Gods across the multiverse?

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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I don’t know why I never made this connection before, but today I realized how parallel universes could explain the prevalence of so many different belief systems among humans when it comes to religions and gods. It could be because each one of these, or at least some of them, are true in various parallel universes, or ‘possibly worlds’ to use the philosophical term for it.

If this part of modern physics is correct, and I am guessing it probably is, I can imagine that parallel universes exist where not only there are small changes from this universe but also very huge changes. Changes going way back in time, perhaps even to the beginning of time. Maybe even changes to the highest levels of existence and the metaphysical itself.

What if there is one universe in which the Christian God is real, and another universe in which Buddhism is real, and another in which the Hindu gods are real, and another in which the Muslim god is real, and another in which the Viking gods are real? Etc etc. More like there would exist corresponding sets of universes in which each god exists and rules those universes. This could be true for any gods/deities/religions you can think of. Maybe there are some that are totally made up, like Scientology :rofl: but for the ‘real’ ones we can think of it in terms of superposition of all possibilities existing simultaneously.

And there would also probably be parallel universes in which more than one of the religions/gods are the case as well.

The Mandela effect already shows a very strong likelihood of two things relevant to the OP here: 1) we live in something that can more or less accurately be called a simulation, and 2) aspects of the simulation can change and in all likelihood this involves branching off of new or different simulations, validating the physics idea of parallel universes / possible worlds.

Within that context, why should we assume there is only one answer to the question “who or what is God?” or “which religion is correct?” Maybe none of them are, the typical atheistic view. Or, maybe all of them are (the view I am trying to explore in this topic here).

There is more involved though, including the idea that human belief systems might be creating the deities themselves or might be retroactively constructing the universe in a way that makes that religion the correct one. That seems absurd to me, but I cannot entirely rule it out either. If a large enough group of people hold a certain belief, is there a kind of quantum power enacted here that may cause a split universe to appear in which that belief is true? I don’t think that necessarily makes total sense of course, but in the context of quantum physics and the idea of possible worlds it cannot be ignored unless it can be refuted. And again within this context I am not sure if it can be refuted.

Another possibility: the various religions are “residue” (a term for leftover changes from former universes many people no longer remember). These are embedded culturally-historically and so continue to exert mundane influence over worldly affairs and human beliefs.

Maybe the way our world looks to us would be clearly indicative of one religion being the correct one in this universe, if we could step outside of our universe and view lots of other ones to compare. Maybe there is a kind of very higher level analysis and theory which would be able to look at aspects of our world and say “Ah, yes, in this universe X religion is the correct one, because of these features…” meanwhile the other non-true religions that still exist in this universe go on as normal with lots of people still believing in them even though they are not true. And again there would exist a very large set of universes for which this is the case. Then on top of that, there would also exist other large sets of other universes in which a different religion were the true one for that particular universe, and maybe in those universes our world happens to look meaningfully different from what we are used to in certain key ways that, on the higher level of theoretical understanding of a more ‘cosmic anthropological level’ would make perfect sense.

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@ProfessorX

The ancient world was more sparsely populated where the distances of people between each other was enormous allowing more time and evolution of religious differences.

:clown_face:

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@ProfessorX

I am getting Stargate vibes from re-reading this thread.

:clown_face:

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Imo that might be the case only if the parallel universes are interconnected, constituting a higher-dimensional multiversal landscape, so they aren’t actually parallel. And umm ‘observers’ carve out their reality tunnels in this landscape. Shifting sideways in the landscape all the time, so to speak.

So maybe Joe, or rather the ‘observer’ part of Joe, came from a universe where a God really existed. But Joe has forgotten etc enough about that past, Joe was changed enough, so as to be able to join our universe where no god seems to exist. Joe will say he saw a god in action, but he can’t prove it.

But if we imagine parallel universes the popular way: seperate parallel universes, then in that case we can’t remember another universe in any way. So then all our various god beliefs can’t come from that.

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As an Occam’s razor user I’ve settled on the interconnected multiverse view, when I was faced with this problem.

Imo our universe has no known fundamental separations in 4 dimensions, so it’s more likely that there would be no fundamental separations in additional dimensions either.

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I think they must all be connected somehow, it is possible to move from one universe to another, although maybe this doesn’t happen often. Or maybe it happens all the time and we don’t notice.

This is interesting. Some people feel strongly there is a God and they can interact with it on a personal level, through prayer or meditation or by other means, feelings etc. while other people feel or think strongly there is no God because they have no such experiences. Your idea could explain this. So the question for me is: what causes a person to move from one parallel universe to another?

I know some work has been done on this, there is info out there I just haven’t looked into it very much yet. It is filed away in my mind in a part that is basically able to access and know when I feel like it is important for me to know that in greater detail. I have have to look into it finally.

I think there is plenty of reason to think we live in a simulation and there are alternate versions or parallel universes of the simulation, it can simulate itself basically. Someone, maybe Baudrillard, said that a perfect simulation would be indistinguishable from reality and thus would BE reality. Or I would say in the reverse, reality itself can be defined as a simulation that has become ‘perfect’ (perfect enough). Maybe that’s all reality is. If you think about it, every level of existence from inside atoms to molecules to cells to bodies and 3D space and time as we experience them on a macro scale, all of it is a simulation or illusion from the perspective of what is above and below it. “As above so below” could ALSO mean this: move far enough above or below your given scale of existence and you will gain perspective on how your given scale of existence can also be seen and understood as an illusion, a simulated version of other things that, from the vantage of those other things, looks and act and IS quite radically different from what we experience being ‘bound up’ inside our own macro scale self-perspective.

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tldr

The past t-1, the present t-+0 and the future t+1 walk into a bar.

In unison, they ask the bartender, do you think we’re parallel universes, or a harmony?

The bartender says, I don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about, get the f*** outta here!

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Imo loss of memory mainly. If your memory and the rest of your being is intertwined with the god-world so much that you can’t decohere from it sufficiently, then you’re stuck there, you can’t transition to a godless world. Needless to say this is all speculation, educated guess.

(Or in other words, from the observer’s perspective, whatever the f observer actually means, the possibilities of god-world and godless world need to merge back into superposition.)

As an Occam’s razor user I generally disagree. To simulate a universe requires a much bigger computer (and a waaaaaay bigger host universe) than that simulated universe. So most sentient beings will find themselves in a real universe and only a few in a simulated universe. (Unless that’s not how probabilities work and Occam’s razor is irrelevant.)

Where things are getting interesting are the Matrix-type, brain-in-a-vat simulations. Those are much more likely.

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If your god doesn’t exist in all possible worlds (every time t), your god is not God, but a merely conceptual placeholder for the real God. That could be said about every God concept outside of God’s because no one can contain (conceptually know FULLY) God but God. But we can relate with them like we do with each other without losing our identities, with the added benefit that they know us more fully than anyone else could, would, or should ever know us.

This was s’posed to be BriBri saying this, but he went the way of Barak, so I’m Deborah.

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re: OP

Please don’t do this.

Universe is everything universe interacts with, multiverse must be an in-house joke by physicists. When questions become insurmountable, multiverse is invoked, but it’s dry humour. Asides from that, your post is incoherent

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