Does it matter?

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There are many discussions of this forum on the question of does God exist. The question I would like to address is why, does it matter; would you do anything differently if you changed your opinion?

I would like answers to focus on action rather than emotion and focus on your own rather than how it affects other peoples action and how that affects your life, society or themselves; but that's too much to hope for, isn't it?

In terms of action then no. I already try to act kindly towards people (when I remember). If God did exist then I could do no more. If God existed then presumably he made me the way I am and should accept that. And if God existed but was unreasonable in his expectations of my behaviour, then I would defy him - I'm not going to suck up to someone just because of their power (and in his omniescence he would know this anyway).

In terms of feelings though it would be quite different - to be sure of life after death and some type of judgement. Don't know if this would be good or bad. I think a lot of the time I would feel resentment or anger against him. Sometimes it might make me ecstatically happy though. As I start to get a bit weary of life though there is some relief in knowing that after I die I won't exist any more. Eternal existence must be exhausting.

I think if the existence of God were proven to me, then it might matter...but then again, that would depend on which God.

It doesn't matter whether or not there is a God. What matters is that people just find some sort of inner peace and tolerance of others.

It would matter if current events could be attributed to God confronting natural laws and acting counter to them. There is no acceptable evidence of this.

Um... if God exists then obviously it matters, because we want to find out how to gain God's favor. If God does not exist, then it still matters because religious belief does have measurable impacts on people's lives. Plus, a search for truth for truth's sake is common enough that yes, it would still matter.

If there were supernaturally powerful immortal beings in the universe, then unless said beings are the sort to simply sit around doing nothing all eternity, then of course it would matter. Such beings could easily do a lot of damage, or they could be very helpful, depending on whether they are hostile or friendly. As a result, if it could be proven that gods do exist, then it would of course be prudent to find out as much about them as possible; their intentions, powers, nature and relationships between each other. That way, if the gods we encounter are friendly, we'd be in a much better position to persuade them to help us, and if they are hostile, being able to determine their weaknesses and enemies would at least give us some tiny chance of being able to fight back against them.

Not necessarily. Gods are defined primarily by their power; it is not inconceivable that there might exist beings who are very powerful but of comparable or even lesser intelligence to us - for instance, most of the gods that have been worshipped throughout history, while powerful, have desires and motivations which are fairly banal and petty, and very easy for us humans to comprehend. Of course, if the only gods in the universe are alien beings who started off mortal, and aquired their power by figuring out enough about how the universe works to do all sorts of cool tricks like altering fundamental constants etc, then there is no way that such beings could exist without being vastly superior to us. But if we're talking about gods who simply started out as gods, who have had their powers as long as they have existed, then they need not be terribly bright at all - it would be like giving a toddler control of the world's nuclear weapons. Such a kid would possess incredible power, but the vast majority of people would possess superior intellect and reasoning ability.

I guess you do have a point there; it would be difficult to reason with a being who has an irrational tendency to vaporise those who disagree with it, even if you are much smarter. Nevertheless, if there were gods of lesser sophistication to us, it would still be possible for us to observe their behaviour and deduce their motives, and over time figure out enough of their psychology to be able to perhaps interact with them in favourable ways - even if this involves something much less sophisticated means than reasoning, like manipulating their vanity or whatever. In fact, it would be necessary to do so to ensure best chance of survival, so that you can think "okay, this action tends to make the god have a temper tantrum and make stars go supernova", or "this goddess tends to be less likely to immolate green objects, so if we give her a present, we should make sure it's green".