What Would God Actually Write?

Question from Abdulmalik:
I have a question and I wish you to seriously answer me! if we postulated that God exists…and he sent down his word to humanity as a book…what do you expect that book to be like? or how would you test it to be a God’s book?
waiting for your awesome answers…\
my first suggestion that it should has no scientific mistakes…
do you have any other suggestions?!

Answer by SmartLX:
A book literally written by a god would in many ways be like the Bible or the Quran – as they are described by the people who think their gods wrote them. Specifically, they are claimed to be inerrant, internally consistent, full of divine knowledge or prophecies that either come true or are revealed to be true as time goes on, supernaturally beautiful in their prose and with an ability to influence the hearts and minds of readers and listeners that goes beyond anything the words actually say. Thus, people often claim these things about them explicitly as arguments for their divine authorship. As you can see by simply putting ‘bible’ or ‘quran’ in the search field of this site, after a great deal of discussion I’m still of the opinion that these claims are incorrect, unsupported or subjective.

Further speculation about what a real god’s writings would be like doesn’t tend to move the discussion forward, as such speculation can be dismissed outright by anyone who thinks it is unreasonable or doesn’t match their chosen book. But what the heck, I do have one idea on the subject: such a book would be timeless, such that it didn’t seem more and more backward the more society progresses. In the Bible, for instance, a modern reader has to confront references to slavery, incest, subjugation of women and entire ethnic groups, human sacrifice, demonisation of many sexual orientations and so on. A reader in the first century AD would have taken most or all of it for granted. I think a god would find a way to keep a fixed book from suffering the effects of a shifting moral zeitgeist.

2 thoughts on “What Would God Actually Write?”

  1. my idea of god’s book to humanity would be that s/he explains oneself to humanity and asks us for forgiveness for having kept us in dark for such a long time as of his existence or not.
    so, if god existed, s/he would let us know in simple and scientific terms. like, speak from the above so that everybody can hear all over the planet, but now, in what bloody language would god speak, ok, s/he may not speak, but should appear on the skies all over the world, but wait, when we have day australia has night.
    but being god s/he would find a way of making itself known to everybody, and especially to us darn atheists. i want me to show her/his face to us and make sure s/he exists, like going around the earth as day goes around the earth, and winking to everybody down there HEY HERE I AM, WITH A BIG SMILE, but then what would he smile about when there is death drought hunger murder etc on earth. NO DEAR THERE IS NO GOD, AND THAT’S WHY THERE IS NO LETTER NOT TO SPEAK ABOUT APPEARANCE OF IT TO US. OR, IN CASE THERE IS, S/HE IS EMBARASED OF THE MESS S/HE HAD MADE ON EARTH!!!

  2. Abdul – I appreciate that you want your question taken seriously, but it’s hard for me to do so. It’s like asking me to take Santa Claus seriously, or leprechauns seriously. Can you take Odin or Zeus seriously and tell me what their book is supposed to look like? I doubt you’d want to spend the time on such an exercise. It’s the same way for me and your question about a book from whatever flavor of god you might follow.

    I think it’s a waste of time to guess what a make believe creature should put in a book…

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