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Some Definitely Challenging Challenges

This was contributed by Thomas Foote - tfoote@vlsi9.gsfc.nasa.gov- on June 20, 1995. (Co-incidentally, the Unknown Psychic's birthday is on June 20th.)

Tom's Challenges (Send hate mail to above address)

I just read your "The Great God Contest", and quite frankly, I feel the tasks are a bit too easy. According to the myths, they've all done those miracles before. Let's give them a real challenge!

1.) Round off PI after 50 digits.

The value PI is a universal constant that can be found "locked in the rules of mathematics", which is just a bit more permanent than "carved in stone". The number is irrational, meaning it cannot be exactly represented in any base number system, and can only be approached with an infinite series of non-repeating digits. And because it's possible to construct a circle the size of the known universe with an accuracy down to the size of the smallest known particles with only 50 digits of PI, we really don't need any of the other digits, and can safely dispose of them without much ecological impact. The challenge is to get your god to round off those unnecessary digits (at least temporarily) so the Contest judges can verify it through calculations.

2.) Create a Perpetual Motion Machine

Yep, that's right. Get your god to make a device that outputs more energy than it receives. If we can get free energy, we can cut down on pollution, bring peace to the Earth, and spread the word of (INSERT YOUR GOD'S NAME HERE) to all people of all races. For you worshippers of less-than-benevolent gods, free energy devices could be used to build unearthly weapons of mass destruction to crush the followers of those flabby girly-man gods. Eitherway, Science is completely and utterly destroyed with this simple act! Bonus points are awarded to the god who creates a machine that generates the most watts/second.

3.) Convince your denominations to pay taxes.

Aww, who am I kidding? There are a few things even gods can't do....

Ken Lim CybrMdaGrp@aol.com contributed this challenge on July 21, 1995.

Return things to the way they were before Science took over! Make the earth flat again, set it atop a wobbly tower of infinite turtles, elephants and what not, and make it the center of the Universe with everything else revolving around it . Stop the expansion. Let Terran humankind glory in itself once again!

"I'd like to nominate myself for the Heal-the-Handicapped portion of your God Contest... having lacked a right leg for 73% of my life. I will be a stern but fair judge of the God's ability to grow my leg back. It needn't be EXACTLY the full length of my other leg, but the limp should be modest to qualify as a success." - DavidO1868@aol.com

Sister Mary Margaret Peter Norton, Net Martyr and Cybernun, would like to be considered as one of the virgins to be impregnatedby the contestants.

Some More Challenges by Tom Foote - tfoote@vlsi9.gsfc.nasa.gov

Show a lifeform living on miracle subsidies. - Years ago, I saw a TV commercial for golf clubs. The voice-over said " Our golf clubs use the Laws of Physics to help you improve your game." Big Deal, I thought to myself. Show me a set of clubs that defies the Law of Physics and then I'll be interested. This thought reminded me of people who say any balance in nature is evidence of their god. 'Look how perfect it is!', they say. 'Everything fits together so perfectly it HAD to come from a designer!' Big Deal, I say again. Show me some part that DOESN'T fit and I'll be interested. Show me an animal that can't live underwater, but DOES live underwater, or an animal that can't eat, but does. Show me a living contradiction, something that defies the laws of physics, something that requires continual supernatural support to survive. (This does not include some person who claims that they can't get through the day without their god. The life must be in immediate danger of being killed in a nasty gruesome way without continuous aid from a spiritual welfare system.)

Make your Earth-centered presence known in Alien Religions. - We haven't made contact with any extra-terrestrial civilizations y et, but when we do, I wouldn't be surprised if they had their own collection of 'One True Religions'. What I do NOT expect to see is their bibles saying things like...'And God created all things in the universe, and He created the Earth, which is 13,785 light years away from this planet...And on THAT world, in a small region in one of its northern continents He selected a small group of species that our kind has never seen to be His chosen people...And to those people He gave all His attention, and performed all the great miracles unto them within a small fraction of their history, and delivered unto them His ONLY offspring, in the form of THAT species, in a likeness quite often rendered in a black velvet painting...And He ignored all of our people, and our planet, and our problems.' The challenge is to show your god's actions on Earth recorded as part of an extra-terrestrial religion. Remember, it is vital that your god chose Earth for His/Her/Its ONLY chosen people, ONLY begotten child, etc... It doesn't count if you say your god sent down ANOTHER savior to a different planet, because that would be indistinguishable from the ravings of a mad cultist who is trying to drag their primitive beliefs into the 20th century.

