What if there is a god?

Has anyone here every thought about what if there happened to be a god. It doesn't really matter what god or what religion just if there is one. When you die what do you think they/him/her would say and how you would react? If they were a god that passed judgment, do you think that they would understand your reasons for not believing and forgive you or would they punish you without question?

I was raised Christian and while I don't believe anything they say, the above still crosses my mind quite often. I'm a musician and I get a lot of gigs playing for church services, especially around Christmas and Easter. It's hard not to listen to the sermon and try to understand their way of thinking during these times and these questions always pop into my mind during and after the service.

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Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on August 10, 2010 at 9:17pm
God being undefinable can't be a real noun. Nouns like almond butter, pencils and tar balls are more real than god- and their not living organisms. Living organisms are an even higher order of real. God is a theatrical device, a prop, man made and placed fraudulently into the narrative of human kind. The idea is treason against all identifyable proper nouns. It's a sock puppet that mames, tortures and kills it's victims while it hides criminals from view.
Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on August 10, 2010 at 10:08pm
I have often pondered this question. When I was a xtain, I would occasionally worry that perhaps other religions we mocked in church might be right. Imagine wasting your whole life believing in Jebus, getting to the good place in the sky and finding out Zeus or Baal was actually the man in charge! How can anyone of faith be absolutely certain the Greeks, Egyptians or ancient Africans got it all wrong? Maybe they got it all right and modern faiths are wrong.

I really hope the Mayans, Azetecs or one of those human sacrificing groups weren't the ones who got it right. I am way, way behind in the human or anything else sacrificing department. I hope "sacrificing" some drumsticks on the grill counts.

I hope whenever I move onto the next plane of existence or whatever that whomever is there to greet me will be happy to see me and forgive me for not believing in him or her. If these gods are as great as people say they are, they should be able to handle a few non believers.

However, it never hurts to have a back up plan, so occasionally when it rains, I try to think about Thor. If I end up going to heaven, I want the best heaven available in mythology and Valhalla sounds just about right. LOL!
Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on August 11, 2010 at 3:05am
Ah, whatever else, tribes and nations are run by victors and their religions----but not because the victors and their religions were 'right'.
Whenever and wherever christianity attained the upper hand, it eventually eradicated all opposing gods.

"Atheists should get together and compose a message of enlightenment and say let's replace a belief system [christianity] that is not only outdated and primitive but also very violent, with something new and humanistic and tolerant." Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Permalink Reply by Hidden in the crowd. on August 29, 2010 at 6:47am
If there truly is a god that i will meet at the end of my days, i would be shocked because i truly dont believe in his/her/it's existence but i can emmerge myself in my imagination(as everyone) so it isnt that hard to imagine.

i suppose i would ask one question that summed up the existence that god had created and watched over:

Why?
Permalink Reply by david perry on August 29, 2010 at 8:19am
What you describe, of course, is simply agnosticism.
All of these people, praying, singing and all their other sundry activities, it's difficult to be so sure that they're all wrong.
Have you experienced anything to suggest that they aren't?
There is, in the realm of human thinking, no such thing as absolute certainty. It is the nature of our minds, not the fault of the universe. It is senseless to deny that. Absolute knowledge is the alleged sine qua non of deity, thinking we can possess it is referred to by true believers as hubris. If that is the case, then they are guilty of the same sin. At which point, some of them consider self-flagellation as a reasonable option.
Seriously. There are idiots that do that.

Theology should have been the first deadly sin.
And on and on it goes, the same pointless word games in a ridiculous attempt to prove the existence of absolute knowledge or whatever the hell it is they want to prove that day.
I would define an atheist as someone who has decided that that mode of thinking is irrelevant.
Or, to put it rather polemically: reservations are for dinner, not the philosophical foundation of one's life.
I could go into a discussion of "secular humanism" at this point, but it's too early in the morning and would probably upset my stomach.
Permalink Reply by Dheeraj on September 1, 2010 at 12:30pm
I am not surprised that this question is still open and debated. The answer from most however is in the first line of the second paragraph "I was raised Christian ..." that pretty much closes the door on how far this apple is going to fall from the tree.

However I have an alternate hypothesis that I would like to propose to any God question seeker.

If there is a God then it must be all powerful and if that is so, then a basic principle of all powerful must exist. I think that it is that God can talk to all of us at the same time and also make listen. Observe that I am not saying obey. Now to people who do not accept this basis I propose to suggest a more powerful theory or else their God definition is less powerful than mine and by just pure logic their God is less powerful than mine which means their's is not really a God alone and there must be more than one, even in that case I am proposing a more powerful God. Although there can be finer discussions, I just plan to stick to two points about God
--> Inform all of us at the same time
--> Make us all listen to whatever it has to say.

Now if that is accepted, I further propose that one such God that we have seen till today, the Sun. It can show the light to all of us at the same time and there is no doubt even on a cloudy day that night has ended and I believe that this is all that needs to be told, "It is Day". Therefore in a 24 hour period on earth if you can at at least at one time tell that it is day because of the Sunlight then the definition is met, as you know at that point there is day, the total length and all else is not in consideration.

Now I finally propose that Sun is the God because if this was not so we could take the Sun out of God's definition and we still have everything else the same ( something more powerful OR legitimate alternative). However life tells us that it is not so and that taking just Sun out of our life's equation wipes out life itself on earth. Therefore if there is a God more powerful than Sun then that God's facet is Sun for us. With extension then Sun is the God.

A different principal that I also believe in which is not as scientific is "Divine Neutrality". Our Sun also has this property irrespective of what all in form of life exists on earth the good or bad treatment of Sun goes to all. Now if Sun is Neutral as we have experienced in life and along the ages it must be that God is neutral too.
The God part of our lives can not be bigger than the influence of Sun on our lives, that said, that Sun is neutral so do we need to pray to the Sun?

I think that if praying is not having an effect and I personally do not know anything that actually has an effect on the Sun I think for argument sake "watching porn" is a better use of one's time than praying.
The final conclusion I wish to state is that irrespective of what people believe if one obeys the rules of the law and some of the society with individual exceptions life is as Godly as of any other person or "God" of a popular religion.
Permalink Reply by david perry on September 1, 2010 at 4:39pm
What did the doctors give you: I want some.
Permalink Reply by D R Hosie on September 1, 2010 at 10:41pm
And in a similar vein, take a look at this>.
Permalink Reply by RY Bhaskara on November 11, 2010 at 6:19am
I would kick him in the ass. Well, depend on how much disrepancy between actual God and bible God, of course. But if it is indeed bible God, I'll switch to Maltheist and rebel.
Permalink Reply by eric stone on November 19, 2010 at 6:53pm
I think that Richard Dawkins answered this question by posing another - What if Zeus or any of the other archaic gods were real? Once you consider this you can no longer take the question seriously.
Permalink Reply by D R Hosie on November 20, 2010 at 1:01am
You're absolutely right.
And thanks for reminding us of this bit of brilliant logic.
Permalink Reply by Mary O'Grady on November 20, 2010 at 10:53am
Or, as Homer Simpson put it, "But Marge, what if we're going to the wrong church? Every week we're just making God madder and madder!"

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