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What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

Audie

Veteran Member
Because there is no way for a human to verify that one is a "real messenger from God", I expect people would react pretty much as they do, now, to those who proclaim themselves to be "real messengers from God".

Of course there is.
God is supposed to be smart, how hard can it be to impress people?
Look at the success that all the ridiculous fakers have had, like Joseph Smith
and his gold gooks.

Show us some moves, not just an excuse like "Oh, them naughty Angels took the books back!!!" Or, "he came back to life, you just did not see him."


Take your "Jesus" for example. Now if he'd gone right
back to Pilate and said, "Care to try it again?" a lot of things would have turned out mighty different.




Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad

And moreover
he adds
It’s all writ down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won’t even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for
nineteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter
You’re hot
they tell him
And they cool him

They stretch him on the Tree to cool

And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who’s got to blow
or they can’t quite make it

Only he don’t come down
from His Tree
Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unreliable sources
real dead

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Sometime During Eternity...” from Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 b
y Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The problem would be in ascertaining the legitimacy of the claim. How would one arrive at accepting such claims as being genuine? It would almost have to be a leap of faith... and that is expecting a lot in this day and age.
Leaps of faith in this day and age a thing of the past? Where have you been sleeping? :)
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

This is a hypothetical question and it is mostly directed at nonbelievers.
Believers can answer this too if they want to.

I have a specific reason for asking this but I want to leave it open-ended for now. :)

Why send messengers anyway? Why wouldn't God just appear in the sky and start bellowing at everyone? Or why not just have the Moon or the Sun start talking?
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

This is a hypothetical question and it is mostly directed at nonbelievers.
Believers can answer this too if they want to.

I have a specific reason for asking this but I want to leave it open-ended for now. :)


If it can be verified the message is from a real god then atheism would essentially cease, one cannot be an honest non believer if evidence exists.

There would still be some disbelief though, essentially a new form, a fundamentalist non believer. As today a fundi will believe without question god exists despite the 100% lack of evidence then with evidence there would be a small hardcore of deniers whom everyone else shakes their head and facr palms.

You would see streets would be full of pre message believers screaming "told you so"

I guess the evangelicals would become a major business and get listed in fortune 500.

Of course, not only atheism would end, so would faith. Faith is nothing when hard evidence hits you between the eyes
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?

This is a hypothetical question and it is mostly directed at nonbelievers.
Believers can answer this too if they want to.

I have a specific reason for asking this but I want to leave it open-ended for now. :)
I think that they would incessantly say that the burden of proof was on the messenger as the messenger explained every last detail of everything which collectively provided the complete evidence, and then say that no one piece of evidence was proof -and then they might reason that even if God exists, they see no reason for him to exist. Then the messenger might see no point in continuing and go away.

:rolleyes:
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Why send messengers anyway? Why wouldn't God just appear in the sky and start bellowing at everyone? Or why not just have the Moon or the Sun start talking?

Seriously. If "He" were real and wanted to get attention, I am sure
he would know how.

AS IT IS, we get all these phonies calling, "Lo here" and, "Lo there,"
They cant even float a foot above the ground.

How can people keep letting themselves be fooled, as per Charlie Brown?
 

Audie

Veteran Member
If it can be verified the message is from a real god then atheism would essentially cease, one cannot be an honest non believer if evidence exists.

There would still be some disbelief though, essentially a new form, a fundamentalist non believer. As today a fundi will believe without question god exists despite the 100% lack of evidence then with evidence there would be a small hardcore of deniers whom everyone else shakes their head and facr palms.

You would see streets would be full of pre message believers screaming "told you so"

I guess the evangelicals would become a major business and get listed in fortune 500.

Of course, not only atheism would end, so would faith. Faith is nothing when hard evidence hits you between the eyes

I doubt anyone would be saying "I told you so" when they found out
who the real god is, and what he has to say.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Leaps of faith in this day and age a thing of the past? Where have you been sleeping? :)

Without validation it would of course have to be a leap of faith. And such leaps are common on a lesser scale, every time you walk in the street you have faith that one of the many possible misadventures wont make it your last outing. Could be subconscious but it is still a leap.

For atheists such an event would be a major leap from no faith to belief in the evidence of a god
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I think that they would incessantly say that the burden of proof was on the messenger as the messenger explained every last detail of everything which collectively provided the complete evidence, and then say that no one piece of evidence was proof -and then they might reason that even if God exists, they see no reason for him to exist. Then the messenger might see no point in continuing and go away.

:rolleyes:

A marvellous bit of psychological projection.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
What would you expect people to do if a real God sent a real Messenger to earth?
I don't know if we could expect it necessarily, but I would hope that people would have the wherewithal to request from this being what, exactly, it wanted or expected from us and what its intent regarding us was, rather than just jump on the "worship" train without some amount of contemplation/regrouping.

I honestly don't know if I would even "worship" a real God, if one presented itself. There would have to be some ultimate point to it. A god certainly doesn't simply deserve outright worship by default.
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
A marvellous bit of psychological projection.
I believe the creator has made certain aspects of himself known to some over time -and will make himself known to all over time.
There is no real need to prove or disprove every aspect of God before that -unless we want to know and see how it might affect us now. People make decisions without complete proof either way, anyway.
The existence or nonexistence of God makes little difference if we are no different for it.
The best course of action really does not change regardless.

The main difference is that the existence of God would mean things were possible which otherwise would not be -like waking up from a dirt nap, an awesome city being prepared elsewhere possibly by other created beings being brought down to earth, peace on earth, an end to war, capable and non-corrupt government, transferring one's "person" into a body capable of just about anything, not becoming extinct because we blew ourselves up or otherwise had a big "Oooops" moment.....etc., etc.

Anyway -we are free to disagree until we are not.
 

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
If it can be verified the message is from a real god then atheism would essentially cease, one cannot be an honest non believer if evidence exists.
This is why I can't believe that the Gospels are much accurate.
Had that many people actually seen the publicly executed and Resurrected Jesus and then His Ascension, I am certain that Christianity would have exploded across Judea and the Roman Empire.
Tom
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I believe the creator has made certain aspects of himself known to some over time -and will make himself known to all over time.
There is no real need to prove or disprove every aspect of God before that -unless we want to know and see how it might affect us now. People make decisions without complete proof either way, anyway.
The existence or nonexistence of God makes little difference if we are no different for it.
The best course of action really does not change regardless.

The main difference is that the existence of God would mean things were possible which otherwise would not be -like waking up from a dirt nap, an awesome city being prepared elsewhere possibly by other created beings being brought down to earth, peace on earth, an end to war, capable and non-corrupt government, transferring one's "person" into a body capable of just about anything, not becoming extinct because we blew ourselves up or otherwise had a big "Oooops" moment.....etc., etc.

Anyway -we are free to disagree until we are not.

All that may be so and may not but it is unrelated to why I spoke of
"projection".

For lo-this is the way of the creationist.

incessantly say that the burden of proof was on the messenger as the messenger explained every last detail of everything which collectively provided the complete evidence, and then say that no one piece of evidence was proof
 
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