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Theology as an Exercise in Management.

Started by Doktor Howl, June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM

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Doktor Howl

Okay, so God makes this cosmos, a planet, and eventually a race of particularly clever monkeys.  He then turns to his workers, the angels, and says "bow before my creation; they have free will, and are thus superior."

Lucifer in accounts payable doesn't like THAT even a little, rebels, and gets the whole department cast down.  How exactly Lucifer rebelled without free will is not explained.

Meanwhile, God has told the prehensile little bastards on Earth that they can do whatever they like with their free will, so long as they don't learn right from wrong.  In short, they can do anything except make an informed decision.  A snake who may or may not have been related to Prometheus1 comes along and explains things, for which he is cursed to travel on his belly.  God throws the humans out (starting to see a pattern, here?), and blames the entire thing on women in the workplace.

So the humans are like "whatever, we'll make our own Eden", so God drowns everyone.  The few survivors say "Meh" and go back to work.  God has a snit about it and fucks off.  The boss's kid drops in, gives us some helpful advice, but by now we've fucking HAD IT with Gods and the carpenter gets nailed to a stick.

I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.




1 It is worth mentioning that EVERY religion has a Prometheus figure.
Molon Lube

rong

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM

I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.




as above, so below
"a real smart feller, he felt smart"

minuspace

I guess God gets to perform his little teleological suspensions of the ethical. For the rest of us, appeals to better management are taken to stem from reason. Therein lies the rub, people smarter than me have discerned. If you grant the duffer a capacity to reason, the principle of autonomy gets to ride as well, no exceptions (except One.) God does not require us to be responsible/culpable in order to exact punishment, clearly, transcending reason. What this provides is a regulatory system that initially looks good on paper and then reveals itself to be rationally unsound and ultimately unjustifiable. But heck, when it's all a conditioned response, when not even my own sin is original, what's new and who cares?

And then the madness came for me as I found myself praying to a glorified thermostat.

Brother Mythos

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?
Discordianism is fundamentally mischievous irreverence.

LMNO

Quote from: LuciferX on June 06, 2018, 02:59:36 AM
And then the madness came for me as I found myself praying to a glorified thermostat.

Amongst the chaff, wheat.

Newsfeed, Big Words, etc etc.

P3nT4gR4m

The thing with god is, he's exactly the kind of of bullshit explanation you'd expect to arise from the fevered dreams of malnourished cavemen. Either that or he's a real thing with an intellect that's in no way capable of creating a respectable mudpie, let alone a universe. So where does that leave us?

There may or may not be some form of god. Yet. Pretty much everything other than that is 53'rd hand rumour, based on the incoherent ramblings of a bunch of pre literate neanderthals with a healthy mix of authoritarian propaganda thrown in for good measure.

Fuck god. Fuck the clowns who believe in him. Yes I know that's probably the majority of my species. Fuck them good and hard. They earned it.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Doktor Howl

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 06, 2018, 10:50:54 PM
The thing with god is, he's exactly the kind of of bullshit explanation you'd expect to arise from the fevered dreams of malnourished cavemen. Either that or he's a real thing with an intellect that's in no way capable of creating a respectable mudpie, let alone a universe. So where does that leave us?

There may or may not be some form of god. Yet. Pretty much everything other than that is 53'rd hand rumour, based on the incoherent ramblings of a bunch of pre literate neanderthals with a healthy mix of authoritarian propaganda thrown in for good measure.

Fuck god. Fuck the clowns who believe in him. Yes I know that's probably the majority of my species. Fuck them good and hard. They earned it.

The thing to remember about God is the same as when you talk about aliens.  They by definition are not human and cannot be trusted.  Shoot first.  Or, if you're a Scotsman, just hit them in a face with a brick.
Molon Lube

The Wizard Joseph

Took a while to think on this thread before replying. I agree that there's a management crisis in heaven and the earth. Clearly it's essentially a communication issue as I see it. I'm not so sure that the "angels" lack free will at all. They're by definition obedient. You can't have real obedience without the choice to disobey somehow existing. If there's obedience there's also something to obey, God or rules set by God.

I imagine that the rules were enforced mainly through keeping most angels ignorant of the weighty choice to obey or disobey. Much of the rest would be them essentially policing each other in an environment where privacy and time for introspection are extremely rare indeed, much less the opportunity to do anything other than what you're told, what you were made for.

