If there were a God, don't you think he would've made him or her self known by now?

[begbert2]

Oh, and I just want to belatedly add that my post that explained the Life, The Universe, and Everything in the context of being an RPG was not entirely a joke. (Though I suppose if I had wanted that to be clear, I probably shouldn’t have couched it in jokes.) RPG-like scenarios are one of the very few I’ve considered that give an intuitive answer to the OP, the problem of evil, why are we here, etc. This is not to say that other scenarios can’t be internally consistent and make sense; it just means it usually takes rather longer to explain why they’re internally consistent and make sense.

I think the main reason that there are no current major religions that espouse the RPG view is that nobody is going to congregate and pay tithing for the message “Life is a game where nobody knows the rules.”

(Oh, and if life is an RPG? Then it’s version number is 42.)

[lekatt]

@begbert2

Oh, and I just want to belatedly add that my post that explained the Life, The Universe, and Everything in the context of being an RPG was not entirely a joke. (Though I suppose if I had wanted that to be clear, I probably shouldn’t have couched it in jokes.) RPG-like scenarios are one of the very few I’ve considered that give an intuitive answer to the OP, the problem of evil, why are we here, etc. This is not to say that other scenarios can’t be internally consistent and make sense; it just means it usually takes rather longer to explain why they’re internally consistent and make sense.

I think the main reason that there are no current major religions that espouse the RPG view is that nobody is going to congregate and pay tithing for the message “Life is a game where nobody knows the rules.”

(Oh, and if life is an RPG? Then it’s version number is 42.)

Yes, life is shadows (Socretes), a play (Shakespeare), a movie screen (Richard Bach), and an RPG (begbert2). RGPs are relatively new so you won’t see much reference to them. In others words physical life is not real, only a grand illusion. A moment of the mind (spirit) for purposes of fun, and enlightenment. While real players (us) never get hurt we may die a thousand times. This is a good explanation of the spirit world also. We choose to join the game, knowing all the details of its positive and negative features. When our costume (body) becomes worn out or damaged we return home to the spirit world wiser than we left.

[begbert2]

@lekatt

Yes, life is shadows (Socretes), a play (Shakespeare), a movie screen (Richard Bach), and an RPG (begbert2). RGPs are relatively new so you won’t see much reference to them. In others words physical life is not real, only a grand illusion. A moment of the mind (spirit) for purposes of fun, and enlightenment. While real players (us) never get hurt we may die a thousand times. This is a good explanation of the spirit world also. We choose to join the game, knowing all the details of its positive and negative features. When our costume (body) becomes worn out or damaged we return home to the spirit world wiser than we left.

Well, the most notable thing distinguishing the RPG from the play and the screen is that in the RPG analogy, we explicitly have free will, as opposed to merely carrying out prescripted roles. (And the Socrates’s cave of shadows analogy was something entirely different). Still though, it’s very weird to have lekatt largeley in agreement with me, albeit with the addition of an “enlightenment” and “wisdom” angle which I find contradictory and destructive to the RPG scenario.

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

Right , your head tells your body what to do and your body if operating correctly, does it. Where the analogy has problems and becomes hard to wrap our minds around, is the body having a will of it’s own."

“It lacks logic why?
It’s impossible to logically explain…”

"Did we already have the experience itself? I meant perspective in more than a mental understanding way. You don’t gain the experience of scuba diving by reading a book on it.

The first paragraph above is one in which you now have a body that functions like a head in that it has its own will. That is the same god/human blending that apparently encapsulates your belief with regard to the eden question; and it’s not the same as saying we’re “connected” to god. The body is connected to the head but it still has 0% responsibility since it’s not the head.

If you’re saying the body is the head, then you’ve changed the definition of the word “head” and “body” as used in the analogy and I think the logic falls apart. Just because the body is connected, doesn’t make it the head; or responsible in any way for anything the head decides. Otherwise, it would be called the head.

Insofar as the scuba example, I know you don’t gain the experience by reading a book on it. I wasn’t suggesting adam and eve could have read a book about the knowledge of good and evil. I think this point is remedial but I’ll use your terminology: choosing a “perspective of mental understanding” requires that the person doing the choosing already has the ability to choose.

