What would you need as an answer when you ask, "Is that you, God?"?

What sort of an answer would convince you that it was the one true God? Clearly, there have been people who claimed, in apparent earnestness, to have experienced a life-changing epiphany, but were wrong. Let’s face it; Paul née Saul of Tarsus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, and David Koresh all claimed to have had a life-changing epiphany revealing their special relationship to God or Jesus. No more than one of them could be right, because the messages “God” or His alter-ego “Jesus” transmitted to each were so wildly different and in direct conflict with one another. In fact, there have been 32 people over the last few centuries who claimed to actually be Jesus, The Christ or The Promised One.

Perhaps some were simple charlatans advancing such claims solely for financial gain. Founding a new branch of religion can be extremely profitable. Ask the billionaire “living God”, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Well, too late on that. Moon is now the formerly living. Apparently even God the omnipotent has no control of life and death if we’re to believe Moon’s claims, which most Moonies still do.

But a number of these claimants died defending their claim. One has to think they were honestly convinced they were God incarnate, and would live eternally after taking themselves and their followers out. In other words, before anyone else, Jim Jones drank the Kool-Aid. This tells us that epiphanies, while possibly real encounters with the one true God, can also be brain farts not worth the neurons they are printed from in controlling the vast Universe and negating cause and effect.

So what would it take, if you suddenly heard some deep, booming voice ringing out and saw the beam of light bathing you in warmth and love, to be sure you were really hearing from God and not just an hallucination or even some visiting Alien teenage jokester having a little fun at your expense.