Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 12:38:33 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Thought for the Day
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote:
>
> "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.

The upside is that the saints are the only ones who have anything to
do.  Heaven sounds pretty boring.  Asimov wrote a story on the subject;
I believe it was "The Last Trump".

> God abdicates, in favor of a representative democracy.
> [snip]

Big problem is that there are "trap" states.  For example, we could all
vote not to be sentient any more.  Or vote that we couldn't vote any
more.  Or some more subtle things, like voting to reverse gravity, which
would cause every large body in the Universe to explode.  Or fiddle with
atomic/nuclear forces, with the same result.

Then there are the theologies that explain far too much, like Gnosticism
in the Real World (tm), or my own (God as Colonel Sanders).

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."