Untheism revisited

Some time ago, I had a burst of inspiration. "What if," I thought to myself, "there was a god that not only did not exist, just like the rest of 'em, but also found that not existing was not the crippling disability all the others think it is?"

It was a pretty simple concept. Ungod is the god of things that don't exist, so not existing doesn't bother zir at all. In fact, considering how many things don't exist, that makes zir a rather powerful deity.

And thus I developed the idea and a religion called Untheism was born. Eager to share this brain excretion* with the world, I decided to create a blog. This blog, as a matter of fact. Of course, nowadays it's more about my attempts to suck less as a writer than about theism of any kind, but it's the same basic process of "get weird idea -> develop -> write about it-> share with the universe -> reflect on how stupid the ideas are -> try to improve them"

*I prefer to call them psychflares nowadays, but still, it was excreted from my brain.

On that last point. This was rather obvious to me from the start, but it became more and more annoying with time; the basic fallacy of Untheism is that it treats non-existence as simply an alternative characteristic to existence. This leads to logical contradictions, because I'm basically saying that that which cannot exist logically is on an equivalent state with that which can but does not. I handwaved that by saying untheist logic is different from regular logic, which is simply bullshit. Not an explanation, just a vague reference to an explanation that might exist but is not described at all.

So, lately, I figured it was time to take a serious look at the joke/thought experiment that gave birth to this blog, and see if it can be improved. The amount of flaws that jump out given a critical eye is astounding. Considering how readily I find flaw in other religions, it's nothing but a show of obvious bias that I didn't see them in one I created.

So to hell with it, let's start anew. In my official capacity as High Priest(ess) of Ungod, I declare that:

1. The previous interpretation of the Revelation of Ungod, as shown in May 2008, is not an accurate representation of the realities of Ungod, and the Church of Ungod, acknowledging this, hereby finds those teachings void as untheist doctrine.
2. In our quest to find the truth or closest equivalent, we have agreed upon a new interpretation of the Revelation of Ungod, which is to be detailed below.
3. The new interpretation is hereafter to be considered the doctrine of the Church of Ungod, until such time that it is declared void and replaced by another interpretation.
4. Whoever disagrees with any point expressed here is free to come up with their own ideas about the subject, it's not like we're gonna enforce orthodoxy.
5. The use of first-person plural pronouns in point 2 above is not to be taken to mean that the Church of Ungod has more than one member. It's just that zie likes to argue with zirself.
   

And now behold, for I am to share with you the Revelation of Ungod, in its new and hopefully less mistaken interpretation:

The Revelation of Ungod

As understood by the Church of Ungod at this point in time

As we all know, there are things that exist. As most of us also know, there also things that cannot exist. But as most of you don't know, some things that don't exist still have a measure of reality greater than others. And the key to this lies in the mind.

The worlds of non-existence (from this point on "the wones") don't exist, as their name implies. But their non-existence is such that, from a certain perspective, they can be considered to exist. This perspective being of those within each wone, who might not exist but still have a right to an opinion, I figure.

Where does the mind come in? Well, as it turns out, the wones are shaped and inhabited by minds. When a mind thinks it often comes up with ideas, some of which are things. And when that happens, those thought-things begin to not-exist in a wone (as opposed to not-existing nowhere)

Each wone consists of ideas given reality (from this point on "nemis") that can cohabit with each other. By which I mean that, well, some nemis cannot by definition be in the same world. Say one nemi is a singing bull and another a natural law that states that bovines cannot sing, both nemis are incompatible and thus will never be found in the same wone. In addition to nemis, wones have minds, which are sometimes nemis, but sometimes aren't. That is because every mind that came to be in the existing world, like say you or me, will eventually end up in a wone. That happens when the mind ceases to exist, usually death.

A nemi is only as real and complete as the mind that created it can make it. That means, you can think of "a sheet of paper with a demonstration of Pythagoras' theorem", but that won't fully manifest in a wone as described unless you actually know a demonstration of Pythagoras' theorem. "Someone who knows everything" will be similarly incomplete unless the creator mind actually does know everything. The resulting nemi might act as if it did know everything, but it most definitely will not. Etcetera. This also prevents that which cannot exist from becoming a nemi. Thinking of square circles is fun and all, but since you can't actually describe how something is both a square and a circle, it doesn't appear.

