This is a post derived from a conversation on Facebook about why belief in a god is more fun for me. I hope you can gain a sense of perspective.
“Rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept.”
In Atheism is Too Silly and Why Would A God Care About You?, I use the term “god” to mean “immortal creator”. Given that definition, I do believe there could be more than one.
I’d rather be happy and wrong than “truthful” (whatever that means) and less happy. I enjoy seeing every person, action, and particle as meaningful.
Personally, I call God “Mystery”. Given an infinity of numbers, there are an infinity of patterns. There is no completion of knowledge. See why I call it Mystery?
I find it more fun to believe in creative beings above our experience.
In my view of a god it evolves naturalistically just as we do, just on a higher mathematical level. Given an evolutionary basis to morality, a god could be more moral and still natural.
I think it’s more fun to live as if each level of interaction of our universe is subject to mathematical laws — including gods. Patterns are rubbing off on each other — down and up — on every possible mathematical level.
For example, atoms make you up, but you are more than just atoms; you are a specific pattern of atoms. This pattern can choose to dip down into the atomic level and change its components. This happens whenever you choose what to eat. The pattern chooses, not the atoms.
In the same way as you can dip down, it’s entirely reasonable to assume an immortal creator could dip down into a level of patterns that govern our nature and change our behavior. We do this with bees when we change their environment so they make honey for us.
All this to say that I believe a mathematical, meaningful god is far more fun than supposing the universe has no level of purposeful patterns above our current ability to understand. The atheistic position of assuming a lack of purpose seems absurd and sad. I choose to assume a purposeful universe, one that mathematically cooperates with and cares about lower level structures, just as we do with bees. This makes me happy. It’s a fun idea. I see no reason to presume the opposite if we can help it.
It’s less fun to assume that our actions are meaningless except for the meaning that exists within our own heads. It’s just as silly as a bee assuming that it only makes honey for its hive. Just because we are unable to perceive super-high-level patterns, as yet, should not imply they do not exist. I think that just like there is an infinity of numbers, there are an infinity of patterns, up and down, like a fractal. Bigger patterns equal bigger creators. Essentially, I believe that higher patterns are as gods to lower patterns; we are like gods to bees. See where I’m coming from?
I believe an immortal creator would try to learn as much as possible about the entities it can observe. Perhaps that means intervening or not. In my view, an immortal creator that exists on such a high level could change anything it wanted and we might be none the wiser. It could alter the fundamental substrate of the world and make the universe more or less habitable. I see gods as propagating out from and dependent on mathematics, using the patterns of nature to evolve just as we do.
I’m not saying self-created meaning is unimportant; I’m saying that believing in meaning currently above our ability to comprehend is more fun than not believing so. It makes life more interesting than supposing there is no reason to the causes we find ourselves in.
I also do not believe in an inherent separation between me and the universe. In some sense I did create myself (say my genes and informational pattern), but the conscious ego had very little choice where to be born or when.
I am a pattern that the universe put together and I choose to believe in Mystery.