Kinda leads to the apologists argument of "If you were given sufficient proof god was real, would you convert"?
The apologist is trying to bait out a "yes" or "no" from me and then go further into their script.
They don't want to address the follow up statement of, even if your god was real that doesn't mean he deserves to be followed or worshipped.
The Abrahamic god being real would be a lifetime of a metaphorical gun pointed at my head.
Then they say “well he allows free will, and so bad things can happen” Ok well if he gives us free will, makes sure there is no way to know he exists, and doesn’t intervene even to prevent horrible things from happening then clearly he wants to be totally hands off. So I’ll respect his wishes and behave as if he doesn’t exist anyway.
[https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html](https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html) So did the Usenet cabal
The thing that gets me, is why would God want to be worshipped in the first place. To the point of creating an entire universe just to have a bunch of people doing so.
God sounds like a complete narcissist
Agree, if god were to exist in accordance to any abrahamic tradition then i would absolutely question a thing or two. Heck how could that not be the actual test from "god, whoever blindly follows the "holy" texts are obviously not fit for heaven. If such a being were to exist I'd argue that it would rather have someone question it. If not then eternity in hell here I come I guess :p
Ask them the same question with respect to the gods of other religions and watch them stammer. A good follow-up question is why the god is so impotent or ignorant that it cannot figure out how to present itself as the creator to the hominids here on planet Earth.
If god turns out to be real then I kinda don’t have a choice. He could subject me to eternal, unimaginable suffering. Me entire existence is this guy’s plaything, so I can either do what he wants and hope to be given rest eventually, or piss him off and be cast into eternal fire. When people talk about *eternal* punishments, we often forget what *eternal* means. You *REALLY* don’t want that.
Ok, Pascal. Suppose you do what the God of the Bible wants and it turns out the Buddhists are right? You just spent your life praying to Jesus when you should have been meditating on the Dharma. How long do you want to continue the suffering of existence? Shouldn't you just go ahead and work to achieve Nervana?
If he's real, head proven himself a sadist at the very least. The difference between me and your God, is that if I could stop children from dying of cancer, I would.
Epicurus put it nicely:
Is God willing to prevent evil but unable? Then he's not omnipotent.
Is he able but unwilling? Then he's malevolent.
Is he willing and able? Then whence commeth evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
You see, we don't know anything. Yes there is suffering, but what if soul does exist? Then you can live many different lives across the multiverse, species and circumstances varying. Cancer is just one of the many RNGs which is supposed to balance things out to enable more variability and less script. Also another layer of motivation created as a whole for the mankind. Our morals are not applicable to him, he is a writer, but we only see one chapter for certain, one realm of his. Good vs evil concept originates from biologically programmed empathy, he would likely use different measurement like balance, concordance to set values more accurately, not bound to human vision only.
I have dreams of dead relatives and Greek gods. They all say there’s no such thing as death. Everything is a dream state including this. There is an imagineer, and we are all imagineers. I think that’s the closet we’re gonna get to the answer. This earth realm is like a Metaverse of imaginations.
Well said! I'd also like to add that not only is the unfairness bounded by the laws of physics, but it's also not personal.
When something bad happens, it's not directed. There's no god out to get us. So, no need to constantly be looking over our shoulders worrying about what the sick fuck has in store for us next.
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Why would a being that powerful give a shit about anyone.
At least a god who doesn't care is a god who isn't malicious, and only cruel in the sense of cold indifference to creating a universe where suffering can manifest.
Biology and neurology reveal that existence is inherently cruel to organisms capable of manifesting qualia. The more aware you are, the more cruel the universe is to you.
Every reason you just listed is why Christians have to continually convince themselves that their deity is a loving being, regardless of the countless atrocities that are listed in the bible, or the insane notion that unless someone chooses to worship without question that they would be condemned to an eternity of torture.
It's all poorly written fantasy.
> infinitely good and loving
Dealing with a being that is infinitely anything seems like a really terrifying idea no matter which way you slice it.
Immediately, I wonder what the love of a being like that would look like from our perspective. Love means different things to different folk.
I suppose it depends on what the being's definition of 'love' is.
From its point of view, perhaps it's important that we suffer. Maybe God cannot suffer and yearns to, so he creates us to feel that which even he cannot have... out of sheer love and goodness.
One problem with an all-powerful being is that nobody really has the authority to suggest that it's wrong. That fact that the deity thinks something is what makes it right.
If he’s all loving, powerful and knowing, why create the devil? Or hell? Or make us apologize? Why not just let everyone into heaven or be born in heaven?
Too many questions and contradictions, not enough answers or evidence
I very much agree with you.
I really enjoy JRPGs. A common meme amongst fans of these games is that the games starts humble and quaint, but by the story end you are fighting God. After seeing all the evils that plague those fictional worlds and meeting the God that permits those evils to exist the natural conclusion is to want Gods destruction. If God did exist I'd want only for them to not.
Considering His past history, yes, it would be absolutely terrifying. It would be like if a highly advanced alien colony ship arrived on the scene and announced they were going to wipe 1/3 of the Earth's population off the map to make room for their people, and they decided to hold a contest to see who would be allowed to survive.
Read God: An Anatomy (Stavrakopoulou 2022) and you will probably conclude that he is a psychopath unworthy of anything but condemnation; except because he is also a narcissist, he would enjoy the attention, so the best we can do is go no contact.
The universe as we know it would differ none at all by our simple gaining knowledge of the cosmic farmer, so to speak.
We’re still living in the same creation/system whether they are there or not.
I would be scared shitless.
