
Talking to God - artagnon
http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
======
ryanwaggoner
Thought-provoking, and I say that as a Christian. It also reminds me of my
favorite short story: <http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html>

~~~
ax0n
Also Christian, and I found it to be a clever bit of fiction, really. Well-
written, entertaining. Also, thanks for that link :)

~~~
mambodog
Funny, thats just how I feel about the old testament...

~~~
godDLL
Really? Not to offend the persuasion of any attendees (I do mean that, stop
reading if your rage is easily focused), but did you try the Hebrew version? I
have studied it, as part of my education, along with ancient Hebrew laws and
such. The writing is unclear, terrible at times, poetic at times; the language
is so simple as to appear broken. And nearly all of the story, morals,
message, or poetic meaning you take away is your own,– because of how broken
Biblical Hebrew is. Whatever you take away will end up being a by-product of
you studying it, not a direct product.

Some 10+ years since, I can still read Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, and I'm
still not sure there was any direct product in there. So much so, that I call
modern spoken Hebrew which is somewhat loosely based on Biblical Hebrew, – I
call it Jibberish in my own mind, with a `j'. Like the one in Jihad, or
"sacred struggle"; something inspired by—but completely unrelated—to the
original scripture.

And the King James is even better still, having been translated to English
from Greek by a German man. Particularly the Revelations is—at
times—absolutely 4chan material, I find.

EDIT: ^holy\ war^sacred\ struggle

~~~
gruseom
_And the King James is even better still, having been translated to English
from Greek by a German man_

What? That's not true at all. It was translated by a committee of English
scholars and clergy. It is also a landmark of literature and history that
contains some of the finest English ever written.

~~~
godDLL
Ooh, look, I am being wrong on the Internet. I am now ashamed to have
remembered this incorrectly. Thank you for pointing out my error, I'll be sure
to double check things I have only passing familiarity thereof in the future.

But you could have provided a link, like this one:
<http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html>

EDIT: I'm not being sarcastic up there. I'm being sarcastic below here.

EDIT: and the historical/literary value remark is just plain balls.

"And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of
lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the
sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to
battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their
tails: and their power was to hurt men five months."

If that's not balls I don't know what is.

------
rmorrison
Amusing read. The one thing that broke the suspension of disbelief was the
Velociraptor reference, which was based off of a movie and not history (God
would know the difference).

<http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurbasics/a/velofacts.htm> : "There's no
evidence that Velociraptor hunted in packs" and "Velociraptor wasn't the
smartest dinosaur of the Cretaceous period"

~~~
oconnore
"(God would know the difference)."

I frequently refrain from nitpicking when dealing with children ("yes, the
internet is how robots talk to each other"). It wouldn't be too much to expect
an omnipotent being to do so as well.

------
tom_ilsinszki
If you start a computer program, that runs evolutionary algorithms, you become
their god, and you will be omnipotent (to them, at least). It's easy to write
the story off as fiction, but in fact, it would explain a lot, I think.

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
to any program you write you are god. You are expecting the result of that
program to behave in a specific way, the program never ran but at any point of
the program you can predict what will happen to the logic of the program. But
to the program you are an omnipotent god, yet in reality you may have made
some mistakes, gota kill and restart see if it works better after a bug fix.

The only question is: to the program, does it matter that you are god? Does it
make any bit of a difference if it believes in you or not? Will the outcome
change depending on that fact? Do you care if the program worships you?
(unless you wrote a program to worship you)

~~~
tom_ilsinszki
That's exactly my point. I will never understand God's plans (because there is
no feedback from him, or I can't sense them), so I should be focusing on the
problems that face me everyday.

Thus, I don't think God (if he exists) wants us to believe in him. (The same
way, I don't care if a program or and ant worships or believes in me).

------
ssp
This reminds of a "proof of God" that appeared (I think) in _Seven Ages of
Madness_ by Svend Aage Madsen:

If God exists, then there must be some way to realize what the true religion
is. Some hint or pointer that would make it clear, and this hint would be
available to all humans. Some people would not understand it, or ignore it,
but everywhere in the world, a few people would choose to follow the correct
religion.

There are many religions in the world, but only one is universal: non-belief.
In some places they are few and far between, but everywhere you find a few
people who don't believe in God. For all other religions there are places in
the world where that religion is simply not present. But every place has a few
people who don't believe. These people must have correctly understood God's
hint.

Hence, if God exists, atheism is the true religion.

------
zacharypinter
Thanks for posting this! I read it a while back and lost the link.

The part that's stayed with me the most about this story is the following:

"...imagine discovering a secret thought or program, accessible to any
intelligent individual, which, if abused, will eliminate your species
instantly."

"Each and every individual in such a species must eventually become capable of
destroying their entire species at any time. Yet they must learn to control
themselves to the degree that they can survive even such deadly insight."

What a great thought. How would our species survive if any one of us had the
ability to destroy all of us. I think of this in the context of the internet.
I'm strongly of the opinion that the internet should not be censored or
restricted in any way. However, what if there was a way to make the equivalent
of a Nuclear Bomb with low-cost, easily available materials? How would the
internet handle that knowledge? What would it do to society?

