(November 28, 2015 at 10:57 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Well, by that token, we're gods, to ants. But it rather stretches the meaning of the word, especially consider that the context is an atheist discussion board.
That is stretching the meaning, because ants aren't human and the term "god" implies something that exists as viewed from the subjective perspective of humans. Imagine, though, what it would be like if we lived on a planet in which humans weren't the smartest creature. The intelligence of a frog is greater than that of a worm by many orders of magnitude. The intelligence of a chimpanzee is greater than that of a frog in the same way, and the intelligence of a human is somewhat greater than that of a chimpanzee. What if species existed on our planet which were many orders of magnitude smarter than a human, in the same way that a dog is smarter than a turtle or a turtle is smarter than a worm? That species would, of course, be technological. And what sort of technology might they have? If they were smarter than us in the same way that we are smarter than frogs, would they not be true gods?
Arthur C. Clarke is often quoted as saying that "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I agree, and I would extrapolate from this truism that, "A sufficiently technologically advanced species is indistinguishable from a god.
