Functional equivalence of different belief systems

I need to be writing more fiction and inspired work, but I've spent the last six hours on (my third) The Good Place marathon with my roommates, upending all my plans for the evening. So, thoughts.

The only real difference between different belief systems is in the framing, not in the proper substance -- in effect, they're functionally the same. I'm not arguing about Jesus Vs Buddha, Mohammad vs Ram, no. The larger belief meta-system they're part of can be generalized, and I'm arguing that such a system is functionally equivalent to a lot of systems proposed more recently that don't involve any such deities at all. Despite that, despite the fact that these different supra-systems of belief and thought-organization prioritize different values, and understanding about the world, in their substance they are all the same. In fact, I could go as far as to say (without much confidence here, because I haven't given this as much thought as I have to other things), it is quite difficult, if not completely impossible to come up with a belief framework that would be strictly exclusive from all of those systems.

Let me explain. The religious/spiritual belief system involves believing in supernatural entities, invisible forces undetected by humans, and beings that may or may not have anthropomorphic forms. This also involves different 'realms' of existence for various entities, to explain why they don't interact or encounter each other regularly. Additionally, there are various forms of interactions between the different realms under certain circumstances, and it can be argued that agency can be assigned to various agents for those interactions. In other words, gods and goddesses live in heaven or whatever planets or mountains which we cannot easily see or go to, have interesting powers we cannot easily perceive, but these beings will occasionally interact with us. They have wildly varying explanations on the origins of such entities, but most origin stories do describe a common point of origin between humans and super-entities going back to some point.

Consider aliens. Or artificial intelligence, as described in various Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke stories. The exact stories or fictional worlds are not relevant here. What we must consider is the fact that such Universes describe exactly the sort of forces and entities as the religious ones describe. Unidentified entities that may or may not have humanlike forms, who have access to powers beyond human control or knowledge, who can work through an invisible realm, and influence the human world when they desire. They can be physical or corporeal, and some agency can be ascribed to them. To quote Clarke's beaten-to-death saying, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, that's true. What I'm arguing is it's not the question of distinguishing between the two because the two are functionally the same, there's no effective difference. Magic or gods are sufficiently advanced technology, if you want to think about that in such a framing, or technology is magic, if you want to change your frame of thought.

Here's the point I'm trying to make: these belief systems have strong proponents on each side, arguing for their vision of the super-entity, trying hard to prove the others' vision is wrong. However, there is no question of vision -- it's just a matter of framing, and if a party's exact vision of the world were framed differently, it would very accurately describe their opponents' points. There's absolutely little substantial difference, the distinguishing points are in the framing themselves and how you want to perceive the world. It's not clear that the proponents realize that their disagreements are limited only in framing and not the actual substance of the argument.

That's all.

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