If anything deserves the title God it would have to pass reasonable God tests to show it is a worthy candidate for the title God. So as part of this thought experiment is to present some God tests and compare Reality as God to the God of the Bible Stories or GBS for short. This section will be somewhat imprecise and humorous because you can't really come up with definitive tests as to what is God. You can get a little more precision as to what God is not.
- The Size Test - When it comes to God, size matters. God would have to be the biggest and greatest thing out there. So who has the biggest God? Reality or GBS? Reality is everywhere and everything. There is nothing out there that's real that isn't part of Reality. Reality is omnipresent.
GBS however is a more limited God who lives outside of Reality in some parallel dimension. GBS used to be thought to live in the clouds (Tower of Babel) buy now we have aircraft and satellite imaging and we now know clouds are just water vapor. No streets of gold there. So when we compare Reality as infinite to GSB which is xero - Reality wins!
- Present and Accessible - Reality is here. Reality is everywhere. You can see it, touch it, smell it. It speaks to us through evidence. It has a will and a purpose and it expresses it through evolution. Reality is observable by non-believers. The rules of Reality apply everywhere.
GBS on the other hand hasn't been seen in a long time. If your Jewish it's thousands of years. Christians generally it's 2000 years. Mormons it's 150 years. There is no actually historical confirmation these sightings are real.
- Miracles - Miracles is a term defined within the Bible Stories. Miracles aren't defined in a Reality based world so we will use examples of miracles as defined in the Bible Stories. That should in theory give the GBS the advantage by defining the miracles tests. Let's see how Reality and GBS compare in the miracles competition.
- Raising the Dead - Jesus is said to raise the dead. bring someone thought to be dead back to life. We do that all the time now. In some cases where someone drowns in ice water they can be restarted after over an hour. We can take the heart out of one person and put it in another, which if that were witnessed by people thousands of years ago would surely have been considered a miracle. So when it comes to raising the dead - Reality wins.
- Healing the Sick - Jesus is said to be able to cure Leprosy. But Jesus hasn't cured a Lepor in 2000 years. Today we can cure all Leprosy because we have studied Reality and Reality has revealed a cure through science. Leprosy is curable with treatment. Treatment for paucibacillary leprosy is with the medications dapsone and rifampicin for 6 months. Treatment for multibacillary leprosy consists of rifampicin, dapsone, and clofazimine for 12 months. Most people today don't even know what Leprosy is.
Reality through science has not just cured diseases - we have eradicated many diseases from existence. Many other fatal diseases can be cured with just taking a pill. A round of antibiotics and the deadly infection goes away. When it comes to the miracle of healing the sick, Reality is the clear winner.
- Virgin Birth - Jesus is said to be born of a virgin, which according to Bible Stories is both a miracle and a criteria for being God. Technically virgin birth was technically possible 2000 years ago if a virgin's vagina came in contact with freshly ejaculated semen. Something that would hardly be classified as a miracle.
Today however virgin birth is trivial and happens all the time. We have sperm banks where a woman wanting to become pregnant can select from a variety of donors to conceive by. Technically a lesbian who had never been penetrated by a male is a virgin and women like this have babies regularly in this modern scientific world. With today's technology we can fertilize an egg outside of a woman and implant it in a woman who is not biologically related to the genetic parents. Soom we might be able to grow the baby without a uterus or we might be able to make a person from scratch with a DNA sequencer. So - when it comes to virgin births - Reality is the winner!
- Ascending into the Heavens - The Bible Stories say that Elijah ascended into the heavens in a flaming chariot. Thousands of years ago - that's a miracle. But today many people ascend to the heavens in a flaming chariot. We call the airplanes. Airplanes not only go into the heavens - but so high they can look down on the heavens.
Not only to we fly into the heavens, Neil Armstrong too a flaming chariot all the way to the moon. He went up so high that up and down no longer had meaning. Clouds 4 miles high would be probably the max that Elijah could have survived without a pressure suit. Neil Armstrong went 240,000 miles high, which is 60,000 times higher than Elijah. So Reality beats GNS in the ascending into the heavens competition.
