BSG "God"

[Themightytom]

There are several contradicting aspects off the "God" referred to by the apparitions baltar and Six converse with.

1. God is stated to be "above morality" and "those things" were created by "us"
2. God is frequently stated to "Love" and in Daybreak part 3 head baltar stated that "God" "hated" being called "God" in fact he added heat to his voice, implying it was more than a preference, more than a dislike, but a genuine dissatisfaction.

One perspective on Love and hate treats them as the result of hormonal shifts activating areas of the brain, the more philosophical definitions, for example unconditional positive regard, require an underpinning morality to calibrate positives and negatives.

So my question is can a God that is "Beyond" morality love or hate?

Does it make sense that a "God" that is "Greater than concepts such as good or evil" would even participate in events without a logical purpose, and if so, why would that purpose be beyond humanity's ability to grasp?

[Zac Naloen]

When Baltar was talking about god being above morality I actually took that to be what Baltar thought God should be.

He doesn't know it for real, for all Baltar knows he is actually insane, he just has to take the fact that other people can see it too not be a mass delusion..

It's only with the extra insight the angels give us as the viewer that we get clues that "God" probably isn't an omniscient being.

[Thanas]

There are several contradicting aspects off the "God" referred to by the apparitions baltar and Six converse with.

1. God is stated to be "above morality" and "those things" were created by "us"
2. God is frequently stated to "Love" and in Daybreak part 3 head baltar stated that "God" "hated" being called "God" in fact he added heat to his voice, implying it was more than a preference, more than a dislike, but a genuine dissatisfaction.

Can you give a source and the complete sentence for the #1 claim?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

When they were talking about God at the end, they immediately cut to Jimi Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower's afterward... obviously, he hates being called 'God' because his name is Jimi.

[CDiehl]

So my question is can a God that is "Beyond" morality love or hate?

Yes. The two things have nothing to do with each other.

Does it make sense that a "God" that is "Greater than concepts such as good or evil" would even participate in events without a logical purpose

Yes, because such a god could do what he does for his own reasons. We don't always have a logical purpose for everything we do, so why should we require God to have one all the time?

and if so, why would that purpose be beyond humanity's ability to grasp?

It wouldn't necessarily be something we can't grasp. Maybe he's like the Q, fucking with people for his own amusement. Maybe there is some reason for his actions that people can understand, and he chooses not to share it with them. Really, if you're damn close to omnipotent, do you have to explain yourself to mortals?

[Themightytom]

There are several contradicting aspects off the "God" referred to by the apparitions baltar and Six converse with.

1. God is stated to be "above morality" and "those things" were created by "us"
2. God is frequently stated to "Love" and in Daybreak part 3 head baltar stated that "God" "hated" being called "God" in fact he added heat to his voice, implying it was more than a preference, more than a dislike, but a genuine dissatisfaction.

Can you give a source and the complete sentence for the #1 claim?

I'm looking for it. I remember head Six saying it, but as there is no compendium off quotations i ahe to rewatch episodes to figure it out.

[Covenant]

We can see that the way God operates in nBSG isn't the way an omnipotent being does. When the God of BSG wants to start over, it doesn't obliterate the colonies and the cylons and start over from scratch. Instead it pushes and prods and cajoles, seduces, and Shelly Godfreys the players into action. This is a God with a great degree of foresight, but free will of this degree and this urgency implies that not only is God not all-powerful but also not all-knowing. The prophecy and everything else seems to be massaging people into situations rather than showing what must be.

Also from appearences, God cares less about the result than the journey, since this is obviously a repeating pattern, and from Head Six's comments they aren't too worried about the eventual death of millions or billions. It appears that whatever has to happen has to happen through exercise of free will. This would imply either that God is unable to achieve the result by their own power, or the result is less important than whatever happens in pursuit of it.

The God, then, seems to be a manipulator and a planner, but not an all-powerful creator diety. We don't even know which set of humans were the original ones, it certainly seems likely that Our Earth wasn't a singular case of divine exercise of power. It's easier to assume, especially from the "abundance of wildlife" on Our Earth, that it was the colonial humans from the first time around which were the manufactured bunch. I interperted that as the amount of speciation.