I don’t trust half my relatives with butter knives, and some sky-daddy with infinite cosmic powers™️ blows in on his white cloud, and I’m supposed to hop right in?
If god is real, Hitler and Kim Jung Un would be considered saints, relatively. It would make me so fucking angry to find out god is real - because it would mean all these injustice and tragedy and certain disgusting human beings like rapists and politicians were all given the green light by this mega bastard king of all bastards.
And thiests willing “worship” him. Fucking disgusting. You’re making me angry just think about this possibility.
Which god? Because depending on which one’s real, the horror aspect can go upward in several degrees?
We taking Odin blood sacrifice for warriors, horny Zeus, or the blind idiot daemon sultan Azathoth?
Yeah that's one area I think theists don't generally think about all that much.
The idea that their god is real tends to be about where their thoughts about their own god end, questions about if they morally align with that god tend to be beyond their reckoning.
Finding out God was real would be infuriating.
All the suffering.
All the madness.
Every mass extinction event.
Every child who lived just long enough to die painfully of cancer.
The only way I can really accept these things is knowing the universe is inherently chaotic and that there is no greater intelligence running things beyond physics and chemistry elaborated up to the macro level.
If we were to find out that this was all the plan of some "divinity", there is literally no excuse it could give to justify its shitty handling of the situation.
I wouldn't be scared. I'd be furious. Then I'd be studying this God in order to try and figure out how to capture it. Cuz if the universe is going to be run by an idiot God, then I'm going to hold onto that God's leash.
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[This](https://youtu.be/BI9fKfX5V68?si=Qa99GS27NF1t-1W5) is a pretty well done and thought provoking short horror film. View with caution if you have religion related triggers, especially christianity.
If we’re talking about the Christian god here as an example then it does have checks balances. According to some versions of the bible one of its angels gets appointed to that role and given the title of satan. That’s what satan was originally, it was never stated to be another name for the devil until later as far as I’m aware but I haven’t looked at this stuff for a very long time.
Thought crime, man. We would be judged by our random thoughts. It's so man made, maybe that is why the idea itself is so disgusting. Only a Male sapiens would come up with such a ghastly proposition.
Yes, I am glad that the evidence for such a majestic entity is very scanty, to say the least.
Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is one of the best depictions of a Mad God (in this case Mad A I).
There’s plenty of other examples of what could treat you as badly without being God…
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/9DHytacQwC
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-rokos-basilisk-2014-8?op=1
I don't believe in religious God, but you don't know extraterrestrial lives evolved into type 3 civilization out there somewhere, and I am pretty sure their capabilities are barely distinguishable as God from religious text or common concept of God.
Nah.. There's no reason to believe souls exist, and that's all we would be after death.. But if they did exist, souls wouldn't have nerve endings, so you couldn't feel pain anyway. You can't be tortured if you can't feel pain
Even though religious folk try to blame Satan and imperfect sinners for every bad thing that has happened the reality is that tragedies, violence and the spilling of blood were already a constant before the first human draw breath.
Living creatures have been devouring each other since the beginning of life, a never ending arms race for more sophisticated ways to poison, maim and kill prey.
Hurricanes, volcano eruptions, mass extinctions....
If there is a God all that exists because he willed it to be that way.
A creature that experiences no need or pain developing a whole universe of creatures forever bound to need and suffering.
Just because it can and wants.
Most people act as if god doesn't exist. If god were proven real many people would change their behaviors over night. Most Christians are living like they read the playbook for how to get to hell quicker.
As a christian I agree, I'd shit my pants if my God ever fully revealed himself to me. Don't know what I'd do or feel.
For what it's worth, there is this saint (Porfirios) who famously convinced God to show him all his love, even if God warned him he couldn't take it. He lasted bout 1 minute, then begged for him to stop cause he felt he'd die.
Fictional story for most people, but it goes to show that indeed, this kind of situation would be terrifying.
Yes it would be terrifying.
I have renounced the holy spirit, the unforgivable sin. Obtaining instant confirmation of my place in hell would mean I would lose my moral code, I would become rudderless.
And what would I do without a moral code… you know, raping, looting, murdering.
If god is real he sure is one hell of a fella. Given all the crap going on in the world, all the fanatics killing in his name and so on I wouldn’t be happy to see his ass here.
So far as we can tell, we live in a semi-infinite universe. There could be anything out there. And if xtians want to go with "well god could be in the unknown", okay sure. Let's humor that for a moment. The universe is infinite, which means something "HAS" to exist that is more powerful than your god, and it is malevolent. Your all-powerful god is dwarfed by this horrific deplorable entity. Your god made this universe solely to hide from that entity that only wants to cause pain and misery, and remember, you believe your god and our souls are eternal, so eventually that thing will find this universe and turn heaven into a hell
There ya go. That whole dumb argument of "anything can be out there" it's not a good argument. It's vastly more terrifying than people realize.
Yup. I grew up in a part of the catholic church where they tell you god is good and nice and understanding. Like a caring father.
But when I grew up, I saw that that was really weird, that this all-powerful and kind god would allow this world to exist as it does.
Now there are some christian religions where the god is indeed a nasty dude who just wants to see the world burn (often literally). I don't know why you would want to believe in such a god, but at least that is more consistent with reality. Unfortunately.
(I'm not bringing kids into this world and that is mostly because of all the suffering that can happen during a human's life).
Wait, so THAT'S why Christians love the Mango Mussolini so much: they already worship a petulant narcissistic dictator who wants to rule unchecked over everything and everyone!!!!
