Jarhyn
Wizard
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2010
- Messages
- 14,700
- Gender
- Androgyne; they/them
- Basic Beliefs
- Natural Philosophy, Game Theoretic Ethicist
So, lots of discussions have been had about what god is, why people should or shouldn't be expected to worship them, whether their might justifies their moral edicts. Lots of discussion is had about what gods are capable of, what qualities they have... but little thought is put into what gods actually are.
So, I decided to investigate these concepts in a universe where there is a god.
For my own purposes, I have created a universe. I didn't create it explicitly for the purposes of this thread and I am far from the only person who has spoken the words of creation from whence this universe happened. But nonetheless I spoke the words and now a whole universe ticks merrily along under my not-very-watchful eye.
In this context, Godhood is not unique to me. I spoke the universe into creation, sure, but it's not like my chair, or even the universe itself, has my name on it. While the world has only one God, anyone can be that God at any given point in time, assuming they have access.
Now, I am outside the flow of time within the context of the universe I created. While time passes for us both to tick forward this world I created, their time and my own is not really the same. I can go forward or back, cull a branch of history, accelerate time, stop time.
I can know anything that exists as momentary knowledge in the world. If I want to know where the dragons are and what they are up to, I can look them up and find out. From the perspective of individuals there that I may be interacting with, I don't know, and then suddenly I do.
Interestingly, I find myself limited in how I can interact: I can either be an individual there, or I can be able to know anything, or I can drive some group together towards a goal... But I can't do all at the same time. This is more a limitation of the platform though on which I am a god.
The people in the universe I created cannot kill me. Even if I died, their god cannot be killed: someone could still sit in my chair and BE their god.
Interestingly though, none of the people in the world I created worship me. In fact, none of them actually know I exist. They do worship plenty of deities, and those deities also exist albeit less as actual deities and more as powerful material entities rather than "supernatural" ones as I am. It doesn't change the fact that certain things have resulted from my interaction with the universe.
I have in my hands an actual example of being a God. I can point at most of the boxes that theologies point out as being qualities of god, being capable of "miracles", being immortal, being omniscient, and being reasonably omnipotent.
But what this tells me is that something can literally be a God in one context, and a mere mortal in the next context. A God could be Omnipotent in our universe and damn near utterly impotent in his own life. A God could be outside of time itself, and still be slave to time in a different context.
We have on example a human being, meager, mortal, flawed... Who is also a God, omnipotent, immortal, and omniscient. Context matters. So why shouldn't we consider what Gods may be in the context wherein they are not gods?
So, I decided to investigate these concepts in a universe where there is a god.
For my own purposes, I have created a universe. I didn't create it explicitly for the purposes of this thread and I am far from the only person who has spoken the words of creation from whence this universe happened. But nonetheless I spoke the words and now a whole universe ticks merrily along under my not-very-watchful eye.
In this context, Godhood is not unique to me. I spoke the universe into creation, sure, but it's not like my chair, or even the universe itself, has my name on it. While the world has only one God, anyone can be that God at any given point in time, assuming they have access.
Now, I am outside the flow of time within the context of the universe I created. While time passes for us both to tick forward this world I created, their time and my own is not really the same. I can go forward or back, cull a branch of history, accelerate time, stop time.
I can know anything that exists as momentary knowledge in the world. If I want to know where the dragons are and what they are up to, I can look them up and find out. From the perspective of individuals there that I may be interacting with, I don't know, and then suddenly I do.
Interestingly, I find myself limited in how I can interact: I can either be an individual there, or I can be able to know anything, or I can drive some group together towards a goal... But I can't do all at the same time. This is more a limitation of the platform though on which I am a god.
The people in the universe I created cannot kill me. Even if I died, their god cannot be killed: someone could still sit in my chair and BE their god.
Interestingly though, none of the people in the world I created worship me. In fact, none of them actually know I exist. They do worship plenty of deities, and those deities also exist albeit less as actual deities and more as powerful material entities rather than "supernatural" ones as I am. It doesn't change the fact that certain things have resulted from my interaction with the universe.
I have in my hands an actual example of being a God. I can point at most of the boxes that theologies point out as being qualities of god, being capable of "miracles", being immortal, being omniscient, and being reasonably omnipotent.
But what this tells me is that something can literally be a God in one context, and a mere mortal in the next context. A God could be Omnipotent in our universe and damn near utterly impotent in his own life. A God could be outside of time itself, and still be slave to time in a different context.
We have on example a human being, meager, mortal, flawed... Who is also a God, omnipotent, immortal, and omniscient. Context matters. So why shouldn't we consider what Gods may be in the context wherein they are not gods?