IMO, to date, the best candiddate (via-à-vis natural theology) that believers have for "God revealed" is


Previously, the next best and oldest candidate, I suspect, has always been


Either way, "revelation" without dogma or commandments, without chosen people or the damned, without martyrs or magical thinking. Just – what Plato metaphorically called "the Form of the Good" – universal, ancient light. :fire:

Gamora : [as Nebula walks up]  This is the one? Seriously?

Nebula : The choices were him or a tree.

:snicker:

Be clearly, lucidly written; no conflicting interpretations, no confusion as to what is intended — Art48

It could only be as clear and lucid as those to whom it is addressed.

A funny and revealing story from Genesis:

God clearly tells Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge. We are not told what Adam tells Eve, but we do know what she tells the serpent. From God to Adam to Eve there are significant changes in what was said to have been said. In addition to Eve's changes, the serpent ads another layer of interpretation.

If a God ever did reveal himself/herself to humanity, the revelation would: — Art48

Nothingness. If he would exist I would imagine him as the pure representation of silence and emptiness. As much as we tend to understand death.

Nothingnes[nonbeing] If he would exist I would imagine him as the pure representation of silence and emptiness. — javi2541997

:up: E.g. the Democritean void (à la vacuum energy).

As much as we tend to understand death.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/507756

Surely any technically competent god could make a personal appearance in front of all of us at the same time and tell us its story in every language required, including sign language for the deaf and street speak for da kool kidz! Surely it would also have some explaining to do to at least the dolphins, chimps, and ape's etc. Hollywood's (Bruce/Evan almighty)suggestion of god depicted as Morgan Freeman would work for me.

A scripture? in these modern electronic times!

E.g. the Democritean void (à la vacuum energy).

:clap: :100:

Surely any technically competent god could make a personal appearance in front of all of us at the same time and tell us its story in every language required, including sign language for the deaf and street speak for da kool kidz! — universeness

Why stop there? A god could surely just implant complete knowledge in all human minds, without the need for any long-form narrative. :wink:

Why stop there? A god could surely just implant complete knowledge in all human minds, without the need for any long-form narrative — Tom Storm

Yes.

But Christians do say God has written the moral code in our hearts. Great. But when they are asked what the God-written moral code says about capital punishment, stem cell research, etc., etc, they don't agree. God seems to have a problem communicating clearly.

But Christians do say God has written the moral code in our hearts — Art48

Mainly Protestant evangelicals. And you're right - Christians have no objective basis for morality. All they have is the subjective preferences of this or that interpretation of what they imagine a god, they think they understand, may or may not want...

Why stop there? A god could surely just implant complete knowledge in all human minds, without the need for any long-form narrative. :wink: — Tom Storm

Yep, I have often wondered why humans have to learn how to speak, read, write etc and LEARN about god posits. How come we don't know about god from birth?
Did god teach Adam these things or did he just have such knowledge from when he was made?
Could Adam speak to Eve as soon as he was created? then why cant we? or is that Eve and Lilith's fault as well?

But Christians do say God has written the moral code in our hearts. — Art48

What happens during heart transplants? Is the code the same in every heart, what about the future of heart replacement such as described below:

Patients with late stage heart failure may be able to receive a heart transplant, in which the heart from a deceased donor is used to replace their diseased heart. Unfortunately, the demand for new hearts greatly outweighs the number of hearts available for transplantation. This is why we need synthetic hearts that are able to permanently replace a diseased heart. This technology is still being developed, but it is hoped by many that such devices will one day become available.

The first artificial heart transplant took place in 1969. The device, developed by Texas Heart Institute founder Dr. Domingo Liotta, was implanted in a 47-year-old patient with severe heart failure, allowing them to live for nearly three days until a human heart became available. Current synthetic hearts are made from titanium and/or plastic, which can be made from biocompatible materials, meaning that it is chemically inert and is less likely to be rejected by the body’s immune system. This is an advantage over a real human heart transplant, in which the recipient’s immune system must be suppressed in order to avoid transplant rejection. Unfortunately, this is where the advantages of a synthetic heart end.

What do the Christians think of this man in 1969 and his organic morally void heartless 3 days and how come hearts can be rejected if they have gods code written on them what stupid games is this god playing?

The Jews and Christians I know do not hold Bible stories as literally true so these questions don't concern them. The Bible has a long tradition of being understood as allegory. I think the hallmark of prominent contemporary Christianity, and the reversion into Protestant primitivism, is Biblical inerrancy, which is a kind of hermeneutical throwback, like the Taliban.

The big question for me is why is it that god/s are never known directly? All we have is people telling stories, or old books that say a thing. No god ever shows up, except in the stories. Highly suspicious, don't you think. :fire: - And no, that's not a burning bush.

God is likely in everything even in the absurd aspects of religions that make seemingly false claims. I tend to think god is found in anything that exhibits order, as that is the essence we ascribe to god. I don't necessarily have a firm belief in god as an entity exactly, I just find proof of god in the essence attributed to god. God is merely a concept, concepts are central to philosophy, and to simply prove a concept it must accurately reflect what it represents in reality. The things that religions claim about god might not be fact but there is order, whether moral, linguistic or social etc. that is governed by something beyond our power and we must adapt and comply with.

