March 31, 2006

• Do-it-yourself deity

  I have had “high” topics on my mind recently, and still do have. 
  Besides the memoirs I have been writing, I have been researching and
  composing works on philosophy, religion, spirituality and Native
  American myth.  Doug, who reads over my shoulder even more than I
  read over his, saw the drift of some of my recent work and pointed me
  to an interesting site he had found.

  At TPM online,
  there are games–puzzles–quizzes–tests–whatever you want to call
  them, they focus on philosophical matters.  Doug brought up a couple of pages with games that were devised to determine if our beliefs are internally
  consistent.  He wouldn’t tell me how he had scored until after I
  took the quizzes. 

  I hit an immediate difficulty with the first game/test.  It
  offered me a list of divine attributes and I had to check all that
  apply to my god.  I read the list through twice and groaned. 
  Doug stepped up behind me and asked what the problem was.  I told
  him I couldn’t pick one.  He said that was okay, I could check as
  many as I wanted.  I said I COULDN’T pick ONE!  Then I
  realized that there was one
  there that would work for me if I slightly rephrased it, and I checked
  it.  None of the others would work, because my deity isn’t a
  micromanager, is the best being in the Universe at delegating
  responsibility, and has to obey it’s own rules.

  Here is my result:

  In the Do-it-yourself deity game, I scored:
  

  

  The metaphysical engineers have determined that your conception
  of God has a plausibility quotient (PQ) of
  1.0.
  

  A PQ of 1.0 means that as far as the metaphysical engineers can
  determine your conception of God is internally consistent and consistent
  with the universe that we live in.
  

  A PQ of 0.0 means that it is
  neither internally consistent nor consistent with our universe.
  
  

  More than likely, your PQ score will be somewhere between these
  two figures.

  *******************

  What kind of God is that!?

  We suspect that your God is not the traditional God of the Christian,
  Jewish or Muslim faiths.

  Ya think?!  *chortle*  Doug said that his score on this one
  was 0.8, with some slight internal inconsistency.  He’s a lot more
  normal than I am, but he’s young and has time to  learn.

  I won a medal at Battleground God.

  

  Congratulations!

  You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our
  second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual
  battleground.

  The fact that you progressed through this activity without being hit
  and biting only one bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are
  internally consistent and well thought out.

  A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that
  implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullet occurred because you
  responded in a way that required that you held a view that most people
  would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable.
  

  Now there’s a bullet I am PLEASED and
  PROUD to bite!  Doug took a direct hit, and had to bite some
  bullets, too.  The exercise was good for him because it caused him
  to consider his beliefs.  I had so much fun there that after he
  went to bed I played the taboo game. My “Moralising Quotient of 0.00 compares to an average Moralising Quotient
  of 0.29. This means that as far as the events depicted in the scenarios
  featured in this activity are concerned [I am] more permissive than
  average.”  No surprises there.

   I’m going back later to play more games,
  but first I am going to get some further research and writing
  done.  I’m still not in the right mental mode to do readings, and
  feel a lot less useless while I’m doing creative work.
  

  • 3:59 pm
  • 11 Comments