Originally posted by josephw
Lord Shark prompted this idea.
Without using any religious writings as an authority, what do you think God would be like if there were a God?
How would you know there was a God?
How would you know about God?
How would you know anything about what God was like?
First define 'God'. I notice that you capitalized it, so you are being a bit more specific than 'if there was a god'.
Once you have defined 'God' we then know that whatever attributes you put in your definition must be assumed true (as per your proposal), then we would think about who those attributes imply must be true possibly in combination with other known facts about the universe.
Some such assumed facts would pose a problem as many claims about God I find to be self contradictory, and I don't know what to do when you assume two contradictory facts.
Other such assumed facts may contradict the observed facts about the universe - so I guess we would have to rethink our knowledge of the universe.
I think at present our knowledge of the universe tells a lot about what such a God is
not.
It seems clear to me that if there was a God then he/she does not have many of the attributes claimed by Christians as they either contradict each other or contradict observations about the universe.