Some nemis are not the direct result of a mind, but rather a side-effect of other nemis. If I imagine an animal that can reproduce, for example, the young will also be nemis, but I didn't actually think of them, only the circumstances that gave them origin. Likewise, if I imagine a time machine, I am also creating a rule that allows time travel in that particular wone, as a side effect of my time machine. If that wone already has a rule against time travel, then it will have to appear in another one. A new wone might appear for that very purpose.

All these rules about wones and nemis are embodied and in a sense enforced by an entity known as Ungod. Ungod is the only mind that was born neither existing nor nemi, as simply a fact of reality. Ungod has power over nemis and wones, to create them but also to uncreate them, to move them around as zie wishes, and to know as much about them as possible. Possibly others, but those are the ones that zie told us about. It is possible that it was Ungod who created existence as a special kind of wone, but zie has not confirmed nor denied that.

The core of Untheism is Ungod. That is, the belief in a god you know doesn't exist, but doesn't find non-existence a problem. Everything else is a matter of each untheist's interpretation of what existence means and how it works. The Church of Ungod offer their views in the matter, and some advice on what to do based on this knowledge, but it is our responsibility to inform you we are most likely wrong in at least some aspects of it.

There are no untheist sins, no point in praying to Ungod, and no known way to find out if we're right or not other than dying, which we do not recommend. You'll die eventually, no sense in rushing things. We do recommend thinking about it, and other things. If you're gonna spend an arbitrarily long period of time after death as just your mind, then practice in using it will come in handy.

Furthermore, it has been said that Ungod likes interesting ideas, and as far as we know that's true. And being in the good graces of the one entity that can permanently uncreate you is, we think, a wise course of action. You, however, might decide that you don't care what Ungod wants or not. Fair enough, I suppose, ultimately the decision is yours to make.

There is one more reason to encourage development of your mind. Actually, there's plenty of them, most of them mundane and not linked to Untheism. In any case, this one I'm not sure it's a good idea to talk about just yet. There's still some thinking that needs to be done on the subject. Don't concern yourself with it.

That was the latest version of the Church of Ungod's interpretation of the Revelation of Ungod. It's bound to undergo correction at some unknown point in time, and it is certainly not complete. Some is unknown, some is left unsaid, and some I forgot. So do keep that in mind.

Introduction to Untheism

[versión en castellano ahora disponible]

[Note: The contents of the below post have been updated by the Church of Ungod. If you, for some unfathomable reason, care to know the latest version of Untheism, click here]

Greetings, seekers of truth. Welcome to Untheism, the one and only source for information regarding Lord Ungod.

I understand Untheism is not something most people are familiar with, and to remedy this I feel it is my duty to start the distribution of information concerning this religion. A small introduction is perhaps in order.

Untheism is the belief in the supremacy and powers of Ungod, Lord of Non-existence and Crafter of Paradoxes. Ungod is the God and Master of all things that don't exist. What does this mean? Simple. What we perceive as the "real world", the plane of existence, is not the only plane there is. In fact, there is an infinite amount of planes of non-existence, and every one of these is ruled by Ungod.

The plain of existence is formed by that which is rejected from non-existence. To put it in another way, in the beginning nothing existed, and everything was on the planes of non-existence. Then, Ungod removed some things from these planes, and placed them in a single plane, the plane of existence.

I mentioned before that Ungod is Lord of all things non-existent. By this I mean he has complete power over anything that belongs to the planes of non-existence, which contain everything that isn't contained in our own plane. And by that I mean everything. If you can even think about it, it's at least in one of the planes. Maybe more. Unicorns, Hisdifticatationism, phlogiston, an object accelerating past the speed of light, a word written in the Roman alphabet that is exactly 5.7 letters long, the last digit of pi, etc. None of these things exist, which means they are in the planes of non-existence.