Therefore, man could not have chosen to have free will.
I know it’s a remedial point to you and not new and I guess not interesting.

To me, it’s the simplest and clearest expression of the problem of free will which is the title of my post. Free will.

Man had to have free will in order to be able to choose what is commonly understood in Xian theology to be “free will” in the first place.

(That is, knowledge of good/evil, although I recognize that you don’t view it that way and instead view it as choosing a perspective of mental understanding as a being that was already part of god and therefore goddish in some ways and a child in others but could be held responsible for the choice even though it didn’t know in advance all the ramifications of it, although the god part did; a view that skirts the otherwise-illogical traditional Xian view.)

---

Anyway, I believe I see where you’re coming from now. Though you say, and I believe you, that you’re not out to convert anyone, it’s a prosletyzing perspective that’s going to always loop back to include such mythical creatures as jesus and what he “said” and how people should act best in the world, etc. which interests me not in the least. No offense, but I won’t speak to that again beyond saying that it’s a whole other discussion and your earlier post “I believe people should pursue whatever they perceive to be true for themselves” is a self-evidently bad idea that doesn’t lead to what your worldview would consider a moral end: Jeffrey Dahmer was seeking what he perceived to be true for himself and acting on it.

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

Sure if we look at God as a totally separate omnipotent being who created the universe and remaining separate, controls everything in it, then that being would be responsible for the way it operates. I don’t.

Is that a response to something I said? I didn’t say “controls everything in it” and my whole point is that you don’t need to go that far to find god responsible. You don’t have to believe THAT THE GOD BEING CONTROLS EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE (as you stated above) in order to find god responsible.

All you have to believe is this: god created free will.

[Voyager]

@begbert2

Oh, and I just want to belatedly add that my post that explained the Life, The Universe, and Everything in the context of being an RPG was not entirely a joke. (Though I suppose if I had wanted that to be clear, I probably shouldn’t have couched it in jokes.) RPG-like scenarios are one of the very few I’ve considered that give an intuitive answer to the OP, the problem of evil, why are we here, etc. This is not to say that other scenarios can’t be internally consistent and make sense; it just means it usually takes rather longer to explain why they’re internally consistent and make sense.

I think the main reason that there are no current major religions that espouse the RPG view is that nobody is going to congregate and pay tithing for the message “Life is a game where nobody knows the rules.”

Ed Fredkin of MIT gave a similar explanation to my class over 30 years ago - except he just said the universe was a simulation, not an RPG. I like the RPG explanation better, since it gives a purpose.

Might I add that the admins sometimes enter as non-playing characters. Like pets. You’re right about the restart last Thursday - my dog did it.

[9thFloor]

Oh yeah, I didn’t think it was meant to just be a joke; it’s amusing of course but it really does have some great intuitive merit. And from a logic point of view, it’s every bit as logical as christianity’s mythology; actually more so.

Personally, I suspect it’s the Truman Show

[cosmosdan]

@begbert2

Oh, and I just want to belatedly add that my post that explained the Life, The Universe, and Everything in the context of being an RPG was not entirely a joke. (Though I suppose if I had wanted that to be clear, I probably shouldn’t have couched it in jokes.) RPG-like scenarios are one of the very few I’ve considered that give an intuitive answer to the OP, the problem of evil, why are we here, etc. This is not to say that other scenarios can’t be internally consistent and make sense; it just means it usually takes rather longer to explain why they’re internally consistent and make sense.

I think the main reason that there are no current major religions that espouse the RPG view is that nobody is going to congregate and pay tithing for the message “Life is a game where nobody knows the rules.”

(Oh, and if life is an RPG? Then it’s version number is 42.)

I mentioned a cosmic thrill ride earlier but I like RPG much better. You’ve even covered reincarnation. I think the problem most people might have with it , including myself , is that in our search for the big deal grand prize meaning of life and our purpose here, the answer is …entertainment?
That’s why I resist the cosmic thrill ride scenario too , but even though I don’t like it I can’t honestly discard it because it fits. I keep thinking that somehow the experience itself is the point. We choose and we see where our choices take us and the admin doesn’t interfere much because that would ruin the game.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

The first paragraph above is one in which you now have a body that functions like a head in that it has its own will. That is the same god/human blending that apparently encapsulates your belief with regard to the eden question; and it’s not the same as saying we’re “connected” to god. The body is connected to the head but it still has 0% responsibility since it’s not the head.

