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Permalink Reply by No Nick for me on February 19, 2012 at 8:45pm

Scenario 1: Jesus comes to earth, performing miracles etc.

I would buy all the food and supplies I could get my hands on, because I would be sure that there was an invasion incoming, probably from aliens. It is what would make the most sense, given the situation. As Arthur C. Clarke said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think it is more likely that a more advanced entity would try to gain power and influence by exploiting our superstitious views, than that the utterly, utterly ridiculous claims of the church are true and I have good reason for that.

And if he was no fraud, I am pretty sure that if asked which one of the religions was closest to the truth, he would say neither of them, those closest to it were the secular humanists and atheists, because they put the most worth in liberty, dignity and human life. So there was just one point in which they were wrong, compared to the many, many things all the others were wrong about. Even most agnostics were doubtful for the wrong reasons.

Scenario 2: We gain proof that there is no god, so compelling that no one can deny it:

Seeing how stupid we humans are, most of us probably wouldn't take the news very well. There would be a lot of suicides, some people would seek refuge in other superstitious crap and crimes would rise for a moderate time extremely, because some people would think that their morals don't apply any more. At some point, things would get back to normal, hopefully with at least that generation plus the next one or two now being influenced to be more reasonable and critically thinking.

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Permalink Reply by Graham on February 20, 2012 at 3:22am

The non-existence of god, or gods, can never be disproved - it just can't, so give up on that notion. To disprove it, you'd have to get the theists to state, exactly and unequivocally, how their god manifests itself so that you'd know what to look for and how to measure it, and they're in no hurry to do that.

However, there is hope. Gods like Thor simply stopped being credible, and the more science fills in the gaps in our knowledge, then the current crop of non-entities will also just stop being supportable. What they'll be replaced with is anyone's guess, but let's hope it's science and rational thinking.

It may take a while though. I'm not expecting to see it in my lifetime. There's too much vested interest to make that likely.

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Permalink Reply by erik112358 on February 20, 2012 at 7:44am

To me, the claim, or even proof, of divinity is not a justification for worship.  Even in your hypothetical situation where it was proven beyond a doubt that Cathoicism is true, it still leaves a lot of questions.  Way too many for me to just suddenly proclaim my love for God and Jesus.

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Permalink Reply by Jason on February 20, 2012 at 8:12am

Right. Just because Catholicism could be proven true, that doesn’t make it right. Bottom line, what is the truth of Catholicism – Worship and love Jesus/God/Holy Spirit or burn in hell forever. So it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. It still wrong to worship. So maybe there wouldn’t be any atheist anymore, there would still be anti-theist. I would imagine most of the other religions would convert to Catholicism. There would be an obvious opposition community who for various reasons would come together to resist the ruling Catholic reality. And I would be a member.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on February 20, 2012 at 10:00am

True. If the Christian god is even anything remotely like in the Bible, I certainly wouldn't worship him. Acknowledge him sure, but I still have no reason to submit to his childish whims

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