A theoretical situation:

You are alone in a room that has a table. On this table is a closed letter and for some reason you know that this letter contains the ultimate and final answer to the question whether there is a God or not. Nothing more, nothing less.

You basicallly have two options:
1. Open the letter and find out.
2. Don´t open the letter, leave the room and stick to whatever your faith might or might not be.

No matter what your choice is, you won´t be able to discuss the situation or the content of the letter with anyone.


At first this looked like a simple choice to me. Open it and find out. But then I thought: what if I opened the letter and the answer was that there is no God. As a christian this would have a devastating effect on my life.
I believe in God and it´s pretty much the christian idea of a good and forgiving God, though I strongly oppose to the Church as an institution and I reject several christian ideas that contradict basic scientific proof, but that´s not the topic here. I don´t want to elaborate on why exactly it would be terrible for right now because it would take too long. I just want to say it would have big consequences for me that are mostly bad.

On the other hand, if the letter said there is definately a God, how can I ever spend a lazy day in bed knowing that I should be out there and do something good? (That´s just a bad example for what went through my mind but i hope you see that absolutely knowing there is a God would have a huge impact on someone´s life too, even if you didn´t know what "version" of God you would be dealing with.)

Looking forward to your answers.

God this OP needs work.

Id open it. But if it said there is a God nothing would change or have a huge impact as far as living differently because i know nothing else about God except it exists.

you are right, i will therefore assume that if there was one, it would be the christian version (which is pretty much the same as the jewish and muslim one).

Insta open.

You wouldnt attempt to find out if this God has revealed anything about himself?

The op says he didn't.

But sure i would wonder, just like i do now even without certain knowledge God exists.

You don't think that the knowledge that God exists increases the likely hood that God revealed something about himself? In other words, why would you still believe that God did not reveal part of himself/his desires for us?

Or a slightly different question is, now that you know that God exists shouldn't you search to find out if you can know more?

i agree with Jibninjas. perhaps i should have been more accurate in my original post. i assumed that whatever kind of god it was, he would reveal or have revealed something about himself. otherwise it makes not much sense.

Right, so now you're asking :

Would you like to know if an omnipotent being who promises to throw you into a great lake of fire if you don't follow his orders or to have you by his side for eternity if you do exists or not ?

Yeah...

If God reveled to me in a letter he exists i would figure he might of reveled himself to others. But there's a big problem. How do i go about knowing which revelations are true?

Do i just pick up one of his reported books and choose what God is based on my preconceived notions of what i think a God would be like. Do i dismiss the things i dont like in them because i dont think a God would be like that.

Without a personal revelation from God directly too me. Its all guess work with no ability to know who got God right in his many reveled contradictory works.


But you missed my point. I already search for a possible God and think about what that God would be like and what that God would want. I just have no truth on any of it.

Then you need to tell me what Gods revealing to me to know its impact. If its something like i need to pray and worship him every day, my life would be greatly altered. If its not to kill and steal, not so much.

Instead of making this post :

You should have read these posts :

Then my post :

And just +1ed me. My ego would have enjoyed it. Happy Hannukkah.

@Dasq1306
i am asking if you wanted to know without a doubt whether god exists or not. since you dont seem to understand what consequences such knowledge might have for your life i see no point in discussing this hypothetical question with you.

@batair
the whole letter thing is completely hypothetical. it should not be seen as a revelation of god himself but simply as a fact "out of nowhere". this seems obvious to me since god could hardly write a letter if he didn´t exist.

if you have access to absolute knowledge about the existence of god, faith itselfs becomes obsolete.

yes, our understanding of god would still be incomplete as you mentioned and thats why i said lets just assume it would be a christian god to simplify the question.
if god exists it is very likely that he reveals himself from time to time. what kind of good he is and in what way he reveals himself is imo not important to answer the question.

Sorry.

Could you fail any harder ?

That doesn't simplify things it makes them more complicated since there are as many Christan Gods as Christians.

Just on the vary basics. Should i worship Jesus as God, the son of God or just a prophet of God. I would have no clue based on what believers and the bible says without a personal revelation form God.


Thats a huge assumption but if you want to make it part of your op ok. I still need to know specifically what he reveals to know what impact it would have on my life. The bible and believers are unclear.

Thats not true its the most important thing. If i dont know exactly what God wants i dont know how to change my life or what impact those changes will have.

Actually there is only one, just many interpretations of said God. Why would you need to know who is the closest to being right? Why not lok into it yourself?

Shame on anyone not answering 'open it.' I cannot understand why someone would not want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible. And as for what I would do if He revealed himself as Yahweh, I would get to reading the Bible (I assume he has told us the Bible is accurate in this case - otherwise no change).

Because i have to know what version of God is true to answer the ops question on how it would impact my life.


I have looked into it. Its incomprehensible.

i still don´t see a big problem here.
a "somewhat" christian god wouldnt punish you if you didnt know how to follow his rules better. and there is never one way to worship or to lead a "good" life anyway.
furthermore, once you find out there really is a god, trying to lead a life which leads to god becomes pretty much obligatory since the maybe painful obligations in life are then always worth the enjoyment of whatever eternal life might look like.
(although a christian god would probably give a s*** if you just tried to blindly follow rules without truly wanting to do "good".)

im gonna write tomorrow again, i need to sleep now.

@Dasq1306
whatever man.

Some versions would punish me. Something about Gods law being written into the heart of man so none have an excuse.
If you want me to tell you the impact on my life without knowing what version of the Christian God your talking about id say we are at somewhat of stalemate.

But unlike knowing a general God exists, my life would change a lot. For one i would reread the bible intently and investigate everything i could about it. Till i knew what beliefs would come of that i cant answer you as far as impact.

Does this mean the letter explains what type of "God" is being referenced? For example, are we talking about an omnix3 monotheistic deity?

If not, then I'm not sure I gain anything from opening the letter. "Something that some people might call a god exists" wouldn't change much, nor would "nothing that any group of people might call a god exists."

But I don't lose much from opening the letter (I'm an atheist anyhow, so my expectations are already super-low). So I open it.

Although, if everything is revealed, I might not want to open the letter. If God is evil, I don't want to know.

I would burn it without opening it.

Serious.