If you’re saying the body is the head, then you’ve changed the definition of the word “head” and “body” as used in the analogy and I think the logic falls apart. Just because the body is connected, doesn’t make it the head; or responsible in any way for anything the head decides. Otherwise, it would be called the head.

I’m saying this analogy like most is imperfect. We as the body do have free will to choose not to follow the head, and that creates a lot of problems. Remember Bruce Campbell’s fight with his own hand in Evil Dead? OTOH if we as the body can align ourselves with the will of the head instead of trying to exert our own the body operates in harmony.

I repeat, analogies aren’t usually intended to be accurate in all aspects. They range from reasonably good with a few flaws to inappropriate not useful in explaining anything. I don’t think it’s a matter of the logic falling apart or trying to change the definition of head.

Insofar as the scuba example, I know you don’t gain the experience by reading a book on it. I wasn’t suggesting adam and eve could have read a book about the knowledge of good and evil. I think this point is remedial but I’ll use your terminology: choosing a “perspective of mental understanding” requires that the person doing the choosing already has the ability to choose.

Therefore, man could not have chosen to have free will.

okay. I understand the logic and thought I already addressed it.
Let’s try this. I think their choice to gain a knowledge of good and evil represents their choice to play the RPG they had never played before.

I know it’s a remedial point to you and not new and I guess not interesting.

To me, it’s the simplest and clearest expression of the problem of free will which is the title of my post. Free will.

Man had to have free will in order to be able to choose what is commonly understood in Xian theology to be “free will” in the first place.

I haven’t argued against that have I? I’m sorry if bad phrasing on my part gave you that impression. The difference is that most Christian theology I know doesn’t give us a choice to enter the physical realm. God is in charge of the universe and we are subject to his master plan. That means he throws us unwilling into a world of physical suffering, rather than we volunteered. It’s the volunteering part that changes the perspective on physical suffering IMO.

Anyway, I believe I see where you’re coming from now. Though you say, and I believe you, that you’re not out to convert anyone, it’s a proselytizing perspective that’s going to always loop back to include such mythical creatures as jesus and what he “said” and how people should act best in the world, etc. which interests me not in the least. No offense, but I won’t speak to that again beyond saying that it’s a whole other discussion and your earlier post “I believe people should pursue whatever they perceive to be true for themselves” is a self-evidently bad idea that doesn’t lead to what your worldview would consider a moral end: Jeffrey Dahmer was seeking what he perceived to be true for himself and acting on it.

Sharing ideas and views about how people should act or the meaning of certain teachings is different than insisting others should share my views which is how I see proselytizing.
Regarding people pursuing what they perceive to be true. It’s the interaction with others and dealing with the consequences of our choices that teaches us. I see the commitment to what is true just as important in the inner personal journey as in the scientific arena. I think if more people were able to look within to find what they personally hold to be true instead of allowing themselves to be so heavily influenced by others we’d be better off.

[9thFloor]

"I repeat, analogies aren’t usually intended to be accurate in all aspects."

Please name **one **aspect in which that analogy is accurate.

[9thFloor]

"That means he throws us unwilling into a world of physical suffering, rather than we volunteered. It’s the volunteering part that changes the perspective on physical suffering IMO."

So we knowingly volunteered to enter “a world of physical suffering,” as you put it, according to your posited view correct?

[begbert2]

@cosmosdan

I mentioned a cosmic thrill ride earlier but I like RPG much better. You’ve even covered reincarnation. I think the problem most people might have with it , including myself , is that in our search for the big deal grand prize meaning of life and our purpose here, the answer is …entertainment?
That’s why I resist the cosmic thrill ride scenario too , but even though I don’t like it I can’t honestly discard it because it fits. I keep thinking that somehow the experience itself is the point. We choose and we see where our choices take us and the admin doesn’t interfere much because that would ruin the game.

