From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Thought for the Day Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 09:03:52 -0400 Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Keith, Good morning whether you want one or not! Yes, I often do have people asking me for miracles. A number of your ideas have already been used in various sf and religious works. For example, your idea of forming a saints' union, calling a general strike, and/or founding a separate universe are a loose sf description of what Satan tried to do. He wound up with Hell. I hope you have better results. You are highly mistaken about the life of saints in Heaven. Angels and saints desire to serve God and their fellow beings, and see service in a highly favorable way. Therefore, the opportunity to serve God and humanity 24/7 is a positive motivator, not a turn-off. As far as economic rewards go, well, no, there are no economic rewards in Heaven but you don't need any because you don't have any earthly needs. To put sainthood in transhumanist terms, your personality survives but transformed in a manner difficult to describe in 21st Century terms without the associated problems of humanity. The fact that God is infinitely greater than humanity does make it difficult for humans to comprehend His Nature. That's one reason why He incarnated as a human being (Jesus Christ)... so he could share our humanity and relate to us on our terms. As Jesus, God was of questionable birth, a minority person, a poor person, a political prisoner, and falsly condemned and died as a result of political violence. If God was hateful, His unlimited power would be oppressive, but God is Love so His Power is Ever Directed Towards His Chrildren's Good. (A quote from doctrine.) God loves humanity, and saints respond to His Love by loving Him and loving humanity. God as an un-American? God commands that we respect one another. That seems profoundly American to me. I believe that Harry Harrison wrote a short story in which God took a vacation and chose a human being as His interim representative. The human God-pro tem was much more hands-on than the original God. I don't recall how the story turned out. Your idea about voting for reality is amusing, altho I immediately see several problems with it. If a majority of people vote for socialism, does the nature of human beings change so that central economic planning really is more efficient than market planning? There is a story that a Tennessee legislator actually introduced a bill to make pi exactly equal to 3.0 to help his kid in school. A simplier approach might be to encourage emigration to alternate universes: all Democrats might wish to move to the universe in which Al Gore won the 2000 election and the Republicans in that universe might wish to move here. In the end, I agree with Einstein's statement that "God is subtle, but not malicious." -----Original Message----- From: Keith F. Lynch [mailto:kfl at keithlynch.net] Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 10:40 PM To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: Thought for the Day "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> wrote: > It's nice to be thought god, Does this happen to you often? > but then you have to live up to your reputation, and your followers > never take a day off from making requests. That's one of the questions I use to drive my Catholic friend to distraction: Why would anyone want to be a saint? In return for living an exemplary life and being a Martyr to the Faith, preferably by being murdered in as horrific, painful, and unique manner as possible, you get to work, unpaid, on the celestial help desk, 24 by 7? And answer calls in all languages from all over the world for all eternity, with no vacations and no sick leave, ever? Hello? Where's the upside here? If I ever become a saint, I'm going to start a saints union, and call a general strike. "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> wrote: > Delegate, create a bureacracy to deal with the requesrs. "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> wrote: > ANd if the requestors are part of the bureaucracy...? Isn't that a violation of the Hatch act? For the heavenly government to lobby itself? God makes a wonderful fantasy character. Perhaps a bit too powerful, kind of like Superman without even Kryptonite as an Achilles' heel. But at least He's in the public domain. Use Him in your next novel, and there may be a fatwah against you, forcing you into hiding, but at least no LAWYERS will be after you, as they would had you commercially published a story which included Bilbo Baggins, Miles Vorkosigan, Jack Ryan, James T. Kirk, or Mickey Mouse. (Especially if it contained all five of them!) The idea of the universe being an absolute monarchy always struck me as rather old fashioned, and downright un-American. And the idea of God always watching everything I do is kind of Orwellian and creepy. I think it's time to update the mythos. Has anyone already written anything like the following? God abdicates, in favor of a representative democracy. Each rational being (and to keep things simple, we'll postulate that that consists only of our species) gets one vote. God promises not to interfere in any way, or to take any actions, or even to watch us in private. All prayers will be ignored. Things could get interesting if it turns out that objective reality consisted of the perceptions of God, and now consists entirely of the consensus of mankind. Want to know the mass of the top quark? No need to build a billion dollar superconducting supercollider. Simply vote on it! Want to know the Reimann conjecture is true? No need to fund math departments. Simply hold a referendum on the issue! Want to know whether global warming is real? No need to study the issue. Just pass a law that it isn't! Is there any danger of an asteroid or comet striking our planet? Vote them all back into the asteroid belt and Oort cloud. Are we alone in the universe? We could ordain and establish an alien race, or a million of them -- except that it would dilute our vote. There would be no more need to be concerned about anyone being falsely convicted of crimes. If a jury is convinced that you are guilty of some crime, then you really did it. As soon as they reach their guilty verdict, you'll remember doing it. And if a videotape of that crime shows up tomorrow, it will show you doing it. If we ever get tired of this new power, we could vote God back into power. And in doing so, we could establish once and for all which is the one true religion, by plebiscite. Or we could retroactively abolish Him forever by voting that He never existed. And then change our minds tomorrow, and vote Him back into existence. Any group which is sufficiently unhappy with the new status quo could vote to secede from the universe, and to institute a new cosmos with new laws of nature, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing their powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Perhaps that's how OUR universe got started. The individual we know of as God seceded from the universe He previously lived in, and started His own universe in which He would have absolute power. Typical antisocial loner type. Short-tempered, too, with a strong desire for attention, judging by the Bible. Oops, almost forgot the obligatory disclaimer: Under bill S.8161 passed by the 501st US Congress, this message cannot be condsidered heresy or blasphemy by a vengeful God. (Hey, it works for spammers...) -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.