God Test: Difference between revisions

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== Films -- Live-Action ==
* In ''[[Oh, God!]]'', Jerry Landers asks the [[George Burns|old man]] claiming to be God to prove it by making it rain. On cue, it suddenly starts to rain... inside Jerry's moving car.
** Later, God proves His divinity in a courtroom by making a deck of cards appear and disappear in plain view. He concludes his visit by vanishing in full view of the audience, and there are no recordings (audio and written) of His testimony.
* Played with in ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'', when Bruce tries to catch God ([[Morgan Freeman|the other one]]) with a [[How Many Fingers?]] [[God Test]]. After God guesses correctly a few times, Bruce manages to fake him out by very quickly putting two fingers away when God says "Seven." When Bruce triumphantly holds up his one hand, it suddenly has that many fingers.
** Apparently, God also pulled the same stunt on Gandhi, who took it a lot harder than Bruce.
* [[M. Night Shyamalan]]'s ''[[The Last Airbender]]'' has one of these.
{{quote| "The Avatar would be an Airbender. Can you Airbend, boy?"}}
* In ''[[Back to The Future]] Part II'', Biff challenges his future self to prove that the Sports Almanac knows the results of every sporting event in the next 50 years.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King ArthursArthur's Court]]'' plays with this one memorably: a charlatan claims to be able to tell people whatever is happening anywhere in the world. After listening to various plausible tales of the doings of foreign potentates, the main character takes his turn: "Tell me what I'm doing with my hands behind my back right now."
* In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Last Hero|The Last Hero]]'' the Silver Horde try to sneak into Dunmanifestin by claiming to be 'new gods'. The locals know what's going on but, being [[Jerkass Gods|who they are]], decide to have some fun by demanding Cohen prove his bonafides by rolling a seven on a six-sided die. [[Cutting the Knot|He does]].
* During [[Warhammer 40000|the Horus Heresy]] series, the Emperor repeatedly and vehemently denies any godhood. This trope gets inverted, however, because half the stuff he does SEEMS like it should take a god to accomplish, so no matter how much he denies it, the "true believers" just say "only a true god would deny his divinity while also demonstrating it."
* [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] features one of the [[Older Than Feudalism|oldest examples in existence]], and probably the oldest [[Subverted Trope|subversion]]; [[Satan]] tries to invoke this by suggesting Jesus prove he was the son of God by turning stones into bread. Jesus refused, saying "[[As the Good Book Says...|It is written]]; Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from Godʼs mouth." Not to be put off, Satan told him to jump from the roof of the temple, saying "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." [[Shut UP, Hannibal|Jesus refuses again]], saying "Again it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.'"
** Also invoked in the New Testament letters. The Apostles instruct Christians to test any spirit claiming to be from Heaven, by verifying that the spirit in question confesses Jesus is Lord and that He came in the flesh, because demons will masquerade as angels of light to try to deceive people, but will never confess Jesus' Lordship or Incarnation before mortals, because doing so would subvert the deception.
** When Jesus is on the cross the authorities challenge him, "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross."
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* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic]]'' (1970's) episode "War of the Gods Part 1''. Count Iblis claims to have great powers and knowledge. The Council of Twelve gives him three challenges: to deliver their greatest enemy (Baltar) to them, to lead the fleet to Earth, and one more to be named later.
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' parodies this: When the gang land in Roman Times, Pearl claims they are gods, and Brain Guy has to use his powers to demonstrate. "Behold! From nothing I produce this... [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|spoon]]."
* Inverted in the ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' episode "Who Watches the Watchers." A primitive alien tribe has come to believe that Picard is God (despite his protests), and to prove it one of them shoots him with a bow to prove that [[Spell My Name Withwith a "The"|The Picard]] can't be killed. Fortunately for Picard the alien misses his heart, but does hit him in the shoulder, injuring him and thereby proving to the aliens that he isn't God.
* ''[[Quantum Leap]]'': Sam has leaped into an illiterate murderer on the run who is holding a woman and her daughter hostage. He decides to drop [[The Masquerade]], telling her he's a doctor from the future in a [[Time Travel]] experiment. She doesn't believe him. Then he notices her medical textbook, and she reveals that she's in medical school. So he has her quiz him on medical stuff to prove that he's telling the truth.
** Not only that, at first she still doesn't believe him saying that he looked at the book already, so could have memorized the information. Sam quickly fires back: "When was the last time you met an illiterate speed-reader?"
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{{quote| '''Joan''': "...that's a tree."<br />
'''God''': "Let's see ''you'' make one." }}
* ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'': Lister's comments have been misinterpreted over the years as the promises of a god, leading to this hilarious exchange:
{{quote| '''Lister''': "I am your god."<br />
'''Cat''': "If you're god, turn this into a woman."<br />
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== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* [[Nine9 Chickweed Lane]]: Monty (who may or may not be [[God in Human Form]]) asks [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Thorax for advice on how to deal with his God Complex ("It started around the time I created the universe"). Thorax's recommendation? "Try prayer, and see if you get a busy signal."
 
 
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== Videogames ==
* ''[[Escape Fromfrom Monkey Island]]'': Guybrush asks his future counterpart to guess what number he's thinking of. Since you 'remember' what future-Guybrush said to past-Guybrush, you can answer him.
* Repeatedly in ''[[Okami]]'', since faith in the gods is at a low ebb. Amaterasu sometimes displays a wicked sense of humor in answering them.
* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'', the Lyrium-addled Templar, Carroll, repeatedly refuses to believe that the protagonist is a Grey Warden;
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== Web Original ==
* In episode 55 of [[Yu-Gi-Oh!: theThe Abridged Series]], Yami asks Noah to prove that he's a god.
 
 
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'''Butt-head''': Whoa!<br />
'''Beavis''': Yeah! }}
* In ''[[God, the Devil Andand Bob]]'', after several attempts God makes to prove his divinity, Bob ''still'' brushes him off causing God to play ''hardball''. Cue the entire bar split apart, growing to fifty feet, bathed in heavenly light and surrounded by doves... with a bear in a fez riding a tricycle with the banner; "It's really Him!!!"
{{quote| '''Bob''': [[Oh Crap|Uh]], so, ''God''... what are you drinking?}}
 
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* As with many Native American peoples, the Tainos of Puerto Rico were told that the Spaniards invading their land were gods. To make sure, they caught one and tried to drown him... and succeeded. Even then they had no chance against the invaders however.
* As shown above, Carl Sagan's famous quote, "Extraordinarily claims require extraordinary evidence," is an excellent summary of skeptics' treatment of claims of this magnitude.
* According to the Koran, Mohammed refused to perform any God Tests to prove that he's a prophet, since there are several such stories in [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] and in every one of them the prophets passed the tests but the crowds still didn't believe them. Since it never works, God wouldn't perform any more miracles only for the entertainment of disbelivers.
 
{{reflist}}