this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Why exclude humans, animals and bacteria? How about Sun? Jesus Christ? God-King Jayavarman II? A cat? Very small spirit of tiny stream? A holy stone (stone is not a human, nor animal or bacteria, a lot of stones were worshipped in various forms and meanings in history)? A tree chewed by pilgrims? Invisible Hand of the Market?
Incredibly arbitrary definition again constructed to wriggle your way from any concrete statement.
If we had the technological power, would humans run simulations of universes with Planck length precision? Obviously yes. So extrapolating from our one and only example of intelligent life (us), it seems like intelligent life enjoys stimulating universes. If our reality were the result of that kind of project, and the engineers lived outside the laws of physics, I would call them higher beings. And they could be as hands-off or as interventionist as they pleased.
Sure that's a valid defintion, albeit a super specific one and it directly exclude all (or almost all) known forms of religion on Earth.
Which part is directly excluded?
The one where there is not only zero proof of anything of it being real, but also zero (or nearly zero) religious people actually beliving that.
And if we were talking about whether it were real, or whether people believed it in those specific terms, you'd have a point. But since we're talking about your assertion that major earth religions are "directly excluded" by that definition of "higher beings," i still fail to see the exclusion.