A subtle but possibly relevant distinction would be that though the players (our spirits/angels/god particles) would be playing for entertainment under the RPG scenario, the point of the game itself is not necessarily for the avatars to be entertained. That might be our goal, but perhaps instead we’re supposed to attain enlightenment, or fulfilment, or advance things for our posterity, or get money, or rescue the princess, or kill zombies, or maybe just eat as many snickers bars as possible before dying.

(I don’t even begin to posit on the specific game-wide avatar goal in the humorous example I presented, because that seems pretty frigging hubristic to me. Who among us has the right to claim the ability to see the underlying goals of the system, as they apply to everybody? If there was ever a “sandbox” style of gameworld, we’re in it. There are clearly many ways to play this ‘game’, with no way to tell if one is “better” than the other from some unavailable ‘outside’ perspective.)

But I’ve gotten off the subject. To us, with our limited spans and so much that has yet to be achieved, it may seem foolish to waste one’s time on entertainment. But, if we may ponder the unknowable world of the Players for a moment, suppose they are gods (or parts of a god)? Or even ‘merely’ angels? They might have unlimited existence, never aging or dying. They might have no physical needs to fulful, or alternatively they might have methods of satisfying all their possible needs at their fingertips. What would there be to be achieve, in such a world?

In another thread here, it is posited that the reason a creator God might wish to have people love and worship him might be because such a being might be incomplete without being loved. This of course is a backwards reconstruction from the Christian one-god-demanding-worship-of-us model, but it does lead to another thought: If you are an eternal god that lacks nothing for all eternity, what’s to stop you from getting bored?

An astute reader will note that in my formulation of the RPG model, there are multiple players and admins, who could presumably entertain one another without creating a perfect simluation of an imperfect reality to play in. Even then, though, when you’re with other people, how do you entertain them? Whip out a board game, maybe? Well, maybe we’re the board game.

(Oh, and not to get myself into your analogy-ridden discussion there, but if one ponders ir for a while they may be able to think of a way for entities to enter “a world of physical suffering”, without actually enduring any actual physical suffering. How much does it hurt when your character takes 5d6 damage, after all?)

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

"I repeat, analogies aren’t usually intended to be accurate in all aspects."

Please name **one **aspect in which that analogy is accurate.

We are parts of the same body. IMHO

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

"That means he throws us unwilling into a world of physical suffering, rather than we volunteered. It’s the volunteering part that changes the perspective on physical suffering IMO."

So we knowingly volunteered to enter “a world of physical suffering,” as you put it, according to your posited view correct?

Yes, I see that as a possibility. We also knew that it was extremely fleeting.

Just like the RPG scenario , we get the experience at no real lasting risk.

[cosmosdan]

@begbert2

A subtle but possibly relevant distinction would be that though the players (our spirits/angels/god particles) would be playing for entertainment under the RPG scenario, the point of the game itself is not necessarily for the avatars to be entertained. That might be our goal, but perhaps instead we’re supposed to attain enlightenment, or fulfilment, or advance things for our posterity, or get money, or rescue the princess, or kill zombies, or maybe just eat as many snickers bars as possible before dying.

(I don’t even begin to posit on the specific game-wide avatar goal in the humorous example I presented, because that seems pretty frigging hubristic to me. Who among us has the right to claim the ability to see the underlying goals of the system, as they apply to everybody? If there was ever a “sandbox” style of gameworld, we’re in it. There are clearly many ways to play this ‘game’, with no way to tell if one is “better” than the other from some unavailable ‘outside’ perspective.)

But I’ve gotten off the subject. To us, with our limited spans and so much that has yet to be achieved, it may seem foolish to waste one’s time on entertainment. But, if we may ponder the unknowable world of the Players for a moment, suppose they are gods (or parts of a god)? Or even ‘merely’ angels? They might have unlimited existence, never aging or dying. They might have no physical needs to fulful, or alternatively they might have methods of satisfying all their possible needs at their fingertips. What would there be to be achieve, in such a world?

In another thread here, it is posited that the reason a creator God might wish to have people love and worship him might be because such a being might be incomplete without being loved. This of course is a backwards reconstruction from the Christian one-god-demanding-worship-of-us model, but it does lead to another thought: If you are an eternal god that lacks nothing for all eternity, what’s to stop you from getting bored?

