In the sense you describe, "God" is forbidden to humans. Some form of innate violation of the laws of existence.

And every attempt we make to bridge the gap, narrow the distance between our own disatisfying/imperfect realism and a seemingly perfect ideology, a God - an absolute or fundamental source of knowledge, power, authority, justice, order, control and origin seems to lead to our own demise and suffering - as you pointed out with the various parables or analogies/old stories.

Why would you say that is? Why ought an ideal be forbidden to us? Is it supposed to be ignored? Dismissed? Permanently unknown? Approached yet never reached? Is it to serve as a lucrative tease but nothing further?

Yes. Villain-victim, parent-child, husband-wife, rich-poor, etc. But I think the biggest is villain-victim. There's soooo much emotion fueling that relationship. — frank

Indeed there is a powerful emotive narrative embedded in the villain - victim dichotomy. An obvious follow up question in this respect is where does the "Hero" fall in this arrangement between victim and villain. As most understand a hero to neither be a victim nor a villain. Furthermore most of those faith-inclined idealise God as a Hero.

However depending on who you ask, God can also be a villain - an omniscient, omnipotent entity that doesn't answer your begging or rectify your suffering. For others God is the perfect victim - wherever unjust persecution and sacrifice appears in writings on the topic.

That's three things. — Benj96

I’m God. If I say it’s four, it’s four.

Do you know who Dr. Phil is? He's pure evil. — T Clark

Yes, when I was in university, Dr. Phil was a main subject of memes and jokes. Well, the American students introduced us to him on campus. Wasn't he the one with the red-haired teen girl, screaming cash me outside or something like that?

No. You're thinking of Franco. — T Clark

We started talking about God and suddenly Franco showed up. Why does this happen all the time in Spain?

A supreme being would be responsible for our production. Our ideas are just our ideas. As the Proverb says:

The plans of the mind belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
but the Lord weighs the spirit. — Proverb 16

So, supposing you were a deity, what would you do and why? — Benj96

I would not ever do anything and be eternally at peace with that.

What would be your characteristics?

Blissful contentment.

As in how would you define yourself?

I wouldn't define myself or anything else ever.

And what would be your motives?

To be.

Would you be an active force in the world/reality or merely a passive observer?

Neither. My eternal bliss would be complete (or sufficient enough) for me to be forever oblivious of everything including myself.

. An obvious follow up question in this respect is where does the "Hero" fall in this arrangement between victim and villain. As most understand a hero to neither be a victim nor a villain. Furthermore most of those faith-inclined idealise God as a Hero. — Benj96

That's a good question. I've only ever thought about the Hero in connection with possibility. Like, when the die is cast, there are six possibilities, but the one that appears at the end is the man (or woman) of destiny: the hero. What do you think of the Hero?

However depending on who you ask, God can also be a villain - an omniscient, omnipotent entity that doesn't answer your begging or rectify your suffering. For others God is the perfect victim - wherever unjust persecution and sacrifice appears in writings on the topic. — Benj96

Yes. In the book of Job, his wife tells him to curse God and die. Boethius was an influential philosopher in the middle ages who taught that we're all bound to the wheel of fortune. If you're doing well, enjoy it, because the wheel can turn down and you can lose it all. If you're at the bottom of the wheel, don't fear, because the wheel keeps turning and there's something amazing in your future.

Do you think the disparity between how much knowledge any individual desires would cause issues? Perhaps person A wants omniscience and Person B wants just enough knowledge to survive in blissful ignorance. How do you resolve privacy issues, intellectual property etc when some people know almost everything and others know little.

Do you think everyone would feel happy being provided with everything they could possibly want? Do you think things would lose value, boredom would kick in? Do you think people would still have a sense of purpose or motivation to work towards anything? Perhaps some people will always be unhappy regardless of what you offer them? — Benj96

I think that the knowledge they need to live their lives would probably not include personal details of others. Maybe if base level knowledge included the result of messing around with other people meant that they would mess around with them in the same way it would prevent lots of problems.
Intellectual property is just another way of saying I want money, if everyone has everything the need they don't need to sell their ideas, I think it might even remove the unrealistic pressure of creating and so let them create what they want to instead of what might sell.