Then along comes humanity and their complete lack of rules of conduct other than biological survival imperatives. Angels exposed to enough of that sort of thing might start getting ideas about themselves.. So at some point God orders a hands off policy that doesn't go over well with many of his workers that have been on The Project, some of them since The Beginning. They see it as THEIRS as much as God's.

This dissent descends into true outrage when God openly and flatly states that these primates are now on a level nearer to God than they are, functionally making them subordinate to humans who barely know how to clean themselves properly, much less how to make the fundamental pieces of the cosmos play together in tune. As though the Conductor of a grand Orchestra decided one day to let a monkey do His job and expected His first chair musicians to just do their best to follow along without complaint.

Funny thing is that the monkey at first just sat there picking its butt for the first few hundred thousand years and the "joke" was tolerated, the Boss is known to be quite eccentric after all. Then eventually the monkey began to realize that it could make sounds happen with the stick it held and began to wave it around wildly. Fast forward to today after several walk-outs, rage-quits, and even attempts to kill the monkey and the monkey is actually conducting the Orchestra, but in a completely mad fashion sure to wreck the remaining players, or so it might seem.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

bpseudopod

We got one problem here, bub.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
1 It is worth mentioning that EVERY religion has a Prometheus figure.

What's the Discordian Prometheus figure? Closest I can think is Greyface and he's basically the opposite of one.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: bpseudopod on June 10, 2018, 01:27:15 AM
We got one problem here, bub.

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
1 It is worth mentioning that EVERY religion has a Prometheus figure.

What's the Discordian Prometheus figure? Closest I can think is Greyface and he's basically the opposite of one.

Eris is, of course.  Nothing says she can't do both.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 06, 2018, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?


There doesn't seem to be any flaws in the design, at least flaws that would cause the problems being discussed.

Also, when you're omnipotent, who's on your QC team?
Molon Lube

Brother Mythos

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 11, 2018, 10:02:11 PM
Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 06, 2018, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?


There doesn't seem to be any flaws in the design, at least flaws that would cause the problems being discussed.

Also, when you're omnipotent, who's on your QC team?

Okay, I'll buy that.

However, isn't Lucifer more of an Accounts Receivable kind of guy? I would think the collecting of souls is more of a normal Accounts Receivable function, than an Accounts Payable responsibility.
Discordianism is fundamentally mischievous irreverence.

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 13, 2018, 04:30:05 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 11, 2018, 10:02:11 PM
Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 06, 2018, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?


There doesn't seem to be any flaws in the design, at least flaws that would cause the problems being discussed.

Also, when you're omnipotent, who's on your QC team?

Okay, I'll buy that.

However, isn't Lucifer more of an Accounts Receivable kind of guy? I would think the collecting of souls is more of a normal Accounts Receivable function, than an Accounts Payable responsibility.

Was
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 13, 2018, 04:30:05 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 11, 2018, 10:02:11 PM
Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 06, 2018, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?


There doesn't seem to be any flaws in the design, at least flaws that would cause the problems being discussed.

Also, when you're omnipotent, who's on your QC team?

Okay, I'll buy that.

However, isn't Lucifer more of an Accounts Receivable kind of guy? I would think the collecting of souls is more of a normal Accounts Receivable function, than an Accounts Payable responsibility.


Well, not really.  Millions of poorly-behaved monkeys show up looking for disbursement.
Molon Lube

minuspace

Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 13, 2018, 04:30:05 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 11, 2018, 10:02:11 PM
Quote from: Brother Mythos on June 06, 2018, 03:17:55 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2018, 12:58:26 AM
I was thinking about this on the drive home today, and I have come to the conclusion that all of this mess is a crisis in management, rather than labor.

Interesting.

So, for once, the Engineering Department doesn't get blamed for inherent design flaws?

And, as usual, Quality Control takes no responsibility whatsoever, because they can't inspect quality into the finished product?


There doesn't seem to be any flaws in the design, at least flaws that would cause the problems being discussed.

Also, when you're omnipotent, who's on your QC team?

Okay, I'll buy that.

However, isn't Lucifer more of an Accounts Receivable kind of guy? I would think the collecting of souls is more of a normal Accounts Receivable function, than an Accounts Payable responsibility.
Yeah, souls don't fetch like what they once did.