Thread: What would you do if offered the chance to become God?

I guess the question is... if you became a god, would you even want your ego to survive? A god's perspective must be much more perfect.

I would take the position, and then I would make myself forget and it would be my mission to remember. But I would also give the power to every single thing that exists on the condition that they also don't remember and it is their mission to remember. Before I make myself forget, I will create a perfect system that creates life based on energy condensing into matter, forming atoms, then molecules, then DNA that evolves until life is capable of remembering. Everything will arrange into more complex forms. I would have every experience that every thing had recorded in a field of energy, like a library of practically infinite files open to anyone and everyone who had awakened and remembered in order to learn and understand the beauty and suffering of life in all its manifestations. When we remember who we are, we will be like lucid dreamers again and we can choose to go unlucid at anytime and do it all over again, in order to collect more files in the library or Hall of Records.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

I would take the position, and then I would make myself forget and it would be my mission to remember. But I would also give the power to every single thing that exists on the condition that they also don't remember and it is their mission to remember. Before I make myself forget, I will create a perfect system that creates life based on energy condensing into matter, forming atoms, then molecules, then DNA that evolves until life is capable of remembering. Everything will arrange into more complex forms. I would have every experience that every thing had recorded in a field of energy, like a library of practically infinite files open to anyone and everyone who had awakened and remembered in order to learn and understand the beauty and suffering of life in all its manifestations. When we remember who we are, we will be like lucid dreamers again and we can choose to go unlucid at anytime and do it all over again, in order to collect more files in the library or Hall of Records.

Don't a number of people already believe this?

This is a major fantasy for me, and I think about it .. A lot.
Except I never imagine actually being given the position by God, in the real world. Rather, I imagine that when I die, I come into a copy of the world, with omnipotence.

But I'm gonna go with this scenario.
I'd say yeah, sure.

First, I'd think about one thing. What happens in the afterlife for people who are not God? Maybe I would grant myself the knowledge, or maybe I would skip this and do the next thing:
Anyone who dies or has ever died, is granted the afterlife that they wish and which is best for them, including an ability to change their mind.

Having that covered, I'd grant myself the knowledge of whether or not souls exist. Which is to say, should I give a fuck if people die; are they just psychological zombies, or is there a reason to never be cruel to any living being? This thought would trouble me if the knowledge I grant myself doesn't change things radically. I would keep thinking that, since my own brain is what is causing my feelings, am I not a psychological zombie as well? So if I cause pain to these AI-people, surely, even though the pain they feel is artificial, simulated, it's still real to them. This wouldn't be a huge problem, because then I'd just, y'know, not be cruel to people. The problem becomes big when disasters and wars become involved. When I now have the ability, I would feel as if it was my duty to stop all disasters and wars.
Basically, for me to be a good God, I would feel that I had to end every bad aspect of life. On one hand, that'd be cool. But on another, that would be extremely boring?

What I've thought of doing was this; I'd make sort of a Hub. A castle resting not in the universe, but in a seperate world, all for itself. It would have many rooms and hallways and would serve as a kind of divine mansion for me to live in.
It would include one big hall with a shit load of portals. Each portal would be like an instance into a new world. It would be sort of game-like; I could name them, generate random worlds, tweak and edit, basically do anything to them.
That would allow me to have several worlds where I act differently. I could have one world where I solve all the problems and act as a really good and loving God.
And then I could have a realistic world, where I do not interfere, but merely observe. And I could have a world where I was a really cruel God, perhaps I could even go down there, take shapes of various interesting monsters and prey on the people there, play sort of social experiments. What happens if I, as a fast moving water-running jumpy-ninja monster, attack a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and start killing everyone like I was killing time in a Hitman game?
What if I played several characters with different roles? I could be one God, making a cult and making the people do random things in turn of some percieved honor or treasure with magical abilities, just for my own amusement; all the while also playing another God that takes the role of the other God's enemy. Basically this world would be a giant sandbox.

But, I'd always be dragged back to the dillemma. Is it alright to cause pain and suffering for these people? Sure, they get the afterlife they wish for, they can even be reincarnated in the world where I keep everything good, or in the realistic world? But still, they don't know that before they actually die. What if they're just a family member who's had someone get killed by me, and have to endure living in this world of terror that I'm creating for my own amusement? They wouldn't know that all is well on the other side of death, and they'd be getting loads of (simulated) emotional suffering, and it would only end when the person finally dies.

And of course, when I do take these shapes, I'd pretty much always limit my powers. That'd make the most fun. How much limitation I give myself would be specific to worlds or situations.
Sometimes I'd want to just be a powerful magician, sometimes maybe have specific powers that nobody else in the world have, sometimes I'd be a completely normal person.

In the case that I want to be a normal person, I'd make it so that when I die as that person, I'll just be ported somewhere and back into my old omnipotent me.
Sometimes I'd make storylines, like movies that play out, perhaps with me in it, or maybe I just make people in the world play it out.

I'd create many worlds that I have concepts of in my head, different races and whatnot.

