If you were God, what kind of God would you be?

"The state of our world and societies" Do you mean the ever rising Standard of living, basic liberties and life expectancy of people around the world? I would say we are not doing that badly and will continue to improve into the future. We are gods of improvement. Over the long run, we take existing systems and make them better. Page not foundScroll down to table four, the worst countries in the world are still making three times as much money(adjusted for inflation) as they were 190 years ago. That means three times as much food, water and medical care as they could previously afford(Plus all three of those things have lowered in price and improved in quality). If there is a god, who is to say that one day we won't surpass him?

This isn't Mike's OP, it's John's. But I agree, it's just off topic rambling.

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I hunt for the truth

Oh yes, sorry John. I got the two of you confused.

Perhaps I should expand on my first reply:Atheists to not believe a god exists. This includes many different concepts of god, not your particular fantasy. We can guess at your fantasy, but you didn't specifically define it.If you *had* specifically defined your concept of God then asking how we would be exactly like that concept is pointless. You must be asking what our concept of a god is, and I don't have one. Remember, I don't think any exist.A third option that actually might be considered is to consider how we would act or behave if we were different in an important aspect. Many here have pointed out that some aspects are impossible to reasonably consider, such as omniscience or omnipotence... even immortality may be difficult to conceive. The problem is that everyone is guessing at aspects of what you consider to be God, because you didn't specify any differences to consider. It would be equally reasonable to investigate how I would act if I had the burning desire for human hearts of an Aztec god.In this case you would be asking how someone would act if they are "different", either in one of an infinite ways, or in every way in which case they wouldn't really know. The topic is poorly defined to the extent of being no topic at all.

Hi, Straggler. Good question.To go along with it, could an omnipotent being reinvent itself so it could spend a day in the shoes of its humble creations? In other words, could it restrict itself to living within the confines of a reality that it created from outside?I think that would be the only way for an omniscient being to maximize experience.As a related aside, Mormonism holds that Jesus experienced all of our pains, sins and emotions the night before He died, in the Garden of Gethsemane. Of course, He didn't go out and actually experience what it was like to be punished for stealing a ding-dong from the convenience store, but He was somehow granted all that experience. So, I would have to say that Mormons believe it is possible to gain experience by proxy.----- Paradigm shifts are always fun, right?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

If you'd read what I said a little more carefully, you'd understand that I think the God of the Bible is a product of people's wishful thinking, and actually says more about human character than about God's. I don't judge, I observe. It is precisely because I know I am a fallible human being, and know myself and other human beings to be equally prone to all those vices you mention, that I think the Biblical description of God reflects exactly that. Yes, I think it most definitely will. And you'd be inhuman if, deep down, you didn't think the same.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

I'm not sure that this is an aside. In principle at least. It raises the question of whether or not Jesus would have been able to have been granted all that human experience if there had not been human beings to have expereinced it?No need to consider Jesus specifically here - In the paradigm that we are considering are the creations needed to have the experiences such that the god in question can have them by proxy?If so we have derived a potential reason for our existence!!Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

That was one of my first attempts. But then I thought it was too crude, hardly real evidence of my existence. I reasoned that if you need such arbitrary lines to see the form, it would not convince anybody. Hence my renewed attempt.

How about: We people, animals, and plants are God's sense organs in this Universe? That's the reason He created us, for the same reason we "created" fingers, eyes and ears.

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It's not the man that knows the most that has the most to say.

