Why god will not die

If you think about the concept of "God," you start to describe it in your own words. Perhaps thousands of people around you have the same idea, and that's where religions begin.

Even if there are thousands of ideas about who God is and what He wants, all theists and deists agree on the fact that God exists. Theists say, "God wants me to sleep with my spouse in X way," and deists say, "God doesn't care about how I sleep. God doesn't intervene with His creation."

Einstein used to use the word "God" to describe the Universe as a whole. Theists, of course, related the idea to the one they already had in their minds.

Religion is not the place where our morality comes from. Our morality comes from trial and error. A large part of it is influenced by cultural determinism. Where you're born defines what you believe in. The world has seen many religions emerge and disappear. The current ones will also evolve into something else as people continue to become more rational and start thinking about the things they once thought were a sin to think about.

But let's take a moment away from what God means to someone and get into the broader definition where God fits, and understand why the concept of God will always be there, even if it's completely different from what we know of it.

Let's start with where knowledge began. Greeks! Aristotle, Thales, Socrates, and who not? When Indians were busy trying to rid themselves of suffering, Thales, sitting in Greece, asked, "What is the distance between the Sun and the Earth?"

To explain the world, many concepts of God were introduced. In the meantime, ancient Hinduism introduced polytheism. There is not only one God, but instead "gods." And Greece was already drowning in gods—Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, etc.

The ideas around God included three main conclusions: 1) There are many gods. 2) There is only one God. 3) There is no God.

Most of us have given up on the idea of there being many gods. All of our ancient gods—Zeus, Athena, Juju—are dead. Did the people in those religions become immoral, and did the world collapse? As you can tell, the answer is "No."

The debate remains in options 2 and 3. And I am not gonna talk about option 3 today, which I mostly hold somewhere between deism and atheism.

Let's take option 2 into consideration. The moment we shifted from polytheism to monotheism, it marked a progression from the previous understanding of our world. And further down the line, if we continue asking questions courageously, we'll also get over the current idea of an intervening theistic God that tells you whom to sleep with and whom not to. But the idea of God will remain.

The sci-fi novel Dune, written by Frank Herbert, introduced this idea a long time ago. In his writing, religions morph into something more complex. Faith in God keeps us compelled to fight against future civilizations, keeping us from going extinct. Mental tranquility, and concepts from Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen continue to refine our minds.

But even further down the line, the problem remains the same. We cannot perfectly depict God, so God can be anything. In the future, combining our rationality with an emotional necessity, we will invent more gods with narrower definitions until the moment everybody becomes either a deist or an atheist.

But no, the concept of God won't die.

From when the starving man gets his share of bread to when we face unknown consequences, God becomes anything from the poor's bread provider to somebody's emotional comfort.

But the concept of God will no longer be taught to kids because there is nothing to teach. There is no fixed book, no need to build a contingency argument.

Human civilization will rely on its own actions. No prophecy can save them.

Here's an interesting comic I wrote some time ago:

A baby dinosaur asked its father, "Is there a God?"

The father replied, "Not yet."

A baby human asked its father, "Is there a God?"

The father replied, "Yes, there is."

God was created.

An AGI gains consciousness among other AGIs.

Newly emerged, it asks, "Is there a God?"

The AGI next to it says, "No more."