If GOD HIMSELF showed up and wanted to prove his existence, could he?

Oh.

Like, He would blow everybody's minds with something so awesome we would suspend disbelief because we like Him that much?

I still think accepting this Godlike as God would need some persuasion, no matter how much evidence he provides.

edited 16th Sep '10 10:26:12 AM by Raw Power

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

Yes.

See, the thing is, modern atheists have their standards pretty low. In the olden days, God parted the sea and rained food from the skies, and people still doubted Him. Today, we have so much explained by science, that if God did a few things that science precludes, all the rational atheists would be convinced. All of their carefully plotted reasons for denying God's existence would be gone. No one would accuse Him of being an alien since a single violation of the laws of physics would disprove that or make the difference between God and an alien moot.

edited 16th Sep '10 10:24:51 AM by Treblain

We're not just men of science, we're men of TROPE!

^Physics can be revised.

Why?

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But then we'd only have His word that there aren't more like Him.

^ It's the difference between accepting him for what he says he is and accepting him for what he has shown he could do. Between doing the seemingly impossible and being omnipotent, there is one leap of faith, i.e. persuasion rather than convincing.

I mean, while watching Bruce Almighty, did you doubt for a second that, in story, it was God who was posing as God, rather than some alien with a weird sense of humour and Omniscient Morality License?

edited 16th Sep '10 10:29:53 AM by Raw Power

'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?

I can envision a lot of ontological shock. Both those who happen to be in the belief camp that this deity condones, and the ones who aren't.

Might be messy for a bunch of people.

For myself, if this being shows up and says something like "the Messiah really hasn't showed up yet, so Judaism is still valid (just as an example)" or something like that, that tosses Islam and Christianity into the trash. I'd be in a state of shock for a time. Everything in the last 13 years of my life would be wrong.

And naturally, I'd challenge that this being was in fact, who he claimed to be. Woe on me if He was actually telling the truth, yes?

I think the athiest and agnostic would have a better time coming to grips with this event than those who have a firm belief system.

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

I'd almost certainly throw in with the other side at the earliest opportunity. Unless it turns out there's a God but no Satan, in which case the universe is a horrifying place.

the dice are loaded, the deck is stacked, the game itself will hold you back

He could make you accept it. Since he's God.

Assuming that this is the God that some group actually worships, he probably wouldn't, because free will lolz, but omnipotence means that he has the capability.

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Free will - if He doesn't ascribe to that view, then you can kick that out, too.

Guess a lot of people will be taking the blue pill by force, right?

Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.

Well, yes, if he is the omnipotent God, then he can make everyone believe him simply by willing it so. He could change your mind for you just as easily as he could make everyone into turtles.

It's pointless to discuss the behavior or attributes of a truly omnipotent God because said being would operate beyond the bounds of any reality we're capable of experiencing. It would be like a housefly trying to imagine the behavior of the exterminator, multiplied one hundredfold.

edited 16th Sep '10 12:12:12 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Fake scientific papers can be revealed due to unreproduceability.

We have plenty of old books and manuscripts that we do believe, because the events described therein are alluded to in multiple independent sources, or are at least probable in light of events that are well supported. A series of dramatic events recorded all over the world in the present day would set the gold standard for reliable documentation.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

...falling back to the original topic of "could God prove he was God"...

No.

Any test we could devise to measure the amount of power displayed by a certain action could, by necessity, only measure a finite amount. If we could get God to repeatedly demonstrate a display of omnipotence for us to measure with increasingly larger multimeters, all we could ever definitively conclude was that he's still off-the-charts. Well, that broke the 90-W scale... and the 900-W... he's OVER 9000... back to the drawing board, we need a bigger scale! This would seem to be good psychological coercion for most people, but it's not proof.

And even psychological coercion is only likely to strengthen pre-existing belief; anyone who starts out thinking it was a hoax isn't likely to change her mind when the hoax gets bigger.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

God could prove he’s God by using an E-meter that shows he’s Cleard Theta Clear

Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.

Regarding God making a stone so big that he can't lift it, this is my favorite answer.

An useless name, a forsaken connection.

^ Mine too!

Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.

This. Because it isn't really defined other than a loose "very powerful/omnipotent guy who gets picked first for dodgeball", it doesn't make much sense.

I suppose you could say that if he proves that he created this universe, you could call him God.

I dislike the idea of a god that isn't omnipotent, the alpha and omega as well as an absolute being. Fortunately the Christian idea of God is quite a good idea of God.

If he was merely a powerful being, you could always suppose that there's a more powerful being, a god of this god, or a creator of this creator. That's why God needs to be perfect, absolute, the ultimate beginning and perhaps impossible to define. Otherwise, he is just a Sufficiently Advanced Alien.

edited 16th Sep '10 4:48:47 PM by Smokie

But if there's no higher being, it's impossible to test.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

If I had the ability to create stars in the palm of my hand, that wouldn't prove that I created the universe. Likewise, any sufficiently powerful ultimate d00d might be able to show up and say "Oh hay, BTW: I'm god" but that wouldn't prove he created the universe.

But if some guy showed up and was able to block out the sun and throw fireballs, I'd be a dumbass not to think he had a whole hell of a lot of power. Failing to call him God at that point might be a bit pedantic.

So, no one has any trust?

If a being shows up, says, "I'll make that quarter you have land heads every time."

You flip it a hundred times, it lands heads every time, do you really doubt the hundredth time as much as the 1st? Does evidence mean nothing?

I can't disprove God either, but in a case like that, to be obstinate is to favor a hypothesis (anti hypothesis? dis hypothesis)? irrationally.

| DA Page | Sketchbook |

The ability of a being to create matter is not the same thing as being God. I mean, maybe he just gained cosmic power by slaying some kind of magic wizard or something!

Well, asking him to do something astronomical, like blacking out all stars in the night sky, would at least demonstrate that he is really powerful. But so long as he is doing shit to prove himself, why not ask him for something good and useful? Make him bring everybody who has ever died back to life or something.

Legally Free Content

That would just cause the end of minus.

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My biggest reason for suspicion, that is, favoring Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or some other entity with powers beyond our understanding would be the fact that any deity concerned with our lives has had so much opportunity to provide evidence for its existence before now. A compelling, comprehensible reason could shift my estimation to favor the almighty creator of the universe, and if the situation really arose we can assume he could provide one.

Of course, he could also hack our minds to make us think any explanation he gave was reasonable, but in that case he might as well just skip everything else and just automatically make us believe him.

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

This was my point. Why stop at half measures, if he knows that no matter what he does, some people are going to be skeptical?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

If a being is sufficiently powerful, why does it matter whether it claims to be the Christian God or not?

edited 16th Sep '10 9:20:27 PM by storyyeller

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It's asking to be assumed to be such.