~~~
ntoshev
Evolution halts at the point where a single individual dooms the entire
population. It cannot work with a step fitness function, with no margin for
error.

And by evolution I mean the abstract understanding for evolution that we have,
which is the core of the genetic algorithms (not just biological evolution,
nor some abstract "a population getting better in something").

I think we are encountering the problem at different scale at first: some
countries can destroy the entire species, then more and more countries do,
then it would become possible for some large or committed enough
organizations. We are learning to cope along the way, and the approach so far
is to keep knowledge under covers, and not to give such powers lightly.

------
pella
Forum "Conversation with God"
<http://www.fullmoon.nu/rtpforum/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4>

other discussions :
<http://www.fullmoon.nu/rtpforum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10>

------
olliesaunders
Just in case people are still wondering, this is one of many articles under
the heading "Fiction?" in the on site's sidebar.

~~~
artagnon
Yes. I found that this one to be especially good though.

------
ThomPete
I am still waiting for someone to tell me how they know the difference between
what they call god and an advanced alien race tricking them into believing in
them.

How would you know?

~~~
jurjenh
I would guess that falls into the same category as Artur C Clarke's _Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic_

The point is essentially moot - what can you / are you going to do about it?

~~~
ThomPete
Stop believing in things that could might as well be an advanced alien race.

~~~
DeusExMachina
Or just use the "sherlock holmes" approach he mentions in the piece.

------
sliverstorm
‘so what, exactly, makes you god?’

‘I did’

‘Why?’

‘Seemed like a good idea at the time’

^ When I read this I looked around for Douglas Adams. Rest his soul.

------
jimbokun
"Coming to terms with the realisation that you have created your successor,
not just in the sense of mother and child, but in the collective sense of the
species recognising it has become redundant, this paradigm shift is, for many
species, a shift too far. They baulk at the challenge and run from this new
knowledge. They fail and become extinct. Yet there is nothing fundamentally
wrong with them - it is a failure of the imagination."

"I hope that if I can get across the concept that I am a product of just such
evolution, it may give them the confidence to try."

I vote for staying human, and not obsoleting ourselves.

The idea of becoming like the god of this story reinforces this conviction. He
reminds me of Q from Star Trek, toying with species for his own amusement,
having some arbitrary conception of what makes a species worthwhile, mainly
revolving around that species ability to shape the material universe around
them.

To me, what this story demonstrates is that Atheists are not actually opposed
to God like beings. But they are scandalized by a God who does not regard
technological advancement as the highest calling. They cannot possibly take a
God like Jesus seriously, for example, because he was not at all concerned
about correcting the scientific misunderstandings of human beings. He only
cared about how people treated each other, human relationships, attitudes of
the human heart, and love. For me, the verse that demonstrates Jesus nature is
also the shortest in the Bible: "Jesus wept." True, he did not (and does not)
always intervene to eliminate suffering and tragedy, like the being in Talking
to God. But he does empathize with us, to the point he was willing to
literally share in our suffering alongside us.

~~~
camccann
_He only cared about how people treated each other, human relationships,
attitudes of the human heart, and love._

I think most atheists would agree that Jesus sounds like a great guy.

The sticking point is probably more the lack of actual evidence for a deity
existing, plus the general observation that, judging from history, religious
groups tend to act as if "gain political power and/or go kill that other
religious group" is the highest calling.

For that matter, if Jesus returned and resumed his ministry in the modern USA,
I'd actually expect more Christians to be "scandalized" than atheists.

~~~
klipt
_For that matter, if Jesus returned and resumed his ministry in the modern
USA, I'd actually expect more Christians to be "scandalized" than atheists._

There are two possible approaches to the Jesus story. One is to realize that
he was criticizing the abuse of religious power in general, and make an effort
to avoid that.

