The only reasonably justification would for God to say: “I don’t have the ability to meddle. I’m not omnipotent. I did create your part of the multiverse. I can only set the laws of physics and initial conditions. Here’s how that works…Let me explain why you are here…something something multi dimensions…some creatures brains evolved quantum something something…which is what is commonly thought of as a soul…”
There was actually a sect of Christianity that effectively argued for that kind of God.
They were quite influenced by Epicurean philosophy and naturalism though they disagreed with the Epicurean surety of death, arguing instead that while there was an original world of matter with original humans that developed spontaneously, that these original humans brought forth the creator of a copy of that original cosmos - not of matter, but of light. And that for the copies of humanity in that light-copy the finality of death was not inescapable.
But effectively, the world being a copy of one developed by naturalism for the explicit purpose of providing an afterlife largely skirts the moral quandaries. If the copy didn’t have children with bone cancer then it means whitewashing the copy such that only the naturally privileged are entitled to salvation, while those originally getting dealt a bad hand are erased from representation.
And actually their explanations literally did relate to the quantized aspects of matter (embracing Epicureanism meant embracing not just natural selection but also atomism, such that they were discussing indivisible points making up all things and being the originating cause of existence).
You even got statements like this:
Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels.
Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."
You don’t typically expect to see Jesus weighing in on naturalism as the greater wonder in contrast to the possibility of intelligent design.
Though if you really dig into it and notice that Lucretius 50 years before Jesus was even born was not only describing survival of the fittest and the emergence of modern life as the end result of indivisible seeds scattered randomly, but even described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of a path,” the guy killed in Judea for talking about how only the seeds which survived to reproduce multiplied and the ones that fell by the wayside of a path did not begins to take on a different context, as does the oddity of that being one of the few public sayings in the Synoptics that the church felt was necessary to claim had a “secret explanation” given to only their leadership.
(In this sect’s surviving text that parable comes immediately after a saying about how no matter if man ate lion or lion ate man that the lion becoming man was an inevitable result and how the human being is like a large fish selected from a bunch of small fish.)
Epicurus had great instincts. He was pretty damn close to things modern science has discovered. As you mentioned, he was an atomist. He also said you can generally trust your senses, but they can be wrong and deceive you at times. His ethics of moderation and valuing relationships is spot on when it comes to life satisfaction.
It’s interesting you mentioned naturalism in the evolutionary sense. Have you read Darwin’s book? Darwin’s ideas aren’t entirely original, he himself pretty much says that, but his data collection and observations were something that hadn’t been done on that level yet.
From the perspective of the simulation hypothesis, it’s possible that we exist not to exalt the programmer but to play out a given scenario that has no consideration of our well-being.
Modern experimental paleontology will sometimes use computer simulations (simple ones compared to the one we might be in) to try to better examine behaviors and evolutionary development. In some of them, prey objects can detect and try to evade, fight or escape predators aware of the conflict of interest between themselves and their hunter. So we already have simulations in which both the coder and the observing party (not always the same group) do not have an interest in the well being of any given internal entity. It’s not that they’re evil, just that they’re here to see how it plays out, ultimately to get it to match what appears in the geological record, which means they have a model. Still, it sucks to be a virtual life form in this world that is very much made not to be paradise for us, and will be halted and shut down as soon as the end users have the data they need.
Cosmic horror often examines the possibilities of a world created, but to which we are incidental or destined to an unhappy fate before we are consumed or discarded. The religions that are popular today are because we are opposed to such possibilities, not because benevolent deities are more likely than malevolent ones.
But that is also a cosmic horror of its own, that we naked apes are going to be limited by a general tendency to deny data-driven models if their implications are too unpleasant. Even if Great Cthulhu or Sithrak, The Blind Sufferer, or even Azathoth, The Nuclear Chaos were the true architects of this world, humans would still look for a judge/redeemer like Jesus to follow, and the ministries would exploit that. We are only the bare minimum of socially evolved to develop agriculture, and industry.
Even laws of physics are bound by logic…logic supercedes even me…so a lot of my adjustments were to things like the gravitational constant and force magnitudes
The philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon envisioned a god that was a creature creating universe after universe in order to make a mate. The mate had to be as aware as it is, so the whole universe has to be sentient. Our universe is just one in a long line of such universes and it isn’t the first or the last.
I don’t know if he actually believed it (it’s the denouement of his novel The Star Maker), but the idea is intriguing.