This explains a lot about the Bobiverse. Not a god but the species he helps are all terrified of him. If god was real, he would still have to make "unpopular" decisions or break the laws of the universe. Imagine an all powerful being, just messing with us the whole time!
Then there's another alternative, which I'm going to bring up in the form of xkcd.
https://xkcd.com/505/
What drives time? Yeah, you think the world is bounded by physics. Good job. If a sufficiently powerful being exists, you're successfully deluded that that's the case, and also what you consider to be "your subjective experience" is just one emergent property of state being driven through time. At any point, this all could stop, and you'd never know because you wouldn't be in time to acknowledge it. You only know that it hasn't yet stopped without being resumed because the next moment has come.
In the end, we can't know, and so it's best to just go about doing things in the reality we know, whatever its true nature might be. Getting bent out of shape feeling paranoid that the comforting pattern of physics we're used to may end from one instant to the next without any forewarning is unproductive and pointless.
It's the same as worrying that a gamma ray burst or false vacuum decay has already happened somewhere out there and is now heading for Earth at the speed of light, too fast for us to see its boundary approaching to give us any forewarning, and it reaching would be the end of the world. You could spend your entire life being paranoid forever with absolutely no way to avert the event.
I have a question also. Why is it a red flag for a partner to question or test your loyalty and trust for them? But it’s not for God to test our faith at every turn? Why don’t have to test it?
That assumes God has no underlying purpose, which it would also be bound by. A farmer has lots of power to destroy and reseed a field, but not omnipotent power. Perhaps God has a bottom line that it obeys same as us, same as physics.
The fun thing is there existed a… sect? Group of religions loosely defined by historians? philosophy of theology? known as Gnosticism, which basically believed something along these exact lines.
The fun thing is the problem of evil is also a problem of good. If an omnipotent, omniscient god exists, then it cannot be all good (because evil exists) but neither can it be all evil (because good exists). So if there is an omnipotent, omniscient god it must be a trickster, sometimes good, sometimes evil for no discernible reason.
Which would be infinitely more terrifying than a god that is just evil.
I always think of this line from Doctor Who:
>Oh, you like to think you're a god. You're not a god, you're just a parasite, eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others.
If you can't deny their existence, you can deny their divinity.
If the Abrahamic God was real, all the scientific discoveries about our universe, all laws of physics would have to be reconsidered. He he was real and created everything, he'd be one tricky son of a bitch.
I feel like a more accurate title for this post would be, "Finding out the things churches say about God actually being legitimate would be terrifying."
A man who survived the holocaust died and goes to heaven. Once he got there, he met God and told him a holocaust joke.
“That’s not very funny” said god
“I guess you should’ve been there” shrugged the man.
I'm pretty sure God being real is supposed to be terrifying. That's why you are supposed to follow the people who claim that it talks to them to stay safe.
I’d always told people that even if god did exist, I would never worship him. My thinking is, I refuse to live in fear when I didn’t even ask to be born in the first place, am told I was flawed from day one because humans are sinful, and that I’m not allowed to off myself either. If god stood in front of me now and demanded that I kneel, I’d have to say I’d shrug and say no. And if he DID torture me for it, I’d die knowing he did the sinful thing and not me. In the end he’s the one who is flawed. 🤷🏻♀️
If there is an all powerful creator entity either they are a monster and I'd try with all my might to kill them regardless of how futile it is, or God is an uncaring clockmaker that simply set things into motion at which point they deserve no worship either.
Terrifying for everyone, including Christians. They would either fall out, think he is fake and blame the government, or bible thump harder and think the terror is an acceptable test/mysterious way.
Put on Mick Gordon and load the super shotgun.
Or if you aren't a multidimensional badass like Doomguy, do it the hard way https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html
It's both funny and terrifying when they say god created us because it was lonely. Like damn this dude can create existence but is struggling to hold onto sanity. I guess I would struggle too if I were the only true thing to exist (as an omnipotent being).
This is what I was looking for.
"Estimates of over 4000 gods and goddesses plus fantastical animals with purported godlike powers have been worshiped throughout time. All these gods and goddesses were believed in with the same fervor as today's equally mythological gods are"
It really depends on which deity is the real one. I’m Catholic, I accept that ancient man was trying to explain certain concepts and a supernatural concept made sense (talking box theory) but if the real version of “my” god showed up we’re all screwed. Esoterica channel on you tube did a great vid on it. Jehovah/Allah/Yaweh is a war god and if you read the old testament not a very nice one.
If it’s a Buddha type then maybe no so bad….
True, but the original version of that deity is bad enough.
A point to the question; which version of the god? As gods get adopted in different areas they changed. As an example again the Abrahamic god is different in all three but is based on an old war god that was very violent
If I don’t believe in God why would I give any more thought to him being real than I would invisible unicorns that stab people with their horns?
Sure if god was real that’d be pretty wild. So would invisible unicorns. Could you imagine if we discovered that they live among us!?
This is an atheism sub so I feel like just as my unicorn question doesn’t belong, this question kind of doesn’t belong here either. If a Christian came here and said “But just - what if was real, wouldn’t you be afraid of spending eternity in hell?”
We’d be like “that’s not how it works. God’s not real.”
Summary:
"Hey, there's totally a reason for all this, and if you don't agree with us you can BURN!!!"
"I mean, we're the good guys! We're shitty to outsiders because they SUCK!"
"Anyway, read my book, bro. You'll get it if you get it, and people who don't SUCK!!!"
Utter low brow, brainwashing, circular-reasoning, self-serving crap. Embarrassing, really.
"Get your boys, then! Use logic to disprove a conclusion to us that we didn't use logic to come to in the first place!"
