Thought experiment: you have super powers. You can do fucking ANYTHING without consequence to yourself or those you care about. You can make every human being on Earth float upside down and sing “I’ve Got A Loverly Bunch of Coconuts” for as long as you like, or equivalent, without effort. You could gather Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and the Chinese Communist leadership cabal and pummel them all to death AND make every network in the world broadcast it, without any ill effect for you.
You can synthesize matter, making food from air, and thus see that everyone on Earth is well fed.
You also have been conditioned not to suffer PTSD so you will not by psychologically damaged if you use violence against others. You can also read minds … you KNOW who is guilty and who is innocent, and also what made them do what they did.
Now, what do you do to make the world a better place, hopefully getting the most results with the least oppressive acts?
So you’re sitting in your sofa and you see a bunch of kids screaming as they are burned to death in a fire/erupting volcano, and you ignore it, cause, you know, free will, even though you could easily save them?
Eliminate alcohol and tobacco addiction.
Eliminate all sexually transmitted diseases.
Sex only creates babbys when both participants want that outcome.
Certain horrible actions (rape, hurting children, etc.) induce an overwhelming and crippling nausea, such that before you can cause any harm you’re on the ground writhing and clutching your stomach. Once that action is out of the immediate brain-plan, the nausea gradually goes away, but comes back with a vengeance any time you try again. This goes for everyone.
Valuing “Free Will” doesn’t equal using “Free Will” as a benchmark for every decision and every action. Children die. Lots of them. Better get used to it.
Work ‘behind the scenes’ so people don’t waste their time worshipping, I think.
Test Ozymandias’ theory from Watchmen, that with infinite free energy war would become obsolete. Manipulate the sun so it emits rays that can be harnessed for energy easier than light or heat, have some scientist discover them, have another find a way to make harnessing them dirt-cheap and easy.
If thinks end up more screwed, hit the reset button (or if Godlike powers include omniscience, I’d know how it would turn out anyway).
Maybe for shits and giggles enable a ‘richochet’ field on all humans, like how online games stop teamkilling. If you shoot someone, the bullet goes into you. Stab someone and the knife pierces your flesh, and so on.
Destroy the time/space continuum, as a warning to all parallel universes out there.
Jim Carrey’s “Bruce” wasn’t given full omnipotence, though – he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone he’s God, and he couldn’t mess with human free will. (Which is the heart of the movie’s plot, since he’s trying to make a girl fall in love with him.) It’s also implied (in the movie, at least) that not even God can affect free will, which makes sense if you study Biblical mythology.
All of the following assumes the universe is materialistic in nature; i.e. no god or other supernatural stuff beyond Me (as stated in the OP).
Subtly boost various technical and medical research, perhaps with Inception-style implanting ideas in dreams, to hasten cures for cancer, diabetes, AIDS, etc., and achieve useful fusion technology, breakthroughs in intra-solar system space travel, ecological protection and maintenance, agricultural production in the desert, etc. The hungry and sick hang on through non-miraculous-seeming circumstances (begging family finds a bag of rice, very sick person barely hangs on, etc.) until such scientific breakthroughs previously mentioned take hold in society.
That’s really the part that thwarts all the “Why did God let my kitty cat die? I hate him, hate him, hate him!” Unless you know what the heck is really going on in the Universe at large and what is going to happen in the future, how can you understand or judge the behavior of someone who does?
Because if the magical sky wizard really is all that, I’m pretty sure he could find a way to keep the intricate workings of the universe ticking with out making his “prize” creations suffering needlessly.
If the universe really is that complex that he can’t, then he should just do away with the universe all together and make a new one that’s not so quirky.
Or you know, heck, if he really feels the need to wipe the slate clean like he did with Noah, why not just blink them out of existence instead of the sadistic process of forcing an entire planet to drown?
Well, people could still have a difference of opinion, and they could still call each other butt faces if they wanted to. I just mean, no violence and not let people go hungry when you have the means to feed them.
That is to say, if an eternal all powerful being had the same intellect and insecurities and motivations as you, he would do things differently. Well, duh.
