Windy Sydney

First, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday :) I had a good one. I spent the entire day eating junk food, walking around in flannel pajamas and plotting enemies' demise.

One of my favorite YouTube pals made this video titled, "If You Were God." If you have the time, check it out!

NoTrueScotsman also shared the text for the video, and I hope he doesn't mind me passing it along on my blog. I just want to make it clear that I didn't write or gather this... all credit goes to him. If you check out more of his videos, you will love them as much as I do, I'm sure.

Let's say that you're an omniscient, omnipotent deity who created the universe, the cosmos, life, and humanity.

Let's also say that the foremost concern in your all-knowing mind was to be believed in by your human creations.

In fact, whether someone believed in you or not was so important that not to believe in you would condemn any such unfortunate soul to an eternity of punishment after death.

For instance, a mass murderer who had a deathbed conversion to believing in you stood a better chance of a happy afterlife than a moral, charitable person who did NOT believe in you. This is how important belief in you would be.

If belief in you were so crucial, if so much hung in the balance on this one issue alone, wouldn't you want to make your presence known to everyone in an obvious way? Wouldn't you want to make it clear to all humanity, with no room for doubt, that you existed? Maybe you'd give every human an innate knowledge of the reality of your being.

Or would you make it a game? Would you manifest yourself in no obvious way so that believers would need to take your existence as an article of faith? Would you leave so much room for doubt that many would believe in another god, or no god at all?

So, if they failed to win the game, if they died unconvinced of your existence, you would then condemn these unwilling players to an eternity of torment.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Let's say at some point in time, you wanted to make your inconspicuous existence more conspicuous to lots of people. What would you do?

Maybe you'd announce your existence to every man, woman, and child on earth, so it would be impossible to doubt that you are who you are. Or if that's too showy for you, maybe you'd make your presence known by sending a messenger, an entity unmistakably from somewhere other than earth.

Or, again, would you make it a game?

Would you have this messenger take human form, going so far as to have him born from a flesh-and-blood woman, a human intermediary? Maybe this messenger-in-human-form would do a few things that ordinary humans couldn't, but his form would still be human — it would be human enough for many people to doubt that you sent him, and sent him specifically to confirm your existence and your power.

Does THAT sound reasonable to you?

If it does, I'd have to question if believing in you was really so important to you after all. Maybe you were just looking for an excuse to send hapless souls to an unpleasant afterlife.

Now, lets take another hypothetical.

Let's say its 2,000 years ago, and you're a human being living in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. You come across this preacher — there are a lot of them there at the time — and he says some really profound things, profound things like:


"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."


And its no real surprise that he says such wise things because he grew up near a cosmopolitan Roman port city, and was probably influenced by the culture there.

In fact, what he says is so radical, and he shakes up the establishment so much, you have a hard time believing you have the same religion. So, you reach the conclusion that he is the messenger that your god has been promising you for a long time.

But for one reason or another, he gets into deep political danger, and the local leaders talk the Roman authorities into executing him — giving him the worst of all deaths under Roman law: the humiliating death of a common criminal — crucifixion.

You say to yourself: This isn't right! He was such a wise teacher! He was Gods chosen messenger, or could have been! He shouldn't have been struck down like a petty thief, a petty murderer!

So, you tell yourself that you must turn his humiliating death into a glorious one. You must make his degrading death an important and necessary part of what it means to be your gods messenger.

I'm sure that there are alternate hypotheticals that we could explore. But of the two that I just gave you, which one sounds like it has the greatest potential to be true?