I'd also have the good equivalent of my experimentation world. This world is a copy of the world we live in. I don't reveal myself directly, but I step in and leave hints but keep it mystique.
There's many things to do here. I could just go explore, help people in need, go to the wild west and see what could be done there. I'd act as sort of a legend, that guy who stands out in some way and helps.
In one fantasy, I take the shape of an animal and just wander around. I would pick sort of a target person and then I'd just try to help that person in life. I'd end up choosing a troubled little girl. I wouldn't stay in my bird form, but I'd leave it a mystery that there's a relation between the characters, perhaps except for leaving hints. (For example, I could have a blue feather in my hat, identical to the feathers on the bird)

This leaves another moral dillemma. If I choose a little girl to give special attention and help, why do I choose her and not someone else? As it is, I'd probably choose her judging from 1. Her personality and appearance, and 2. How troubled she is.
But ultimately, being what I am, I'd be on the looking for one who looks cute and one that I'd want to, er.. lacking better words, stalk. (I guess that's another moral dilemma in itself... Oh well)
So, would it be immoral of me to choose her, and not someone else who is even more troubled? Would it be immoral of me not to choose the troubled ugly girl over the slightly less troubled pretty girl? Would I be obliged to choose the worst cases, basically ignoring what I myself feel like?
Basically what these moral dilemmas boil down to is this: Am I, as the only omnipotent being in the world, allowed to be selfish and egocentric?

Another thing I might do at one point would to adopt a kind of Doctor Who approach to the whole thing, and start coming out to select people as God and inviting them to the Hub and then traveling around with them.
As for omniscience, I would never do that. I would fear insanity or a complete lack of motivation, or that everything would just go boring instantly. I would want to learn naturally as I went on.

On another point, going back to the very first point. When I'm asked by God, I'd say yes, but keeping in mind that I am only 18, I might decide to try and live my life normally, ignoring my new omnipotence. I'd probably not be able to resist once in a while to do small things, but I'd try not to.

Well now I summed some of it up :V

Originally Posted by spockman

Don't a number of people already believe this?

Evidently he believes it lol It is a pretty logical conclusion if you want to believe in a god/s.

1. I would accept. I yearn for such power
2. I would start with limited abilities, setting up a few safety rules so I didn't make myself disaper or something
3. I think I would do it kinda like the Greek gods. I would move the time line of humans to a point where they still feared the gods, and believed in them.
4. As like the Greek gods, I would create some beings to act gods like a fire, water, storm, nature and so what, so I had someone to "play" with. Me being immortal and all of course. I would also like to add some lesser beings, like nymphs and mythological creatures. Unicorn ftw

Originally Posted by Savy

I guess the question is... if you became a god, would you even want your ego to survive? A god's perspective must be much more perfect.

Good point. But if us mortals can feel happiness, and be cheered up by it, can a god also do that? Wouldn't it scare us mortals, if we knew that we would never experience the "happiness" in the way we know we can while having a mortal ego? A mortal would have to be very wise to trade his own happiness for.. Neutrality or what one would expect a god to be feeling.

I know for a fact that there is a way to experience a God's perspective. I don't think that's the way i want to see the world tho. If i was god i would make copies of myself and choose to live an ego-centric life inside the imagination just so i don't have to be so lonely. I would wipe my entire memory of ever being god and i will have as much fun as possible.

Originally Posted by Dthoughts

I know for a fact that there is a way to experience a God's perspective. I don't think that's the way i want to see the world tho. If i was god i would make copies of myself and choose to live an ego-centric life inside the imagination just so i don't have to be so lonely. I would wipe my entire memory of ever being god and i will have as much fun as possible.

How?

Originally Posted by spockman

How?

By altering your consiousness until you hit the jackpot.

I dont want to be god, to much responsibility and I might destroy people without meaning to when i get mad.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Maybe we are all gods and we have simply limited our own understanding, so we can attach meaning to an otherwise seamingly meaningless existence as a god. Maaaan.

As stoner philosophy as it is, I believe if I ended up with this power I would eventually do exactly that, and gradually cause a world with such bad things as we have in it now. But there's a number of caveats to this.

You wonder about the suffering? The theory of other minds means we can't tell if the conscious are suffering anyway; so there's the distinct possibility that the truly horrible things only occur because they're not done to you. The other possibility is that you wanted to experience said sufferings and organised beforehand (because eternity is for all experiences). Please don't take this as my being callous toward those suffering. Philosophy like this, unprovable, should not have an impact on what we feel is moral in the world. It's mere flowerdancing.

At the same time, if this has been done many times, it would explain injustices. Perhaps this is a story where the bad guys win in the end. Given the unpopularity of those stories in here it may just be very drawn out, to make it much more of an earned ending.

If I were granted these powers, that's what I would end up doing; the storyteller's craft. A saga that struggled on, full of injustice and suffering and sacrifice, but undoubtedly one where the protagonists were eventually victorious in their way.

...

First I'd shapeshift though. Gotta keep a little selfishness.

Originally Posted by spockman

Don't a number of people already believe this?

