Does God have a choice whether to exist or not?

You’d have to ask God. Be prepared to wait an eternity to get an answer.

Your questions, premise would be that God does exist, and that seems to me unproven. If we are talking about El, Elohim, Yahweh, God; and we accept the paradoxical claims set forth in the Torah that he is omnipotent, omniscient and eternal, then he doesn’t have a choice but to exist, which is a logical contradiction of being omnipotent. But don’t worry, omnipotence is shot through with logical contradictions.

Philipp Mainlander’s God apparently didn’t want to exist anymore, and it appears that It finally found a way to destroy itself, by annihilating itself, and having its fragments be the prerequisite for the life of the material universe. God’s destruction meant the creation of us, according to Mainlander.

Mysterious ways.

Nope it’s not His nature because it’s up to us should God exist or not. As long as humans is around He will “exist”. The day when we cease to “exist” God will cease to “exist”

It’s a paradox. If he chooses not to exist he no longer has a choice.

It reminds me of this;

“I refuse to prove that I exist” declares God, “For proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing.”

“Ah,” says Man, “But the Babel fish is a dead giveaway. Something so useful can’t possibly have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, therefore, you don’t. Q.E.D.”

“Oh dear,” said God. “I hadn’t thought of that,” and he promptly disappeared in a puff of logic.

—Douglas Adams

(and yes I am such a Hitch-Hikers geek I can quote from it without even looking it up).

God chooses to not exist for atheists. That choice is a reinforcement of the atheists’ choice.

God chooses to exist for the theist. That choice is a reinforcement of the theist’s choice.

Funny cat that God.

Time, once again, for my favorite joke.

Descartes, when asked by the waiter whether he wanted fries with his burger, replied, “I think not” and promptly disappeared. (I have whittled this down to only 20 words.)

I say Yes, although if it was His choice and it was based on the love of we humans for Him, or His pride in us, his creations, He’d probably choose not to before now surely. Basically, I’m sure we’re all a fairly large disappointment.

To exist is to be ALive
To not exist is to be dead.

God id the God off both the Living and the dead.

Appears to the Living as the simplicity of Life, by which they fulfil their purpose

To the dead he appear as the paradox….again so that they the dead will fulfil their purpose.

So as we see it is Without the Idea and reality of God.. what shall the Atheist do?
For they themselves would not exist.,,,,where then is their thankfulness?

I suppose God could choose to exist but it would have to be a collective decision. I am not sure how that would be done, but there is no reason to do so. If your eye, ear, nose, and brain were sentient beings with their own autonomy why would the mouth decide not to be part of the head anymore? With out the head and rest of the body it would have no function or use. The head without a mouth would suffer ability. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one God, they have an equal function as the triune God, to no longer exist they would all have to decide not to be God any longer, which I don’t see happening

How could anyone possibly answer this question with any kind of seriousness? Like how could anyone possibly know even if God did exist?

No, but we could choose not to have any gods exist.

^^^ Interestingly, some of us do.

This is another variation of the question of whether or not God could create a mountain so heavy that He could not move it? They beg the question of whether God is like man or man is like God, neither of which, in my opinion, is true.

In all actuality nothing has a choice as to whether it exists or not. None of us chose to exist and I’m pretty sure that applies to everything from quarks to the Himalayas.

No, he just has a choice whether to believe in himself or not.

@janbb . . . I once got in to it with my Mother over the existence of God and told her that I don’t believe in him and went on and on about all the bullshit involved in organized religion.

When I was done she looked at me and said, “You have a beautiful wife and beautiful healthy children. You might not believe in God but I think it’s pretty clear he believes in you.”

I had nothing to respond with.

@Blondesjon

Nothing to respond with?!?

How about telling your mother to stop making fallacious arguments? The fallacy she committed is called a referential argument, a correlational fallacy.

How many kids do you have?

@Blondesjon

If you are speaking to me, young person, I have grandchildren.

All of them know logical fallacies when they see them even if they do not know the names of them. I brought my children up to think critically, not to give in to emotional arguments that are fallacious. And so they taught their children; to live in the real world and deal with real world problems. .

@Neodarwinian Fallacious, fallacy, fallacy, fallacies, fallacious…... Get a bigger vocabulary! A bigger one. One that’s bigger.

<facepalm>

Anyway… I suppose he could choose to not exist, if he wanted to. Can’t really wrap my brain around that.

Good to see you again @NeoD. It’s been the life of Brian here without you. Will be good to hear your wis.dm again. Just a wild guess. Wild I tell you. Like a cat without a hat.

@WillWorkForChocolate I’ll jump in on that. Often, I notice that when someone want’s a certain belief to be true but can’t defend it logically on its merits, they resort to attacking the messenger instead of the message. That’s an artifice, subterfuge, flaw in logic, evasion, illogicity, sophism, or yes, fallacy called an ad hominem. Enough alternative words, or am I vocabulary starved as well? Perhaps I’m pretentious, or verbose instead.

