Now stretching the imagination further, imagine that the rest of the universe doesn't exist. Infact you are God before the beginning of the beginning of creation, and in front of you is big button marked "press to create the world".
Do you press it?
Now as you're God you have the capacity to think things through, and so you think to yourself "I wonder what would happen if I press this button?"
And you imagine the world as it could be, and as you're God you can foresee what is most likely to happen - war, famine and pestilence. Human rebellion against themselves, countless horrors and unspeakable evils. You also consider the good things (you're not a pessimistic God), you think of Art, mathematics, beauty, joy, love and many other things.
You now have to make a choice, if you don't press the button then the world will never exist, or indeed have existed so no one has lost. If you press the button then you are going to bring people into good, and into suffering.
You think of [insert some of the best things you can think of] and you think of [some of the worst things you can think of, e.g. the holocaust, rape, children dying from hunger]. Is it worth it? Would you be doing a good bringing this world into existence or an evil? (or a neutral?)
To quote D. Adams "In the beginning, God created the world... this has widely been regarded as a bad move".
Let's suppose you decide not to press the button.
Now what? You have the following options:
-do nothing
-consider the button again
-consider creating a different world
If it was up to you, what would you do?
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