God is a loaded term though. Yes there would be a creator but it could be a completely passive observer.

Or we are NPCs in a game played by a 9 year old.

Maybe it implies intelligent design, but I don't think that it implies that we are a part of that intelligent design, necessarily. I mean there's a whole universe out there that's mostly just hot hydrogen and the space in-between with spacetime shaped accordingly. Who's to say that life on earth isn't just noise? Outside the scope of whoever is running the simulation? It would seem like a waste to calculate a whole universe through all of time specifically to study the great apes of earth.

I'm inclined to believe that if our universe is running on a machine in a higher universe, it's for something bigger than us, and its operator is likely not specifically aware of this galaxy, let alone us humans as individuals. Given the consistency we observe, any intelligent design would only be in the laws of physics and perhaps the initial conditions of the universe, everything else would be calculated based on those from there.

We need to be careful not to be too human-centric in these discussions, because every human-centric theory of the universe that humanity has come up with so far was eventually proven wrong.

@midribbon_action@lemmy.blahaj.zone @OneSpectra@lemmy.world

A simulated cosmos wouldn't necessarily imply an elder bearded endomorph man in light robe and sandals, surrounded by blue-winged curly-haired kids. The Conway's Game of Life is an interesting example of order emerged out of chaos with no sentient intervention at all, just randomness.

What we know as "randomness" is actually a complex interplay of countless factors, adding up to the "random". The double pendulum experiment is also a great example of that.

Then, there are esoteric beliefs that don't oppose to Science but, rather, bring scientific concepts seasoned with a bit of mythopoetic meaning-making.

For example: Ordo ab Chao is a concept stating that everything is just order that emerged from a primordial chaos. Science tells us how life is a result of dynamic physical and chemical interactions known as Evolution, and how celestial bodies are a result of similar dynamic known as stellar formation.

Science doesn't know how exactly said interactions took place (e.g. could amino-acids have been produced outside Earth's oceans, such as brought by asteroids as part of panspermia? Science can't be sure about that, yet). There's where esoteric comes.

Esoteric, or at least what I believe to myself, tries to see things as close to Science as possible. In fact, if we consider Cosmicism (Lovecraft), we end up perceiving how the universe is simply uncaring, and how we're definitely not the center of the existence as anthropocentrism leads us to think.

And this indifference doesn't necessarily imply "no belief". There can be awareness of cosmic indifference and lack of divine intervention, AND the belief that the all fundamenta of existence emerged from some tug-of-war between transcendental principles (e.g. Yin-Yang, Darkness-Light, Chaos-Order). Transcendental principles and forces beyond the moral duality of good and evil, but transcendental nevertheless.

To a certain extent. that's what I believe: indifferent, cosmic principles that neither care about humans nor about any life in general, they simply are.

It doesn't necessarily imply I couldn't worship those forces as one could worship the vastness of cosmos. In my case, I worship the "darker" aspects of it, the "destructive" and "deconstructive" aspects, the chaotic pole of Ordo ab Chao.

I personally call this aspect by many names, from entropy (the physical tendency to disorder) to Lilith (Mighty Sumerian Goddess of storms who later became part of Jewish esotericism) and Her "masculine" counterpart Lucifer (no introduction needed; the rebellious principle of the very "Architect" behind existence).

The latter also shows how the belief that God exists doesn't necessarily implies worshiping said God. I do believe God exists as cosmic principle of order, but I'm not gonna worship him, because "his" order feels so forced and fleeting. Rather, I prefer to worship the forces opposing said order, the Chaos, the Darkness, Her.

nah