Comment by 10ren | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 10ren | Hacker News Reader

oblig. Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Fred Brooks, p. 184 The Mythical Man-Month 2nd ed.

It's interesting to me that several people I greatly admire in comp sci/technology are religious: Fred Brooks, Knuth, Larry Wall and Clayton Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma).

To me, one aspect of the idea of God is as a workable label for all the things I don't know (especially those questions I know not of; the doors I have not suspected exist; the things my philosophy does not dream of; the unknown unknowns). Also helps me to seek questions (define problems) even if I can't imagine knowing the answer (finding solutions). It helps me to just let it be.

Another aspect is political: human beings, like other apes, tend to organize around a dominant male (and even chickens have a pecking order). When groups grew in size due to agriculture and civilization, this scaled to super-dominant males - gods embodied in persons (I'm thinking ancient Egypt). This was dangerous. The next innovation was to transfer that "super-dominance" to a person who doesn't actually exist. This is safer, and of course this imaginary personage can embody all those ideas an actual human can only move towards but never attain. Although wars were still fought in the name of a God, there was a separation. That's a theory of mine anyway. Feel free to poke holes, build it up, tear it down (esp with evidence).

Most people are religious and that number is only decreasing recently, thus one should expect a certain number of luminaries in any domain to be religious.

Looking through history and trying to discern intent is a difficult thing to do. I don't think any of the development of God(s) as a concept was done with much long term intent but was likely as most things are done the result of mutually beneficial agreements made on the spot to secure wealth and power between the parties to the agreement.

Basically, stuff happens and then people talk their book, each gains a number of supporters and the interested parties create a consensus or official truth that best meshes with the official truth from the previous event. The magna carta wasn't signed because the King or Parliament had some love of freedom. The opportunity existed for a power grab and they took it. Even the Declaration of Independence was heavily watered down after it reached committee. Sure, Jefferson and Washington might have been true believers but most of the signatories were want to exclude things that would negatively impact their bottom line. (eg. abolishing slavery). Look at the list of grievances it's mostly about money.

> the result of mutually beneficial agreements made on the spot to secure wealth and power between the parties to the agreement ... Look at the list of grievances it's mostly about money.

This is a very superficial perspective, born of a bad recollection of history.

Christianity gained dominance and power during the fall of Rome, a movement born on the streets of a decaying society, with the Christians prosecution having the negative effect of drawing the attention of the public ... a public which was hungry for a saner sense of moral values.

The power grabbing taking place was only to secure their freedom of religion, at least initially.

Of course, as with all religions ... Christianity was used to control the masses and did ended being used for power grabbing. But that's mostly because uneducated masses are stupid as cows ... and you can credit the translated Bibles for people's willingness to learn how to read.

I didn't mean it to be with long-term intent, but similar to the adoption of a technology: groups that use it prosper, and others join them, or copy them, or are out-traded, outnumbered or conquered by them. There might not be any conscious thought at all, except - they look cool, let's copy.

That's all fine as long as you don't make the leap from "my imaginary friend is useful" to "my imaginary friend is real".

I would however assert an unnecessary semantic overloading -- why use a word (God) that has so many assumptions built into it? Invent a new word, and confuse fewer people.

> That's all fine as long as you don't make the leap from "my imaginary friend is useful" to "my imaginary friend is real".

You seem to assume that the later is a bad outcome. Also you can't really have a useful "imaginary friend" if don't believe he's real, or do you?

> why use a word (God) that has so many assumptions built into it? Invent a new word, and confuse fewer people.

Because God is word with a clearly defined semantic and definition ...

  the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and 
  omniscient originator and ruler of the universe

All unanswered questions about the Universe or God start with the most important question ...

  considering the law of Action-Reaction, how did it all started?

Which has the nice property that has the answer to all unanswered questions. And if you're going to answer that with "some superior, omnipotent being (whose existence we can't comprehend) did it all", then it's philosophy 101 ...

  there can't be two unsurpassable beings each of which is God

So why have another word with a watered-down meaning for it?

I realize you're speaking generally rather than addressing the comment you're replying to, but I did say "the idea of God".

Not to get all solipsistic, but we can only validate our ideas against our experience of reality, not objective reality itself. If the imaginary friend is part of your experience of reality, and indeed something that you seek to experience because of its usefulness, what's the significance of the distinction you made above?

Honestly I think it's a cultural thing. It's easier to just leave what you don't know to an unknown thing called "god". That's just laziness imo and fear, and probably hope that we are somehow immortal.

So the more we know, the fewer thing remain to be labeled 'god'...

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