Well, that doesn’t follow. Those are probably logically impossible gods (like Star Wars space battles, and the Lathe of Heaven).

But something approximate could be. We’d just have noticed that by now if any of those were around here.

Generally omnigods are always going to be impossible because the omni attributes entail logical contradictions when confronted with the physical facts that would be needed to realize them. So, you could have a Boltzmann god like in Transcendence or The Expanse or Sphere or Forbidden Planet or the X-Men generally, or a less hyperbolized Doctor Manhattan or Midichlorians, for example. The Stoic and Epicurean gods are the best imaginings (see Defining Naturalism: The Definitive Account). In short, Boltzmann gods will be Clarke’s Law Aliens more than “gods” in popular imagination.

haha, nice, now those parts of Star Trek make sense

[But] if anything will repeat itself an infinite number of times…

That has a probability against of infinity to one.

As Cantor proved, the number of possible sequences that won’t be repetitively ordered like that is infinitely greater; ergo, any random selection from all possible outcomes will never produce the one you describe. Except infinitesimally often. Which is as close to never as makes all odds.

Hopefully this resolves your confusion.

But if anything will repeat itself an infinite number of times, then there will be an infinite sequence of cycles non-hospitable to life before our cycle began.

However, how is it possible for our hospitable universe (or any different configuration from the infinite sequence) to begin if the infinite number of non-hospitable universes (before ours) is literally uneding – meaning it will repeat itself forever in the future (from any point in the past). So, it would be impossible for our cycle to come into existence.

Because it is self-contradictory to say an infinite sequence of events will repeat, and at the same time claim this sequence will end and our universe will begin.

I’m sure you are confused now, Dr. Carrier.

If it’s logically impossible, it is necessarily physically impossible. But if it’s physically impossible, it is not necessarily logically impossible.

(So, “if A, then B”; but not “if B, then A”)

On the first point, “spaghetti monsters” (meant literally) are supernatural and therefore probably impossible (the point of this whole article), so there won’t be an infinite number of them. Likewise “faeries.” On the other hand, if by “faeries” (etc.) you mean just small alien humanoid animals then that’s just a stand-in for “aliens,” and no one thinks it odd to admit there are aliens on other planets somewhere (and in other universes, if there are other universes). They might even look like jellyfish (and thus resemble “spaghetti monsters”) but that’s still just an alien. Not a “mythical creature.”

On the second point, the inevitability of at least one inexplicably evil species that would illogically waste the entire universe’s resources generating ancestor sims to no purpose makes no difference to my point. The math requires that the majority of civilizations will do that; and it is that that is impossible. Just as it would be impossible for a majority of a civilization to be psychopathic: such societies are not sustainable and thus could never advance that far (that’s why the incidence of psychopathy in our society is statistically low: significantly higher rates would be fatal to the species, much less a rate above 50%). Otherwise, the existence of an occasional evil and illogical superspecies does not produce Bostrom’s conclusion.

The math works like this: (1) How many actual-universe civs are there? Probably thousands per verse, if not millions. (2) How many ancestor sims will there be in every actual verse? Few. [And this is granting that there will be at least one evil and illogical civ that builds ancestor sims for no reason; but it’s very unlikely they will consume all the resources in the universe to make them; it’s already unlikely that they’d see any reason to make more than one; and IMO even these improbabilities are so steep that I doubt we can expect on average even one ancestor sim per verse, even if there is one every few verses or so.] (3) Therefore, what are the odds that we are an actual-verse civ vs. a sim-verse civ? At least thousands to one. Therefore, we are not in a sim.

Actually, all earthly mythological creatures (fairies, elves, lecheprauns, minotaurs and so on and so forth.) would be perfectly recognized as such even as “natural” gods by ancient folks believing in them, provided they have the properties attributed to them (which are, to my mind, physically possible).

In fact, there should even exist an infinite number of flying spaguetti monsters floating around.

This is why I now avoid to use such kind of rhetoric while being confronted with theists: since I believe there exist somewhere fairies, I find that using such comparisons with theistic beliefs to ridicule them has much less punch.

I also don’t buy your moral argument against the possibility we are living in a simulation. Altough I wish you were true, I fear that the existence of intelligent beings lacking our moral sensibilities, love and compassion is not only logically possible but likely, and even inevitable, provided the infinite lenghth of space-time.

So, there is also no grounds for thinking intelligent amoral aliens launching simulations such as our universe are impossible or unlikely.

That is called an “Incompatible Properties Argument” and is easily rebutted by simply redefining terms. Some will deny God has free will. Others will deny that free will entails a nonzero probability of doing evil (i.e. they redefine free will; which is fine, since we do, too, e.g. compatibilism, but that tactic has consequences one must accept). Some will deny omnibenevolence (and assert that God is only maximally good, i.e. as good as it is logically possible for a free agent to be). Others will deny that omnibenevolence is incompatible with evil (often by tautology, e.g. if evil is defined as that which God would never do, then by definition God can never do evil even if he has full libertarian free will; similar to a divine command theory of morality, Copan has argued a lot for this position on the logical impossibility of convicting God of evil).

Now, arguments like yours do have one use: they establish the fact that a theist must pick one of the escapes, and once she has picked one, she is committed to its consequences, and often those consequences topple any religious worldview built around the existence of God (necessitating a revision of one’s worldview, which is often precisely what theists want most to avoid).

(P1) God exists. (Accepted for the sake of argument)
(P2) If God exists then He has free will. (Definition of God)
(P3) If God exists then He is omnibenevolent. (Definition of God)
(C1) Therefore, God has free will. (From P1 and P2)
(C2) Therefore, God is omnibenevolent. (From P1 and P3)
(P4) The possibility of doing evil is a necessary condition for free will. (Accepted for the sake of argument)
(P5) The impossibility of doing evil is a necessary condition for Omni benevolence. (Definition of Omni benevolence)
(P5) It is possible for God to do evil. (From C1 and P4)
(P6) It is impossible for God to do evil. (From c2 and P5)
(p7) It is both possible for God to do evil and impossible for God to do evil. (From P5 and P6)
(C3) Therefore, God does not exist. (From P7 by contradiction)

I would greatly appreciate any and all criticisms of this argument.