@Holiday20310401,
What if God showed up on this forum? A very interesting thought experiment. I'm going to assume that this thought experiment subsumes the following hypothetical stipulations (mostly consistent with Holiday203etc's original stipulations):
1.) God really does exist, and in fact does possess all of the "omni" qualities. And likewise, we have verified that this really is God. God, being omnipotent and omniscient, understands our language and is willing to answer our questions via this forum.
2.) The rest of the world finds out about God answering questions on this forum, and somehow the forum withstands the technical challenges (through a modern miracle of bandwidth expansion and server multiplication, like that bit about loaves and fishes?).
3.) God answers honestly and (knowing us better than we know ourselves) provides the best possible answers to all of our questions, and is quite patient and willing to entertain them multiple times, given our imperfections.
4.) But we remain imperfect, and we still disagree amongst ourselves as to what God has said to us about various issues. In our disagreements, we often agree to go to the forum and ask God for clarification, and God graciously responds. In some instances we agree that the issue is settled, and with other issues we continue to disagree, perhaps returning to the forum multiple times to discuss increasingly minute points with God.
Given all of this, the world of humankind would be in for some major changes.
First off, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens would be in for a drop-off in book sales. Ditto for many theologians who specialize in issues that God finally settles on the forum. (philosophyforum.com, THE LAST WORD). And the little cottage industry that formed around historical Jesus research goes bust, since God finally tells us what really happened regarding the man from first century Galilee. Islam may be in for some surprises too regarding Muhammad. Ditto for the Jews (and Christians and Muslims) regarding Abraham and Moses.
So, the major religions are all in for a shock; every one of them is going to be wrong about something. Also, the thinkers of the world would have a lot less work to do. We'd finally settle the question regarding God's existence, a huge vexing question from time immemorial. We'd know if God had any afterlife plans for us, whether our conscious awareness does or doesn't transcend death (i.e., whether we had "immortal souls"). We'd know if God cared or not about our morals and ethical behavior. We'd know if there is any transcendent advantage to disciplined moral behavior or not. We'd know if pain and suffering has any purpose or is just a random side-effect. We'd know if God cared a whit about our prayers and worshipping rituals, and if it gave us any long-term advantages, including the possibility or not of conscious life transcending the body's death. We'd have a lot less need for the concept of "faith" and "belief". The atheists and agnostics would have to come around to the new reality.
My question is: would we be ready for all this? (Same question if it turned out the other way: somehow, science finally provides an air-tight case that no God can exist, that we have detected through our scientific measuring devices all that exists, PERIOD.) Would we be able to soak up all of God's ultimate wisdom and get in full synch with God? (Or get in-synch with a Godless universe?) Or would we look at it as a new and final set of survival and pleasure-maximization rules and principles, and adapt ourselves to the game, like children who are told now to play rugby instead of American football or whatnot. And perhaps we all know how to be stars in this new game, and we are all approaching flawless play in it. It all becomes increasingly rote, just a random variation here or there to keep us awake. Someone wins, someone loses, so what -- always the next game.
The God question has caused a lot of war and suffering on this planet. If that question was settled, holy violence could all be dispensed with over time, as God kept on answering our questions until we all agreed that wars, terrorism and other forms of violence and hubris in support of theistic notions was wrong. (Or let's hope that God would take that position! But then again, if God said 'I don't give a whit what any of you believe, no one of you is any more wrong or right', that might also take the air out of the fanaticism balloon.) So one could imagine many good outcomes under this thought experiment.
But there would also be some bad things -- such as the end of philosophy, for the most part. All that would be left would be some occasional disagreements among thinking people, who then go on this site and get God to settle the issue. Perhaps the issue goes on for a year or two, perhaps some articles or books are written on it, but through repeated inquiries, God finally settles the question to everyone's satisfaction. Including questions regarding free will, justice, political governance systems, the nature of randomness versus order, abortion, the ten commandments, etc. After a while, the need for critical books, articles and discussions would diminish. Philosophy professors have to go into computer software development. It would be somewhat like that article and follow-up book by Francis Fukuyama on "The End of History" (which certainly turned out to be a bit premature!).
Going further into the future over many generations, perhaps the need for critical thinking on the highest levels diminishes so much that the art of it, and eventually even the genetic factors that support it, are lost. Of course, there is still the need to combat new germs, old and new diseases, problems regarding resource depletion and natural disasters, new computer technologies, etc. I will assume that God will not give us any hints on the forum with regard to curing cancer and how to accomplish quantum computing. But on the philosophical and theological level -- not much left to do.
Perhaps this supports Holiday203etc's intuition about this:
When I thought about this I came to the conclusion that God's moral perfection keeps God from showing any experiential mingling with humanity. (that is, if God exists).
So -- do you take our world of theistic indeterminacy, terrorism and many other horrors in return for the intellectual challenges that it raises? Or do you take the more peaceful, sedate and probably uninteresting world that results once God comes on this forum? Or, perhaps this is some Faustian game show, with an alternate offer of what lies behind door number 3?
Jim G.
An Eternal Student Of / For Life
... :drinking:... 