"If you can't, and of course you can't, you can fucking BUUUUURRRRRNNNNNN!!!!!"
The religion is so incredibly hateful. It just gets sadder and more desperate the more you try to quote your way into being righteous.
Every now and then this comes up, if he was real or something evidential but the truth is it would be better if it was non-existent then real because if god was real all this time he has done incredibly piss poor job with suffering, wars and atrocities that has been happening all with a no presence or effect in this world.
If this thing is real it wouldn't be terrifying because through out history's it hasn't done a single dam thing nor shown his existence. I mean what the difference between an invisible, non-comporeal, undetectable being that doesn't do anything to a something that is non-existent? Nothing, they both completely the same. At least being non-existent actually makes a better argument while it being real makes it worst.
I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer to
Child getting raped - why doesn’t god intervene ?
I work at a school , I’m duty bound to report abuse.
Why isn’t god ?
Ummm ummm free will ?
Ugh
There’s a few gods out there. Depends on which god I found out is real. I wouldn’t just assume it’s the abrahamic one. There’s like 5000 different gods being worshipped right now. I hope I get a good one then. Ganesha sounds cool.
H.P Lovecraft's Cthulhu has a lot of similarities to Christ. Cosma Rohilla Shalizi wrote
>"Much more convincing is the fact that Cthulhu is a god who died and yet lives, now and forever, and shall soon enough return in glory. Indeed, one of his (abortive) resurrections took place rather close to Easter. Both the return of Christ and the return of Cthulhu are eagerly awaited by hordes of worshippers who will do anything they can to hasten the day. Both are to be heralded by war, death and general chaos. Both are connected with astronomical prophecies - Cthulhu will return 'when the stars are right,' while, according to Revelations, the Apocalypse should make astronomy a most interesting if confusing profession. "
Some of the aspects of the cult in this work are things Lovecraft personally disliked that are present in Christianity, like the religion transcending racial lines and being popular among mixed-race and low class people. With Lovecraft himself being a firm atheist, it could be argued that the horror in this story is the existence of a god being true in the face of all rational thought. With many of the things associated with Cthulhu openly refuse to make sense while remaining true even when the characters can't come to terms with that. like
>"The rest followed him, and looked curiously at the immense carved door with the now familiar squid-dragon bas-relief. It was, Johansen said, like a great barn-door; and they all felt that it was a door because of the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trap-door or slantwise like an outside cellar-door."
Worth pointing out that polytheism is a thing. I met my husband at a public pagan circle. We worshipped the Lord, the Lady, and the Holy Child — big emphasis on the Lady. Then there were the gods of the elements — earth, water, fire, air. They were not good nor bad, they just were. Earth can grow you food or shake, crack open, and swallow you whole. Water can grow your crops and slake your thirst or flood it all and drown you. Fire can keep you warm, cook your food, kill germs, or burn down your house, even your whole state. Air keeps you alive or sends trees crashing down and rips the roof off your house. Pure power without emotion or morals.
Kinda leads to the apologists argument of "If you were given sufficient proof god was real, would you convert"? The apologist is trying to bait out a "yes" or "no" from me and then go further into their script. They don't want to address the follow up statement of, even if your god was real that doesn't mean he deserves to be followed or worshipped. The Abrahamic god being real would be a lifetime of a metaphorical gun pointed at my head.
If god is real hes a bastard.
Or she's a total bitch
Or both. Let's keep our minds open people.
Better yet, why does a god need genitals at all? Sure they could have them if they wanted them, but is that their true form?
Or this.
¿Por que no los dos?
I don't speak Mexican
Thanks Aaron.
Then they say “well he allows free will, and so bad things can happen” Ok well if he gives us free will, makes sure there is no way to know he exists, and doesn’t intervene even to prevent horrible things from happening then clearly he wants to be totally hands off. So I’ll respect his wishes and behave as if he doesn’t exist anyway.
This was the argument of Socrates. He did not deny the gods existed. He only claimed that they were not worthy of worship.
Ancient Klingons killed all of their gods. They were more trouble than they were worth.
Qapla!
[https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html](https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html) So did the Usenet cabal
The thing that gets me, is why would God want to be worshipped in the first place. To the point of creating an entire universe just to have a bunch of people doing so. God sounds like a complete narcissist
Any god worthy of worship would be completely indifferent to it.
Agree, if god were to exist in accordance to any abrahamic tradition then i would absolutely question a thing or two. Heck how could that not be the actual test from "god, whoever blindly follows the "holy" texts are obviously not fit for heaven. If such a being were to exist I'd argue that it would rather have someone question it. If not then eternity in hell here I come I guess :p
Ask them the same question with respect to the gods of other religions and watch them stammer. A good follow-up question is why the god is so impotent or ignorant that it cannot figure out how to present itself as the creator to the hominids here on planet Earth.
If the god of the Bible existed, it would be our moral duty to defeat him.
It would be like trying to learn to love a monster
If any gods exist, they either do not deserve to be worshipped or do not want to be.
If god turns out to be real then I kinda don’t have a choice. He could subject me to eternal, unimaginable suffering. Me entire existence is this guy’s plaything, so I can either do what he wants and hope to be given rest eventually, or piss him off and be cast into eternal fire. When people talk about *eternal* punishments, we often forget what *eternal* means. You *REALLY* don’t want that.
Sounds like a great way to control people with little understanding of the natural world or our observable reality
Ok, Pascal. Suppose you do what the God of the Bible wants and it turns out the Buddhists are right? You just spent your life praying to Jesus when you should have been meditating on the Dharma. How long do you want to continue the suffering of existence? Shouldn't you just go ahead and work to achieve Nervana?
