What would you have God do?

I would ask God to stop the sun in the sky for a period of 24 hours (without adverse sloshing or inertial problems). This way, God is affecting something outside of human influence, and this feat could be verified by the entire world, not just myself.Second choice would definitely involve Allysa Milano, but I'll keep this one close to the vest for content reasons.

quote:

---

The arch-skeptic in me is wondering why you would rather attribute the sun stopping in the sky to God rather than to mysterious aliens who were just pretending to be God.

---

Correct me if I am wrong, but to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke "Advanced technology would appear to be magic to an undeveloped civilization." So, yes, you could never rule out an extra-terrestrial, but yet natural being that is able to do things we would attribute to a diety. However, the energy required to stop the earth, without damaging anything and without inertial forces flinging everything off the earth, is so astronomically high that I would classify it as being unexplainable in our universe. And then the same amount of energy would have to expended in respinning the planet, and again without any sensation of inertial forces.Also, if this was reported by every newspaper around the country, and people in every country experienced a 24 hour period of complete darkness/daylight, I would know that either I am deluded to the point I am making up 5 billion other people, or that everyone was deluded to the same extent as I was.Some might snap back that the sun stood still for Joshua. My only problem is that no other civilization reported an extended period of daylight or night time. Again, corroboration is needed.

quote:

---

Or to an unsuspected well-measured dose of mescaline extract.

---

I wish. However, hallucinations due to drugs are usually not limited to one aberration, in this case the sun standing still in the sky (ie the earth stops rotating). I would expect other strange things to be happening that no one else was witnessing. Just for a little anecdote, a friend of mine got stuck in reverse after ingesting the aforementioned controlled substance. I don't mean in his car, but rather running backwards uncontrollably. He had to be tackled, which was no easy task since he's such a fast bastard. This is hardly the behavior that gives credence to a proclamation that the sun is standing still in the sky.[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 04-07-2004]