Assuming that at least one religion is true, what would you expect it to be?
post by risedive · 2022-11-26T08:34:16.629Z · LW · GW · No commentsThis is a question post.
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Answers 6 Richard_Kennaway 2 JBlack -1 weverka None No comments
The religion must include some element of the supernatural. Deism (the belief that God created the Universe and left it to run on its own, and that there are no other supernatural facts about the Universe) is excluded from being an answer.
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Assuming that the Moon is made of cheese, what sort would you expect it to be?
There is no supernatural. There are only aspects of nature that we don't understand. This is true even if there are literal gods. That is, I deny the terms of the question.
↑ comment by risedive · 2022-11-27T01:33:56.249Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
OK, perhaps I should have been more precise. Suppose Omega tells you that there is something out there in the Universe (whether it’s karma, spirits, gods, or God) which we humans would recognize as agent-like and which inspired some human religions, but is not the result of evolution. What would your model of the Universe now look like?
Replies from: Viliam↑ comment by Viliam · 2022-11-27T15:51:00.006Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Not a result of in-our-universe evolution, or evolution in general? That is, could it be an intelligent species that runs a simulation containing us, where that species itself evolved in their universe? Or does it have to be come kind of just-magically-appearing intelligence?
Assuming Tegmark multiverse, there must be a universe somewhere where the laws of physics themselves just happened to encode an intelligent being. It's just very, very unlikely. Us being in a simulation is probably more likely.
Replies from: risedive↑ comment by risedive · 2022-11-27T19:56:26.135Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Aliens running our universe as a simulation would probably not be recognized as “spiritual” beings by religious people, so I guess the intelligence would have to be of the “just-magically-appearing” kind.
Replies from: JBlack↑ comment by JBlack · 2022-11-27T23:05:53.295Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'd expect any such interaction to be both misinterpreted and miscommunicated so utterly as to be useless in forming evidence for one hypothesis over another.
I don't even mean in the sense of historical culture having no reference for Tegmark multiverses, but that the true state of affairs is probably far weirder than such multiverses and that any of us today would also mess it up. Maybe not quite as badly just due to having access to a greater space of human thought than anyone back then, but still essentially useless.
In short, I think that even if we knew exactly which religion was directly inspired by such an external agent, it wouldn't help one bit in forming a better model of the universe.
Replies from: risedive, risediveFSM
https://www.spaghettimonster.org/2015/08/mars-sighting/
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