An astute reader will note that in my formulation of the RPG model, there are multiple players and admins, who could presumably entertain one another without creating a perfect simluation of an imperfect reality to play in. Even then, though, when you’re with other people, how do you entertain them? Whip out a board game, maybe? Well, maybe we’re the board game.

(Oh, and not to get myself into your analogy-ridden discussion there, but if one ponders ir for a while they may be able to think of a way for entities to enter “a world of physical suffering”, without actually enduring any actual physical suffering. How much does it hurt when your character takes 5d6 damage, after all?)

I’d already thought of that. Every time I’ve mentioned it in the past I’ve been called some sort of heartless ass for minimizing the suffering of humanity. I won’t worry about that anymore.

It seems to me there’s more to it than simple entertainment because of what I see as the puzzle we are trying to solve. How to live together in harmony. To fully realize our connection to one another and act on it. To seek love and truth.

I’ve also had the thought you voiced. Once we enter heavenly bliss, what happens then? I know bliss is supposed to be good and all but every moment? Sounds like we’d lose our perspective…and maybe that’s the point. To appreciate our bliss with a RPG that offers a chance to experience something else.

God only knows

[begbert2]

@cosmosdan

I’d already thought of that. Every time I’ve mentioned it in the past I’ve been called some sort of heartless ass for minimizing the suffering of humanity. I won’t worry about that anymore.

It seems to me there’s more to it than simple entertainment because of what I see as the puzzle we are trying to solve. How to live together in harmony. To fully realize our connection to one another and act on it. To seek love and truth.

I’ve also had the thought you voiced. Once we enter heavenly bliss, what happens then? I know bliss is supposed to be good and all but every moment? Sounds like we’d lose our perspective…and maybe that’s the point. To appreciate our bliss with a RPG that offers a chance to experience something else.

God only knows

Imagine what they’d say if I ever verbalized my somewhat solipsistic thought that maybe in all those billions of people out there, with the number increasing every day…some of them might be NPCs? Not real people in the Descartian sense that I know that I am real, but rather a mere part of the simulation, created not to suffer and die, but merely to populate the world. After all, until I talk to them how do I know they will pass a turing test…and I won’t ever talk to most of them.

Forget minimizing suffering; I’d be minimizing the humanity of humanity! Golly, I’d be ripped to shreds! It’s a good thing I’ve never verbalized that thought. (This doesn’t count; it’s not verbal. )

Even supposing the RPG scenario is accurate, and even if the Players know what the goal is, that doesn’t change the fact that we avatars don’t know the goal, but are still the ones that have to deal with the sandbox we’re in. And of all the ways to play it, seeking harmony, connection, love and truth is probably as good a way to go as any. Myself I’m more into personal satisfaction and gratuitous frivolous expenditure, but hey, whatever works for you, right? I prefer to think that there’s not only one right way to play the game of life; that the ‘May’ in YMMV means permission.

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

Yes, I see that as a possibility. We also knew that it was extremely fleeting.

Just like the RPG scenario , we get the experience at no real lasting risk.

Therefore, it’s god’s fault since he made us **able **to choose that and – being omniscient – knew that we would, and what would happen as a result.

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

We are parts of the same body. IMHO

We weren’t talking about humanity being part of the same body. That’s not what was being analogized. So, that’s not an example of accuracy in the analogy.

What was being analogized is that god is the head and humans the body.

Which makes no sense if the body can make ‘head’ decisions.

The analogy is not accurate within its own premise: it speaks to god being the head and humans the body, but then says humans can also act like the head.

That point would better be analogized as a body with two heads – one head is god and one head is man, equally in control of the whole. Of course, that can’t be your view since it’s blasphemous because you need god to be the parent.

I don’t care that we’re all part of the same body, that’s changing the subject. We were talking about whether or not god is responsible for our choices since he gave us the ability to have choices. You can’t say we chose to play an RPG without first acknowledging that we had to have been able to choose (free will) before that.

That isn’t a minor point that can be ‘addressed’ and then dismissed.

It undercuts the whole premise with regards to the issue of free will.

You’ve decided to arbitrarily begin at the point where humans choose the RPG and go from there.

