Could "the real god" convert you?

[Baruch]

But hey...at least in Malachi, I will be corrected by the resident expert if wrong, old god offers the grand reward of a large flock of rams. Ahhh. good ole up-wit-it god.

Book of Malachi?  A minor prophet.  Misplaced in Christian Bibles to the end of the OT, to reinforce the theology that Malachi predicts the Christ.

Basically Malachi is about ... the ongoing love of G-d, of the Israelites, in spite of their constant backsliding.

Basically the audience of Malachi have had blessings, but not enough to convince them that G-d still loves them.  Malachi counters this.

Yes, a large flock of rams is worth something, but only if you have lots of ewes.  Male sheep can't reproduce on their own.

[Simon Moon]

huh, I don't recall that episode....

Very good episode.

Interesting thing about the original Star Trek, but every episode (that I am aware of), that had an alien race that believe in a god, it ended up being a computer.

"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", aliens live inside an asteroid like space ship. Their leader comunes with a god, that ends up being a computer.

"Return of the Archons", people on a planet are lead by a computer (Landru) they believe is a god. They live in a very repressed totalitarian society, except for 'the red hour'  when they are allowed to go wild.

"The Apple", people worship a computer that looks like Godzilla's head.

"The Paradise Syndrome", people worship an obelisk, with a computer underneath.

Maybe this all has to do with Gene Roddenberry being a deist, or possibly an atheist.

[Unbeliever]

Or it could just mean that God is a computer...    :-P

[Baruch]

Or it could just mean that God is a computer...    :-P

Computers all the way down instead of giant turtles ;-)

[fredd47]

 Could the real god convert me?

If you mean if god suddenly appeared in my kitchen? really don't know. I think I'll just wait and see. I hope it's not that obnoxious twat YHWH in the Torah. Jesus would be fine  but I'd insist on seeing his wounds. What can I say?. I'm a skeptic.


Slightly off topic:  A fascinating film of a television play "God On Trial" Set in Auschwitz . A group of Jewish men who know they will die the next day. They decide to put god on trial for breaking the Abrahamic covenant. God is found guilty.  Well worth a look

"God on Trial is a 2008 British television play written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, starring Antony Sher, Rupert Graves and Jack Shepherd. The play takes place in Auschwitz during World War II. The Jewish prisoners put God on trial in absentia for abandoning the Jewish people. The question is whether God has broken his covenant with the Jewish people by allowing the Germans to commit genocide.[1] It was produced and shown by the BBC on 3 September 2008. Production was supported by PBS, which screened the play as part of its Masterpiece anthology. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_on_Trial

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The 'brit milah ' Also called"the covenant of circumcision"

Genesis 17 contains the covenant of circumcision (conditional).

    To make of Abraham a great nation and bless Abraham and make his name great so that he will be a blessing, to bless those who bless him and curse him who curses him and all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abraham.[Gen 12:1â€"3]
    To give Abraham's descendants all the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.[Gen 15:18â€"21] Later, this land came to be referred to as the Promised Land (see map) or the Land of Israel.
    To make Abraham the father of many nations and of many descendants and give "the whole land of Canaan" to his descendants.[Gen 17:2â€"9] Circumcision is to be the permanent sign of this everlasting covenant with Abraham and his male descendants and is known as the brit milah.[Gen 17:9â€"14]

[SGOS]

Could the real god convert me?

If you mean if god suddenly appeared in my kitchen? really don't know. I think I'll just wait and see. I hope it's not that obnoxious twat YHWH in the Torah. Jesus would be fine  but I'd insist on seeing his wounds. What can I say?. I'm a skeptic.

I actually dealt with this question when I was very young.  Granted I was handicapped by growing up in a house with some family members holding strong fundamentalist views.  Even then, I could not get past the question of why God never appears.  So when dealing with hypothetical "suppose he did," and if it turned out to be the YHWH in the old testament, my first reaction would be, "Hell yes, I'd believe."  But then comes the question would I love and worship him?  But as you point out, that particular god was one nasty ass prick.  I knew this because my fundamentalist grandmother told me this, and at that age, I believed that if there were a god, the only one he could be was the one I knew, and while grandmother told me he was loving, she described one nasty ass prick, which was enough to tell me he was not loving.

Could I love that god, and devote myself to him?  Well, as God, he would know that I couldn't, because he could read my mind.  He could scare the Hell out of me.  He'd know that, but he would also know that I could never devote myself to such an evil deity, and off I'd go to Hell.

As I got older, I started to entertain the notion of an actual loving god, but there was such an abundance of gods, most of them variations of the Christian god, that I was confronted by the fact that no one really knew what God was like.  Many believed they knew, but none actually knew.

So off I go on a quest to find the real one, which requires that I know he exists, but I realized I could never know that as evidenced by all those people who said they knew him could not agree on which one he was, so the hypothetical question of if he appeared has no meaning.  Until he appears, which he never does, the question is irrelevant.  Although if one takes the question seriously it can only lead to making up reasons to gloss over the contradictions, lying about one's state of knowing, and generally chasing one's tail in a pointless mind fuck.

[josephpalazzo]

If Donald Duck would suddenly appear in front of me, I would check myself at the nearest mental institute. Ditto for a god...

[Baruch]

If Donald Duck would suddenly appear in front of me, I would check myself at the nearest mental institute. Ditto for a god...

How about Donald Trump? ;-)  I would have him arrested for trespassing ;-))

[drunkenshoe]

Naaah, 'the real atheists' would keep making sense. LOL ???

[Baruch]

Naaah, 'the real atheists' would keep making sense. LOL ???

Like "communism", real "atheism" has never been tried ;-))

[josephpalazzo]

Here’s the real problem with god: If a god exists who is all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good, then the amount of horrific suffering in our world needs an explanation. Either this god isn’t smart enough to eliminate it, or isn’t powerful enough to eliminate it, or doesn’t care enough to eliminate it. The reason is that an all-knowing god would know how to eliminate it, an all-powerful god has the power to eliminate it, and a perfectly good god would want to eliminate it.

[Mike Cl]

Like "communism", real "atheism" has never been tried ;-))

Really?  What is 'real' atheism???

[Unbeliever]

Here’s the real problem with god: If a god exists who is all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good, then the amount of horrific suffering in our world needs an explanation. Either this god isn’t smart enough to eliminate it, or isn’t powerful enough to eliminate it, or doesn’t care enough to eliminate it. The reason is that an all-knowing god would know how to eliminate it, an all-powerful god has the power to eliminate it, and a perfectly good god would want to eliminate it.

And thus we have theodicy, a desperate search for excuses for the existence of both moral and natural evil in the world. Any crumb of sophistry that lets God off the hook will be latched onto like gecko feet.

[Simon Moon]

Really?  What is 'real' atheism???

According to Jordan Peterson, a 'real atheist' would be a murderer.

I wonder of that's what Baruch means?

[Unbeliever]

We'd better hope Peterson doesn't lose his belief in God, or we might have a real monster to deal with!