The mods can move this if it is too out-there for this forum.

Suppose a powerful entity called 'Yahweh' makes a massive message appear in the sky urging Christians to establish a fundamentalist state, God's Earthly Kingdom on Earth. The message lasts for 24 hours then vanishes.

What would the world wide impact of this event be?

I'm not sure what denomination you are, but when I was a practicing Catholic we did believe in this precise prophecy. From what I was told, it would be 24 straight hours of sunlight everywhere with a huge red cross in the sky. I shit you not, I was told this by an actual Catholic Priest. Well, a Priest within the family, that is. I'm not sure if they really discuss this with Catholics in general.

My God Can Beat the Shit Out of Your God

Lots of conversions, a radical upheaval of almost all natural laws we have established, and probably a whole bunch of violence.

But you know what? A religious revelation like this would be great. If I were to witness it, and the human race was unable to come up with any other explanation than divine intervention, and God really established himself as existing as a lot of people think he does, I'd be happy. I'd have very simple goals, know exactly what to do to be happy, and have no fear of death.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting.

Haha aren't we all...

Lots of conversions, a radical upheaval of almost all natural laws we have established, and probably a whole bunch of violence.

That doesn't sound at all appealing, IMHO. In fact, it sounds a bit like living in a third world fanatical country.

But you know what? A religious revelation like this would be great.

But you know what? It is highly unlikely that the other billions of people in this world who are non-Christian would accept that YAHWEH wrote the message. They'd want to believe it was their God.

If I were to witness it, and the human race was unable to come up with any other explanation than divine intervention, and God really established himself as existing as a lot of people think he does, I'd be happy.

How long would you give the human race to come up with an explanation before growing tired of waiting and just assigning the mystery "divine intervention"? Do you think that maybe people long for a display of divine intervention so much that they may even ignore any other possible explanations for such a display? Remember: for hundreds and hundreds of years, we attributed floods, famines and plagues to divine intervention. Now we realize it's not so divine, but it sure took a long time to be reckoned with.

I'd hate to see society set back thousands of years, where we stop looking for reasons behind events or phenomena just because it's easy, comforting and reassuring to just insert the God hypothesis wherever we fall short on explaining things.

I'd have very simple goals, know exactly what to do to be happy, and have no fear of death.

Why can't you do that right now? What's preventing you from it?

But you know what? It is highly unlikely that the other billions of people in this world who are non-Christian would accept that YAHWEH wrote the message. They'd want to believe it was their God.

Thats the main problem with all religions really, they all define it that their god is the right one, and that other gods are not. There may be a god, but certainly not a group of them going around doing stuff for the fact that "Oh hey jesus, people believe in me more than they do in you :p"

The acid trip would eventually expire and people would get on with there lives.