Would you like me to ask him?

OK. I did.

Luke 8:9–21

The Purpose of Parables

9 Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?”10 And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that‘Seeing they may not see,And hearing they may not understand.’[a]

The Parable of the Sower Explained

11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.12 Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14 Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. 15 But the onesthat fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

The Parable of the Revealed Light

16 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets iton a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light. 17 For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. 18 Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him.”

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Come to Him

19 Then His mother and brothers came to Him, and could not approach Him because of the crowd. 20 And it was told Him by some, who said, “Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see You.”21 But He answered and said to them, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

So sure I guess the answer is yes, He chooses when or where or even if He shows Himself in true form to us so we will be able say “wow, that is truly God!”.

But the real point of it is is that if you listen and pay attention you will see that He is indeed actually everywhere and He will show His face when He is ready according to scriptures.

@Neodarwinian . . . I raised mine to be tolerant of others beliefs while making their own decisions. In other words, they learned respect first.

@Blondesjon And the is the way to raise children. Bravo. People should learn from you. How I hope my eventual children grow up :)

But anyways God is a man of faith. If you don’t believe in him and put your faith in him then you really don’t care whether he exists or not right? I believe in the Lord, my God he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. Either way whether God can choose to stop existing or not some people wouldn’t be affected by it in any way.
And I am tolerant of anyone’s opinions (so don’t bother picking a fight) because what is the point of having opinions, high-functioning brains, and thumbs if you aren’t going to use them, right? Go humans!

@ETpro Dude, chill. You completely misunderstood my comment. I wasn’t attacking neo because I can’t wrap my brain around the interesting thought behind this question; I was irritated and amused that someone would choose to pick a fight with @Blondesjon in such a repetitive, laughable manner.

Like hey man, that was funny, wasn’t it funny? It was funnily done. When things are funny, they’re funny and involve lots of funniness, so they’re funny. (And BTW, your comment to me was actually a bit pretentious, yeah.)

Lets take time for a lyrical interlude shall we?

So, I lost my head a while ago. But you seem to have done no better.We set fire in the snow. It ain’t over, I’m not done. Some do magic, some do harm.

I’m holding on, holding on, I’m holding on to a straw!

Who is the Alpha?
What is made of cloth?
How do you say you’re sorry?
And there’s nothing to be afraid of..

Is it dark already? How light is a light?
Do you laugh while screaming?
Is it cold outside?

One thing I know for certain, I’m pretty sure, it ain’t over.

I’m not done.
~Fever Ray ♡♡

@Neodarwinian You seem to be picking fights now. Can you ratchet it down a bit on the personal attactks?

As God has always existed and is everywhere He can’t have a very clear idea of his own identity as He has nothing to measure it against. He doesn’t change with time so he can’t even compare himself now with how he was before. He might not even be aware that he exists in the way we know we exist. Our sense of existence is sharpened by our awareness of passing time and change and the knowledge that we will die. We think God is impossible to understand and so we don’t even try, or we think oddly enough that He is just like us, but that can’t be true.

The tale within the thread does not speak the same as the tale of the thread.
And the best students learns exactly what the teacher try hardest not to teach.

@janbb

Perhaps you did not read the comments I am responding to?

What personal attacks? Responses to nonsense are not attacks and relativistic use of words is not usage.

Are these people perhaps ” friends ” of yours?

I see by your profile that we have no topics in common. I did not find that sad.

” Does God have a choice whether to exist or not? ”

On the original topic. One sees that many people will be upset by any other attitude toward this topic outside the US norm; religious extremism. Imaginary creatures do not have choices, but humans do. If some humans need to live in delusion, where questions such as this have validity, that is their choice, but skewed attacks in defense of that choice will be defended against in this, the 21st century.

^ ♡ ;-)

[as a mod] Enough flaming, please. Chill, everybody.

@Neodarwinian . . . I am simply what I choose to be. I am not defined by a dictionary, nor a bible, and I am certainly not defined by opinions. I alone define myself.

Likewise, the thoughtfulness and actions of my progeny will speak for themselves.

@Neodarwinian It is impossible to imagine a creature that does not have choices. Imagining the choices faced by imaginary creatures is a large part of ordinary life.

@KaY_Jelly Rolled out the usual non-sequitur that asks her particular version of God and accepts that a book slowly evolved over 3,500 years by thousands of different authors provides the only possible answer. Why not religions texts written far earlier, if you accept that a book’s pages provide the answer to a question. Why not more recent religious tomes like the Quran or the Book of Mormon?

With all the personal attacks has anyone thrown rotten cabbage yet? I guest the hymm was right There is something about that name.

