A Reasonable Religion

[David Sklansky]

Here is an outline of a set of religious beliefs that I would find hard to argue with.

1. God created the three dimenional universe, via the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago.

2. God set up physical constants, laws of physics, and quarks that incorporated inherent randomness (a necessary feature to allow free will).

3. God realized that with these initial "axioms", the laws of logic, which even he can't break, would eventually produce conscious beings here and there. He liked that.

4. The question as to whether God is totally omnipotent is irrelevant to this religion. So is where he came from, has he always existed, or whether some super God created him. Even if there was a super god, only this God cares about his conscious creations and wants them to be happy.

5. Because he wants his conscious creations to be happy, he needs for there to be consequences to people who are not good to each other. That is the only reason he wants people to believe in him. It is not about his ego. It is that to get around Prisoner Dilemma problems, to keep polluters from polluting, etc. etc. some may need to worry about divine consequences and won't if they are atheists.

6. The consequences may not need God's hands on approach. He might have set it up in advance. Knowing the specifics is completely unnecessary.

7. These consequences are solely related to how good you are. How often and how badly you break the Golden Rule. And how often you go above and beyond the call of duty. They are utterly unrelated to your religion. If you do good without believing in this God, that is fine with him. Your rewards will be equal to those who believe.

8. On the other hand if you do bad you are facing consequences. Who knows what. But there is a way out. Namely by doing extra credit good to make up for the bad. Do enough and you wipe the slate clean. Do less and you mitigate the punishment. (Notice that this would be a disaster for those who have done terribly in the past or for those who know that can't stop doing bad. It seems like a lot of the fervent believers I know fit one of these two categories which I don't think is a coincidence. They get to say that we are ALL horrible sinners because of Adam and Eve and that in spite of this, believing in Jesus gets us into heaven. How convenient if you spent half your life as a thief, whore or scoundrel, or if you know you have no will power.)

There you have it. A new religion. Sklanskyanity.