wow this paper is like, the tone is nailed so well I can't yet tell which genre of polarizing academic wrote it
vixra (the uh, 'we'll take anything' preprint server. they'll take ANYTHING. like, DISCLAIMER: LaTeX does not mean a team of scientists wrote it, just to make it abundantly clear) has a
"What if god is just some guys with Time Git"
paper which isn't a take I expected to be typeset in LaTeX. so far the tone is perfectly split between:
- "scientific-creationist true believer the long way around",
- "religious person groping for metaphors scientists will consider"
- "ex-mormon/ex-evangelical academic doing it for the lulz"
- "(Ex)-academic who went down some youtube rabbit holes"
- "incredibly well-read on both topics normal troll"
- 10% LSD by bodyweight
- Youth Pastor, PhD
it's like epicycles, in that they take a lot of steps to make any semblance of sense. Which is part of why it's such a fascinating thing as like, a writing sample.
they don't explicitly say "it's time version control" at least yet but it's def approaching the "time tool assisted speedrun" argument horizon. I am on page 7 of 115. We've broken through what I suppose is the mantle by now -- the heat at this point is oppressive, but the end of this damnable borehole is within sight. I must yet go deeper.
here's the first page
Before moving on from this introductory section, the reader is encouraged to reread the Book of Genesis. Even if the reader was already familiarized through a childhood introduction to the material, the reader is encouraged to stop reading this paper and reread The First Book of Moses, called Genesis.
With Genesis fresh in the reader’s mind, we will make the case that Jacob, a.k.a. Israel, is Satan. In this view, we suppose that God wanted Abraham to kill his son Isaac to prevent Isaac from becoming the father of Satan.
Everyone familiar with the idea of time travel has heard a question, “If you had a time machine, would you go back and kill so and so?,” and we will frame the issue of God’s edict against Isaac in this context. We suggest that God stayed Abraham’s hand above his son because God himself (or Jesus for whom we will also offer a time travel interpretation) is the descendant of Abraham through his grandson Satan, as in Revelation²². By preventing the birth of Satan, God would have executed the grandfather paradox¹ on himself. Physics suggests that it is not possible to implement such a paradox.
