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God Test (view source)

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* 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.
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'''Bill and Ted:''' "Whoa..."<br />
''[quadruple air guitar]'' }}
** Double subverted in the sequel; when the heroes' [[Evil Twin|Evil Twins]] arrive, Ted is suspicious, but Bill convinces him to trust them. Then Ted trusts his robot counterpart after it passes a [[How Many Fingers?]] test.
* ''[[Star Trek V]]'': "What would God need...with a starship?"
* In ''[[The Man From Earth]]'', John Oldman quietly subverts his friends' attempts to prove him wrong by explaining that most of his knowledge WOULD fit in with textbooks because that's what happened. Then he {{spoiler|starts explaining that he was both a student of the Buddha and the resulting inspiration for the biblical Christ}}, to everyone's dismay, but he still cannot (or at least will not) give them true proof of his immortality. At the end, {{spoiler|he unwittingly exposes himself to be the father of his psychologist friend, (said friend looks to be twice John's age) giving the man a heart attack and proving, in the viewer's eyes, that his story was true}}.
* ''Angel-A'' eventually proves her claims to André.
* ''[[Just Like Heaven]]'' has David convincing Jack that Elizabeth's right behind him. Jack pulls a [[How Many Fingers?]] that concludes with him [[Flipping the Bird]]. And despite this, it still takes a [[Something Only They Would Say]] moment to convince him
 
 
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* 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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== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic (TV)|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 the 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 With 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?"
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' episode "Smith and Jones", the Doctor met compainion-to-be Martha Jones. At the beginning of the episode, she was walking to work when the Doctor came up to her, took his tie off, and said, "Like so!" Later in the episode, they met and he had no memory of this. At the end, Martha asks him to prove that he's a time traveller. He takes his TARDIS and disappears, reappearing seconds later...without his tie.
** In the two-parter "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", Martha Jones, a medical student from the future, uses her knowledge of anatomy to prove that she's not "just" a maid, which she's currently disguised as.
* ''[[Joan of Arcadia]]'' has Joan ask the teenage boy claiming to be God to prove his divinity. He gestures behind himself to show... a tree.
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[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
[[Category:God Test]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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