Wow look at mere mortals trying to comprehend the knowledge and idea of an immortal infinite being
If he's real, head proven himself a sadist at the very least. The difference between me and your God, is that if I could stop children from dying of cancer, I would. Epicurus put it nicely: Is God willing to prevent evil but unable? Then he's not omnipotent. Is he able but unwilling? Then he's malevolent. Is he willing and able? Then whence commeth evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
You see, we don't know anything. Yes there is suffering, but what if soul does exist? Then you can live many different lives across the multiverse, species and circumstances varying. Cancer is just one of the many RNGs which is supposed to balance things out to enable more variability and less script. Also another layer of motivation created as a whole for the mankind. Our morals are not applicable to him, he is a writer, but we only see one chapter for certain, one realm of his. Good vs evil concept originates from biologically programmed empathy, he would likely use different measurement like balance, concordance to set values more accurately, not bound to human vision only.
Pascal's wager. What if you chose the wrong God?
If you die and then find out God is real, please let us know
I have dreams of dead relatives and Greek gods. They all say there’s no such thing as death. Everything is a dream state including this. There is an imagineer, and we are all imagineers. I think that’s the closet we’re gonna get to the answer. This earth realm is like a Metaverse of imaginations.
All the matter, the atoms, that make you you will continue to exist after you die. They are eternal and can never be destroyed
We'll go on to be trees and rivers and animals and rock and other people and stars... that's beautiful to me
Aka reincarnation. The Hindus were right about what comes after death.
They weren't, reincarnation is a continuation of the "soul", not the body.
What is the soul? If it's energy then it's basically the same thing.
I would recommend learning physics and understanding what energy actually is, not the colloquial meaning.
Well said! I'd also like to add that not only is the unfairness bounded by the laws of physics, but it's also not personal. When something bad happens, it's not directed. There's no god out to get us. So, no need to constantly be looking over our shoulders worrying about what the sick fuck has in store for us next.
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When I imagine God, I imagine AM from I Hive No Mouth, And I Must Scream.
His other names were also like this lol "I am that I am"
Closest thing to God humanity has imagined are the Outer Gods from Lovecraft.
Why would a being that powerful give a shit about anyone. At least a god who doesn't care is a god who isn't malicious, and only cruel in the sense of cold indifference to creating a universe where suffering can manifest. Biology and neurology reveal that existence is inherently cruel to organisms capable of manifesting qualia. The more aware you are, the more cruel the universe is to you.
Every reason you just listed is why Christians have to continually convince themselves that their deity is a loving being, regardless of the countless atrocities that are listed in the bible, or the insane notion that unless someone chooses to worship without question that they would be condemned to an eternity of torture. It's all poorly written fantasy.
An Infinite being that is infinitely good and loving wouldn’t be bad… But that clearly does not fit any God that would create Hell
> infinitely good and loving Dealing with a being that is infinitely anything seems like a really terrifying idea no matter which way you slice it. Immediately, I wonder what the love of a being like that would look like from our perspective. Love means different things to different folk.
It can't even be both infinitely good and infinitely loving as long as suffering exists anyways.
I suppose it depends on what the being's definition of 'love' is. From its point of view, perhaps it's important that we suffer. Maybe God cannot suffer and yearns to, so he creates us to feel that which even he cannot have... out of sheer love and goodness. One problem with an all-powerful being is that nobody really has the authority to suggest that it's wrong. That fact that the deity thinks something is what makes it right.
If he’s all loving, powerful and knowing, why create the devil? Or hell? Or make us apologize? Why not just let everyone into heaven or be born in heaven? Too many questions and contradictions, not enough answers or evidence
I very much agree with you. I really enjoy JRPGs. A common meme amongst fans of these games is that the games starts humble and quaint, but by the story end you are fighting God. After seeing all the evils that plague those fictional worlds and meeting the God that permits those evils to exist the natural conclusion is to want Gods destruction. If God did exist I'd want only for them to not.
Considering His past history, yes, it would be absolutely terrifying. It would be like if a highly advanced alien colony ship arrived on the scene and announced they were going to wipe 1/3 of the Earth's population off the map to make room for their people, and they decided to hold a contest to see who would be allowed to survive.
Which god? Yahweh? Allah? Or a more civilized deity?
What you don’t want a cosmic, hypocritical toddler with a magnifying glass judging your every move?
I would be up a creek without a paddle.
Read God: An Anatomy (Stavrakopoulou 2022) and you will probably conclude that he is a psychopath unworthy of anything but condemnation; except because he is also a narcissist, he would enjoy the attention, so the best we can do is go no contact.
It's pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen. Fortunately, it can't happen.
He could make you push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down
The universe as we know it would differ none at all by our simple gaining knowledge of the cosmic farmer, so to speak. We’re still living in the same creation/system whether they are there or not.
I would be scared shitless. I don’t trust half my relatives with butter knives, and some sky-daddy with infinite cosmic powers™️ blows in on his white cloud, and I’m supposed to hop right in?
If god is real, Hitler and Kim Jung Un would be considered saints, relatively. It would make me so fucking angry to find out god is real - because it would mean all these injustice and tragedy and certain disgusting human beings like rapists and politicians were all given the green light by this mega bastard king of all bastards. And thiests willing “worship” him. Fucking disgusting. You’re making me angry just think about this possibility.
Which god? Because depending on which one’s real, the horror aspect can go upward in several degrees? We taking Odin blood sacrifice for warriors, horny Zeus, or the blind idiot daemon sultan Azathoth?
