central question expressed in the thread title. What would God need to do? Nothing. It's pretty obvious that irrefutably convincing die hard unbelievers isn't a need that God has. Otherwise He would have met it already.

---

Or maybe He does have the need, and has already met it. If we're talking about an entity that transcends time and space, that violates causality and the conservation "laws"?

Maybe it's just our time-bound perceptions haven't caught up with the translation of our light cone into the solution space.

Or maybe it's a quantum multiverse thing. Maybe we're just ghostly echoes of an unsolved state that wioll haven be collapsed out of existence as He observes the solution.

 

[Lithrael]

Yeah, the question does assume that god wants to do that and/or hasn't already and we can't tell whatever god did from chance/us/we weren't even looking

 

[novaphile]

I remember a preacher once saying something along the lines of:

"God is greater than us, even more that we are greater than ants..."

This set me thinking about how little time I spend caring about ants (it's not zero, they fertilise some of my trees) but it's very little.

Then I was thinking about how few ◊◊◊◊◊ I give about ants worshipping me (or not).

Then I was thinking about the size of the universe and how insignificant our galaxy is, and how insignificant we are in our galaxy.

Yeah, nah. If there is a creator of the universe, we don't make it onto the list of things they're interested in.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Then I was thinking about how few ◊◊◊◊◊ I give about ants worshipping me (or not).

Reminds me of a Simpsons episode where the creatures in Lisa’s science fair project worship her as their creator.

From a Copilot query:

“I think the episode you're referring to is **"Lisa's Rival"** from **Season 6, Episode 21** of **The Simpsons**. In this episode, Lisa creates a science fair project that involves a miniature city with people who worship her as their leader. Bart, of course, messes with her project, leading to some humorous and chaotic results.”

 

[Olmstead]

I remember a preacher once saying something along the lines of:

"God is greater than us, even more that we are greater than ants..."

This set me thinking about how little time I spend caring about ants (it's not zero, they fertilise some of my trees) but it's very little.

Then I was thinking about how few ◊◊◊◊◊ I give about ants worshipping me (or not).

Then I was thinking about the size of the universe and how insignificant our galaxy is, and how insignificant we are in our galaxy.

Yeah, nah. If there is a creator of the universe, we don't make it onto the list of things they're interested in.

A better question might be why the ants should care.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

A better question might be why the ants should care.

to organize and take the guy down.

 

[Lithrael]

That's another apt wrinkle of that metaphor; if ants took us down, it would be a misapplied effort. Very nearly none of us are ant gods on purpose.

 

[Olmstead]

That's another apt wrinkle of that metaphor; if ants took us down, it would be a misapplied effort. Very nearly none of us are ant gods on purpose.

Technically we're very bad for ant civilization, no matter how little we care about it. If they could find a way to take all of us down, say with some mutated virus, it would definitely further their goals.

 

[Lithrael]

Cue the ant debates where the end condition is, maybe they’re gods, maybe they’re just another very powerful normal life form; it doesn’t matter to our goals of destroying them - just that if we can destroy them, it probably means they weren’t actually gods.

Like, I know you were just spitballing, but if we figured we could kill a god with a biological agent, that would kinda put the kibosh on its nature being supernatural.

 

[Thermal]

Cue the ant debates where the end condition is, maybe they’re gods, maybe they’re just another very powerful normal life form; it doesn’t matter to our goals of destroying them - just that if we can destroy them, it probably means they weren’t actually gods.

Like, I know you were just spitballing, but if we figured we could kill a god with a biological agent, that would kinda put the kibosh on its nature being supernatural.

I get your point, but I see no reason to think supernatural must mean magically perfect, or any of that omni stuff. You're supposed to be able to kill vampires with garlic and all, right?

 

[Lithrael]

Okay, supremely supernatural. Most regular supernatural monster type stuffs are not presented as gods or particularly godlike. Fey maybe? I could see interpretations of fey as pretty powerful and yet still ‘just’ a life-form. ‘Supernatural’ is a necessary, but not sufficient, quality for being the type of god I think we’re discussing here. I get your point though, that was the wrong word for what I meant.

I’d be on board with ants interpreting us as some kind of powerful, incomprehensible, yet still vulnerable creatures. But for me that wanders away from the subject of the thread, as I’d absolutely expect any actual god to be genuinely invulnerable to anything we could do, restricted to affecting our palpable universe as we are.

The meta-problem of discussing it is the same as with vampires - ‘what they are like’ is about panning out everyone’s cultural and individual ideas about them and then talking about some version or other of that. Because we haven’t got any real ones in front of us to investigate.