The only reasonably justification would for God to say: “I don’t have the ability to meddle. I’m not omnipotent. I did create your part of the multiverse. I can only set the laws of physics and initial conditions. Here’s how that works…Let me explain why you are here…something something multi dimensions…some creatures brains evolved quantum something something…which is what is commonly thought of as a soul…”
So we’re some jackass’s experiment.
The “god is a jackass” theorem. I like it.
There was actually a sect of Christianity that effectively argued for that kind of God.
They were quite influenced by Epicurean philosophy and naturalism though they disagreed with the Epicurean surety of death, arguing instead that while there was an original world of matter with original humans that developed spontaneously, that these original humans brought forth the creator of a copy of that original cosmos - not of matter, but of light. And that for the copies of humanity in that light-copy the finality of death was not inescapable.
But effectively, the world being a copy of one developed by naturalism for the explicit purpose of providing an afterlife largely skirts the moral quandaries. If the copy didn’t have children with bone cancer then it means whitewashing the copy such that only the naturally privileged are entitled to salvation, while those originally getting dealt a bad hand are erased from representation.
And actually their explanations literally did relate to the quantized aspects of matter (embracing Epicureanism meant embracing not just natural selection but also atomism, such that they were discussing indivisible points making up all things and being the originating cause of existence).
You even got statements like this:
You don’t typically expect to see Jesus weighing in on naturalism as the greater wonder in contrast to the possibility of intelligent design.
Though if you really dig into it and notice that Lucretius 50 years before Jesus was even born was not only describing survival of the fittest and the emergence of modern life as the end result of indivisible seeds scattered randomly, but even described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of a path,” the guy killed in Judea for talking about how only the seeds which survived to reproduce multiplied and the ones that fell by the wayside of a path did not begins to take on a different context, as does the oddity of that being one of the few public sayings in the Synoptics that the church felt was necessary to claim had a “secret explanation” given to only their leadership.
(In this sect’s surviving text that parable comes immediately after a saying about how no matter if man ate lion or lion ate man that the lion becoming man was an inevitable result and how the human being is like a large fish selected from a bunch of small fish.)
Epicurus had great instincts. He was pretty damn close to things modern science has discovered. As you mentioned, he was an atomist. He also said you can generally trust your senses, but they can be wrong and deceive you at times. His ethics of moderation and valuing relationships is spot on when it comes to life satisfaction.
It’s interesting you mentioned naturalism in the evolutionary sense. Have you read Darwin’s book? Darwin’s ideas aren’t entirely original, he himself pretty much says that, but his data collection and observations were something that hadn’t been done on that level yet.
Removed by mod
I would actually respect this god. Not worship, but respect.
From the perspective of the simulation hypothesis, it’s possible that we exist not to exalt the programmer but to play out a given scenario that has no consideration of our well-being.
Modern experimental paleontology will sometimes use computer simulations (simple ones compared to the one we might be in) to try to better examine behaviors and evolutionary development. In some of them, prey objects can detect and try to evade, fight or escape predators aware of the conflict of interest between themselves and their hunter. So we already have simulations in which both the coder and the observing party (not always the same group) do not have an interest in the well being of any given internal entity. It’s not that they’re evil, just that they’re here to see how it plays out, ultimately to get it to match what appears in the geological record, which means they have a model. Still, it sucks to be a virtual life form in this world that is very much made not to be paradise for us, and will be halted and shut down as soon as the end users have the data they need.
Cosmic horror often examines the possibilities of a world created, but to which we are incidental or destined to an unhappy fate before we are consumed or discarded. The religions that are popular today are because we are opposed to such possibilities, not because benevolent deities are more likely than malevolent ones.
But that is also a cosmic horror of its own, that we naked apes are going to be limited by a general tendency to deny data-driven models if their implications are too unpleasant. Even if Great Cthulhu or Sithrak, The Blind Sufferer, or even Azathoth, The Nuclear Chaos were the true architects of this world, humans would still look for a judge/redeemer like Jesus to follow, and the ministries would exploit that. We are only the bare minimum of socially evolved to develop agriculture, and industry.
Even laws of physics are bound by logic…logic supercedes even me…so a lot of my adjustments were to things like the gravitational constant and force magnitudes
The philosopher and science fiction author Olaf Stapledon envisioned a god that was a creature creating universe after universe in order to make a mate. The mate had to be as aware as it is, so the whole universe has to be sentient. Our universe is just one in a long line of such universes and it isn’t the first or the last.
I don’t know if he actually believed it (it’s the denouement of his novel The Star Maker), but the idea is intriguing.