* Extra bonus points if the extra-terrestrial contact is made with a FTL drive that uses energy from the perpetual motion device in previous challenges. *

Pick one of the following:

a) Have your god beat me in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe after I get a three move head start. Remember, no other rules of the game can be changed, or else it becomes something else other than Tic-Tac-Toe. Likewise tampering with my mind or my decisions do not count. The three move head start is to help even things out, because I am only a lowly human being, while your god is an all-wise, all-powerful Supreme being. The three move head start shouldn't change my chances a bit.

b) Disprove (insert your god's name here) existence. It apparently is too difficult for a mere human to disprove the existence of a god, so it should be child's play for your god to disprove its own existence An all-powerful god can do anything. If your god can't do this one simple thing, then obviously there is something that it can't do, which means it can't be all -powerful. So nyahh!

David Fried - dfried@husc.harvard.edu - "Make Hell freeze over."

Craig Helfgott - helfgott@Princeton.EDU - "The pi question doesn't work, as pi is a variable. If you mean by pi to be "the ratio of twice the radius of a constant distance planar orbit to it's arc-length" it is variable in this universe (for example see Mercury precession). You have to define your terms more precisely, and specify in Euclidean geometry (which also does not exist in the universe). Or you could define it in terms of the power series expansion, in which case God can't do it, because addition and multiplication are based on sets, and without those rules as we know them, the universe cannot exist, so God would simultaneously have to satisfy this on, and the bonus point about sustaining an impossible creature. Give God a break!

Adam Zar - ajzar@students.wisc.edu - "Here's a real challenge worthy of a truly omnipotent deity: Convince the teeming masses that, although he is god, they do NOT need to worship him!!! Anyone who can perform that miracle gets my vote."

Urban - ulite@easyliving.com - "I think the following is needed to be asked from a winning God in this contest:

That is (somewhere in that old book) said that God made (Hu-)man in His image, but I can't fly, I can't create life from non-life, I can't impregnate virgins, and all those fun things. When humans can do all I can think of and more then we are all equivalent winners in the God contest, and that is a goal to reach out for.

When the God discovered that humans had ate the fruit of wisdom the God said: "Lets get rid of humans from the Garden of Eden, before they also discover the fruit of eternal life". If this is true, before entering my challenge the God must also bring us, all the people, the fruit of eternal life."

C. Morell - sac12210@saclink.csus.edu - "Another common miracle in myths involves "heavenly signs". A competing god should be able to:

A) Make the sun remain stationary in the sky over a fixed point on earth for a few hours. Transporting the judges around the world at the speed of 1 revolution per 24 hours will not be acceptable. - or -

B) Create new constallations at will. For definitive proof, the God should be able to legibly write his/her/first initial in the night sky using only stars.

Clint Wolff - clintw@colorado.cirrus.com - "I really must object to your "great God challenge". You are assuming that God must be a good and gentle god who WANTS to create more humans (challenge 1), revive dead humans (challenge 2), heal a sick human or feed starving humans (challenge 3).

In order to be objective, the constest rules should be rewritten to allow a "goodness-challenged" god to participate as well. I propose the following rule modifications to qualify as the evil God:

Challenge 1) Despoil a virgin.

Challenge 2) Revive a host of the un-dead to wreak havok on the countryside.

Challenge 3) Cast down a plague upon an area with an interesting shape. Perhaps a pentagram in the center of LA. Or, cause starvation in a country despite the best efforts of bleeding heart liberals to feed them. The evil god may use the undead host to aid in these efforts.

Robert Simpson - robsim@intergate.bc.ca - "Rounding off pi to 50 digits is EASY! Any pip-squeak God could do that. Instead, alter the universe to make pi exactly equal to 3 (like in Bob Shaw's _The Ragged Astrounauts_)."

Kris M. - kmuncan@brynmawr.edu - "A perpetual mostion machine doesn't put out more energy that it gets... that violates thermodynamic laws (the one about neither creating nor destroying energy). A perpetual motion machine takes heat energy and converts all of it to mechanical energy (or work). Like a power plant run by steam, but at 100% efficiency, no loss of energy at all. It would be neat for the god contest to have them either create or destroy matter or energy, but that would be kinda hard to verify."

