After reading Abdullah Sameer's article on the "Peekaboo God", I think my personal experience on "finding God" is worth sharing too, not as a refutation. I merely share this as an alternative view.
Let's start from this interesting paragraph.
"Where is God?" ๐งต
Let's start from this interesting paragraph.
"Where is God?" ๐งต
Imagine you're a conscious piece of data living inside a hyperrealistic game world (Quran 6:32). You have a vague sense of consciousness just enough to appreciate the beauty of your world. You soon notice the underlying order behind your world but you don't know how and why it...
...came into being. You start to discuss this with your fellow conscious pieces of data. You further notice that you guys may have been the only sapient pieces of data in your world. One of your brilliant fellows discovers that all pieces of data in your world...
..., both living and non-living, conscious or unconscious, are ultimately composed of an endless sequence of binary codes. Some of you guys start speculating that you may have always been living inside a simulation; a game world. Some others choose to theorize that the binary...
...codes are all there is. They came into being on their own. Nobody wrote those codes. Many others choose a simpler stance: if we're all mere data then some Supreme Being outside this simulated game world must have caused it to exist. The Supreme Being must have written this...
...world into existence.
Now, imagine that we humans are actually these conscious pieces of data who believe that the Supreme Being exists. How rational is it to expect that the Supreme Being should've just shown Himself in His true essence within the simulated world He created?
Now, imagine that we humans are actually these conscious pieces of data who believe that the Supreme Being exists. How rational is it to expect that the Supreme Being should've just shown Himself in His true essence within the simulated world He created?
If I were a programmer of a game world, and I want my in-game sprites to worship me, do you expect me to get into the game through the monitor with my whole flesh, bones, and blood, and just shatter the world I created into miserable pieces of stupid joke? You'd expect me...
...to do something smarter and wiser, wouldn't you? You'd expect me to come up with an impeccable world-building, neat lines of codes, efficiently sleek algorithms, and engaging gameplay to let my sprites appreciate just how brilliant of a game dev their creator is, wouldn't you?
Now for such an automated game world to exist under the divine supervision of its Creator, where should the Creator stay? Inside or outside the game world? Outside.
That way, can the Creator observe, manipulate and upgrade the game world without shattering it into pieces? Yes.
That way, can the Creator observe, manipulate and upgrade the game world without shattering it into pieces? Yes.
What about the sprites and assets of the world? Is it possible for them to directly observe their Creator, the Majestic Game Developer? No. Not because the Creator are subject to limitations. It's because it takes the destruction of the world to accommodate His sheer essence.
"Then why didn't He just create an avatar that lives and works like his sprites but with supernatural privileges and programs the avatar to tell the sprites to worship the avatar?" Well, that means the sprites are NOT worshipping Him.
"Okay, just program the avatar to tell the sprites to worship Him, then?" Well that's actually how the prophets of God had always been working in our world.
"Nah, I still don't get why God, with all His divine self-sustenance, would bother creating this perfectly automated world with little to no intervention only for us to live freely for a brief moment here and end up in either Paradise or Hell."
Truth is, I don't know either. All I know is that if God exists (He does), then He must be so Godly Powerful that a mere sprite like me wouldn't stand a chance against Him were He to cast His divine wrath upon me. I'd rather be a nice, obedient little sprite worthy of a measly...
...speck of His indifferent blessings than be a pompous, little rebel of a sprite worthy of a minute sprinkle of His astronomical punishments.
Choose wisely.
Choose wisely.
PS: Another reason why He doesn't even bother appearing in a human-readable avatar is that He doesn't actually need our worshipping Him. He creates for the sake of creating. That's why He's such an Ultimate Creator. That also explains why He let evil and misery happen.
Needless to say that this statement below is too weak to support the case for the inexistence of an All-Brilliant God. Naturalism only explains how systematically nature works. It never explains how nature came into being, let alone proves God's inexistence.
How rational is it to ask who created God then proceed to believe that the universe is uncreated? At the end of the day, humans have to believe that an uncreated entity exists. Atheists believe that such entity is the universe. Theists believe that such entity is God. ๐งถ
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