 

[Olmstead]

Cue the ant debates where the end condition is, maybe they’re gods, maybe they’re just another very powerful normal life form; it doesn’t matter to our goals of destroying them - just that if we can destroy them, it probably means they weren’t actually gods.

Like, I know you were just spitballing, but if we figured we could kill a god with a biological agent, that would kinda put the kibosh on its nature being supernatural.

Both God and the supernatural are meaningless terms.

You can give all sorts of attributes to a "God", both sensible and paradoxical -- creator of the universe, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, paradise-granter, sin-punisher, but none of these attributes are a good reason to actually consider them God, and none of them are a reason for the "ants" to care beyond the give-and-take relationship.

God is only a concept for an escape from the horrors of existence, but it never makes sense once you think about it. God is a logical impossibility.

 

[mikegriffith1]

How? Perhaps by arranging for mankind to discover that biochemical life, contrary to what all scientists believed for over a century, is unbelievably complex and requires staggering amounts of information.

When atheists arrive at the judgment bar and complain they had no evidence of God's existence, God may well say, "Hey, it's not my fault you were silly enough to believe that 'natural selection' could magically create complex information, that 'natural selection' could then use this information to 'select' components for functions that did not even exist and for which there was therefore no known 'need,' and that random processes then magically assembled those components in just the right order to form sophisticated biochemical machines."

 

[ahhell]

How? Perhaps by arranging for mankind to discover that biochemical life, contrary to what all scientists believed for over a century, is unbelievably complex and requires staggering amounts of information.

When atheists arrive at the judgment bar and complain they had no evidence of God's existence, God may well say, "Hey, it's not my fault you were silly enough to believe that 'natural selection' could magically create complex information, that 'natural selection' could then use this information to 'select' components for functions that did not even exist and for which there was therefore no known 'need,' and that random processes then magically assembled those components in just the right order to form sophisticated biochemical machines."

Is that parody? I generally don't pay attention to who posts what, mostly so I don't end up disliking any of you but this reads like parody of intelligent design or possibly an actual believer in intelligent design or just creation.

 

[3point14]

Then I was thinking about the size of the universe and how insignificant our galaxy is, and how insignificant we are in our galaxy.

Total Perspective Vortex

It is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation—every Galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.The Guide The Total Perspective Vortex was a machine built with the intention of...

hitchhikers.fandom.com

 

[Pixel42]

How? Perhaps by arranging for mankind to discover that biochemical life, contrary to what all scientists believed for over a century, is unbelievably complex and requires staggering amounts of information.

When atheists arrive at the judgment bar and complain they had no evidence of God's existence, God may well say, "Hey, it's not my fault you were silly enough to believe that 'natural selection' could magically create complex information, that 'natural selection' could then use this information to 'select' components for functions that did not even exist and for which there was therefore no known 'need,' and that random processes then magically assembled those components in just the right order to form sophisticated biochemical machines."

Still haven't read a decent book on how evolution by natural selection actually works, I see.

Try this one:

Climbing Mount Improbable - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mikegriffith1]

Is that parody? I generally don't pay attention to who posts what, mostly so I don't end up disliking any of you but this reads like parody of intelligent design or possibly an actual believer in intelligent design or just creation.

My post was "designed" to illustrate the fact that macroevolution is the most nonsensical pile of hokum ever foisted on mankind. It starts with some kind of explosion that miraculously produced order (never mind the issue of where/how the matter and energy required for such an explosion originated). Then, it assumes that somehow, someway, via a process that has yet to be even remotely duplicated, living organisms developed from non-living matter ("primordial soup"). Then, it assumes that over and over again "natural selection" magically selected components to perform functions that did not even exist, after which untold numbers of random processes magically assembled those components in just the right order to create complex functioning living beings, along with the staggering amounts of information to enable those beings to function.

FYI, I used to ardently believe in evolution. And, yes, I've read several pro-evolution books and many pro-evolution articles.

 

[Olmstead]

When atheists arrive at the judgment bar and complain they had no evidence of God's existence, God may well say, "Hey, it's not my fault you were silly enough to believe that 'natural selection' could magically create complex information, that 'natural selection' could then use this information to 'select' components for functions that did not even exist and for which there was therefore no known 'need,' and that random processes then magically assembled those components in just the right order to form sophisticated biochemical machines."

What God? Definitely not the Christian God.

Are you worshipping the vague God of vaguely making stuff happen, hoping he will vaguely reward you in all his vague glory?

Because the vague God of vaguely making stuff happen might not appreciate your belief in whatever specific God of specific specificity you have chosen.