On God Part XIV-Where is Everybody?!

Here’s a horrifying thought experiment. Imagine being God. At first, it would be awesome. You have ultimate power over everything. All of humanity is like a bunch of tiny ants compared to your power. But, how quickly do we get tired of watching a bunch of ants run around? Impressing a bunch of ants with our power wouldn’t be all that much fun either.

“But we are made in God’s image. We aren’t a bunch of ants.”

Okay, fine. Imagine you’re Lebron James and humanity is a bunch of toddlers. How much fun is it running around dunking on everyone when they can’t put up any reasonable resistance? All the toddlers think you’re super cool but kind of who cares what they think? They’re just dumb babies.

There’s nothing really to achieve because you’re all-powerful. You’re also already everywhere, so there’s nowhere to go. There’s no mystery to solve because you already know everything.

I think being God quickly loses its appeal…and then things get terrifying.

God always is and always was. We like to say that to other finite humans as a way to impress each other with how cool God is. Almost like bragging about how much our dad can lift. But imagine being the only conscious thing that exists. You’re it, man, because you haven’t yet gotten around to creating anything else. What a horrific nightmare to find out that you’re this all-powerful being that sits outside of time and space and you’re just there and you can’t leave and you’re all alone.

It looks like this…

You’re God and there is nothing else.

So you just kind of bounce around.

There is no beginning and no end and no one to talk to. It’s literally the stranded-on-a-desert-island thought experiment except you’re stranded alone in the entire universe. The story of God is like a real-life Twilight Zone episode. Where is everybody?!

But it’s worse than that. Much worse.

Not only is God there from beginning to end, but he’s also everywhere all at once. So not only are you just hanging out in the void of the universe but you somehow take up all the space. So, it’s more like being stranded in a box for all of eternity. No matter how big the universe is, you expand to fill that space. 

No one can let you out because there is no one above you. It’s just you. You’re God and you’re stuck in this universe-size box…forever.

No matter how torturous life gets we know we can always just kill ourselves and be done with it. God doesn’t have that option. He’s stuck, alone, in a box, no one to hear his screams.

It really makes you wonder what bully put God into this box. I can’t think of a better way to torture someone than to put them in a box that’s just barely big enough for them and then make them immortal. But, of course, since God is the ultimate authority he wasn’t put inside this box by some bully. This means that bully can’t change his mind and free God. God is just plain stuck.

Did God decide to be God or did he have any say in the matter?

Did God have the free will to decide to be this all-knowing, all-powerful, everlasting being or was it just thrust upon him?

Christians love to argue for the existence of God by saying “Something cannot come from nothing, and since something is clearly here that means something had to have made it.” Bravo. Using that logic we have to admit that God is also something so he had to have come from something. They get over that particular hurdle by saying the adult version of, “God is infinity plus one.” Everything has to come from something, except God. He just always was. In our hast to make God fit all the boxes of being the most kickass deity of all time we’ve created a torture chamber.

Sorry, God. There is no rest, no relief. You just always were. That means if we start from now and work our way backward we’ll never reach the beginning of God’s time being stuck alone in a box-shaped universe. God has been in solitary confinement on steroids for the last infinity years. No wonder he’s got some weird rules.

But that’s all in the past. Now we’re here! So, God doesn’t have to be so lonely. He’s still squished in his universe size box, but at least he has someone to talk to.

But now that God has us to hang out with he seems uninterested. He spent a few thousand years whispering into people’s ears about what he wanted us to do…and more importantly what he wanted us not to do…

but now he’s largely silent.

Anyway. I think being God would be horrifying.

If you enjoyed this brief article here are a few more of my musings on God.

Miracles in the Bible-On God Part XIII– Why I’m not worried about miracles being depicted in the Bible.

Dinosaurs and the Literal Bible-On God Part XII– Why aren’t dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?

Pascal’s Wager-On God Part VII– Why I think Pascal’s Wager is dumb.