Suppose God appears to you one night in your living room. He stands directly between you and the TV, managing not to block your view at all, because that's the kind of guy he is. He tells you that he thinks he's been a little hard on the human race for the last 10,000 years or so. To make up for it, he gives you the opportunity to ask him one question, which he will answer truthfully, completely, in terms you can comprehend and explain to others, and without being cryptic or evasive.
Those of you with poor impulse control would say, "Really?" God would smile, say, "Yes," pat you on the head, and disappear.
Most people, I think, would look upon this as a chance to learn the answer to the great unknowable, "Why?"
However, I think a much more interesting and potentially useful question would be:
"How?"
I take it you mean, "How did you create the universe and everything in it?" One-word questions aren't really specific.
I myself might ask "Why?", as in, "Why did you create the universe and everything in it?" On the other hand, I have a little trouble in the first place with saying God created everything; what created God, then?
That's not what I'd ask, precisely. I'd try to ask my question as completely (read: milk as much info out of God) as possible. It'd be more like, "How did you come from whatever pre-base state you had to be the creator of the world?"
Or maybe, "What sort of person is the Devil (if he exists)?" I'd have trouble deciding on just one (then again, that's the point).
Posted by: Bryce Herdt at March 3, 2006 12:27 PMAnother pitfall of poor impulse control might lead one to take the results of that question, give it a shot, and screw up a future lifeform even worse than we are.
On the other hand, he might assume you're a delusional who thinks he's Geronimo, roll his eyes, and reply "How."
Posted by: Tanya at March 10, 2006 07:02 PMI thought I established that God wasn't going to try to dick you around.
Besides, assuming that the scope of "How?" is the same as the scope of "Why?", which I was, there would be a whole lot of stuff you could do worse than malicious evolution. Just off the top of my head: recreate the Big Bang in your living room, make everyone immortal without making them ageless, release everyone from Hell, accelerate the heat death of the universe to next Tuesday, enforce absolute peace, make Scientology true.
(Although I'm not sure even God could do that last thing.)
Posted by: David at March 10, 2006 10:49 PM