# How would this epiphany affect life on Earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273 "2011-10-11T07:52:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/21 "2011-10-13T00:06:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If anything, such an event would be very good evidence for the existence of a godlike being. I mean, how _else_ could a switch get thrown in everyone’s heads at the same time? Aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/22 "2011-10-13T00:45:50Z")
Aliens that might as well be gods. It doesn’t matter if the source of their power is supernatural, or natural. They’re still gods. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/23 "2011-10-13T01:22:40Z")
The problem with the OP is you ignore the action of God in this. My take is more rules, more laws and more enforcement. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/24 "2011-10-13T02:33:53Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Tomorrow, when everyone wakes, they will realize one thing: > > \*There is no “God”. None. None, what-so-ever. > > \*There is no life after this. When you die, you simply cease to exist…FOREVER!? That’s two things. ---
**Author:** ![Naxos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/25 "2011-10-13T02:42:38Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Tomorrow, when everyone wakes, they will realize one thing: > > \*There is no “God”. None. None, what-so-ever. > > […] > What happens? Positive, negative, or overall a wash? Nothing will happen. Everyone knows already that there are no gods. The insistence on the belief of the existence of something imaginary or fantastical is a psychological dysfunction, not reality. Humanity has been living with this dysfunction for a few thousand years already. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/26 "2011-10-13T04:02:36Z")
The _Circle of Life_ would cue on everyone’s personal soundtrack. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/27 "2011-10-13T05:06:23Z")
If you really want to complicate things, posit both a god and a lack of afterlife. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/28 "2011-10-13T06:14:44Z")
When you die your spirit (which weighs 21 grams) turns into 27 billion neutrinos, and you can go wherever you want, as fast as you want, no limits. Prove me wrong. Now how does this epiphany affect life on earth? Or for that matter, life on Arcturus? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/29 "2011-10-13T07:49:28Z")
> [@](#): > > If there were a universal knowledge that there are no rewards nor punishments (after this life) for any deeds done during it, how does that influence the behavior of Earths inhabitants? That’s never been the reason that I am a Christian anyway. And I would think that there are other Christians who feel the same. I just don’t think there would be that many changes. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/30 "2011-10-13T08:02:07Z")
Ok, everyone knows there’s no such thing as god. But does everyone know that everyone knows there’s no such thing as god? And if so, does everyone know that everyone knows that everyone knows there’s no such thing as god? And so on? It sounds silly, but it’s important. If only the first statement is true, I doubt anything would change at all. People generally behave the way they’re expected to behave. And if we don’t know that everyone else had the same revelation, then people will continue going to church or whatever because that’s what everyone else is doing. It’s self sustaining. It’s not like these people don’t already exist. There are a ton of people who, for lack of a better term, are “religious atheists”–atheists who nevertheless continue going through the motions because of some obligation. Heck, some of these people are priests who just want to keep their jobs. Maybe over a long period of time, multiple new generations of atheists will drift farther and farther away from religion, and religion as we currently know it will disappear. I’d bet though that something nearly identical would replace it. Things would be different if “everyone knows that everyone knows that…” I’m not sure what, exactly, but the ruse would collapse for sure. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/31 "2011-10-13T13:29:55Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But if we’re shown we can’t trust our own brains, even to the limited extent we could before, then we’re utterly helpless. I can go with this. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/32 "2011-10-13T15:55:00Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Aliens that might as well be gods. > > It doesn’t matter if the source of their power is supernatural, or natural. They’re still gods. Okay so we develop a space ship which can take us to another planet. On the other planet, we find a race of beings who have various wacky notions about the universe and creation. We capture one, perform adequate anal probing, and determine that a modulated magentic wave can rewrite parts of his brain to remove all of the wacky. We scale our magnets up, position them around the planet at regular intervals, and let lose. Is the human race now gods? Or are we just people with magnets and a little R&D accomplished? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/33 "2011-10-13T15:57:38Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > The problem with the OP is you ignore the action of God in this. > > My take is more rules, more laws and more enforcement. Atheists are less likely to commit crime, actually. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/34 "2011-10-13T16:20:11Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Is the human race now gods? Or are we just people with magnets and a little R&D accomplished? We certainly are to _them_. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/35 "2011-10-13T16:21:25Z")
