Questions for Christians and other theists, part 4: Divine Communication

1. Imagine you are God.
2. You are omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent.
3. You’ve created Man
4. You really want Man to know all about you, your rules and stuff and this knowledge should endure.

Given your large toolset, how would you go about this?

Extra credit question:

Why are you doing anything?

30 thoughts on “Questions for Christians and other theists, part 4: Divine Communication

  1. Rich,

    I do hope some theists will step up and answer your question.

    Any God worth his salt could do far better than the Bible or the Quran.

  2. Funny, while I was out weeding the garden this afternoon, I was remembering a specific moment when I heard god speak to me, and then I came in to notice that this thread about “divine communication” was open.

    Yeah, I really did hear god speak, or at least, I perceived it as the same sensory experience as any other sound received through my ears. It was a voice like thunder, deep and rolling, appearing to emanate from all through the sky. No, it truly was not thunder; I live in a part of the country where lightning is a once-in-a-decade (or less) occurrence, and literally never under a clear blue sky — such as where I was that day. I was a few miles into a hike in the empty hills, and there was no other person from horizon to horizon Therefore, not a human prank. So, God? Well, yeah. I still think so.

    So what? The problem for christians, and any other religionists, is that what god told me translates, basically, to “You’re doing great, kiddo. How you are, that’s exactly how you should be. Keep it up, whatever it is, it’s all right.”

    Well, of course!

    If we were actually created by a divine omni being, then we are certainly, exactly, down to the finest detail, how it wanted us to be.

    And free will has nothing to do with it; if we have “free will” then it is the being’s intention that we should use our free will exactly in the fashion which we do. Our “free will” choices make the whole story more interesting. It may not be ordered minute-by-minute as “god’s plan” only because “god’s plan” is to be surprised and tickled by what those smooth monkeys think of next.

    In any case, it seems obvious to me that a divine creator cannot possibly fall for christian garbage such as “hate the sin love the sinner”. The creator must love both the “sinner” and the actions we monkeys have taught each other to call “sins”, All part of the show, necessary bits in the drama …

    Given that our creator/god loves us exactly as we are (even if we ourselves are judgmental towards or unsatisfied with our actions) then what else could it possibly have to communicate to us? Nothing more than an occasional, “That was good. Ya done good. I’m glad you’re you.”

    Like I said, that’s a problem for christians. That godly message isn’t nearly enough to base their religion on. They had to go and invent a whole pile of other dogma to give themselves justification for trying to control people’s behavior. (In GOD’S NAME, of course 🙂 )

    God has zero to say to them. God wouldn’t be disgusted by them any more than god is disgusted with me, but there’s just nothing to say to stupid humans whose delusion is that they’re literally speaking for god. What could you say? “Shut up, you know nothing!”

  3. 1. a solo existence is excruciatingly boring.
    2. so…..creation.
    3. but a wee problem….cant copy oneself exactly. that would be tantamount to suicide.
    4. an aha moment….create life, which copies itself but not perfectly. advantages: diversity. disadvantage: instability.
    5. solution: work.

  4. the difference demonstrated is:

    variability is a feature of the design not a fortuitous accident.

    so of course, intelligent design is a more reasonable explanation.

    why, well as we all do know…..accidents just dont happen.

    unless of course you are the CIA…but then we are back to intelligent design.

    again.

    a vicious designed circle.

    dammitall

  5. Yes, the omniscient omnipotent god communicates its existence by making life as derivative as you’d expect from unintelligent evolutionary processes, but we’re supposed to know that it can’t be due to unintelligent evolutionary processes (because of numbers, and life looks designed to them) and so infer God.

    That, and unverifiable writings that you have to believe and follow, or suffer in hellfire.

    How could it possibly be done better?

    Glen Davidson

  6. hotshoe:

    Given that our creator/god loves us exactly as we are (even if we ourselves are judgmental towards or unsatisfied with our actions) then what else could it possibly have to communicate to us? Nothing more than an occasional, “That was good. Ya done good. I’m glad you’re you.”

    One could hope for a god that wouldn’t say “ya done good” to every serial killer, dictator, torturer and rapist.

    ETA: Or every FEMA chief.