Of course, the preferred approach for those who actually do abuse religious
power is to assume that his criticism focuses on some evil peculiar to the
Jews, since being antisemitic is always less work than being introspective...

------
melito
Smiled through the whole read.

Only thing that needs to be revised is 'genetic warfare'. That is definitely
not a future problem. It's a very very old one.

Also, while I think "prescience" would most certainly be in god's vocabulary,
I think he'd be 'ultra fashionable' and think of it's use in casual
conversation as being passe.

 _Kinda Spoiler_

The end reminded me of "What does Marsellus Wallace look like?"

~~~
lukifer
Arguably, all violence is a sort of genetic warfare. But we've yet to
encounter the problem of engineered-from-scratch superviruses.

~~~
melito
I was thinking more along the lines of 'eugenics'

------
raquo
Ah. This is so much in the "I want to believe" dept. :/

------
jrockway
_Possibility One was that I was dreaming or hallucinating. Nobody’s figured
out a test for that so, at the time I think that was my dominant feeling._

Actually, there is a pretty good test for this. Look at your digital watch,
look away for a bit, and look again. If the digits are different between
checks, you are dreaming. I'm told that this happens with enough regularity
that it's a fairly reliable universal dream-test. (There are also others;
google "lucid dreaming".)

The most effective test for me has been trying to jump out of my window. If it
doesn't hurt (I live on the 16th floor...), then I must be dreaming. This is
probably a bad strategy if you take hallucinogenic drugs, however :)

~~~
JshWright
I just tried your first test... and the digits were indeed different... (the
last two digits, in particular).

I guess that means I'm dreaming?

~~~
jrockway
No, it just means you're a pedant.

------
crazydiamond
Silly of the author not to let God finish about the "thinking machine". Looks
like God wanted to explain, but time ran out.

Anyone have any thoughts on it.

------
olalonde
As an atheist, I find this essay truly inspiring and would say most (if not
all) predictions make lots of sense. That being said, I'm afraid that the
spiritual tone employed by the author might distortion the message he really
wanted to pass.

------
sovande
What broke the argument and suspense for me was that there was no explanation
of the Fermi paradox. With 14 million type 2 and 3 civilizations and billions
on our level he need to address that paradox for the story to be interesting.

~~~
ericwaller
I think it was implied that the type 2 and 3 civilizations are intentionally
avoiding us.

------
greenlblue
Hilarious ending. I wonder how it would sound if a woman had the same
conversation?

------
tpyo
"Pat Robertson would wet himself if he actually understood who he was talking
to."

:D

------
yannis
Interesting and well written. However, being an agnostic I offer this:

From _A Scientific Rationale for Belief in God_
<http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/God_AI.html>

>I present here a concise rationale for the existence of God. The work of Ray
Kurzweil and other artificial intelligence researchers is critical to my
thesis. An entity (computers or humans, it not mattering which) will
eventually become all-knowing. How much time passes before what is likely to
be a rapid convergence to all-knowing is not important...

~~~
donaq
I stopped reading when the author made a leap in logic from superhuman
intelligence to omniscience, and then from omniscience to time travel just
within the abstract. This was obviously not a well thought out piece.

~~~
eagleal
I didn't read it just because he says that Kurzweil is critical to his thesis.

------
euroclydon
What is a "password association?"

~~~
Jach
Fun way to generate a reasonably complex password: pick six+ words out of a
favorite song, take the first letter of each word, turn to CaMeLcAsE, pick a
letter or two and replace with an ascii equivalent (e.g. s becomes 5, a
becomes @, etc.), and wrap it with $'s or ^'s or one of those top-row
characters.

$JuNa5t5$ ==> Join us now and share the software

~~~
ekiru
Wouldn't using the six word phrase most likely be a much more secure password
than condensing it to a mere 8 characters?

~~~
Jach
The method's for a password, not passphrase. If more places allowed
passphrases, then yeah, of course I'd go for that.

------
joe_the_user
Actually, if a man who came up to me and went as far towards "proving" he was
God as this fellow did, I would immediately grab him by the lapels and start
scream "you fucking bastard, what the hell do you think you're doing, can't
you see the fucking suffering your causing..." and continue the rant for as
long as he would take it...

