posted
As far as I can tell, the last few scenarios have all boiled down to the same exact question. *shrug* Creatively rethought and rephrased, but really still the same question(s).
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posted
Of course they are the same questions ... I simply try to present them in different scenarios, so different perspectives/nuances could be revealed. In the end, reality is only one, and I'm not here to convince anyone otherwise.
Nevertheless, I do think that there are more than “superficial” differences between my scenarios.
The first (page 1) was about an external (yet “tangible”) power (i.e. the aliens) tell you what your religious manifestations should be (the "interdiction" rule), with no reason. -> The overall response was essentially “I will fight that power not because of what it says, but because it is an external rule”.
The second (page 11) was about having “explained” the reason behind the rule. -> There the response was “whatever explanation they can give, I’ll stand by my present (religious) beliefs”.
The third (page 14) was about learning that it was all a “dream” and being confronted with a society that is already functioning without religion. -> There were very few answers, therefore no “general trend” to be found. So the question remains: is the need for religion something that comes from within, or is it something that is “learned” from (i.e. because of) the society we live in?
If no one is going to explore that idea, I will propose another perspective, soon.
BTW, if anyone thinks of relevant modifications to the scenarios (because mines are too dull or irrelevant) then please present them here. Take KarlEd’s example, he proposed quite interesting variations.
posted
In most of my various religious discussions, I've learned that highly religious people will believe in their religion regardless of any hypothetical, and most likely almost any real-life circumstances. If an angel appeared to a Christian and told them that there is no God but Allah, wouldn't they see that as a demon trying to fool them, or a test from the Christian God to see if they would remain faithful?
Religion is about belief in the unknowable, the unprovable. If you already firmly believe that something exists which cannot be seen or measured or examined or directly experienced except through feelings and emotions and thinking about it and so forth, there's no physical reason that can be shown to change that belief. The belief already exists in spite of any physical evidence.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
MightyCow, I tend to agree with you. At least this is something that can be seen also in this discussion.
I will therefore stop here, because continuing would feel like “insisting” and my purpose here really isn’t to “shake other’s beliefs”, nor to bother the rest just to satisfy my curiosity.
Yet, I will enjoy the other religion-threads and I won’t shy away from asking questions if needed.
I was about to save this thread in a file on my PC and thought that I should complete it with the rest of the “what if” levels …
So, even if you are all sick and tired of this discussion, don’t worry, there is no obligation to respond to these new levels.
Level #4: What if you encounter one day a person who is different? Ever since you got out of the tank, you got used to seeing only your “twins” everywhere. And this weird person tells you that all “reality” is juts a computer program, that you and all the rest of the habitants of the “Universe” are just agents in an AI simulation. [à la "The 13th Floor" movie] And the “free will” was actually implemented as a “ general trend with a randomized factor choice routine” with a special routine that would immediately find justifications for that choice so the agent wouldn’t be confused by the randomness. The bottom line is that you don’t exist at all and that in a few moments the switch would go off and everything you thought was “reality” would be nothing more than a database saved on some Hard Disk in the Real World.
Level #5: What if after the switch goes off, you realize that you do not disappear at all- Actually, you begin to understand what is all about in the Universe. Furthermore, you begin to realize that practically all you think comes true, that you have absolute power and you control everything in he Universe with your will. You know everything, you see everything, you can do anything. And on a small bluish planet there are a bunch of bipedal mammals that think they are very special and are under the protection of some deity. Yet they do not agree, some think it’s all a test, some think that there is no deity at all, some think about other stuff and some don’t think at all.
Level #6: What if after a while you realize that your omnipotence and omniscience and all the rest, is actually limited to an mono-dimensional space, because you are just a conscious entity in a net of ansibles, in a Universes where real people exist, and one of them is called Ender. You decide at some point to present yourself to him, taking the name … Jane. (all that “happened” in the other “what if” levels was just a chain of subroutines among the almost infinite number of other more or less similar “scenarios” that you have been calculating out of boredom)
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: In most of my various religious discussions, I've learned that highly religious people will believe in their religion regardless of any hypothetical, and most likely almost any real-life circumstances. If an angel appeared to a Christian and told them that there is no God but Allah, wouldn't they see that as a demon trying to fool them, or a test from the Christian God to see if they would remain faithful?
Religion is about belief in the unknowable, the unprovable. If you already firmly believe that something exists which cannot be seen or measured or examined or directly experienced except through feelings and emotions and thinking about it and so forth, there's no physical reason that can be shown to change that belief. The belief already exists in spite of any physical evidence.
One thing. Christians and Muslims believe in the same God. If such a circumstance were to happen, and the angel told me there was no god but God and Muhammed is his prophet, that would be different. I personally would convert to Islam, but that's just me.
Under present circumstances, it is impossible to show any physical proof against the existence of God. If somehow I was raised to the level of apparent omnipotence, there is still no way that I could know that there isn't something that has power over me. If I was Jane, (before she came to a human body) would I even have the capacity to think freely? I could hold a lot of data, but I couldn't think of anything original, and would be none the clearer in terms of faith.
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