  7. keiths:
    hotshoe:

    One could hope for a god that wouldn’t say “ya done good” to every serial killer, dictator, torturer and rapist.

    Well, one might hope. But if we were truly the creation of an omni deity, then the apparent villains are absolutely as much a part of its design as the apparent heroes. Do fools think that something else — Satan, or Darwin, or whatever — could have the power to mold a serial killer if that were not completely in accordance with the omni god’s desire?

    If it were true that Jesus were actually sent by god to Earth to die for humans’ salvation, then Judas and the Roman executioners were welcomed into heaven with open arms. God loved them for the faithfulness with which they played their vital roles. Without them, Jesus would have lived and eventually died unnoticed, just another mystical rabbi with a sideline in party tricks. The story required drama, betrayal, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption … and those characters who inflicted the pain were every bit as valuable to the “author” as those who suffered. As Moriarty says, “Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain.” If god has a plan for us all, then god is crafting the villains with as much carefulness as every other part.

    Who except a deluded evangelist would claim that god created us all but somehow made a divine mistake when it chose to create dictators and torturers? It never ceases to amaze me that christians think their god is all powerful but still console themselves for life’s miseries by believing that god’s hand is not protecting the “wicked” every bit as much the “good”. If god cherished only the good, then only good would be part of god’s creation and ongoing plan. But that’s not obviously the way reality is.

    No, it’s us humans who have to draw the line, who have to state that we will not tolerate murder, rape, enslavement within our clan. And then to extend the bounds of “our clan” to include our state / nation, then all who have the same language as our own, finally all who share the same planet. We enforce our statements with police and prisons, with international tribunals and armies. God’s not gonna do it for us, that’s for sure.

  8. Well obviously if I were God, I would make the question of my existence so vague that reasonable and skeptical people would prefer to construct predictive and practical models that would better explain the facts of physical reality, whom I would sentence to an eternity of undying torture and suffering for their audacity; meanwhile, my message would be delivered clearly through countless reiterations of a series of ancient scrolls that would be warped and misconstrued to the tune of roughly 40,000 different interpretations.

    There isn’t really a better way to go about this sort of thing.

  9. TristanM:
    Well obviously if I were God, I would make the question of my existence so vague that reasonable and skeptical people would prefer to construct predictive and practical models that would better explain the facts of physical reality, whom I would sentence to an eternity of undying torture and suffering for their audacity; meanwhile, my message would be delivered clearly through countless reiterations of a series of ancient scrolls that would be warped and misconstrued to the tune of roughly 40,000 different interpretations.

    There isn’t really a better way to go about this sort of thing.

    Well played.

    ETA:

    It occurs to me that god is Barry Arrington.

  10. hotshoe,

    Well, one might hope. But if we were truly the creation of an omni deity, then the apparent villains are absolutely as much a part of its design as the apparent heroes. Do fools think that something else — Satan, or Darwin, or whatever — could have the power to mold a serial killer if that were not completely in accordance with the omni god’s desire?

    That’s the single most underappreciated implication of omni-theology. Believers don’t realize that when they label their God omniscient and omnipotent, they aren’t praising him — they’re indicting him.

  11. It occurs to me that god is Barry Arrington.

    Nah. You can tell the difference between them because god doesn’t think he’s Barry Arrington.

    I’ll see myself out….

  12. Given those premises, I’d try to be as obvious as the sun and the Internal Revenue Service.

    So it seems to me, if there is a God, He is working to harden some people’s hearts against the idea of God and that He is concealing His existence and making it possible for many to be atheists and agnostics. He seems to prefer those who will look very very hard into the matter and/or those who have faith like children.

  13. “4. You really want Man to know all about you, your rules and stuff and this knowledge should endure.”

    I already answered. I’d be as clear as day and as obvious (moreso) than then Internal Revenue Service. That means being maybe on the nightly news and working wonders and miracles etc. When someone breaks the law, they get incinerated for all to see. Leaving it in a book to be proclaimed by preachers like Tammy Faye Baker wouldn’t really be the way to go, if as you say:

    “4. You really want Man to know all about you, your rules and stuff and this knowledge should endure.”

    That said, maybe one day all that will change, if there is indeed a judgment day.

