Brahma's atheist

Because surely the world would be better than it is now. Or would it be worse? Would the gods end up fighting each other for real instead of people doing it for the idea of gods?
People obviously can't control themselves, that's why we need police etc, but divine control would blatantly be 'better'.
Also if gods existed and the world was as it is now you could have something to blame. There would be something there to say 'fucking do something' to. As it is we're helpless to the whims of people with power or without power but are desperate to get it at any cost and there is nothing to stop them. In fact they are constantly invoking the very entities that should be stopping them.

Rousseau_CHN

Should there be a God, we would be truly be helpless to his whims.

The only reason we are helpless against the whims of the people with power is because we are cowards.

Should we discover the miraculous effect of 'guts' we can start making the world a better place.

On the other hand, should we be helpless against the whim of God, it is because we are truly helpless. There is no escape--we are to be his servant forever, with no day for break.

The existance of God doesn't make me as optimistic as you.

Perchance

Brahma's atheist, to some extent I agree with you. It would be nice to have the feeling that things were under some kind of control...

And then I actually go and read the mythology.

If gods existed and were anything like most of the myths (and we have to assume they would share at least some congruities, otherwise we probably wouldn't call them gods), then I wouldn't want anything to do with them. Happy happy love gods are a fairly recent invention. The gods of the older myths- Zeus, Artemis, Yahweh- are not particularly nice. Zeus got many mortal women pregnant without their asking, Artemis caused a hunter to change into a stag and be torn to pieces by his own hounds because he'd accidentally seen her bathing, and has anyone ever counted how many thousands supposedly died at Yahweh's order?

And even the "happy happy love gods" have drawbacks. There's Jesus and that little problem of a place where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And even a modern religion like Wicca bids its followers to fulfill impossible standards like "Harm none," when you kill thousands of bacteria every time you brush your teeth.

No, give me the godless world anytime. At least what we're fighting against is human and can be challenged.

-Perchance.

Marduk

Any Gods who interfere with humans are the ultimate cowards, they risk nothing, hold all the cards, have nothing to fear, the game is fixed in their favor, the humans are completely defenseless and outmatched, and don't even know who or what they are dealing with.

happyboy

yes, i agree with marduck. gods are never at risk from anything they do; they merely put US into the hotseat and expect US to carry out THEIR jobs. in the old testament, yahweh never personally showed up after the whole garden "incident", and always had the hebrews do his dirty work for him. even when he personally acted, he never really showed up. he just struck from heaven. at least pagan gods would put in a personal appearance from time to time. one might almost think that yahweh is NERVOUS about appearing before his human creations.......

pagan gods aren't much better that the One God of the bible and the koran. as perchance has pointed out, pagan gods were sons of bitches who didn't care about humanity, in so much as humanity could amuse them or anger them. yes, they weren't "camera-shy" like jehovah, but that didn't make them any nicer.

personally, i'm glad there are no gods, as most people see them. i'm quite happy with the idea of gods as creative symbols, and as symbols personifying natural phenomenon, as opposed to real entities.

happyboy, looking forward to the day that religion ceases to be