If the truth be known
Do you really wanna know?
--“Truth Be Known – Everybody
Gets a Shot,” Newsboys
These are really two separate questions, but I put them
together because the first one has a very short answer. If God actually did
exist in reality, then yes, I would want to know about it. I want my beliefs to
be consistent with reality. While it’s unlikely that will ever be the case for all of my beliefs at any given time (as
is true for all people, since we’re all drawing our conclusions from limited
data sets), I still want it to be true as much as humanly possible. So the
answer to the first question is an unequivocal, unhesitating yes.
That was the easy part. The second part of the question is
harder, because it’s actually incomplete. To answer the question of whether I
would follow (or submit to, obey, worship, etc.) God once I became convinced
that such an entity really exists, it would be necessary to have a much better
understanding of what his (or her, or its) characteristics were, before being
able to make any decision whether they were worthy of my praise, respect, or
submission.
Of course, if there were a theist in the room right now
actually asking the question, they would probably say, “well, obviously, the
God that I believe in would be the one who turns out to be real.” But then, you
ask ten theists (even just among the three major monotheistic religions) to
describe the characteristics of God, and you’ll get ten at least subtly-different
answers.
But those subtle differences can have a significant effect
on how I answer this question. If the god who is actually real loves everybody,
then of course I’d worship him, why wouldn’t I? But if the god who is actually
real “loves” everybody, in the narcissistic sense that they get a free ticket
to paradise only if they happen to believe in him (regardless of anything else
they’ve done), and everyone else gets tortured for all eternity simply because
they belong to the wrong religion, then no, I don’t think I could worship such
a monster.
Granted, if I was truly convinced that a god like that was
real, then I might still knuckle under and submit to him out of the sheer
visceral fear of unending torture for all eternity (how’s that for free will?),
but I wouldn’t really love or respect him. And since God is supposed to be all-knowing,
he should be able to see through that, so I doubt it would make any difference
anyway (unless that God really does only want people to pay him lip service).
So ultimately, as with many theistic questions, it does very
much depend on “which God?” But, since there are some readers who will probably
want more of a straightforward answer, I’ll fall back on my upbringing and
culture making Christianity the default setting for me. At present, I don’t
feel that the god described in the Bible is one I would feel morally justified
in worshipping or giving my allegiance to. A God who commits genocide (over and
over again) in the Old Testament, and then condemns non-believers to infinite
torture for finite crimes in the New Testament, I simply cannot see that as a
just and loving god.
On the other hand, if we were talking more about a C.S.
Lewis type of god, a wild and fierce, but ultimately loving and truly good
Aslan-type god, who only keeps hell as a place of separation for people who
don’t want to be with God in a
perfect paradise for all eternity, then yeah, I could see myself being able to
love and respect that type of god.
But unfortunately, I don’t see that as being what the Bible
describes.
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