Maybe that's why "God" hasn't come to me...

~~~
kirse
If you believe in free will, God couldn't be _causing_ any of the suffering to
happen. People have been given the complete choice to do whatever they please,
and this world is a product of that. This world's suffering is our own.

Allowing something to happen != causing

Secondly, who are you, in your own infinitesimally small amount of knowledge,
to question an omniscient, omnipotent being?

~~~
colah
> If you believe in free will, God couldn't be causing any of the suffering to
> happen. People have been given the complete choice to do whatever they
> please, and this world is a product of that. This world's suffering is our
> own.

Free will is an elegant answer, if we accept it... But what about natural
disasters?

>Allowing something to happen != causing

No, but Jehova seems to have gone a lot farther than that in the OT. Killing
innocent children -- infants even -- for being first-born comes to mind...

> Secondly, who are you, in your own infinitesimally small amount of
> knowledge, to question an omniscient, omnipotent being?

Someone who believes that certain things are intrinsically wrong, regardless
of whether the perpetrator is God.

~~~
kirse
_Free will is an elegant answer, if we accept it... But what about natural
disasters?_

Well, if you are going to assume the existence of God (Jehovah - the Biblical
deity) to make your argument, then the simple answer is that yes, we are
responsible for our own suffering, starting with Genesis 3. A perfect world
would have no suffering.

 _No, but Jehova seems to have gone a lot farther than that in the OT. Killing
innocent children -- infants even -- for being first-born comes to mind..._

Ok, but yet again in your argument, you are assuming the existence of God (who
is both all-knowing and all-powerful) and then questioning His ways. Morality
is relative to the information one knows. You, not being an omniscient deity,
do not have all the information available to make a perfect judgment.

I never understand arguments where people temporarily accept the existence of
an all-knowing God, question His divine motives (in their limited capacity),
and then conclude that he simply could not exist. Even basic logic would tell
you "God Exists" does not lead to "Therefore, God does not exist." in the same
argument.

~~~
colah
> Even basic logic would tell you "God Exists" does not lead to "Therefore,
> God does not exist." in the same argument.

Incorrect. A common form argument is: suppose a leads to not a, therefore a
can't be true or suppose a leads to contradiction, therefore a can't be true.
Arguments of this form have been made on this topic based on morality (counter
arguments exist: cf. Descartes).

But I'm not trying to do so, anyway.

My argument was solely that the God of the Bible is immoral. As the quote
goes: "even if a God as described in the Bible does exist, he is not fit for
worship due to his low moral standards." There are misotheists who believe
Jehova is evil.

> Morality is relative to the information one knows. You, not being an
> omniscient deity, do not have all the information available to make a
> perfect judgement.

I would disagree. I believe that moral absolutes exist and that certain things
are intrinsically wrong. I don't need to be omniscient to know that
infanticide is wrong. Jehova commits Crimes Against Humanity and Acts of
Genocide at several points in the OT.

~~~
kirse
_I would disagree. I believe that moral absolutes exist and that certain
things are intrinsically wrong._

If you really believe that moral absolutes exist, then you must conclude that
there exists some infinite being capable of being the foundation for that
moral absolutism. Here's why...

Absolute morals (a perfect morality) can only be established by infinite
knowledge... A perfect morality is knowing _all_ information at once, weighing
_all_ that information, and then making the perfect decision.

We as humans are morally relative because we don't know all available
information and knowledge. It's why a tribe on some island _genuinely
believes_ infanticide is acceptable (they genuinely believe the child is
possessed), while you do not (you would know the child has a neurological
disorder).

As I demonstrated by a simple human example, more information and knowledge =
better moral decisions. Thus, an all knowing being, God, is the foundation for
an absolute (and perfect) set of morals.

~~~
colah
Let me preface my answer with asking you a question. You see, you seem to have
very similar beliefs to those I did a few years ago. My beliefs started
changing once I asked myself the question: suppose Satan was all powerful and
God/Christ was weak; Satan will reward those who will murder, rape, and
torture but sentence those who try to act morally to eternal torture (Hell)...
Would you still act morally or would you embrace debauchery? Which would be
`right?'

If you are willing to act the way Satan wishes for you to, then the reason you
act the way you do now is just selfishness. If you are not, you must be
prepared to question the morality of God and to reject immoral actions. I came
to the conclusion that the person I was required I reject `Satan' and you can
see where things went from there.

>If you really believe that moral absolutes exist, then you must conclude that
there exists some infinite being capable of being the foundation for that
moral absolutism. Here's why...

