What would life be like if God/god/gods really existed?

If you really weren't looking for approval than what is your point in posting? Do you really expect me to believe that you're actually 'getting something' out of reading all these other views that will inevitably 'veer off' in directions other than your original topic? If so, what is it that you're actually 'getting' here if not approval?

...feedback ! (does not amount to approval)
...something that your non-scientific mind ignores...

JPLOSMAN711 (damn, that is such a cool name)
I'm actually stealing everyone's ideas for a new book.
So far, you've not been very helpful.

Joe(though I do appreciate you stopping by)Nation

sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar

do you think Monica still feels that way?

i'm afreud i couldn't say

(thank you, thank you, i'll be here all week, please tip your waiters and waitresses)

I just read in Cav's psychological analysis of Bear that Squinney is god. Well, that would be great, she seems pretty wise.

Do you think Monica will ever have a real job or a real husband? Maybe she should go into the witness protection program and get plastic surgery and a new identity.

Many years ago, when I saw James Burke's Connections, I thought an interesting work of alternate history might involve imagining the shape of the world's civilizations had the mission of Jesus Christ failed.

I never pursued it because the research would have taken years, but, even as a kid I wondered what Africa and South America might have contributed to the world if the missionaries and the soldiers who supported them had stayed away. So my issue is not with God but his followers.

Earlier today, in the middle of browning stewing beef and waiting for the pellet stove to run out of fuel so I could clean it, I thought of another plot for a world in which men had imagined a different sort of god, a god who was gentle, jovial and Socratic.

I sometimes find Yahweh just a chaste version of Zeus, always losing his temper, always in a snit. When you think about a great many traditional god images are far from positive.

Since the various gods--of all cultures--are the fabrications of their various fabricators, you simply have to ask the latter what their gods are like. Ask about the fictitious character in a fiction rather than assuming the character is real.

Since the various gods--of all cultures--are the fabrications of their various fabricators, you simply have to ask the latter what their gods are like. Ask about the fictitious character in a fiction rather than assuming the character is real.

Cause and effect represent our own reasoning as we forecast events probabilistically. There is no connection between cause and effect, except with regard to our own reasoning ability, that what we think will probably happen. As highly intelligent beings we're often correct, but that does not mean anything must necessarily happen as if by law or edict from god.

I think much of the pantheon was a committee. I guess it makes sense when you think about it. Greece and Rome were major mercantile trade nations. Is it that odd that their deities fell into an early corporate model complete with hierarchy, compartmentalization, and delegation of responsibility?

That said, how about instead of a committee, a democracy? If a god or gods misuse their power or are neglectful, they get voted out in four years. the two years before each election cycle would have the most awesome crops.

A
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I like this.

It is, as Salinger mentioned, why we always as much surprised as we are pleased when the marble we shoot at another actually strikes it.

Absolutely, gods ought to hired on on a limited contract basis. Subject to renegotiation but, hey, they should have the right of free-agency.

I am in favor of the limited area of power, a god would in charge of say, baseball, but not football. (There would have to a god of Texas High School Football. That would enough for any one god to handle.)
hmmm. A god of Trout Fishing...... I think I would like to be that god.

A god of bicycling, maybe two, one for racing and one for touring... Oh, and one for just the folks who bike in New York City.

With that many gods, everyone would have a better change of getting some response to their petitions.

Joe(In West Texas, they put up billboards saying "Pray for Rain")Nation

Plainoldme: I am a big fan of James Burke and my son, whom I introduced to the Connections program many years ago, still posts Youtube clips from it on Facebook. (I am so proud).


Sort of like Santa Claus but without the knowing if you "are sleeping ... knows if you're awake" creepy thing.

Please start on that book right now, I'll work on the one where, instead of trying to make rockets, the Germans put their whole effort into making a airplane-deliverable atom bomb.
Joe(as we did)Nation

Joe, with regard to your initial question "what would life be like if...", well, god really did exist! Realism and religion are one in the same. Slowly as a society we're learning to look at things dynamically rather than static. If you want to know what things would be like if god really existed, look back through history where this was so So what if it wasn't really god but men name dropping the idea of god for effect? When speaking in terms of reality, reality is reality is reality is reality.......

What makes you think 'reality' is some'thing' separate from you?

I do not support the premise of external objective reality. We each have our own world with it's own context and interpretation. There is no world or reality aside from that except through authoritarian imposition, and then yes, things are whatever the king or pope says they are. Does walking in front of a car or falling off a building prove an immutable reality? No, that proves empiricism. Empiricism is the opposite of realism, and "seeing is believing" is an empirical statement.

We need a goddess for women who bicycle in cities wearing high heels..