Do you think everyone would feel happy being provided with everything they could possibly want? Do you think things would lose value, boredom would kick in? Do you think people would still have a sense of purpose or motivation to work towards anything? — Benj96

I think if their intelligence is high enough and maybe a bit of motivation to find and enjoy things in life that problem would not appear. And that would be fixed on day 2.

Perhaps some people will always be unhappy regardless of what you offer them? — Benj96

The kill switch is for cases when they are bored. But I hope that does not happen in the normal span of their life.

Haha. An important statement. Would you get bored with your limitless abilities and time? Would there be a certain angst or dread that you did so much in 1 week and have billions or maybe trillions of years left on whatever clock you decide. What might you do differently if you were disenfranchised with being this being forever? — Benj96

You noticed! This is one of the questions I like to ask the religious zealots that insist I should join their club. They never have a valid answer.
I have no idea what I would do for the rest of eternity, but at least I would ot have to put up with a bunch of angels singing my praise and saints sucking up to me for favors.

EDIT: thinking about it, I could probably have a good eternal life being invited to dinner everyday by the people I created, after all there would be millions of them. Intelligent conversation, good food, what else could one want. Shit I almost forgot good beer.

I would wipe out the entire universe and just be.

A destructive God? Interesting, because most deities are basically otherwise. People believe in God because it creates life and things.

What is life for me to hold in such high regard :lol:

I'd take the form of a man, live a simple life, teach everyone how to be and what is true, withstand the rejection and keep teaching and being an example, die a public humiliating tortuous death on a cross at the hands of the rest of us, be buried, rise again to give everyone hope, forgive anyone who asked for forgiveness for the crap we pull day-in and day-out (such as killing God for telling us to love one another), and tell everyone to keep trying and that I would be with them.

I wouldn't write a word down either while I was here because of our post-Heideggerian deconstructionist tendencies. (Total hassle leaving people free to think for themselves, but it yields the best people - people who consider "best" as something to consider.)

God is interested in people. So interested he became one of us to make it easy for us to understand that. So interested, that he would take a punishment for wrong-doing, to show us that wrong-doing leads to misery and death (because despite the hangovers after drinking too much, we fail to learn anything that isn't easy and continue to destroy ourselves), and take this punishment in a painful way even after living a life free of any wrong-doing whatsoever, and so, be the recompense none of us can be for each other, and physically rise from the dead to show us what this is all about - living with God as his friends, his family by adoption, forever.

But then, if I would do this if I were God, I'd be doing much better now. Good thing for the rest of you (and myself) that I'm not God.

A destructive God? Interesting, because most deities are basically otherwise. — javi2541997

Shiva!

I am not sure, but that sounds sort of familiar. Is it an original idea? :chin:

Wonder if it would catch on.

I guess the only thing I would add is I would make the outcome either come sooner, or less up to we human beings. To me, what God has done is enough, and we’re all getting there, but he’s given us so much power over the process. I like being free though (when I occasionally am free), so maybe he knows what I want better than me.

Yeah, Shiva is called The Destroyer. But if I am not wrong, Shiva is one of the main principal deities of Hinduism, and she creates the universe. The nickname seems to be contradictory with the real goodness nature of Shiva. But I don't want to jump into this rabbit hole because my knowledge of Hinduism is very basic. I don't want to post bollocks. :sweat:

A destructive God? Interesting, because most deities are basically otherwise. People believe in God because it creates life and things. — javi2541997

Isn't destruction and creation mutual and necessary opposites? As in for state A to transform into state B, state A is altered/augmented or entirely replaced.

I was under the impression that every interaction is the loss/destruction of what was before and the creation of what is next. Even in the creation of a first thing, there is the loss/destruction of its absence. Feels yinyang to me

I would wipe out the entire universe and just be.
1d — EyE

Interesting. How would you characterise this being outside the realm of a universe? How would you distinguish it from "nothingness/total absence of being"?

I’m God. If I say it’s four, it’s four. — T Clark

Fair enough. Can't argue with God I guess. I'll just have to go back to re-learning the number line. "God forbid" I ever need more than 2 things but less than 4 things or need to conceptualise a triangle or triad.