Sure, there are people who believe in anything. But that is not the issue, this is an answer to a hypothetical question if one would accept becoming God and what one would do if one accepted.

Originally Posted by Tommo

Evidently he believes it lol It is a pretty logical conclusion if you want to believe in a god/s.

Well, I don't believe in God.

I was just saying, that if there was a god or gods, that would be a likely thing for them to do.
I don't know why I said that first bit. I think I forgot what this thread was about lol

I agree, that if there is a God, that is exactly what he did.

I would give up the position to someone else in exchange for eternal bliss.

Although, if you mean my own sense of God, a pantheist sense, then I would be very glad to take on the part, but unfortunately I'm already in that role, and so is everyone else. We have the power to create and destroy, bring life, bring death, bring salvation and kindness, and bring rage and destruction. We are all God incarnate.

If God is the owner/creator, and Jesus is the CEO, and the product that they're selling is Christianity for the low low price of your soul, what's the fine print on the return policy say?

The question does not jive with my perception of god. Any personification of god that could "approach me" is not god. Any personification of god that I could become would not be god.

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

I would take the position, and then I would make myself forget and it would be my mission to remember. But I would also give the power to every single thing that exists on the condition that they also don't remember and it is their mission to remember. Before I make myself forget, I will create a perfect system that creates life based on energy condensing into matter, forming atoms, then molecules, then DNA that evolves until life is capable of remembering. Everything will arrange into more complex forms. I would have every experience that every thing had recorded in a field of energy, like a library of practically infinite files open to anyone and everyone who had awakened and remembered in order to learn and understand the beauty and suffering of life in all its manifestations. When we remember who we are, we will be like lucid dreamers again and we can choose to go unlucid at anytime and do it all over again, in order to collect more files in the library or Hall of Records.

I would create a perfect life for myself and all the people I've met, they would then be my apostles and would search for other people who deserve to have their life changed, and it would spread from there. You wouldn't have to believe in me to reap the benefits.

Also I would become a famous rapper and once everyone is enlightened I would create a new land mass which would then become a party nation.

Originally Posted by Reclypso

I would create a perfect life for myself and all the people I've met, they would then be my apostles and would search for other people who deserve to have their life changed, and it would spread from there. You wouldn't have to believe in me to reap the benefits.

Also I would become a famous rapper and once everyone is enlightened I would create a new land mass which would then become a party nation.

Why the people you've met? If you were all knowing you could instantly determine who was worthy, by your standards, of a perfect life and who wasn't. Knowing you before your divinity seems like an arbitrary thing to make one worthy of perfection.

Instantly turn it down, no question. Cheating isn't fun.

Originally Posted by cmind

Instantly turn it down, no question. Cheating isn't fun.

-.-

I'd probably just take watcher part, depending how insane I would go with that limitless power.

If I had completely lost it, I would take the mantle of the ultimate god of ChAoS. I would probably spawn certain people far greater powers than normal men and watch them make life interesting, inventing radical stuff, trying to conquer the world, following their cryptic dreams of their true heritage, establishing cults and such. Maybe one grand miracle and people would be puzzled if that counts as proof for my existence. They'd use it as an argument against nonbelievers at least couple millenias, untill it completely loses its credibility.
Tenets, oh yes, the tenets of Unelias would bring a fear in the heart of men. There'd be at least 30.. or maybe more, depending how creative I'll get. But since I am actually the god that has taken the aspect of primal chaos the tenets would be pretty useless and even by obeying them you could get wasted by Unelias.

I would keep the the lord giveth and taketh away proverb, since it describes me perfectly. In addition, the common speech of my subjects would be heavily influenced by me, like "The weather has been changing like whim of Unelias lately." Also, I would claim many titles which my subjects use to refer to me. I like idea of that.

Lastly, to embrace my true nature as a god of chaotic origin, people would get rewarded and punished randomly. A firefighter who saves a little child from burning house, will be hit by a meteor next day. Man who prays for a beautiful, loving wife will get a truckload of gay men. A woman who wishes for a child will get decaplets. Sometimes peoples prayers naturally come quite close of what they had wished for and they will rejoice and spread my gospel across the planet. By that time I am already taking a planet creation course somewhere beyond Andromeda X and I will send my son to take the reins of Earth. *My* offspring, however, can disintegrate humans with his thoughts and is nigh immortal, so I don't have to worry about him being lynched or something as stupid. Then, in due time, we shall rule the the whole galaxy, maybe even the whole existence, as father and son.

As you see, I haven't given much thought about this issue, but I assure you that if there opens up a leading place in the upper management, I will certainly make the company to reflect my image. Believe me, you don't want to be the Employee of the Month. Because The Employee Will Always Live In Interesting Times.

Sincerely, your god
Unelias, The Lord of End and Everything, The Wind of Change, The Eternal Jester, The Masked One, The Dice of Luck, The Rolling Tide, The Three-Faced God, The Sealer of Fate, The Chaos Current, The Maelstrom of Hate, The Dark God of Wonders.

ps. Lots of virgin sacrifices.