It is my opinion that your comment does not proceed to demonstrate this. I
will return to this later.

> A perfect morality is knowing all information at once, weighing all that
> information, and then making the perfect decision.

So an omniscient murder is a good person?

> We as humans are morally relative because we don't know all available
> information and knowledge. It's why a tribe on some island genuinely
> believes infanticide is acceptable (they genuinely believe the child is
> possessed), while you do not (you would know the child has a neurological
> disorder).

What the tribe does is wrong. The fact that they are doing it out of ignorance
makes it understandable but it doesn't make it right.

It's possible that I, like the tribe, am wrong.

But lets reflect on what you've argued. At the beginning you stated:

>If you really believe that moral absolutes exist, then you must conclude that
there exists some infinite being capable of being the foundation for that
moral absolutism.

You haven't demonstrated this. The only thing you've really made an argument
for is that only an omniscient being can know with certainty what is right or
wrong. I don't agree, but am willing to grant it temporarily. You still
haven't shown that morality can't exist without an omniscient being, or that
an omniscient being is necessarily moral.

As Humans we must do the best we can.

Are you willing to argue, then, that infanticide is acceptable? Think about
what (supposedly) happened for a minute: God killed thousands, perhaps
million, of children. Some wouldn't have been able to speak. Most wouldn't be
of an age where they could in anyway be held responsible for their
civilisations crimes (slavery) by any sane morality (Yes, I know God likes to
go and punish ``even until the third generation.'' I happen to disagree.).

If you are willing to accept this, are you willing to accept Herod's slaughter
of the innocents? They're are many similarities between God's actions and
Herod's.

Regardless, the question is whether you are willing to justify God's actions.
Please answer: is the mass slaughter of children to punish their parents
justifiable to you?

~~~
kirse
The reason I act the way I do now is out of love and obedience, not
selfishness. Besides, that hypothetical scenario is not reality, and we have
enough to debate given the present reality.

 _What the tribe does is wrong. The fact that they are doing it out of
ignorance makes it understandable but it doesn't make it right._

Ok right, but you still won't acknowledge the fact that from a moral
perspective, their conscience is entirely clear. Put on their glasses for a
moment. Why? As you just stated, _their own ignorance_ aka a _lack of
knowledge_ is the reason why. I need to re-emphasize that their moral
conscience is _clear_. It's all relative to humans, who are clearly reliant on
more knowledge to make better moral decisions.

Nevertheless, I agree (and concede to you) that moral absolutes don't prove
the existence of God. However, thousands of simple human examples show that
more information and more knowledge _should_ allow us to make _better_ moral
decisions. By _should_ , I mean more knowledge doesn't necessarily stop us
from cutting up and suctioning children in the third trimester from their
mother's womb (for example).

Regardless, the loaded question you asked me would be properly re-factored as
a moral dilemma, one that both of us could never answer without bickering for
years:

Is the mass slaughter of a single generation of children to punish their
parents justifiable... in light of... The 400 years of brutal slavery and
genocide inflicted on an entire race of God's chosen people?

Two moral crimes, good sir, now who's to be the judge? Certainly not I, I know
not enough.

~~~
colah
> 400 years of brutal slavery and genocide inflicted on an entire race of
> God's chosen people?

You make it sound like the `God's chosen people' part is relevant to the moral
discussion. If the Egyptians had been the slaves and Israelites the slave
holders, would that change things?

What about if it was the Americans and their black slaves, a couple hundred
year ago?

Would infanticide be justified then?

I don't even see how the Egyptians moral crimes are relevant. The party that
is primarily punished is the only innocent one: children.

That's before we even consider whether the death sentence is ever justifiable.

> Two moral crimes, good sir, now who's to be the judge?

As the old adage goes, two wrongs, good sir, don't make a right.

------
Herring
tldr: fiction. I closed the tab when he started talking about dinosaurs not
having respect for other life.

~~~
tybris
> tldr: fiction

The title says "Talking to god". You didn't seriously expect...?

~~~
gjm11
Perhaps he expected a scientific study of what happens in people's brains when
they think they are talking to God, or some statistics relating the things
people think God has told them with their own prior beliefs, or something of
the kind.

Perhaps he expected an account of how someone met with someone else they
admired/feared so much that it was like talking to God.

~~~
Groxx
Perhaps he skimmed the title too quickly, and thought it said "Talking to
Dog". Around the dino part, he realized that the dog shouldn't be talking, and
rejected the article.