The nickname seems to be contradictory with the real goodness nature of Shiva. — javi2541997

Apparently there is a sect where Shiva is the supreme being, but otherwise, he/she is the destructive side of the Hindu trinity. Destruction isn't necessarily a bad thing. Consider:

Once upon a time, there was a successful slave revolt in St Domingue, which had been a major funding source for the French. A Spanish army, nearby, thought they would drop in take St Domingue, but the slaves fought valiantly, and preserved their freedom. A British army, observing the situation, decided they would drop in a take over St Domingue, but the slaves drove them off, again with great bravery.

Then Napolean sent his soldiers to take back St Domingue. They say the former slaves, watching the approach of the French fleet, thought everyone in France had come. But the slaves fought back, and then summer set in. Yellow fever started to take out the French soldiers and their mood turned sour. They began to entertain themselves by throwing captured prisoners into a ring of bloodthirsty dogs to watch them be torn apart. And then the French caught the leader of the slave revolt. They took the general to the bay and drove stakes into his shoulders as he watched his wife and son drown in the bay in front of him.

But with regard to these French soldiers, who created the air they breathed? Who created the ground they stood on as they lost their humanity? It was the god of creation. In this case, the god of destruction is the good one. He/she takes the French away and reduces them to molecules in the dust. He takes all the pain of the people we now call the Haitians, and lets it crumble away in the breeze. He lets them have a new birth of freedom. Shiva does the same for you everyday.

It depends on how big a god I was. Creator of life on Earth? Master of this galaxy? In charge of the whole Big Shebang?
I'll settle for the galaxy for now. My next project would probably be to terraform a whole bunch of planets and seed them with fast-evolving life forms that all have a decent chance of becoming human-like, so they can develop interstellar travel, trade and war with one another. Quite a lot of potential for entertainment there.

A destructive God? Interesting, because most deities are basically otherwise. People believe in God because it creates life and things. — javi2541997

But isn't Yahweh expert at genocide and death? Didn't he destroy the world and even have his own son killed? Yahweh could do anything he wants to cleanse humanity but he seems to enjoy doing his thing with a maximum amount of violence and destruction. I guess that's why he is called a vengeful God who is strong in wrath. The cosmic Mafia boss.

I never heard from Yahweh. I am very unaware of the deities of polytheistic religions. I basically know that Ancient Greece, Egypt, or Rome were polytheistic, and each God was the representation of X or Y.

I may be influenced by Abrahamic monotheistic religion, where the Trinity and God are creators, not destroyers. For this reason, it was a big surprise for me to meet deities that are destructive, although I understand that creation and destruction can be tied to each other.

I never heard from Yahweh. — javi2541997

Yahweh is god of Old Testament - a tyrannical destroyer of lives and worlds. Jesus is, by some accounts, his son.

Jesus is, by some accounts, his son. — Tom Storm

Why does most deity want to be the father of Jesus? I think this is key. Instead of asking, "If you were God, what would you do?" I think it would be more reasonable to ask: "If you were Jesus, what would you do?"

Why does most deity want to be the father of Jesus? — javi2541997

Well the father, the son and the Holy Ghost are all one God - Yaweh.

I think it would be more reasonable to ask: "If you were Jesus, what would you do?" — javi2541997

Well, if I were Jesus, I would be more inclined to say, 'Fuck this, I'm going to Hawaii!'

I think it would be more reasonable to ask: "If you were Jesus, what would you do?" — javi2541997

I would at least get a decent lawyer, or just run like hell before paying the bill for the last supper,

According to one apocryphal account, Jesus did run away - to France, I think, with Mary Magdalene - to live out his life under an assumed name and have kids. If I were Jesus, that's what I would do.... and hope the Old Man Upstairs wrote me off as a loss.
Anyway, he didn't create anything, nor did the Holy Ghost. Jesus cured a few sick people and killed some innocent pigs, but other wise, his entire assignment was to preach and get killed.

According to one apocryphal account, Jesus did run away - to France, I think, with Mary Magdalene - to live out his life under an assumed name and have kids. — Vera Mont

Yes, I wonder if they got the idea from The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis (1955), wherein Jesus imagines a normal life with Mary and children. In Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (the book Dan Brown ripped off for his famous 'novel'), this idea is explored as a conspiracy theory.

Crucification, or a wife and children? Surely there must be something less punishing than both those extremes. :wink:

Crucification, or a wife and children? Surely there must be something less punishing than both those extremes. — Tom Storm

Not for the son of a deity got on a mortal. Look how the Greek gods treated their illegitimate children!