If I were God? Well, for one thing, I wouldn't have created the talking snake. Oh, and I'd put any magical fruit I didn't want eating out of reach of anyone who might eat it. That would seem a sensible precaution.I would prevent people from the errors of infidelity or worshiping false gods by giving clear unambiguous signs of my existence and nature. Maybe a brief brisk daily message to my creation, something like this: "Hi, it's the creator of the universe here. My thought for today: don't worship Diana of the Ephesians, she really sucks. Can she do this?" [At this point I would do some highly visible miracle] "Wow, I'm awesome, aren't I? Anyone sacrificing goats to her is just wasting goats, don't say you weren't told, people. Er ... what else ... oh, yes, if you live in the Ur of the Chaldees area, you should see ten million angels with flaming wings pass over around 8 p.m. ... enjoy the show. Well, talk to you all again tomorrow."Oh, and if I chose a people, Nazis and gas chambers wouldn't feature much in their history, or folks might think that I was an impotent nobody not worth a curse, let alone a prayer.I guess you could say that I'd be the sort of God who learns from other gods' mistakes.So, have I got your vote?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

hm, omnipotence by democratic election. So are you thinking electoral college or direct election?

It would be inhuman of me to deny Jack the Ripper the only gratification he finds in life by ripping.The whole point Para', is that arguing from a moral position of relativism, that God is evil, when you yourself admitt imperfection is logically a double whammy-fallacy.Why?1. It is irrelevant that you think God is evil. What is "evil"?
2. Unless you are completely righteous, how can I accept what you say?In reality, people make moral judgements on other people without ever realizing how sinful they are. I see it every day, they go round in circles wondering how the other person can be so "evil".The reason is the sinful nature we all have.From my position, it is sin to speak against a perfect Holy God. As soon as an atheist opens his mouth, it is time to close it, because of these reasonings.So you can have your viewpoint but ultimately it is futile to judge God. I can even understand it, having not understood the bible once.But there's a big danger of misunderstanding the actions of God, especially in the OT, if you haven't studied some fundamental things about God, and how the Hebrews thought.

If you really can't tell the difference between good and evil, arguing with you about morality seems fairly pointless. I don't have to be completely righteous to be right on this one point.Without being perfectly wise, I can know that a man who claims to be an aardvark is talking rubbish. Without living a perfectly healthy lifestyle, I can still judge (and you should believe) that eating cyanide is unhealthy. And without being completely righteous, I am still in a position to assert that the God of the Bible, if he existed, would be unspeakably wicked.I would need a perfect moral sense to make the very finest possible moral distinctions. But the moral distinction between me and the God of the Bible is not a fine one.

But a person with equal morals, who believes in God and the bible, doesn't agree that it follows that he is unspeakabley wicked, because they know their religious book, and have understood it how it was meant to be understood.It is no good showing that God's anger, or judgement makes him wicked when our book says, that "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all".What you have done is come to a wrong conclusion that has nothing to do with morals at all.I know it is unpleasant to die by the sword. Atheists told me this was God's wickedness. Infact I had to study the whole story, and find out who certain peoples were and what they had done.Our position is that all people are sinful, and a perfect, Holy God says that the wages of sin is death, because of justice.If God isn't just, then He is no God at all. This is why there MUST be punishment for sin. If he lets it slide, then he is not perfectly Holy, as he would allow somebody to do something He knows to be evil, and not repay.I do not believe that morally you think all thieves and murderers should NOT go to jail.Now take it a lot further.do you see God physically, anywhere? I don't see him? Why did Manoala say that he must die because he has seen God? yet God ascended in the flames of the sacrifice, foreshowing that if God dies on behalf of Manoala's sin, then he will not die if he has seen God.It takes a lot of studying, not just reading something unpleasant, not understanding, being disgusted, and throwing the book away as false.It does not follow that God is wicked, if you take the bible as a whole, because there is no darkness in him "at all". Therefore, all his reasons are above ours. "I am not a man, that I can lie. My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts."Also it is written, "Trust in God and lean not on your own understanding."What do you think - that men have a better understanding? Look around yourself - this is man's world and it is completely filled with sin, so do you think you have more understanding, when God's idea was a perfect Eden>? Think again.

Actually, I do believe that not all murderers or thieves should go to jail. Frankly, if you think they should, I don't think much of your moral system. It's not completely filled with you arbitrary sins. So, yes, we have more understanding than "god".

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I hunt for the truth