All added up, this seems like an insufficently advanced alien with a sufficent degree of projection and simulation technology to induce dreams, prophecy, and so forth. The idea of the hybrids being tapped into the datastream and spitting out oodles of plot goodies seems hard to figure in--I don't want to make it seem too literal and assert that the whole thing is just a simulation and the hybrids are interperting the source code, but they do seem to be getting some degree of backdoor access to things that they weren't intended to, which seems to make it seem that God is in fact a Cylon-related technology. This would jive with the idea of it being the monotheistic Cylon god. The only question is if this is in fact a real diety with a divine plan or if it is a manufactured power repeating parameters until success, which seems more likely that a randomly encountered sufficently advanced alien.

[Thanas]

There are several contradicting aspects off the "God" referred to by the apparitions baltar and Six converse with.

1. God is stated to be "above morality" and "those things" were created by "us"
2. God is frequently stated to "Love" and in Daybreak part 3 head baltar stated that "God" "hated" being called "God" in fact he added heat to his voice, implying it was more than a preference, more than a dislike, but a genuine dissatisfaction.

Can you give a source and the complete sentence for the #1 claim?

I'm looking for it. I remember head Six saying it, but as there is no compendium off quotations i ahe to rewatch episodes to figure it out.

The problem is that both things may just have been stuff she said while trying to convert Gaius, like her earlier "I am just a chip" spiel after Baltar wouldn't go for it. Hence, without a direct source and context, the quotes are worthless and anyone who extrapolates from them would just have failed if this would be a university paper.

[bilateralrope]

Don't fundies use things like god being "beyond morality" as an attempt to handwave god into something good, despite actions that look evil to us ?

I'd say the same thing is happening with the nBSG god. Especially when his prophets are two people directly responsible for the destruction of the colonies, but he didn't make them prophets until afterwards. No attempt at preventing the destruction.

We can see that the way God operates in nBSG isn't the way an omnipotent being does. When the God of BSG wants to start over, it doesn't obliterate the colonies and the cylons and start over from scratch. Instead it pushes and prods and cajoles, seduces, and Shelly Godfreys the players into action. This is a God with a great degree of foresight, but free will of this degree and this urgency implies that not only is God not all-powerful but also not all-knowing. The prophecy and everything else seems to be massaging people into situations rather than showing what must be.

Well, it doesn't wipe them out directly. But the end result of nBSG shows a civilisation where the only remaining trace of the colonials or the cylons is some DNA and stuff in space that the people on Earth might never find before repeating the cycle.

Also from appearences, God cares less about the result than the journey, since this is obviously a repeating pattern, and from Head Six's comments they aren't too worried about the eventual death of millions or billions. It appears that whatever has to happen has to happen through exercise of free will. This would imply either that God is unable to achieve the result by their own power, or the result is less important than whatever happens in pursuit of it.

Or that repeating the cycle is the result that God is after.

The God, then, seems to be a manipulator and a planner, but not an all-powerful creator diety. We don't even know which set of humans were the original ones, it certainly seems likely that Our Earth wasn't a singular case of divine exercise of power. It's easier to assume, especially from the "abundance of wildlife" on Our Earth, that it was the colonial humans from the first time around which were the manufactured bunch. I interperted that as the amount of speciation.

All added up, this seems like an insufficently advanced alien with a sufficent degree of projection and simulation technology to induce dreams, prophecy, and so forth. The idea of the hybrids being tapped into the datastream and spitting out oodles of plot goodies seems hard to figure in--I don't want to make it seem too literal and assert that the whole thing is just a simulation and the hybrids are interperting the source code, but they do seem to be getting some degree of backdoor access to things that they weren't intended to, which seems to make it seem that God is in fact a Cylon-related technology. This would jive with the idea of it being the monotheistic Cylon god. The only question is if this is in fact a real diety with a divine plan or if it is a manufactured power repeating parameters until success, which seems more likely that a randomly encountered sufficently advanced alien.

If we go with something repeating an experiment until it has the right outcome, it make some sense. God doesn't have the power to directly reset the experiment, but he does have enough power to manipulate those involved until they reset it.

[Themightytom]

Can you give a source and the complete sentence for the #1 claim?

