One of the core beliefs of Orthodox Judaism is that God appeared at Mount Sinai and said in a thundering voice, “Yeah, it’s all true.” From a Bayesian perspective that’s some darned unambiguous evidence of a superhumanly powerful entity. (Albeit it doesn’t prove that the entity is God per se, or that the entity is benevolent—it could be alien teenagers.)
I think this phrasing, particularly of the parenthetical portion, is a low-level but still present existential risk, because the temptation it creates for teenagers such as myself to actually say in the future “This is your god speaking” to an alien world is enormous. The potential negative consequences this could have on said alien world is astronomically enormous.
The exact idea of “tell aliens that I am their god” would have, if it occurred to me before, been immediately recognized as juvenile and worse than pointless. But this phrasing, especially alien teenagers, plural, spins it again to me as something that would be “totally epic” and “all my friends would totally think it was awesome” and invokes vivid images of negotiating with them about who gets to be this theology’s Jesus.
(Interestingly, I originally thought this was a reply to this comment when it appeared in my inbox, and was slightly disappointed to learn it was not.)
I think this phrasing, particularly of the parenthetical portion, is a low-level but still present existential risk, because the temptation it creates for teenagers such as myself to actually say in the future “This is your god speaking” to an alien world is enormous. The potential negative consequences this could have on said alien world is astronomically enormous.
You didn’t want to do that already?
The exact idea of “tell aliens that I am their god” would have, if it occurred to me before, been immediately recognized as juvenile and worse than pointless. But this phrasing, especially alien teenagers, plural, spins it again to me as something that would be “totally epic” and “all my friends would totally think it was awesome” and invokes vivid images of negotiating with them about who gets to be this theology’s Jesus.
(Interestingly, I originally thought this was a reply to this comment when it appeared in my inbox, and was slightly disappointed to learn it was not.)