Sunday 9 December 2001

Pic of the day: Except that some of us are evidently excluded. Accept that it's OK to continue with your real life.

Shared unrealities

I don't consider myself superstitious, unless you include all religion in superstition. But it sure seems something is out to stop me from playing EverQuest, almost at any cost. So naturally I've thought, what may be wrong with EQ? Well, most notably it's all lies.

Not just Christianity, but all religions, and indeed all higher moral systems that I know of, condemn lying. At its core, this is about changing other's perception of reality in order to gain personal benefits on someone else's expense: To bear false testimony in a court. But not just in court: Anywhere where others have to make a judgement about allocating resources, be it property or admiration, there is the temptation to falsify to get treated better, or even worse: to ensure that others get treated worse.

But how about consensual lies? Lying while admitting that you are lying? All normal works of fiction would fall under this. A novel, a screenplay, a movie - or a computer game. The people who get treated to the lie know it, and they appreciate it for other qualities than the factual truth. This could be the sheer beauty of the art, or it could be that it tells a truth by example of lies. Kinda like a parable. Often, though, people are simply bored and wants variation or excitement, and they can find this in the worlds of lies.

Is this a bad thing? From a religious point of view, is this a rejection of the reality God has made in favor of the realities made by man, and therefore an insult toward God?

***

I shall reply with a "reduction to absurdity". If God's reality is separate from and not including the realities made by men, how then about houses? A house is made by men, not directly by God. To live in houses, then, is that not a rejection of God's work, saying that it is inferior to the works of men? Is that not an insult against God?

How about wearing clothes? Is this not an insult against God, who created our bodies but not our clothes? True, in the book of Genesis God made for Adam and Eve clothes made out of skin, but that was after they had fallen in sin and immediately made themselves clothes out of leaves. Does this mean that we should only wear leather, not plant fibers? Or to take it to its logical conclusion, that we should not wear clothes unless they are fashioned directly by God's hand? Until He shows up in person with our clothes, should we go naked, so as to not exalt the works of men above the works of God?

How about medicine? If it is God's will that you get pneumonia, who are you to take antibiotics? Do we not pray that God's will may happen on Earth as in Heaven? (Not that I've heard of anyone getting pneumonia in Heaven.) I have heard the argument used in the context of on one side fertility treatment, on the other side contraception. That we should respect God's choice as to whether or not we shall have children. Surely I do - so far it has been God's will that I won't have any kids unless I also have sex. This works quite well. But the moment we start to condemn treatment of infertility, it seems that we are also condemning all treatment of improving on the human body, up to and including mending a broken leg.

For that matter, should we use tools? God have given us hands, and tooth and nail. By making tools, are we not saying that God did an incomplete work?

***

Yes indeed, God did an incomplete work. And it is my belief that He did so on purpose. Like a father who leaves the decoration of the kid's room for the child itself, our Creator has given us the ability to create and ample encouragement to do so. And so we have created tools, and with them altered reality. And we have created art, and shared it with each other.

A Norwegian joke goes about like this: A priest is out travelling and meets a farmer working on his farm. "That is quite a fine farm you have here" says the priest. "Yes, and all this I have done myself" says the farmer. "With God's help" reminds him the cleric. "That may be" says the farmer, "but you should have seen how this place looked when God was working here alone!"

There is much beauty in nature, but there is often much beauty in cultivated land too. Today we tend to think that both are worthy of conserving, that they should exist side by side, to fulfill the different needs of different people. And there are many sculptures that seem preferable to the stones they were hewn from. (And some do not, in my humble opinion. But evidently others appreciate them.)

If we can change pieces of reality, and create works of fiction, why should we not create entire fictional realities? Why should we not create worlds, and share them with each other, and live in them together? Yet those of us who are theists will still remember that we are creations and that we have an obligation to our creator. And even atheists are well advised to remember that their fellow wanderers are as real as they are, and act accordingly.

For in the end, there is only one reality, and it encompasses all our works.