The Gods Were Like Us Once; We Can Be Like Them Too.

"As man is, God once was. As God is, man may be."; these are the timeless words of President Lorenzo Snow. Blasphemy! Anathema! Those Mormons think they're gonna get a planet! These are the things people love to say in response to this sublime truth. Now, this is a strange statement if one believes in the god of Aristotle, an unmoved moving, first cause of all other causes, without body, passion or parts. But that isn't what Mormons believe about God. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that God himself was once as we are now and sits enthroned in yonder heavens; that is the great secret! Recently, a similar view of such a possibility has been echoed in the world of philosophy; it's called the Simulation Argument.



The Simulation Argument argues "that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a 'posthuman' stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed".



The Simulation Argument has led to an argument for the existence of Gods,as they are described in Mormonism, the New God Argument. The New God Argument goes, as follows: "If we will not go extinct before becoming posthumans then, given assumptions consistent with contemporary science and technological trends, posthumans probably already exist, are more benevolent than us and created our world. If prehumans are probable then posthumans probably already exist. If posthumans probably increased faster in destructive than defensive capacity then posthumans probably are more benevolent than us. If posthumans probably create many worlds like those in their past then posthumans probably created our world. The only alternative is that we probably will go extinct before becoming posthumans."

It was Brigham Young who said: "So it will be when, as the Scriptures foretell, 'the elements shall melt with fervent heat.' The Lord Almighty will send forth his angels, who are well instructed in chemistry, and they will separate the elements and make new combinations thereof, and the whole heavens will be a sheet of fire." As someone who believes that the technological advancements we are making, and will yet make, are gifts from God, leading us to a Millennial and eventual Celestial state of being, this is all very fun and fascinating.