Yeah that's one area I think theists don't generally think about all that much. The idea that their god is real tends to be about where their thoughts about their own god end, questions about if they morally align with that god tend to be beyond their reckoning.
No worries there
🎶 in hell I’ll be in good company 🎶
An eternity in heaven is torture for infinity. You'd be begging to go to hell just for something different.
It's funny you say this because you ever watched The Good Place, then they cover this. And it's exactly what you said. It was torture.
God is YOU. You are god. That is all 🤘🏻
Finding out God was real would be infuriating. All the suffering. All the madness. Every mass extinction event. Every child who lived just long enough to die painfully of cancer. The only way I can really accept these things is knowing the universe is inherently chaotic and that there is no greater intelligence running things beyond physics and chemistry elaborated up to the macro level. If we were to find out that this was all the plan of some "divinity", there is literally no excuse it could give to justify its shitty handling of the situation. I wouldn't be scared. I'd be furious. Then I'd be studying this God in order to try and figure out how to capture it. Cuz if the universe is going to be run by an idiot God, then I'm going to hold onto that God's leash.
I would imagine it being like encountering a Q being from Star Trek.
If he was real, I would just kill him like in Shin Megami Tensei.
I don’t even think about this at all — the premise is just ludicrously absurd. There is no divine being.
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[This](https://youtu.be/BI9fKfX5V68?si=Qa99GS27NF1t-1W5) is a pretty well done and thought provoking short horror film. View with caution if you have religion related triggers, especially christianity.
Yes, nothing and nothing deserves that kind of power, so It's better if there is no god
We discover new species all the time. This is no different than another frog in the Amazon
Nah. Because he'd be good, right? Right? /s
Well, imagine wild unicorns if you want real nightmares.
If we’re talking about the Christian god here as an example then it does have checks balances. According to some versions of the bible one of its angels gets appointed to that role and given the title of satan. That’s what satan was originally, it was never stated to be another name for the devil until later as far as I’m aware but I haven’t looked at this stuff for a very long time.
Thought crime, man. We would be judged by our random thoughts. It's so man made, maybe that is why the idea itself is so disgusting. Only a Male sapiens would come up with such a ghastly proposition. Yes, I am glad that the evidence for such a majestic entity is very scanty, to say the least.
Not that hard to imagine, the American government is getting pretty close
Come to think of it, yeah. But I am not going to lose sleep over it. Except it makes me dislike the religious folks even more.
Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is one of the best depictions of a Mad God (in this case Mad A I). There’s plenty of other examples of what could treat you as badly without being God… https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/9DHytacQwC https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-rokos-basilisk-2014-8?op=1
You may find interesting how humans react to the seemingly infinite powers of the San-Tis in the Netflix series "Three bodies problem".
I don't believe in religious God, but you don't know extraterrestrial lives evolved into type 3 civilization out there somewhere, and I am pretty sure their capabilities are barely distinguishable as God from religious text or common concept of God.
I've heard God described as a computer virus that just moves around and manipulates coding based on an algorithm no ond can decipher.
That's the 😈
Nah.. There's no reason to believe souls exist, and that's all we would be after death.. But if they did exist, souls wouldn't have nerve endings, so you couldn't feel pain anyway. You can't be tortured if you can't feel pain
If god would be real I’d be against it. That imaginary thing is a fucking tyrant.
Even though religious folk try to blame Satan and imperfect sinners for every bad thing that has happened the reality is that tragedies, violence and the spilling of blood were already a constant before the first human draw breath. Living creatures have been devouring each other since the beginning of life, a never ending arms race for more sophisticated ways to poison, maim and kill prey. Hurricanes, volcano eruptions, mass extinctions.... If there is a God all that exists because he willed it to be that way. A creature that experiences no need or pain developing a whole universe of creatures forever bound to need and suffering. Just because it can and wants.
Most people act as if god doesn't exist. If god were proven real many people would change their behaviors over night. Most Christians are living like they read the playbook for how to get to hell quicker.
Thankfully there is literally *no chance* (the Abrahamic) God is real.
I'd immediately join team Satan because God is a childish, cruel, needy psychopath.
As a christian I agree, I'd shit my pants if my God ever fully revealed himself to me. Don't know what I'd do or feel. For what it's worth, there is this saint (Porfirios) who famously convinced God to show him all his love, even if God warned him he couldn't take it. He lasted bout 1 minute, then begged for him to stop cause he felt he'd die. Fictional story for most people, but it goes to show that indeed, this kind of situation would be terrifying.
Yes it would be terrifying. I have renounced the holy spirit, the unforgivable sin. Obtaining instant confirmation of my place in hell would mean I would lose my moral code, I would become rudderless. And what would I do without a moral code… you know, raping, looting, murdering.
If god is real he sure is one hell of a fella. Given all the crap going on in the world, all the fanatics killing in his name and so on I wouldn’t be happy to see his ass here.
I would do my best to hurt him as bad as he hurt the earth
So far as we can tell, we live in a semi-infinite universe. There could be anything out there. And if xtians want to go with "well god could be in the unknown", okay sure. Let's humor that for a moment. The universe is infinite, which means something "HAS" to exist that is more powerful than your god, and it is malevolent. Your all-powerful god is dwarfed by this horrific deplorable entity. Your god made this universe solely to hide from that entity that only wants to cause pain and misery, and remember, you believe your god and our souls are eternal, so eventually that thing will find this universe and turn heaven into a hell There ya go. That whole dumb argument of "anything can be out there" it's not a good argument. It's vastly more terrifying than people realize.
Weirdly, I’m not the least bit worried about that. Huh.
