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"What if you're wrong?"

I don't know about other Atheists, but I get this question a lot when people find out I don't believe. I know Richard Dawkins has gotten it a number of times and I usually answer the same as he did, which is to turn the question back on the asker, what if they're wrong about Zeus, or Odin, or the Great Juju on the Mountain?

Anyway, I've also gotten the expanded version which is, "What if you're wrong and you die and meet God?" To which I usually reply, "Then God's going to have a damn lot of explaining to do."
But the other day I was thinking about this question and I thought, why be so serious about it?

So take the question, what if you're wrong and you die and there is a god... what do you do?

To get the ball rolling, I'll give you the silly answer that inspired me to write this discussion:

I'd ask god exactly where Felch* lives and to let me go there and fuck with his cynical thinking, because let's face it, if almost any major religion is right, then god is just the sort of prick who would let me do it!

*@Felch (or whatever the fuck weird symbols you're using this week), you know you're my absolute favorite Grogan, right?? :-)

Tags: Felch, God, Wrong, silly, wishes

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Layton on August 14, 2010 at 5:12pm

My question:

If you are so all-powerful, why in the name of all that is holy could you not have prevented Snookie?

Permalink Reply by Lorenzo thegreat1 on August 16, 2010 at 6:47pm

I've thought of this and I would probably share similar sentiments

I'd call him a hypocrite then protest that he belongs in hell with me

Permalink Reply by Ober Rivers on August 17, 2010 at 10:25am

I'd ask, "A psychic connection would've been nice; after all, you're only god."

And, interestingly enough, this very argument -- that a spiritual creature didn't have a built-in conduit to the almighty, was the end of my personal awareness of a god.

Permalink Reply by Leah Kunz on October 2, 2010 at 4:48pm

This is just a silly attempt for them to get a sense of a tiny triumph. they think by making you admit even to the slightest possibility of a god that they have justified their own belief or invalidated your disbelief. it's like the unreasonable idea that evolution is just as or less probable because it is "only" a theory. what i would like to say to someone who asks me that question is "no need, the probability of meeting god in death is so insignificant that it is not worth the effort of imagining the experience." but i''d actually have to go with something less likely to get me smacked.

Permalink Reply by Rick James on October 8, 2010 at 12:14pm

Who is Felch?

Permalink Reply by Randy Reed on October 9, 2010 at 6:03am

What was the deal with Yoko Ono's singing?

Permalink Reply by sk8eycat on October 12, 2010 at 6:44pm

"If you're so bloody all-powerful, why do you have such heavy ego problems? Why do you need billions of supposedly inferior beings on one tiny mudball out of all the vast universe(s) to grovel and submit to your every whim?

"Haven't you got anything better to do?"

Or....there's always the Monodigital Salute.

Actually, I think Harlan Ellison got it right in "Deathbird." This solar system (or maybe the entire Milky Way Galaxy) is a mental hospital/rehab center for failed gods, and earth was/is YHWH's effed-up occupational therapy project.

Permalink Reply by Doug Snyder on October 13, 2010 at 10:24pm

Well, I think I would have to walk up to him, look him straight in the eye and ask, "Got any weed?"

Permalink Reply by sk8eycat on October 13, 2010 at 11:40pm

I think he probably has some primo hash...at least I think that's what he gave to the hallucinator who wrote "Revelations." Or maybe it was ergot/LSD. They knew about both those in the whole Mediterranean area in those days. 'Shrooms, too.

Permalink Reply by Doug Snyder on October 14, 2010 at 11:44pm

Absolutely! People have been getting high and equating it to a spiritual experience ever since.... well, ever since there have been people! Hey! Back in the day, man... 1 too many 'shrooms and I actually thought I was talking the "THE DUDE"! Actually, I was talking gibberish to my friends' drunk-ass dad, who had passed out about 10 minutes before I started this particular trip.

So there you have it... god is someone's drunk-ass dad; passed out on the couch.

So, to revise my earlier answer to the "will never have to answer" question is...

"WAKE-UP DUDE! You gotta drive us home!"

Permalink Reply by sk8eycat on October 15, 2010 at 1:25am

Well, since everyone's imaginary "friend" (slave-owner is more like it) is a drunk, I'll be the designated driver.

For centuries, millennia, maybe, Pacific Islanders have used various kinds of fermented glop in their rituals because, as they flatly state, it brings them closer to their gods. At least they're honest about it...they don't pretend that red wine is their god's blood.

During the Roman Republic and later, hallucinogens were used just as they are today, as party drugs.

Ergot derivatives were well known to the ancient Egyptians and the Romans (probably other Eastern Med peoples, too) as both psychoactive drugs and abortifacients. Roman women of all classes worshipped the Bona Dea, and "diseased grain" was cultivated in her temple precinct for the sole purpose of ridding women of unwanted pregnancies.

(If there were a god, I would ask the sadistic SOB why she/he/it has allowed so many unwanted babies to be conceived and born, just so they can be starved and abused.... She/he/it must need a lot of sociopathic cannon fodder....)

Permalink Reply by Louis on October 15, 2010 at 2:09am