I'm looking for it. I remember head Six saying it, but as there is no compendium off quotations i ahe to rewatch episodes to figure it out.[/quote]

The problem is that both things may just have been stuff she said while trying to convert Gaius, like her earlier "I am just a chip" spiel after Baltar wouldn't go for it. Hence, without a direct source and context, the quotes are worthless and anyone who extrapolates from them would just have failed if this would be a university paper.[/quote]

um no I would have failed not Anyone, since I was the one who put in the quotes before having the sources lined up, do you fail if a teacher asks a dumb question and you answer it? HINT: if you've been to a university, you KNOW they will do that from time to time.

I also would have failed because the post was not a complete paper... and was intended rather as a discussion prompt.

I checked No Exit, I checked "Faith" and I checked daybreak1 and 2 and so far nada, I think I fail, because I don't have any other episodes and can't find the direct quote

[Covenant]

Well, it doesn't wipe them out directly. But the end result of nBSG shows a civilisation where the only remaining trace of the colonials or the cylons is some DNA and stuff in space that the people on Earth might never find before repeating the cycle.

I don't think that the God in question ever wanted to go back and wipe out Earth. This God sits on the divine hands until after the experiment flatlines, it was Cavil that did it this time around and previously it was the exploitation of the Chrome Cylons which drove them to launch an attack on the humans. It doesn't seem at all in God's plan to have humanity repeatedly turned into a cinder, as this risks their total extermination--something which is avoided only a few times by the slimmest of margins. They can thank Admiral Adama for that, but they seemed the most pleased during the possible peace between humans and cylons, before that got fucked all to hell... though, come to think of it, they had already implanted the route to Earth, didn't they? Perhaps that was the plan all along. Seems rather roundabout. I'm not sure what the intention was. The extermination of the Cavil Cylons? Is that what was needed before Humanity could progress?

Or that repeating the cycle is the result that God is after.

That doesn't seem likely. They seem to be hoping for something interesting to happen for a change.

[NecronLord]

I started re-watching season one lately.

In 'Acts of Contrition' Starbuck demands the nuggests call her god. She then reffers to herself as a singular entity 'when god speaks, you listen' as opposed to 'when a god speaks, you listen.'

∴ Starbuck is God.

Not an entirely serious post...

[Sarevok]

This whole cycle crap is bullshit anyway. There is no reasons why people go down the same exact path building battlestars and centurions and reliving the events in different form. Future AI developments could go anywhere from legendary defenders of mankind like Bolo tanks to monolithic software like Skynet. So "God" in Galactiverse is nothing but some asshole advanced alien or supercomputer playing games with less advances lifeforms. Someone should write a fanfic similar to Stuarts Armageddon about Cylons and Colonials coming to their senses and declaring war on "God".

[Thanas]

um no I would have failed not Anyone, since I was the one who put in the quotes before having the sources lined up, do you fail if a teacher asks a dumb question and you answer it? HINT: if you've been to a university, you KNOW they will do that from time to time.

Oh please. Anyone who uses non-sourced quotes as support for an argument...would have failed. Oh, and don't try to nitpick my statement, answer the general point: Where are your sources for the quotes?

I also would have failed because the post was not a complete paper... and was intended rather as a discussion prompt.

A discussion prompt you didn't even bother to properly source...but you want people to discuss it anyway. Yeah, nice thinking there.

I checked No Exit, I checked "Faith" and I checked daybreak1 and 2 and so far nada, I think I fail, because I don't have any other episodes and can't find the direct quote

Geez, if only you would have thought about checking your sources first before pulling quotes out of your behind, right?

[Mayabird]

The BSG god was supposedly one of the thirteen gods of Kobol. The highly corrupted and degraded history that came through the Sacred Scrolls claimed that

1) The gods and humans lived in harmony together on Kobol,
2) The thirteenth god, this "one true god" or whatever was a jealous one that demanded that only he be worshiped, and apparently became the patron god of the thirteenth tribe, or something like that,
3) The gods could die, since the goddess Athena threw herself to her death and was buried in a tomb.

We also learned that said thirteenth tribe was of artificial origin, created by the Kobolians after they "stole fire from the gods."


This doesn't sound to me like some omnipotent deity beyond the ken of mortals and outside of space-time with supernatural powers. Very advanced AI or alien, perhaps. I've always leaned towards AIs, myself. I thought when they started that whole cycle talk in the miniseries that humans got kicked off Kobol after screwing around with artificial intelligence and screwing up thereafter.