No more than Tooth Fairy, Santa or Ghosts
Yup. I grew up in a part of the catholic church where they tell you god is good and nice and understanding. Like a caring father. But when I grew up, I saw that that was really weird, that this all-powerful and kind god would allow this world to exist as it does. Now there are some christian religions where the god is indeed a nasty dude who just wants to see the world burn (often literally). I don't know why you would want to believe in such a god, but at least that is more consistent with reality. Unfortunately. (I'm not bringing kids into this world and that is mostly because of all the suffering that can happen during a human's life).
If ever I meet god - he would have to beg my forgivness
Wait, so THAT'S why Christians love the Mango Mussolini so much: they already worship a petulant narcissistic dictator who wants to rule unchecked over everything and everyone!!!!
Could do all those macro things but cares more about the micro; like our thoughts, sex lives, and “sins”.
This explains a lot about the Bobiverse. Not a god but the species he helps are all terrified of him. If god was real, he would still have to make "unpopular" decisions or break the laws of the universe. Imagine an all powerful being, just messing with us the whole time!
Then there's another alternative, which I'm going to bring up in the form of xkcd. https://xkcd.com/505/ What drives time? Yeah, you think the world is bounded by physics. Good job. If a sufficiently powerful being exists, you're successfully deluded that that's the case, and also what you consider to be "your subjective experience" is just one emergent property of state being driven through time. At any point, this all could stop, and you'd never know because you wouldn't be in time to acknowledge it. You only know that it hasn't yet stopped without being resumed because the next moment has come. In the end, we can't know, and so it's best to just go about doing things in the reality we know, whatever its true nature might be. Getting bent out of shape feeling paranoid that the comforting pattern of physics we're used to may end from one instant to the next without any forewarning is unproductive and pointless. It's the same as worrying that a gamma ray burst or false vacuum decay has already happened somewhere out there and is now heading for Earth at the speed of light, too fast for us to see its boundary approaching to give us any forewarning, and it reaching would be the end of the world. You could spend your entire life being paranoid forever with absolutely no way to avert the event.
I would be pissed and probably chew gods ass for the things he lets happen to child and then be sent straight to hell 😂
I have a question also. Why is it a red flag for a partner to question or test your loyalty and trust for them? But it’s not for God to test our faith at every turn? Why don’t have to test it?
If he’s real other beings might be real too and Imma fight him
It would be like finding out that ghosts are real: absolutely soul chillingly terrifying.
There is no god only alien overlords. Hahaha
That assumes God has no underlying purpose, which it would also be bound by. A farmer has lots of power to destroy and reseed a field, but not omnipotent power. Perhaps God has a bottom line that it obeys same as us, same as physics.
The fun thing is there existed a… sect? Group of religions loosely defined by historians? philosophy of theology? known as Gnosticism, which basically believed something along these exact lines. The fun thing is the problem of evil is also a problem of good. If an omnipotent, omniscient god exists, then it cannot be all good (because evil exists) but neither can it be all evil (because good exists). So if there is an omnipotent, omniscient god it must be a trickster, sometimes good, sometimes evil for no discernible reason. Which would be infinitely more terrifying than a god that is just evil.
Remember Nerv’s motto? God is in his Heaven all’s right with the world, I always found it really fitting.
I always think of this line from Doctor Who: >Oh, you like to think you're a god. You're not a god, you're just a parasite, eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. If you can't deny their existence, you can deny their divinity.
If the Abrahamic God was real, all the scientific discoveries about our universe, all laws of physics would have to be reconsidered. He he was real and created everything, he'd be one tricky son of a bitch.
Personally, it wouldn't be terrifying to me. I'd have alot of questions though.
I feel like a more accurate title for this post would be, "Finding out the things churches say about God actually being legitimate would be terrifying."
A man who survived the holocaust died and goes to heaven. Once he got there, he met God and told him a holocaust joke. “That’s not very funny” said god “I guess you should’ve been there” shrugged the man.
If he is real and is anything like what half of the religions say he is then he is one "fucked up" entity
I'm pretty sure God being real is supposed to be terrifying. That's why you are supposed to follow the people who claim that it talks to them to stay safe.
But he loves you...
The terror is the point.
If god is real, as a species we need to devote all of our resources to finding and killing it.
That’s what they want. Fear
I’d always told people that even if god did exist, I would never worship him. My thinking is, I refuse to live in fear when I didn’t even ask to be born in the first place, am told I was flawed from day one because humans are sinful, and that I’m not allowed to off myself either. If god stood in front of me now and demanded that I kneel, I’d have to say I’d shrug and say no. And if he DID torture me for it, I’d die knowing he did the sinful thing and not me. In the end he’s the one who is flawed. 🤷🏻♀️
Which God though?
It would be an existential nightmare beyond compare.
False premise fallacy. 'God' does not exist.
It depends on what god you are talking about, the Islamic or Jewish god, yeah, it will be terrifying, Deism or Gnosticism, not really.
If there is an all powerful creator entity either they are a monster and I'd try with all my might to kill them regardless of how futile it is, or God is an uncaring clockmaker that simply set things into motion at which point they deserve no worship either.
Terrifying for everyone, including Christians. They would either fall out, think he is fake and blame the government, or bible thump harder and think the terror is an acceptable test/mysterious way.
This premise underscored a great deal of Lovecraft’s work! Why would such a being have any particular care about us? Pure indifference. Terrifying.
Imagine learning Cthulhu was real.
The Abrahamic God is the main root of where Authoritarianism comes from which is the point.
Why does this sound so much like capitalism?