You can’t rewire a human brain by simply recallibrating the main deflector dish to emit a stream of tetryon particles. The human brain is complicated, yes? Of course, since the human brain is composed of ordinary matter arranged in ordinary ways, it would be possible, with enough handwaving, to edit the human brain molecule by molecule, synapse by synapse, such that the brain produces whatever output you like. But if you can do this to every human being on the planet overnight, then your brain science is a bit more advanced than Star Trek. And if you can edit the brain of every human being on the planet overnight however you like, then you can edit them to believe that red is purple and green is sour and cold is loud. The reason our brains allow us to often form trustworthy conclusions about the universe is that our brains were produced by evolution, and the closer the models produced by our brains match reality the better our ancestors survived. Yes, our brains certainly aren’t perfect, and are subject to all sorts of predictable errors, any collection of optical illusions shows that. But our brains were never intentionally edited by any agency to produce a particular output. If we know that our brains can and have been edited this way, then it calls into question our entire existence. OK, everyone woke up today believing that there’s no such thing as God and an afterlife. How do we know that we didn’t wake up yesterday believing that the sky was pink, and when our scientific instruments told us otherwise we misread them? And the day before that, and the day before that? If some agency can snap their fingers and edit the brains of the entire human race overnight, then we are the slaves of that agency. That agency might not be the creator of the universe, or the creator of man, or the source of objective morality, but they can snap their fingers and we’ll believe whatever they like. We are playthings in their hands, and if they leave us alone and don’t humiliate us too radically it’s only because they don’t want to. It’s up to them. So to us, they are gods, and the only reason we aren’t happily sacrificing our firstborn children on the altars to them is that they haven’t asked us yet. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/36 "2011-10-13T16:38:40Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > You can’t rewire a human brain by simply recallibrating the main deflector dish to emit a stream of tetryon particles. Challenge accepted! A few hundred test subjects may die while I’m getting the kinks out, but I don’t see how that is my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/37 "2011-10-13T19:19:10Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > If some agency can snap their fingers and edit the brains of the entire human race overnight, then we are the slaves of that agency. That agency might not be the creator of the universe, or the creator of man, or the source of objective morality, but they can snap their fingers and we’ll believe whatever they like. We are playthings in their hands, and if they leave us alone and don’t humiliate us too radically it’s only because they don’t want to. It’s up to them. So to us, they are gods, and the only reason we aren’t happily sacrificing our firstborn children on the altars to them is that they haven’t asked us yet. I still wouldn’t call that a god. We are not gods, but we could feasibly have such technology at some point in the future. The important thing is that this is a highly more likely scenario than that the universe was rationally created and controlled by a single, unending being. It’s similarly more likely that our whole universe is a science project in a lab, simulating an example universe at the quantum level for research purposes. That’s closer to godhood, but the phrasing still rather misses the point. Godhood refers to magic, not high-tech. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/38 "2011-10-13T19:22:52Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Godhood refers to magic, not high-tech. Sez who? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/39 "2011-10-13T19:25:28Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Sez who? “I still wouldn’t call that a god.” My post is my cite. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273/40 "2011-10-15T10:37:33Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Okay so we develop a space ship which can take us to another planet. On the other planet, we find a race of beings who have various wacky notions about the universe and creation. We capture one, perform adequate anal probing, and determine that a modulated magentic wave can rewrite parts of his brain to remove all of the wacky. > > We scale our magnets up, position them around the planet at regular intervals, and let lose. > > Is the human race now gods? Or are we just people with magnets and a little R&D accomplished? Yes. You now have the power to control every member of that species completely, since you can rewrite their brain to your whims. Absolute control is one of the basic traits of a god. Advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-this-epiphany-affect-life-on-earth/599273.md?page=3)