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

The "Vikings" believed in what was a somewhat standard northern European theology, with Odin and Thor, and Loki and Frigg. In their view of the gods, the gods largely ignored humans, more interested in their own affairs--but would intervene on behalf of humans whom they found sufficiently entertaining. Which might be a good thing, or might not be. They also believed that the gods loved chaos, and were bored by order and regularity--so that they were most likely to intervene to upset the apple cart.

They also believed in the Norns, powerful female beings who governed the fates of men and gods. In some versions, the spun and wove, and wove the threads of the lives of gods and men into a single strong thread, from which each individual thread might suddenly be cut, or woven with gold--either destroying the man or god, or granting their wildest desires.

I rather like that view of gods and the cosmos. I believe the most complete version of the Norse mythology is to be found in Snorri Stuleson, a 13th century Icelandic skald.

You raise an interesting point about the logic of "higher beings." They rarely care about other beings unless they entertain them. Certainly, many humans view themselves superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Unless gods all considered themselves zoologists, I can't see why they'd be fascinated with us at all. I imagine if gods existed, they'd be mostly uninterested with us much like you describe the Viking's view.

A
R
T

Ah. Gotcha. And, yeah, I'd have to see some Red Sea parting or something. There are so many ways to explain extra voices in your head.

I was gonna say the same thing.

Me, too. What a coincidence.

Incredible conceit is at the heart of most major religions, as far as i can see . . .

i do not think such world in which all arranged well by God is better than our this world.
wo will have no any thought, just obedience and blind faith.

I asked if you knew how such a feature would evolve as athists have strong connections to science, especially evolution. You have basically said it is created. Bad kharma for atheists to suggest such a thing.

My spelling which is not USA english, flavours all my discourse ? You might have got lucky and got one right. Well done.

I do own a Bible . It is necessary for my writing . But it is not MY Bible as in a believe in it . Are you playing at being stupid ?

I must admit, I assumed you owned one when I referred to your bible.

So you werent assuming I was religious.....well maybe someone somewhere will believe that . Perhaps . I mean it is possible.....

I would guess that he has trouble ascertaining your position because it changes all the time.

for someone who doesn't believe in god, you sure go trolling for athiests a lot...

where do you stand on gays?

Why would anyone stand on their fellow human beings ?

What? No, you didn't. Here's your question(s):


innate.
Joe(asked and answered)Nation

It struck me this morning, aren't mornings like that?, that if gods existed, they would both screw us over more than we are now screwed over by Nature AND, maybe for their own entertainment, provide many miracles. Has someone already said this? If so, I apologize.

I mean real miracles, not like pulling an eight year old boy out of the earthquake rubble, although that is very nice, or allowing a basketball to fly 35 feet with .02 seconds left for the win. (Somebody lost that game...you know.)

No, I mean that there would be people who could, for about ten seconds, fly. I'm sure New Yorkers can think of some times that miracle would come in handy. (No, not catching the long flyball to deep center.)

Or everybody would wake up one morning and all the people who had lost limbs or been paralyzed would find that they had regrown their arms and legs or that they could jump out of bed and push their empty wheelchairs around the room. (We could shut down half of the Veteran's Administration wards.)

How about if ever creature could visualize where it wanted to be and 'poof' they'd be there? Mental Locomotion. wow. It would kill the airline industry and make it very difficult to run a feed lot.

Joe(I shudda stayed in bed)Nation

See my post at the top of this page about Norse mythology--the Norse basically assumed that the gods were ******* with them, and weren't interested unless they could entertain themselves screwing with humans.

You have repeated the question and it still asks how such a thing could evolve. By what survival mechanism has "love of humans" evolved ? Saying things like innate and you were born with it is rather circular . It is like saying "because"....

Miracles were never about magic or breaking the laws of physics. They were about authority . Jesus as the legitimate King of the Jews as opposed to the Herods, had the authority to "heal" people who had been afflicted by the priests .

Priests were chosen for their physical perfection and family lines amongst other things, and those people with a physical handicap were only allowed within certain distances of the Temple and were only allowed certain rites of religion. If you pissed off the priest hierarchy you could be "crippled", meaning you had the same religious rights as a cripple . Jesus healed by using his authority as the legitimate King . He never healed real physical cripples. This infuriated the priests . We all know the result .

On an interesting side note, there was a monk who could fly when he became ecstatic . He flew in front of the Pope when the Pope investigated it . It was some what of an embarrassment to the church, so they hid him away and flogged him every day to remove the ecstasy he naturally felt. And before you say it cant be done, I want a full description of human life and gravity .

Now that's interesting, you surprise me once in a while.
I'm pretty big on sorting out the majic, in favor of the truth. I would be interested to know how you deciphered this. It is very rational and has the ring of truth.

God is a thought.

Yes, Setanta, I'm sure your post about the Norse which, no kidding, I found fascinating; it probably had a lot to do with my little brain-rainstorm this morning.
The god-is-fricking-with-my-head experience is one of the hardest things for believers to accept. I've hung around with a lot of faithful people who toe lines and obey commandments and tithe unselfishly only to find that their child is afflicted with some odd incurable malady or that the love they thought would save them evaporated in a whirl of lust and bad decisions.
"Why'' asked one really nice, but anguished, friend of mine,' does God give the Devil so much power over us??"
"It's a test." said his believing friends (which I was one of at the time)"A never ending, completely irrational, unrewarding struggle to make any sense of why God does what He does and allows what He allows."
Joe(there was some bitterness)Nation

Losman, this is a thread for imagination and supposition by people of faith and no faith, a place to play.

Do you understand the word play?