You haven’t noted that to do that is a logical impossibility if the ability to choose wasn’t already present – and how did that come to be? God the head, right? You can’t say humans the body chose to be able to choose an RPG, obviously. That’s why it’s important for the human/body analogy to be meaningful in explaining that. It isn’t.
Sorry, but you’re clearly not willing or able to parse the issue of responsibility for being able to choose something in the first place and whose fault that is.

In noting that in the previous thread, you said you’d “addressed” it and moved on.

But you haven’t, clearly won’t, and it transparently collapses your whole premise that our having ‘chosen’ to enter a world of suffering makes us ultimately responsible. It doesn’t.

You’re not going there, which is the prosletyzer’s perspective of which I spoke. It may not be attempting to convert someone, but it works backwards from belief.

You insist that what you posit is logical, which it clearly isn’t, dismiss observations to that end as presumptively ‘arrogant’ since that would mean being able to coherently explain the notion but that can’t be done since it’s all beyond our understanding.

It’s not beyond our understanding to see that it doesn’t make logical sense to not hold an omniscient god – that does **not **control everything – responsible for humans having free will with which to choose suffering in the first place.

Oh well. Maybe you’ve never heard of the notion of parents being punished for the actions of their minor children, as may happen in the fires in California.

I would point out the analogy in there but I’d be wasting my figurative breath.

[9thFloor]

@begbert2

Imagine what they’d say if I ever verbalized my somewhat solipsistic thought that maybe in all those billions of people out there, with the number increasing every day…some of them might be NPCs? Not real people in the Descartian sense that I know that I am real, but rather a mere part of the simulation, created not to suffer and die, but merely to populate the world. After all, until I talk to them how do I know they will pass a turing test…and I won’t ever talk to most of them.

Forget minimizing suffering; I’d be minimizing the humanity of humanity! Golly, I’d be ripped to shreds! It’s a good thing I’ve never verbalized that thought. (This doesn’t count; it’s not verbal. )

Even supposing the RPG scenario is accurate, and even if the Players know what the goal is, that doesn’t change the fact that we avatars don’t know the goal, but are still the ones that have to deal with the sandbox we’re in. And of all the ways to play it, seeking harmony, connection, love and truth is probably as good a way to go as any. Myself I’m more into personal satisfaction and gratuitous frivolous expenditure, but hey, whatever works for you, right? I prefer to think that there’s not only one right way to play the game of life; that the ‘May’ in YMMV means permission.

Sounds reasonable to me

I’m currently just debating the lack of logic of certain held beliefs without wanting to assert that the goal is either to humanistically try to relieve all suffering or to see suffering as instructive of some cosmic goal that’s supposed to drive us towards a utopian concept of seeking harmony, connection, love and truth amongst ourselves. Personally, both notions sound dangerous and naive to me.

Does your RPG scenario as you understand it eliminate morality? The ‘proper’ way to live one’s life, in other words?

We’re about on the same page if that’s so.

(Oh, and I think your notion that humanity’s humanity can be reduced by positing that they’re NPCs is pretty bold and it’s undeniably true we logically and personally can’t ever know for sure. To me, that’s not a notion as logically offensive or incoherent as the incorporating of suffering into a view that holds we’ve got specific goals of finding love, connection, grassy hills and sparkling water – such a view has to be damaged by the notion of suffering and begins to strain credulity when it gets to the point of one human’s suffering being instructive to another human. Within that worldview, the morality of a humanist is far superior to that of a christian. It’s more meaningful and moral to say suffering has no meaning than to say it’s supposed to be an instruction to finding world peace, or any other such derivative purpose. Personally, I think you have to kick out the moral jams completely for views like your RPG perspective. And I’m all in favor of that! )

[begbert2]

@9thFloor

Sounds reasonable to me

I’m currently just debating the lack of logic of certain held beliefs without wanting to assert that the goal is either to humanistically try to relieve all suffering or to see suffering as instructive of some cosmic goal that’s supposed to drive us towards a utopian concept of seeking harmony, connection, love and truth amongst ourselves. Personally, both notions sound dangerous and naive to me.

Does your RPG scenario as you understand it eliminate morality? The ‘proper’ way to live one’s life, in other words?

We’re about on the same page if that’s so.

