Nornagest comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

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Comment author: MugaSofer 14 January 2013 10:37:09AM -1 points [-]

Hmm. You have a point; most gods are recognizably anthropomorphic. OTOH, many of them are "beyond good and evil" in addition to possessing vast power, which is what I was aiming for. If you can suggest a better term, I'll edit the comment.

Comment author: Nornagest 15 January 2013 01:19:30AM 0 points [-]

That's an interesting question. The first thing that comes to mind is the Gnostic Demiurge (named as Yaldabaoth, Saklas, or Samael depending on who you're asking; there are other names), the explicitly unFriendly creator spirit who is nonetheless not an embodiment of evil as per Satan or Angra Mainyu.

I'm not sure if there are any good type specimens for "unFriendly god", though. It's not hard to find spirits of evil in polytheistic or henotheistic religions, but using one of those names would carry unwelcome implications, and while a decent working definition for "god" in a number of polytheistic pantheons might be "a bigger jerk than most everyone else", using someone like Thor as an example would imply polytheism before it implies unFriendliness.

Comment author: MugaSofer 15 January 2013 10:02:19AM -1 points [-]

Worse still, it needs to be something immediately familiar to anyone reading the comment :(