School Shootings: What would you do if you were God?

[Unknown Soldier]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

 

[ramoss]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

I woudl change the laws of physicist so gun powder didn't work.

 

[Rhea]

If heaven were actually real, then nothing that happens on earth matters, not even a little bit. So god does not even care what happens and murder is not something that matters to them.

It’s all just “meh” to the god, because the murder victims go to heaven. Unless they are not christians, in which case they burn in a lake of fire forever, while maybe the murderer goes to heaven based on a last-second confession, but it’s justified because the non-believers didn’t believe and the believers did and that’s what the god cares about, not the bullets or the fear or the blood.

What is even the use of earth at all if a heaven exists. Who cares who suffers and who doesn’t? Who gives a shit about grief and anguish? It’s a blip in time. Why do the parents even cry, amirite?

 

[Jarhyn]

So, I might ask what could I do if for example, I was still just me, if i fired up a universe simulator, and whoops, it's developed a nasty NRA and arms industry problem...

Part of the issue is that if people know I'm real they start looking for me and stop looking out for each other pretty much entirely.

I prefer atheists, which is a strange proposition to consider in a person deputized as god in a thought experiment. So one of the requirements is that I cannot be obvious.

I can technically hit pause, slay the would-be shooter (assuming it's got at least as much feature on it as observed universe simulators) so I can do it all at once, or over a long period of time, but after the first two it's gonna be suspicious.

Mind control is difficult because of how minds are implemented here. I'm a lazy bastard and I'm not perfect so if I am the god doing this, while I could turn old and gray figuring out how to do it, it would cost my entire life just to fix that one problem that I didn't even know about until I looked in after going to bed with "fast forward" on and autopause deactivated.

It can also end up being obvious.

The middle ground might be body-swapping, assuming I could get that to work, since I'd assume at least that much would be possible. Again, I don't really see the mechanics of how it would be feasible without irrevocably changing the victim, or making them lose a shit ton of time and then something being obvious, again.

So mind control is unreasonable even if technically within my power... and also really fucked up, by the way. Direct action is counterproductive. I'm not really sure what I could really do with console access besides re-rolling on the whole universe, or taking over operations on earth which, frankly, I got my own shit going on in my own greater reality outside this little tempest in a teapot.

If I were god, honestly, the best I could probably do is just argue everything I knew that might help at the humans in a reasonable way. It would probably be the most I could get away with without either revealing myself or committing horrid offenses against ethical considerations. Maybe I could take a swing at making a change via politics as a politician?

But again, while I could use god powers to get power in politics that only goes so far before obviousness sets in and again, I don't have all day to play video games no matter how many children are dying in this universe.

The bank doesn't care how many kids are dying here. They care whether I'm paying the mortgage. And the power company doesn't care either. They just care I'm paying the electricity bill.

Besides, if you were a creator of a universe would you want someone reaching down and mind controlling you making you behave just like them? It's shit enough when my parents tried to tell me what to think, and there's no guarantee they will be ethical about it, either!

Just because you made a universe and have power to do "anything you want with it" doesn't mean you will know what's right or good to do over that universe, be able to do most of those things without wrecking it.

And before you ask, no, if I'm god I'm not taking the time to invent a heaven unless you want to jump into a drone body and help me with my shit, assuming whatever dimensionality my environment possesses doesn't break you from trying to consider it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

Genesis 50:20 says when man gives God lemons, God makes lemonade. So really, all of these scarred families who get to relive each of their scaring experiences with every subsequent mass shooting, especially in schools... is just a preemptive move by god to make stuff so much better.

 

[Jarhyn]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

Genesis 50:20 says when man gives God lemons, God makes lemonade. So really, all of these scarred families who get to relive each of their scaring experiences with every subsequent mass shooting, especially in schools... is just a preemptive move by god to make stuff so much better.

How about, a reason for us to make stuff so much better, ourselves?

In all honesty, I have not in the past been able to keep every dwarf happy or living, nor have I really cared to.

Beyond injecting their opinion on what they think we ought do with our own world that we made exist like this by our own free will, what do you expect?

Yes, they may have turned it on, but it's not even necessarily a fact that such could know, or control, what happens when it does turn on.

Otherwise, what are we but truly little children who need a father god?

It's about time we grew the fuck up, at least when we aren't roleplaying with consenting parties...

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

I woudl change the laws of physicist so gun powder didn't work.

The NRA will scream if you do that! Who can they shoot without gunpowder?

But an all-powerful God can let gunpowder work unless the target is a six-year old school kid. The God we have doesn't bother to take that kind of action.

Anyway, any half-decent person would have saved those kids and adults if they could, of course. God, neglecting to protect them doesn't live up to our notion of goodness. The more we act contrary to God, the more heroic, compassionate, and loving we are.

 

[Jarhyn]

The reason many accept the existence of God is based on their need to have an example of a good person. Without such an example, the phrase good person has little to do with the real world. So they see God as the "benchmark" of what a good person is which is to say our goodness is measured by comparing it to God's goodness. If we act like God, then we are good, and if we act contrary to God, then we are evil.

This position was challenged recently by the news of nineteen children and two adults murdered by a gunman in their school. Obviously, God didn't stop the gunman from murdering his victims. If God is good, then he was good or at least not evil for allowing the murders to happen even though he presumably could have stopped them. So if I get back to my previous reasoning, to have the goodness of God I would also fail to save the murder victims even if I could have saved them. I would be a "good person"! On the other hand, if I saved them, then I'd be acting contrary to God and be "evil."

So if any of you were God, then would you have saved the children and adults who were murdered? If so, then how can you act contrary to God yet be a good person? If you were God and allowed the murders, then why did you allow the murders? In what way is twenty-one murdered people good?

I woudl change the laws of physicist so gun powder didn't work.

The NRA will scream if you do that! Who can they shoot without gunpowder?

But an all-powerful God can let gunpowder work unless the target is a six-year old school kid. The God we have doesn't bother to take that kind of action.

Anyway, any half-decent person would have saved those kids and adults if they could, of course. God, neglecting to protect them doesn't live up to our notion of goodness. The more we act contrary to God, the more heroic, compassionate, and loving we are.

Looking at the way reality actually exists, seemingly as a widespread application of some simple and extremely general rules about the interactions of physical fields, how would you propose God might rearrange stuff without risking the occasional particle boundary accident?

The god we have, which may be "no god at all", still must work with the universe he has, unless you're just asking him to destroy the universe and re-implement it with different physics but identical observables such that gunpowder can be altered in such a way as to allow this specific identification and selection process work in a way that does not open a fuckton of other problems in the system.

Ask yourself how much work it is to make a regular scalable system, and then ask how much more work it is to take that regular scalable system and then classify everything in it, and write a simulation of the simulation that is perfect except also classifying out children and gunpowder, and serializer/deserializer to do the transfer?

If the original simulation took a third of someone's life to write, this other thing may take thirty such whole lives.