RE: Questions to ask a god or a time traveller/ET (was: RE: If Magick Exists)

From: Brent Allsop (allsop@extropy.org)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2003 - 20:56:57 MST

  • Next message: Lee Corbin: "RE: Questions to ask a god or a time traveller/ET (was: RE: If Magick Exists)"

    Adrian Tymes,

    This is a variation of the "God is impotent" theodicy.

    This is the one I use to justify me not spending 90% of my resources to help
    starving people in 3rd world countries and such. But, I do spend some
    amount of my resources to help, as I am able. For me to do nothing at all
    would be irrational and illogical if you ask me. I believe the more
    intelligence a being has, the more empathy they are able to feel, and hence
    the more motivated they are to help others in need. To think that there are
    beings that are much more powerful than us, yet still to busy to even at
    least say hi and give us a few helpful pointers seems absurd to me. I just
    can't see this as being in any way a logical justification.

    Brent Allsop

    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On
    Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
    Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 6:05 PM
    To: extropians@extropy.org
    Subject: Re: Questions to ask a god or a time traveller/ET (was: RE: If
    Magick Exists)

    --- brent.allsop@attbi.com wrote:
    > If some alleged God came up with some answer to this
    > "why?" question that truly
    > made rational sense for why misery is tolerated by
    > powerful beings ? now that
    > would be powerful evidence of their true Godliness.
    > We would still be screwed ?
    > but it would be impressive.

    The one that seems to make the most sense:

    Because, even with all their power, they still have
    finite resources. It is more efficient to make us
    solve our own problems than to intervene - even if
    that
    means we suffer when we screw up, and even if we
    insist
    in believing that certain events are just
    unpredictable
    random chance.

    This seems unlikely, though, since we can point to
    examples on the power scale we do have where it is
    more
    efficient for the powerful to invervene, in certain
    ways, for nearly any intent (especially just getting
    the less powerful to become powerful enough to be able
    to help the more powerful). For instance, by teaching.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Apr 03 2003 - 21:04:30 MST