@Blondesjon

” Imaginary creatures do not have choices, but humans do ”

Did you understand this? We make the choices for our imaginary creatures. That goes for our imaginary magic men too!

” Imagining the choices faced by imaginary creatures is a large part of ordinary life. ”

Yes, pure fantasy, or delusion in many, many cases.

I do not think it impossible to imagine a creature that does not have choices. Can Escherichia coli choose not to initiate it’s Lac operon in the presence of lactose? Doubtful. What about some organism that you have yet to imagine?

I understand perfectly well. I’m beginning to think that perhaps you don’t?

by the way i’m a well known atheist. you’re trying to push the wrong buttons.

@bunnyslippers the secret is to leave the tab open, then you don’t miss the stuff that’s moderated. don’t mind me. just lurking. :D

@Blondesjon But… but… you’re an atheist? But I like you! You mean… it is possible to be an atheist and not be an arrogant douche? I think a few jellies need to take classes from you!

@Blondesjon

” I understand perfectly well. I’m beginning to think that perhaps you don’t?

by the way i’m(sic) a well known atheist. you’re trying to push the wrong buttons. ”

Obviously you did not understand at all because I do not push buttons and I do not like other people putting motives in my mind. Where you got that idea is beyond me but it does not matter as we are through here.

What is wrong with this site?????

^^^ Today, perhaps you?

Can Escherichia coli choose not to initiate it’s (sic sic sic) Lac operon in the presence of lactose?

@Neodarwinian . . . If you have to ask, you’ll never know.

No one has handcuffed you, left you on a deserted island with a pc that only communicates to jellies, have they? Yes that would be odd. Do you need someone to call the helpline for you?
Do you have GPS coordinates?

Survival tip #1

If a jelly stings you, best case scenario is to pee on yourself!

@whoever-asked-about-this What did you ask me?

@ETpro lol

I suppose He does, that is, if He’s always been, but then decides to no longer exist, like say if He gets sick of shit. After that though, if He no longer exists, there are no more choices to be made by Him, or to go back on to. So at that point, He no longer has a choice. Unless God can just will Himself in and out of existence at will. But if He can do that, He never really ceases to exist, and has never not existed.

God kind of reminds me of Conan the Barbarian. He’s like everyone else, but oh so more badass, so you can’t really question him, cuz he’ll just chop you in half if your books are late. Or like if you take his dragon steak or something.

That said, I would like to know; does a dragon have a choice to exist or not?

I like dragons, they’re cool.

I don’t know if it’s true but I heard about it, would interesting if it is true.
During the time they did the mapping of the human genome the found and extra genome that they named the “God gene”. As far as I understand this thing can be found a large number of humans. It apparently makes us believe in things and help us with our imaginations. If this is true I may have to revise my answer saying, No, God will not choose to cease to exist because He planted some kind a gene in us to “program” us to believe in something and that to ensure His continuing existence.

@antimatter It’s actually a hypothesis and has some very cogent critics. I would also say that if God creates some of ue with the God gene, and others without, then condemns some of is to eternal torture because he refused to give us the gene to escape it, that’s one evil, malevolent god.

@antimatter I feel that I can reasonably assure you the God gene hypothesis will fail, just like string, multiverse and quantum loop theories. The only ‘God gene’ that exists is called authoritarianism.

Did you ever hear about the effects of information cascades in authoritarian and/or theocratic societies? Many (if not most) people in many cultures do not want to be targets and prefer to live lives without countering too much resistance. In many cases the latter reasons I’d mentioned are indeed justifiable enough to keep potential dissenters in line.

Some of these cultures use the help of their religious doctrines themselves to keep others in line pertaining to spiritual, economic, cultural, philosophical and political matters.

The simple answer is yes. He made the choice to always exist simply by always existing. Why would He want anything else? He is God. What could be better than that? What other choice would be a smarter choice to make?

If He had chosen to cease his existance prior to creating anything, then this question would have never been asked.

@lennyblade Welcome to Fluther, but you have listed nothing but unfounded assertions there. I see no evidence to support any of them. If you have such evidence, you need to provide that to support your assertions.

Lol.

Yes @lennyblade God is proven by the fact of existence…and if that does not speak for itself, then nothing can.

The real issue here is the nature of men, and not myriads of ideas which he indulges and loses himself.,

@ETpro I think you and @Paradox25 may have a good point, I don’t think there is a correct answer regarding this question or a definite answer. First of all is I think before we can ask the question if God have a choice whether to exist or not, it’s more important to establish whether He exist or not. We can just as well ask if the tooth-fairy have a choice whether to exist or not. All of this was here before man so is it safe to ask than when did God come into existence, was it when man became capable of intelligent thought? To answer that question is to wait and see after you died. It will be strange if we choose that God must not exist anymore.