  14. Oh. You could have opted for burning bush. Or tell it all to one guy by himself. Or make sure you declare no knowledge that the future could corroborate.

    So close.

  15. Glen,

    If it quacks like a duck….well you know the rest.

    Guess you simply DO NOT LIKE ducks.

    NO seriously, there is nothing in the development of life that is unintelligent.

    It is just you(pl) hoping it just isn’t true.

    The more we prod life, the more intelligent systems we find.

    As I said before, evolution explains the most superficial components of life. black to white to black again. small beak to big beak to small beak again.

    I mean STFW!

    Design explanations are not necessary but desirable. That is what you cannot wrap your brains around.

    Desirability trumps necessity.

    Smart money is on design. It pays dividends in industry. Why would it not pay dividends in biology.

    Answer: you are scared shitless design centered inquiries into the genome will in fact pay dividends, big dividents.

    Like you know when we discover how organisms use multi-dimensional components to regulate, solve, archive, optimize. And that we will be eventually be able to actually grasp those superior design concepts, and utilize them. Now that will be awesome.

    So yeah, God is alive and well. But just not in the dimension you prefer.

  16. Fancy a pop at the questions Steve.?Or another design rant. Either is fine…

  17. Gee, Steve, seems like you could show the sorts of portability of “designs” in life that we find in genuine design. Notably, in life that doesn’t horizontally transfer genetic material much.

    I see that you avoided the fact that life is as derivative as if it were due to inheritance with variation, but IDists generally do, since they have no sound explanation for it. Or for anything.

    We’re talking about actual explanation in science, not the vague analogies of homiletics and of ID.

    Glen Davidson

  18. I mean STFW!

    Gee, way to avoid the evidence for evolution (not little poofs through millions of years) throughout life. Remember, we’re in the business of explanation, not mindless blather about how complicated it all is, so it must have a truly nebulous cause indeed.

    Glen Davidson

  19. sir Richard is in his pithy element now.

    Watch those tidbit soundbites resonate with the masses!

    But Sir Richard, how is ID doesn’t explain life to my satisfaction therefore evolution.

    Christ showed you walked on water, cures lepers, healed the blind, raised Lazarus, rose from the dead, walked around with holes is his hands and chest. Padre Pio practiced bilocation. mary appeared for years to 3 shepards.

    But, but….you scoff, scoff at magic tricks. All magic tricks. Tricksters, all of them.

    Offfffff with their heads, sir Richard sez !!!!!

    WTF??

  20. Steve:
    Christ showed you walked on water, cures lepers, healed the blind, raised Lazarus, rose from the dead, walked around with holes is his hands and chest.
    ,,,

    This is crap. Christ didn’t show YOU anything. Christ didn’t show ME anything. Jesus – assuming he really did live – has been gone for 2000 years. YOU haven’t witnessed Jesus. NONE of us have. You’ve just seen stories in a garbled old book.

    There are stories written down 40-50 years later that say some people witnessed Jesus doing those things. None of the stories were written down by actual witnesses. It’s all just small-world gossip. It’s all “they said” “in those days” and so on and so on.

    But you choose to believe it with all your heart. Groovy for you, man.

    I don’t care about the fact that you support a disgusting catholic church which has killed more women than the plague did. Well, I do care, but I don’t blame you for it personally: you can’t help it.

    The only questions I have for you, right now, are

    1) Given that you believe your precious Jesus really did exist, and really was the son of an omniscient being, and really did love the children whom he invited (so the tale goes) to come to him, why didn’t he tell the folks to boil their goddamned river water to help keep those children safe from deadly pathogens? Why not just one sermon to spread the word? Was it that he didn’t know (Father forgot to mention it to him?) didn’t care (Jesus had no heart after all?) or actively chose to keep from speaking the truth that he knew would save them from dying in agony?

    2) GIven that your precious Jesus definitely failed to keep children safe, why on Earth would you be willing to worship such an asshole? Just because he cured a few lepers? What the hell difference did it make if he cured one man, or raised one man from the dead, or two, or even hundreds, while he was continuing to let innocent little children die in every village he passed through? How can you stand to live with yourself, knowing that your priorities are so distorted, when you choose to venerate him for his miserable tiny “miracles”, when you know he should have done so, so much better?

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