Put on Mick Gordon and load the super shotgun. Or if you aren't a multidimensional badass like Doomguy, do it the hard way https://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html
"You don't know that he ISN'T real!" -😇 /s Ugh.
I think of God as powerful enough to create life but not powerful enough to control it.
That bitch better square up.
Eliminating worlds or letting it be how it is
The Abrahamic God is Sid from Toy Story. There's nothing but suffering.
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It's both funny and terrifying when they say god created us because it was lonely. Like damn this dude can create existence but is struggling to hold onto sanity. I guess I would struggle too if I were the only true thing to exist (as an omnipotent being).
Why would an infinite and supreme being care about any one of us, personally. We'd be like ants to a whale.
Well, depends on the god.
This is what I was looking for. "Estimates of over 4000 gods and goddesses plus fantastical animals with purported godlike powers have been worshiped throughout time. All these gods and goddesses were believed in with the same fervor as today's equally mythological gods are"
It really depends on which deity is the real one. I’m Catholic, I accept that ancient man was trying to explain certain concepts and a supernatural concept made sense (talking box theory) but if the real version of “my” god showed up we’re all screwed. Esoterica channel on you tube did a great vid on it. Jehovah/Allah/Yaweh is a war god and if you read the old testament not a very nice one. If it’s a Buddha type then maybe no so bad….
Don't forget, if your God turns up, so does Satan and his demons...
True, but the original version of that deity is bad enough. A point to the question; which version of the god? As gods get adopted in different areas they changed. As an example again the Abrahamic god is different in all three but is based on an old war god that was very violent
You do realize you're actually describing Christianity with your infinite being analogy, don't you?
If I don’t believe in God why would I give any more thought to him being real than I would invisible unicorns that stab people with their horns? Sure if god was real that’d be pretty wild. So would invisible unicorns. Could you imagine if we discovered that they live among us!? This is an atheism sub so I feel like just as my unicorn question doesn’t belong, this question kind of doesn’t belong here either. If a Christian came here and said “But just - what if was real, wouldn’t you be afraid of spending eternity in hell?” We’d be like “that’s not how it works. God’s not real.”
She’d have much to answer for, to me, personally.
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Summary: "Hey, there's totally a reason for all this, and if you don't agree with us you can BURN!!!" "I mean, we're the good guys! We're shitty to outsiders because they SUCK!" "Anyway, read my book, bro. You'll get it if you get it, and people who don't SUCK!!!" Utter low brow, brainwashing, circular-reasoning, self-serving crap. Embarrassing, really.
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"Get your boys, then! Use logic to disprove a conclusion to us that we didn't use logic to come to in the first place!" "If you can't, and of course you can't, you can fucking BUUUUURRRRRNNNNNN!!!!!" The religion is so incredibly hateful. It just gets sadder and more desperate the more you try to quote your way into being righteous.
Every now and then this comes up, if he was real or something evidential but the truth is it would be better if it was non-existent then real because if god was real all this time he has done incredibly piss poor job with suffering, wars and atrocities that has been happening all with a no presence or effect in this world. If this thing is real it wouldn't be terrifying because through out history's it hasn't done a single dam thing nor shown his existence. I mean what the difference between an invisible, non-comporeal, undetectable being that doesn't do anything to a something that is non-existent? Nothing, they both completely the same. At least being non-existent actually makes a better argument while it being real makes it worst.
I’ve never gotten a satisfying answer to Child getting raped - why doesn’t god intervene ? I work at a school , I’m duty bound to report abuse. Why isn’t god ? Ummm ummm free will ? Ugh
There’s a few gods out there. Depends on which god I found out is real. I wouldn’t just assume it’s the abrahamic one. There’s like 5000 different gods being worshipped right now. I hope I get a good one then. Ganesha sounds cool.
H.P Lovecraft's Cthulhu has a lot of similarities to Christ. Cosma Rohilla Shalizi wrote >"Much more convincing is the fact that Cthulhu is a god who died and yet lives, now and forever, and shall soon enough return in glory. Indeed, one of his (abortive) resurrections took place rather close to Easter. Both the return of Christ and the return of Cthulhu are eagerly awaited by hordes of worshippers who will do anything they can to hasten the day. Both are to be heralded by war, death and general chaos. Both are connected with astronomical prophecies - Cthulhu will return 'when the stars are right,' while, according to Revelations, the Apocalypse should make astronomy a most interesting if confusing profession. " Some of the aspects of the cult in this work are things Lovecraft personally disliked that are present in Christianity, like the religion transcending racial lines and being popular among mixed-race and low class people. With Lovecraft himself being a firm atheist, it could be argued that the horror in this story is the existence of a god being true in the face of all rational thought. With many of the things associated with Cthulhu openly refuse to make sense while remaining true even when the characters can't come to terms with that. like >"The rest followed him, and looked curiously at the immense carved door with the now familiar squid-dragon bas-relief. It was, Johansen said, like a great barn-door; and they all felt that it was a door because of the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though they could not decide whether it lay flat like a trap-door or slantwise like an outside cellar-door."
Worth pointing out that polytheism is a thing. I met my husband at a public pagan circle. We worshipped the Lord, the Lady, and the Holy Child — big emphasis on the Lady. Then there were the gods of the elements — earth, water, fire, air. They were not good nor bad, they just were. Earth can grow you food or shake, crack open, and swallow you whole. Water can grow your crops and slake your thirst or flood it all and drown you. Fire can keep you warm, cook your food, kill germs, or burn down your house, even your whole state. Air keeps you alive or sends trees crashing down and rips the roof off your house. Pure power without emotion or morals.