The things that religions claim about god might not be fact but there is order, whether moral, linguistic or social etc. that is governed by something beyond our power and we must adapt and comply with. — introbert

Notions of order and chaos are human constructions and likely based on the neurocognitive system. Order, like time and space, are probably a neurally generated matrix of gestalts that allow us to make sense of things. No need to reach for the heavens just yet.

The Bible has a long tradition of being understood as allegory. I think the hallmark of prominent contemporary Christianity, and the reversion into Protestant primitivism, is Biblical inerrancy, which is a kind of hermeneutical throwback, like the Taliban. — Tom Storm

That's one of the politest ways of saying 'if you take the bible as literal truth then you are rather backwards, a bit like the Taliban,' that I have read. You should get extra moderator points for that!

The big question for me is why is it that god/s are never known directly? All we have is people telling stories, or old books that say a thing. No god has ever shows up, except in the stories. Highly suspicious, don't you think. :fire: - And no, that's not a burning bush. — Tom Storm

These are some of the reasons why I am an atheist Tom!

But surely the evidence from science suggests the Universe is chaos - order -chaos.
So does the god you perceive exists in chaos as well as order?

The problem is, it seems to me, worship – idol-making – not g/G per se. Theism is idolatry. The apophatics got it right, I think: anything said or imag(in)ed (e.g. "graven images", scriptures, theologies, sermons) about the infinite is necessarily finite and thereby false; even (especially) the belief that the infinite "exists" is idolatrous.

I don't deny that conceptions of god are easy to implode with carefully placed critiques. I simply acknowledge that there is conceptual room for god, especially given my low wattage beam on reality. I simply chose order as the essence of god as it encompasses most of the conventional understandings in social, symbolic, and moral systems.

I simply acknowledge that there is conceptual room for god, especially given my low wattage beam on reality. I simply chose order as the essence of god as it encompasses most of the conventional understandings in social, symbolic, and moral systems. — introbert

Yes, order is an obvious attribute of traditional theism. No argument there. But we wouldn't be good skeptics if we didn't try to unpack that notion. Plus philosophy in certain guises would question the very notion of humans being able to determine just what counts as order or chaos outside of our limited perspectival capacities. You can find conceptual room for god in almost any discussion if you wish, since god is so often applied like Du Pont's Big Gap Filler.

What a genuine word of God would look like? — Art48

Silence.

Silence. — Banno

Paul Simon knew:

"The Sound Of Silence"

Hello, darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you."
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence."

God is merely a concept, concepts are central to philosophy, and to simply prove a concept it must accurately reflect what it represents in reality — introbert

You are right. But you have to keep in mind that for theists God already exists. I mean, they are not opened to debate about the existence or meaning of such concept.

What a genuine word of God would look like?
— Art48

Silence. — Banno

अति सुंदर

(Ati sundar: Glorious/most beautiful).

Accounts of God having answered prayers is total hogwash! That however doesn't mean we stop praying.

A painting can only be as good as the painter. Clearly, God is a human invention - God of scripture has flaws that are human ... too human. GIGO! Vide sci-fi writer Fredrick Brown's short short story Answer.

:up:

You can manage without god, if you are willing to take all the responsibility yourself.

You can manage without god, if you are willing to take all the responsibility yourself. — unenlightened

Wise words. Who will watch over my family after I'm gone?

I don't deny that conceptions of god are easy to implode with carefully placed critiques. I simply acknowledge that there is conceptual room for god, especially given my low wattage beam on reality. I simply chose order as the essence of god as it encompasses most of the conventional understandings in social, symbolic, and moral systems. — introbert

You have the freedom to engage in this kind of personal conceptualisation. To me, it seems that you are just employing a 'god of the gaps' approach. If we don't fully understand the how and why something works or/and exists then some people have a need to throw god posits at it. There is as much 'conceptual room' for pixies as there is for god. Both posits seem to be equal in plausibility (or lack of) and evidence (or lack of). I think this tendency is probably part of 'the essence' of being human as opposed to the essence of any god. Many humans simply cannot handle the status of 'unknown,' it seems to constantly niggle and frustrate and something like god is used as a small misshaped sticking plaster over a gaping hole in our knowledge.
For many people this seems to offer some relief from constantly niggling frustrations. I could deal with that on a person to person basis but when organised religion tries to preach god fables as irrefutable truth and dares to spout threats towards nonbelievers and actually tries to influence social and political policy with theistic guidance, then they have stepped way over the line and must be pushed back behind that line.

You can manage without god, if you are willing to take all the responsibility yourself. — unenlightened

This is correct but I would go further, getting rid of god as a scapegoat (which is its main utility by humans) would help humans face their responsibilities.
I was watching a news story about a holocaust survivor who had decided to speak about her experience to young people on-line. The interviewer asked her how she dealt with thoughts of 'god' when thinking about what she went through. She said that Yom Kippur was coming up and she had great difficulty with the part that asks participants to ask god for forgiveness for sins. She said she keeps thinking that god should ask for her forgiveness. I think this is wrong. All humans, Germans, Japanese, British, Ancient Romans and Greeks, etc have treated other humans just like some Germans treated Jews, Gypsies etc or how some Japanese treated prisoners of war, or even how some union or confederates treated prisoners during their civil war. There are such guilty people in all era's of history and in every country.
NONE OF IT WAS DOWN TO GOD(s)! It was all down to our behaviour! The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem!