I feel as though if you want to make more (posts, discussion, what have you) out of this thought experiment you need to define the goals and powers of the angel and devil much more exactly.
The examples you’ve given of the things that strike you as similar to an imaginary devil’s manipulations don’t seem so to me. Your devil is interested in slowing down humanity’s progress (why? Shouldn’t it be steering us off a cliff instead of applying the breaks?) and it’s able to modify human thought. If I think of what the world would look like with such a creature I don’t think of the modern world, I think of an uninhabited wasteland. Instead of mucking around with faith and nationalism it installed a time delayed urge to suicide.
This post seems to contain a lot of rationalist applause lights. ( are not just wrong, they are EVIL. If those individuals who believed in the devil were right they’d be his patsies...nyuk nyuk nyuk.) But I think the base premise needs more refinement.
I meant more posts from me in general, since this is my first article on this site. As for why the devil would hinder social progress: allowing humans access to nuclear weapons while preventing reasonable discussion actually seems to me a pretty good way to achieve exactly the wasteland you describe. (Obviously this though experiment assumes the ‘devil’ has no actual supernatural powers, since that would make the exercise pointless)
I have no idea what you mean with your last paragraph.
I feel as though if you want to make more (posts, discussion, what have you) out of this thought experiment you need to define the goals and powers of the angel and devil much more exactly.
The examples you’ve given of the things that strike you as similar to an imaginary devil’s manipulations don’t seem so to me. Your devil is interested in slowing down humanity’s progress (why? Shouldn’t it be steering us off a cliff instead of applying the breaks?) and it’s able to modify human thought. If I think of what the world would look like with such a creature I don’t think of the modern world, I think of an uninhabited wasteland. Instead of mucking around with faith and nationalism it installed a time delayed urge to suicide.
This post seems to contain a lot of rationalist applause lights. ( are not just wrong, they are EVIL. If those individuals who believed in the devil were right they’d be his patsies...nyuk nyuk nyuk.) But I think the base premise needs more refinement.
I meant more posts from me in general, since this is my first article on this site. As for why the devil would hinder social progress: allowing humans access to nuclear weapons while preventing reasonable discussion actually seems to me a pretty good way to achieve exactly the wasteland you describe. (Obviously this though experiment assumes the ‘devil’ has no actual supernatural powers, since that would make the exercise pointless)
I have no idea what you mean with your last paragraph.