Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Is there a God?

What difference does it make, in terms of concrete choices? Would you suddenly stop trying to be a good person if it were revealed that there is no God? Would you suddenly become an altruist if you learned there was? What's right is right, whether or not God exists, and the qualities that make a good person are widely agreed upon in any case. Is there any reason to care, aside from pure curiosity?

The questions that do affect concrete choices have to do with the rather more general question, "Does an entity with the power and motivation to do X exist?" For example, selfish people considering a conversion to altruism want to know if God exists and will hold them to account. Even if you knew whether or not God existed, it wouldn't answer the question. If you knew that God existed, you couldn't conclude God was interested in holding you to account. If you knew that God didn't exist, you couldn't conclude that no entity held the power of retribution.

When you know exactly why it matters whether or not God exists, when you know what choices depend on the question and why, and exactly which type of entity would satisfy the definition of "God" for that purpose, you will usually find that you already know the correct choice.
- by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky

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