- Making Rocks Think - This is a Reality based miracle. Today we can make computer chips out of silicon and store both information and logical processes on them. We can implant our thinking onto what is essentially a rock and make it think for us. It can even think for us after we are dead. Software is a level of miracle that is so radical that people of the Bible Story era wouldn't even be able to comprehend what is in front of their eyes. Reality's miracles are so miraculous that people in ancient times couldn't even conceive of them. When it comes to new miracles - Reality wins!
- Getting the Creation Story Right - Starting with the first paragraph of the first book of the first Bible they got the creation story wrong. The universe was not created by a supernatural person in 6 days some 6000 years ago. The Bible Stories are just plain dead wrong.
Reality tells us through science that the universe is 13.8 billion years old. We can "see" the cosmic microwave background for the Bib Bang today. We can detect the gravity waves from the moment of creation and measure them today. So when it comes to the creation of the universe - Reality wins!
- The Authority of Truth - The Bible claims to be the authority of truth. The Bible is true because the Bible says it's true. One could say, everything on this wen site is true because it says so. but that doesn't make it true. If the Bible is true then nothing in the Bible can be false. but we already know that Bible is full of errors starting with the first paragraph claiming a supernatural person created the universe in 6 days. Although the Bible has some truths, it lacks the authority of truth.
Reality however is the very definition of Truth. Truth is after all, that which is real. And Reality is the sum total of all Truth. So Reality wins the authority of Truth test.
- Moral Authority -The Bible is a document originating thousands of years ago and reflects moral judgment of that era. In the Bible Stories slavery, human sacrifice, women as property, and stoning people to death were all considered normal and moral. The Bible did make advances in civilization in condemning lying, stealing, and murder. In it's day those were the forefront of moral thinking.
Today our morality comes from living in Right Relationship to Reality. Building the kind of society that is in harmony with nature, that allows us to study our creator (Reality) and if we do what's right we thrive and evolve. If we don't do what's right then we go extinct and Reality will try again on perhaps some other planet. Reality is teaching us more and more every day about what is moral.
- The Living God - Is God alive or dead? People ask that question about the God of the Bible Stories because no one who is a non-believer has witnessed the GBS. There is no objective evidence that any of the events of the Bible Stories ever happened. There was no historic exodus from Egypt. There was no great flood. There was no Ark with 2 of each animal on board. We know these things didn't happen.
There are those who claim miracles, but if God actually were intervening and actively messing with this world then scientists would be able to detect it in statistics. Casinos would ban Christians if God helps them win. But if you think God is on your side and you want to gamble - the casino will send a church bus to pick you up and provide a minister to pray with you on the way.
If GBS existed then science would be easily able to prove it. Something as huge as an omnipotent creator would be everywhere in the data. Scientists wouldn't be able to ignore it if they tried. But GBS is invisible to science. Maybe GBS is using his supernatural powers to hide himself from scientists? If that were true then GBS wants scientists to be Atheists and if that's the case - then they are doing what he wants. Someone, after all, has to go to Jell just so those who go to Heaven can appreciate the contrast.
Reality however would be a living God. Reality created life and it continues to create life every day. Reality is omnipresent and it speaks to us through evidence. And unlike the GBS the reality has the same message for everyone. If you are a space alien on a planet on the other side of the universe the speed of light is exactly the same. The laws of physics apply to everyone everywhere. So when it comes to God is alive - Reality wins again!
So in the God test competition Reality wins over GBS every time. It doesn't matter if it's GBS or Allah or any other God from any other holy book, Reality always wins. Reality will always come out on top.
If there is a God then Reality is the one and only true God.
So if there is anything worthy of the title God then Reality is clearly the winner. Reality is the one and only God candidate. Why would someone choose a God who is absent, impotent, trivial, and inconsequential when one can choose the only think worthy of the title God - and that is Reality. If there is a God then Reality is the one and only true God.
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