From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Feb 25 1999 - 13:45:21 MST
Questions like "Is there a God?" are totally irrelevant. Under all
circumstances. Even if you're debating whether a particular religion is correct.
Maybe the Reality has a "cockpit" that was either pre-occupied or which
the first Singularity-generating race climbed into. I cannot think of
any practical choice that binds to exactly this question rather than a
general version of it, i.e. "Does any entity exist having the power to
do X".
Atheists who try to "prove" the nonexistence of God are simply being
silly. Not because they're trying to prove a negative, either. Finding
or creating God is like inventing antigravity. Maybe God doesn't exist
and you can't make one. But we're going to keep trying forever, because
it would be so damn useful.
If some religious authority decided that "Science will never equal (the
powers we have attributed to) God", you'd be the first to object to the
idea that some theologian's limited imagination constitutes an ultimate
limit on sentient life. Likewise, just because you personally don't
know how to make a God doesn't mean it's impossible.
Romanticizing this fact, or romanticizing God, are equally silly.
Most real arguments focus on the character of God; would an immortal,
un-evolved, omnipotent, ultraintelligent entity do X? An atheist has
exactly one argument: "Occam's Razor makes it easier for me to assume
that your religion was invented by humans." Stick to it.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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