(Oh, and I think your notion that humanity’s humanity can be reduced by positing that they’re NPCs is pretty bold and it’s undeniably true we logically and personally can’t ever know for sure. To me, that’s not a notion as logically offensive or incoherent as the incorporating of suffering into a view that holds we’ve got specific goals of finding love, connection, grassy hills and sparkling water – such a view has to be damaged by the notion of suffering and begins to strain credulity when it gets to the point of one human’s suffering being instructive to another human. Within that worldview, the morality of a humanist is far superior to that of a christian. It’s more meaningful and moral to say suffering has no meaning than to say it’s supposed to be an instruction to finding world peace, or any other such derivative purpose. Personally, I think you have to kick out the moral jams completely for views like your RPG perspective. And I’m all in favor of that! )

This might disappoint you somewhat, but my RPG perspective doesn’t entirely eliminate the idea of morality (that is, the notion that there is a ‘proper’ way to to live one’s life). I mean, it’s a game: and as I described it it has points, scores, and winning conditions; if you get a high score, you end up on the leaderboard (aka “heaven”), and if you get the “optimum victory score” while alive you get taken directly into “heaven” without bothering to die first (or in the case of the Jesus player, again). So clearly there are things you’re supposed to do to get good points and a high score.

However, there are two very important details:

1. While the player knows what the good actions to take are, the avatar doesn’t. Remember, we are the avatars. We are not the players, or at least we aren’t when it comes to available information. So while there is an absolute morality, we don’t know what it is. I believe I mentioned at one point that the scenario as presented allowed for the possibility that eating Snickers bars could be the goal, and therefore the one moral act, and the one route to “heaven”.

(From this lack of avatar knowledge about the goals, one presumes the avatars should stop preaching at each other what to do. Wouldn’t it be nice!)

2. The game itself is not presented as restricting, limiting, or punishing “bad” behavior, excepting that you get a lower “score”. There is no punishment to the player for not getting a high score; his avatar won’t end up on the leader board, but that’s no big deal; the avatar’s play is not restricted while it’s alive, and either way the player can play again with a new avatar later if he wants to.

Now, I admit I included the concept of a leader board mostly as a way to take lighthearted potshots at carrot/stick religions. (Just like I included Jesus as a way to take potshots at Elvisians. Er, Christians.) Even so, it makes a certain amount of sense; most games include some method of tracking advancement. In the very sandboxy games, this is often simply done by tracking advancement in the main plot; by that logic, if you die, you win. Excepting I stated that if you die (as opposed to being taken up directly into heaven), you lose. Oh, well.

Seriously though, if you weren’t taking potshots at existing religions, one could easily concoct a “pure sandbox” rpg model, which lets the Players roleplay in a completely morally impartial way. There’s nothing wrong or contradictory with such a model; and it certainly doesn’t contradict with reality (where there appears to be zippo supernatural consequences for bad behavior (no lightning)); it just isn’t the model I happened to write.
By the way, before you get all gung-ho about the RPG model, keep in mind that it gets its happy, friendly conflict-free demeanor mostly by being heartlessly callous to the avatars. That is to say, us. The player might shrug and go on happily with life when his Pac-Man is shrivelling up after touching a ghost, but that sure doesn’t help the Pac-Man any; he’s still shriveling and dying. It’s cold comfort to say to someone, “Sure, your parents are dead and you’re a paraplegic now and are in constant agony besides, but the real you doesn’t actually hurt at all, and is chuckling with his buddy angels over the bad luck he’s having. You just think your life totally sucks because he’s role-playing you so well.”

So the RPG model doesn’t really eliminate the problem of evil; it just answers it with “God doesn’t give a crap about the suffering of man; he finds it amusing! Ha ha ha! Because, in reality, the suffering isn’t actually real.” Real being a relative term to us avatars, of course.

On the upside, the RPG model does give you a way for supernatural godlike free-willed entities to create this suffering-filled world without subjecting any helpless or choiceless entities to (real) suffering, and thereby entirely avoids a lot of the stupidity that most organized religions have to do a two-step and twist to try to avoid tripping over. From there you can tack on all sorts of stuff, from superstitions to ghosts (like I did) to interactive gods if you want, all contradiction-free, if you can stomach the fact that you’ve decided that you’re not real.