The Devil's Universe
The theological questions raised by the prospects of a multiverse are as infinite as they are fascinating. Consider this:
Christians and Muslims alike tend to think in a very binary way, as if there is simply this life and the next, and the next is either an eternity in heaven or hell. But the multiverse poses an infinite array of problems to such thinking.
For example, how can we know that the universe we are trapped in is not one that the Devil created behind God's back, and that that's why everything on planet Earth is forced to survive by eating each other?
Maybe Lucifer got kicked out of heaven for demanding to be "like God," because he had, like the Wizards apprentice, stumbled upon the magic necessary for creating universes. Or perhaps, like Egor working with Dr. Frankenstein, he had learned how he could do with the raw materials that make up our physical reality, not simply all of the very same things that Christians "believe" only God himself could ever have done, but even more!
The reason such a Pandora's box of questions is worth opening is because they pose to the Christian the same problem the Christian always poses to anyone who challenges their beliefs in God.
When an atheist says to a Christian, "you can not prove your God exists," many Christians will respond with the knee-jerk reflex of "and you can not prove God does not exist," as if this reflex has settled the matter, even though it hasn't
Of course, the Christian can no more prove that they are not completely insane, and simply very talented at hiding such a fact, than the atheist can prove there is no God.
But if you propose to the Christian that perhaps our own universe was actually created by Satan while God wasn't looking, as Bertrand Russell has suggested, they suddenly find themselves in the awkward position that they always seek to put atheists in.
In other words, the atheist can not prove that God does not exist anymore than the Christian can prove that our particular universe was not made by Lucifer when God wasn't looking.
Indeed, for all we know there are more universes than there are grains of sand in all of the deserts and beaches in the world, each one like a hollow ping pong ball filled with galaxies, black holes, and all the rest.
Further still, how could we ever know whether each of those universes was necessarily created by a single God alone, or by an assortment of Gods working together, or if each universe in a multiverse was created by a single God, with there being as many universes as there are Gods who created them, like children creating dioramas for school.
And what's more, what if all of those other universes are better than the one we inhabit, or worse, or are we smack in the middle? Should we call whatever "being" or "consciousness" (that we, out of a sense of our own self importance, simply assume must have intended to create this universe, and for no other reason than out of "love" specifically for humans alone and above all others creatures) "God," regardless of whatever the intentions were for that "being" to have created such a place? Even if in doing so, such a "being" was trying to create a place that seemed to resemble hell more often than heaven?
Christians and Muslims alike tend to think in a very binary way, as if there is simply this life and the next, and the next is either an eternity in heaven or hell. But the multiverse poses an infinite array of problems to such thinking.
For example, how can we know that the universe we are trapped in is not one that the Devil created behind God's back, and that that's why everything on planet Earth is forced to survive by eating each other?
Maybe Lucifer got kicked out of heaven for demanding to be "like God," because he had, like the Wizards apprentice, stumbled upon the magic necessary for creating universes. Or perhaps, like Egor working with Dr. Frankenstein, he had learned how he could do with the raw materials that make up our physical reality, not simply all of the very same things that Christians "believe" only God himself could ever have done, but even more!
The reason such a Pandora's box of questions is worth opening is because they pose to the Christian the same problem the Christian always poses to anyone who challenges their beliefs in God.
When an atheist says to a Christian, "you can not prove your God exists," many Christians will respond with the knee-jerk reflex of "and you can not prove God does not exist," as if this reflex has settled the matter, even though it hasn't
Of course, the Christian can no more prove that they are not completely insane, and simply very talented at hiding such a fact, than the atheist can prove there is no God.
But if you propose to the Christian that perhaps our own universe was actually created by Satan while God wasn't looking, as Bertrand Russell has suggested, they suddenly find themselves in the awkward position that they always seek to put atheists in.
In other words, the atheist can not prove that God does not exist anymore than the Christian can prove that our particular universe was not made by Lucifer when God wasn't looking.
Indeed, for all we know there are more universes than there are grains of sand in all of the deserts and beaches in the world, each one like a hollow ping pong ball filled with galaxies, black holes, and all the rest.
Further still, how could we ever know whether each of those universes was necessarily created by a single God alone, or by an assortment of Gods working together, or if each universe in a multiverse was created by a single God, with there being as many universes as there are Gods who created them, like children creating dioramas for school.
And what's more, what if all of those other universes are better than the one we inhabit, or worse, or are we smack in the middle? Should we call whatever "being" or "consciousness" (that we, out of a sense of our own self importance, simply assume must have intended to create this universe, and for no other reason than out of "love" specifically for humans alone and above all others creatures) "God," regardless of whatever the intentions were for that "being" to have created such a place? Even if in doing so, such a "being" was trying to create a place that seemed to resemble hell more often than heaven?
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