A previous post of mine has been superseded by an excellent article in Skeptic Magazine (vol. 13 no. 2) by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Not only does he outline a taxonomy of different kinds of gods, but he also describes different kinds of godless material universes including illusory ones. Lucky for us the article is currently available for download [PDF link]. If that link has died, send me an e-mail and I'll send you a copy.
I'm not sure where some of my ideas would fit into his taxonomy (especially 3, 4, and 5) but his list seems exhaustive. Can you think of any other possibilities?
Showing posts with label gods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gods. Show all posts
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
A Good Bumper Sticker
"Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite."
If a benevolent god really does exist, I am sure he loves atheists the best, because she is actually one of us. Yep, God is an atheist! THE Atheist!
If a benevolent god really does exist, I am sure he loves atheists the best, because she is actually one of us. Yep, God is an atheist! THE Atheist!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Polytheism or Monotheism?
Hinduism is usually the poster-boy for polytheistic religions, but from a class I took in college we learned that actually all those gods with multiple arms and elephant heads really sprung from a single one god, called Brahman.
Now Christianity is usually considered to be Monotheistic. But then you learn it has a triune god, plus lots of angels and in the Catholic flavor, saints with super powers! (I heard St. Nicholas, aka. Santa Claus, was actually more powerful than Jesus in terms of raw miraculous razzle dazzle.) Well, that sure sounds polytheistic to me!
Then there is the standard assumption when you study world history that the progression from religions with many gods to one god was some kind of progress up the "evolutionary" ladder of civilizations. Obviously we should continue that progression from one to zero!
Now Christianity is usually considered to be Monotheistic. But then you learn it has a triune god, plus lots of angels and in the Catholic flavor, saints with super powers! (I heard St. Nicholas, aka. Santa Claus, was actually more powerful than Jesus in terms of raw miraculous razzle dazzle.) Well, that sure sounds polytheistic to me!
Then there is the standard assumption when you study world history that the progression from religions with many gods to one god was some kind of progress up the "evolutionary" ladder of civilizations. Obviously we should continue that progression from one to zero!
Friday, June 8, 2007
The Church of All Possible Gods
I think it's fun to think of different kinds of gods. The standard omnimax monotheistic god is boring and illogical. Here are some examples of new interesting god types:
1. God doesn't exist... yet! Life in the multiverse is evolving to some final god form that is very powerful and very smart, but not necessarily omnimax. (See Tipler's Omega Point idea for a similar scenario.)
2. The universe itself is "god", aka. pantheism. Is this god intelligent? Who knows?
3. The Deists are right, but instead of a god setting the clockwork universe in motion and stepping back, the entire time-space continuum is created at once by this god. The pattern of energy and matter from the past to the future is just a cat's cradle between this entity's fingers.
4. You are a god! So am I. In fact we are all the same god who became us and decided to forget about it. When we die we will remember this nutty adventure and our true form.
5. A god exists who created our universe, but there is a super-god that created him. Who made the super-god? Why it's gods all the way up of course!
6. Some god (or god-like alien?) going about its business ends up creating the universe by accident. Oops! Unfortunately it doesn't know what's going on down here. I hope he doesn't re-boot or mop up the spill!
Hey, wait, you ask, where did all these gods come from? (Or in the case of #1 and #2, the universe itself.) I guess they could evolved from simpler forms, but where do those simpler forms come from? Maybe some kind of time-loop allowed the universe/god to cause it's own creation. (See Terminator 2, or Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships).
1. God doesn't exist... yet! Life in the multiverse is evolving to some final god form that is very powerful and very smart, but not necessarily omnimax. (See Tipler's Omega Point idea for a similar scenario.)
2. The universe itself is "god", aka. pantheism. Is this god intelligent? Who knows?
3. The Deists are right, but instead of a god setting the clockwork universe in motion and stepping back, the entire time-space continuum is created at once by this god. The pattern of energy and matter from the past to the future is just a cat's cradle between this entity's fingers.
4. You are a god! So am I. In fact we are all the same god who became us and decided to forget about it. When we die we will remember this nutty adventure and our true form.
5. A god exists who created our universe, but there is a super-god that created him. Who made the super-god? Why it's gods all the way up of course!
6. Some god (or god-like alien?) going about its business ends up creating the universe by accident. Oops! Unfortunately it doesn't know what's going on down here. I hope he doesn't re-boot or mop up the spill!
Hey, wait, you ask, where did all these gods come from? (Or in the case of #1 and #2, the universe itself.) I guess they could evolved from simpler forms, but where do those simpler forms come from? Maybe some kind of time-loop allowed the universe/god to cause it's own creation. (See Terminator 2, or Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships).
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