Now, you may be wondering, if Ungod has power over everything that doesn't exist, does that mean he is powerless in our own plane? The answer is yes and no. He can't affect what happens here directly, but he can decide what begins to exist. To understand it better, you can picture our plane of existence, the infinite planes of non-existence surrounding it, and Ungod outside all of the planes, moving things into existence.

Once he puts something in our plane, he can't take it back. Until that something ceases to exist, Ungod has released all power over it, although if it suits his purposes, he may cause to exist other beings or concepts that cease the existence of that one. For example, if he wishes to claim a certain object, he can send a mythical monster to break that object, making it non-existent and placing it back in one of the realms under his control. If he feels that a certain natural law should no longer exist, he will send a replacement (You don't want to know what Quantum Mechanics' predecessor did, but it wasn't nice). And similarly.

Finally, I described Ungod as Crafter of Paradoxes. By this I mean that Ungod and non-existence are a problem to usual logic. For example, is there anything that is both more powerful than Ungod, and doesn't want to exist? If there is, then Ungod couldn't have placed it in the plane of existence, because this theoretical entity would overpower him. But if it doesn't, there would be something non-existent Ungod has no power over. This problem is clear evidence of the shortcomings of our existential logic. As Ungod is one of the few entities free from the grasp of classical logic, he enjoys creating problems logic can't solve, hence the title Crafter of Paradoxes.
Those are the basic things you need to know about Untheism. Now, frequent questions asked to untheists:

Q: Is there an afterlife in Untheism?
A: Sort of. According to untheists, there's no such thing as a soul that can remain after you die in the plane of existence. When you die, you cease to exist. This, as you can realize, means that you now inhabit one of the planes of non-existence Ungod rules over.

Q: Are there sins in Untheism?
A: No. Ungod doesn't care about the inconsequential acts of humans. There is, however, a merit system for determining what happens to you when you cease to exist. Basically, Ungod likes interesting people. Be an individual, think for yourself and don't let others determine what is right and wrong for you. This will make you more interesting to talk to, which is one of Ungod favourite hobbies, and he will favour you in non-existence.

Q: How should I worship Ungod?
A: As I mentioned before, Ungod's hobbies include talking to interesting people and creating paradoxes. Exercise logic and thinking for yourself, and that's the closest you can get.

Q: How should I pray to Ungod?
A: You shouldn't. He refuses to influence our realm unless it's absolutely necessary, and it usually isn't.

Q: How do you know all this?
A: I ceased to exist temporarily once. That doesn't mean I died, mind you, just that my mind went blank and I was no longer conscious of my existence, so nothing of what made me me was real anymore. While I was in this state, Ungod told me a bunch of really interesting stuff.

Q: Why didn't he tell anyone any of this before?
A: He did, but there weren't many people that paid attention. Every once in a while, he'd check on someone who had to stopped existing for a while and tell them about him, but most of the time people thought they were hallucinating, or would believe him but nobody they told would believe them.

Q: How can I cease to exist?
A: You can die, but that's probably not a good idea. You see, it's best for you to stay in existence, under the power of regular logic and natural laws, for as long as possible, which trains your mind for when you are out of their grasp. You have an eternity to live in non-existence, take advantage of the limited time you'll exist. If you want to cease to exist in a temporary way, I'm afraid nobody knows exactly how to influence that state. It's a matter of luck.

Q: Is Ungod omniscient?
A: No. He can know what is happening now in the planes of non-existence and he has an excellent memory, but he can't know the future, and his knowledge of our realm is limited. He usually chooses not to read the minds of sentient beings that don't exist, because it's better if they tell him about their ideas themselves, once they are fully formed.

Q: What does Ungod look like?
A: Depends on his mood. He changes his appearance all the time, you see. You may have noticed I usually talk about him as if he was male, but that's a matter of simplicity. I could just as well refer to her as Lady Ungodess.

Q: What about other Gods?
A: They don't exist. If one of their believers ceases to exist, s/he may meet them in the planes of non-existence. Or Ungod or one of his emissaries may meet them and explain the whole business to them. It all really depends on how interesting you are to talk to.

This concludes our first lesson on Untheism.