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.

[Jman28]

[ QUOTE ]

There you have it. A new religion. Sklanskyanity.

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It was only a matter of time.

[Wally Weeks]

Great, sounds like my kind of religion. The only problem is getting people to believe the initial assumption: there is, or was, a God. Other than that, it's golden.

Also, what percentage of income should go to the Church of Sklansky? 10%? Will there be "missions" to go on like the Mormons?

Wally

[goofball]

1. The universe is at least 4 dimensions.

2. Did you mean quirks or were you referring to the elementary particls?

3. Does he believe they will eventually produce conscious beings or does he know?

4-5. He wants us to be happy? You don't explicitly say if he can or does interfer with the natural course of events. If he does, why didn't he stop the plague? If he is sophisticated enough to setup the universe why didn't he merely setup a universe that created conscious beings who weren't bad to each other?

6-8. Are the rewards/consequences set up for an eternity in a timelike dimension we know, or do they exist outside such a dimension? Is someone who lives a life of pure evil subject to only punishment, or will they eventually have "done their time?"

[David Sklansky]

1. OK 4

2. Quarks

3. He knows it is a big favorite.

4. Maybe because setting up the universe is doable but the other is not. Remember he may not be omnipotent.

5. I don't know. One possibility that I thought of is that the last few second of life seem like an eternity. An eternity to reflect on your misdeeds. Of course that answer wouldn't provide much punishment for psychopaths.

Meanwhile you are asking for details and I specifically said that it is not necessary to know them. Anything not logically inconsistent that fits the general outline is OK.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]
quarks that incorporated inherent randomness (a necessary feature to allow free will).

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa, whoa, whoa - now that's just wrong. Quantum mechanics operates on far too small a scale to possibly be somehow "controlled" in aggregate by the brain. In other words, quantum uncertainty is only really uncertain on the quantum level - we don't know exactly what this particular atom or particle is going to do, but we can damn well be fairly certain of what a group of trillions of them are going to do (for example, even though I have no idea what any one particular atom or particle in my desk is going to do even with the most state-of-the-art observational equipment, I feel pretty safe in saying that the entire group of atoms that comprise my desk are going to retain a desk-like shape)

Ever since people started asking the question "Do we have free will?" what they really wanted to know was the answer to a similar question, implicitly asked, which is "Do we have free will in practical terms?" Meaning, is it possible even theoretically for someone or something or some god to predict exactly and unfailingly what I am going to do next?

Notice that's significantly different from just asking "Do we have free will?", or free will in technical terms, which can be disproved in half a minute so long as you accept two eminently reasonable assumptions: 1) All matter in the universe operates according to physical laws, and 2) Human beings are made up of matter. Since it is quite frankly a trivial question, we can conclude that it obviously wasn't an oversight of everyone from Aristotle on down to we humans today; that we really are asking about practical free will and not technical free will.

For what it's worth, the fact that we have no free will doesn't directly imply some sort of apathetic nihilism. It behooves us to behave as if we have free will even though in the most technical sense we do not. In fact, it's pretty well pointless to behave otherwise.

This confusion between practical free will and technical free will leads people to make all sorts of attempts to sort of "tuck" the source of free will away in some dark corner where science has yet to explore (quantum uncertainty is a rather popular one). But it just doesn't work - the random behaviors of particles just aren't coordinated enough in aggregate to have any significant effect on a single neuron's behavior, let alone a human being's.

[Jordan Olsommer]

[ QUOTE ]

Also, what percentage of income should go to the Church of Sklansky? 10%? Will there be "missions" to go on like the Mormons?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm starting an oppositional religion called the Free Masons. Yo Malmuth, you in? There's a funny hat in it for you if you say 'yes'.

[goofball]

Mundane details are pointless i agree, (how logn didit take him, or something). Even pointing out 4 or more dimensions was slightly nitpicky of me (to be accurate i think a 'he designed the universe as we know it' would suffice, because the number of dimensions in th euniverse in unknown)

However, you stipluate that there is some kind of post or near death reward punishment system and that strikes me as non trivial because it has to fall within the laws of physics. Changing ones perception of time as death nears is within the laws of physics but has the problems you mention. A physical heaven or hell where people are pehaps taken runs into the problem of us finding it. Several other systems I've thought of seem implausible too (him physically transporting you to a place in his universe). The biggest problem with a post/near death system, is that we don't know it exists. Sure some people think it does, but I for one don't. I base my behavior on many things but the afterlife is not one of them, and if I didn't have other reasons not to behave badly I would with little to no fear of a postmortem punishment.

Beyond all of this though, I have a hard time seeing why he would even care if we are happy. There seems to be no logical reason for you to include this among your stipulations. Of all the reasons I can think of for the god you describe to create a universe like ours more have him being indifferent to what happens to us than not.

Saying "god wants us to be happy" strikes me as introducing unnecesary complexities to the system, and we all know waht William of Ockham said about that.

[NotReady]

Quote:

There you have it. A new religion. Sklanskyanity.




What's new about it? Specifically 7 and 8?

[Koss]

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What's new about it? Specifically 7 and 8?

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The idea that you don't actually have to believe in god or worship him to be rewarded, just live a good life.