Hills - hills@en.com - "I would like to suggest some better, more Politically Correct Challenges. As true Political Correctness is next to Godliness, and thus unobtainable to us mortals, these would perhaps be better challenges.

1. Convince a 14 year old virgin to remain a virgin until age 20.
   * As gods should be able to shift time about, it is not allowed to simply jump said virgin six years into the future. It is allowed to jump the judges into the future to verify the virginity of the person in question. Said virgin may be male provided someone finds a method of measuring virginity in men.
2. Raise dead presidents.
   Fund raising has always been a problem in this country. Let's see the dieties vying for title raise money legally and without causing any objections by other organizations also trying to raise the same money. Other dieties may not directly raise challenges, as that would be absurd.
3. Either:
   a) Find a way to without public outcry "heal" Homosexuality, Welfare Dependency, or "Road Rage"
   b) Lead every member of a starving nation to a new location which is capable of providing food for those people, without causing an outcry.

Aryara Jordan - aryara@hotmail.com - "Pi, schmi. Let's have the Supreme Being show us the value of the square root of -1. Solve i for me baby, and I'm a follower for life."

Robert Fujimoto - fuji2001@hotmail.com - "All of those are too damn easy. Here's a real challenge.

1. Make a Redneck from anyone of the following states: Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, speak, dress, have the manners of an intelligent human.
2. Make the theory of chaos easy for anyone to understand. When I say anyone, I mean anyone. You cannot change the brain capacity of the person, or any other psychical or mental changes. Yes, you must make that easy blond in high school understand it too.
3. Rub your head and pat your stomach WHILE, conducting the New York Symphony. The NY Sym. must play one of the following: 1812 Overture, Nutcracker, Beethoven 5th, or Nine Inch Nails Closer. Major bonus points for Closer.
4. Screw world peace, create nuclear war WITHOUT pushing the button your damn self. You must also make these countries aim at themselves.
5. Get any computer geek laid. You cannot change anything of the geek or the woman.
6. Not only disprove yourself, but disprove everyone's existence.
7. De-evolve everyone!"

Emily Nghiem - web7031a@houstonprogressive.org - "As future Pope, I declare the definition of "pi" to be 355/113*. This is the closest estimate I've found that doesn't require a calculator. (And being this close to the Y2K era, one cannot be too safe!) *SOURCE: Dr. Robert Bryant, Math god, who ascended from Rice University into higher planes of academia."

Modern Challenges for a Respectable God:

1. Restore the 2,000 year old redwoods destroyed in California by corporate greed. (See: http://www.headwatersforest.org) Replenish endangered species and return the planet to its original state of balance, eradicating toxic waste and the corporate politics connected with it.
2. Set up a sustainable energy source as an alternative to the proposal to wipe out fishing villages in China thousands of years old (part of a plan to redirect the rivers into a huge dam to generate electricity for the growing population). Either prove that global warming and ozone holes are a myth, or fix these problems (as well as stop the earth from drifting into the sun, asteroids from hitting the earth, or people from blowing it up).
3. Set up a perfectly compassionate justice system whereby those who confess their crimes are immediately redeemed and thus voluntarily come forward. This includes reincarnations of souls who recall and admit their deeds from past lives. Apply this system to every unsolved murder and conspiracy case ever covered up by government, organized or individual crime. (Including but not limited to: Jack the Ripper; Lizzie Borden; John F. Kennedy/Marilyn Monroe; David Koresh/Waco/Oklahoma City; who really profited off World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, and AIDS; and any wealth connecting the Perons with Holocaust victims.)
4. Reconcile all world religions, including atheist and secular humanist beliefs, thus proving the existence of Oneself. Possible structures for this proof are as follows:

• Proof by definition: proving that everyone in the world believes in the same God, and is merely using different terms or concepts to define their relationship with this one God.
• Proof by counterexample: proving that atheists don't exist
• Indirect Proof: Proving the existence of Satan or evil. (Thus proving the existence of whatever is NOT in this set to be defined as being of God.)
• Proof by totally confusing the people and thus forcing them to pray to God for relief.

EXAMPLES:

The death penalty -- Proving that since the decision to terminate life requires moral judgment on a spiritual issue, executions are a religious act performed by the state; however, since no one in America is challenging this institution based on religious grounds, this shows that on some level, all citizens believe that laws give states the right to play God. Thus, all citizens believe in some "divine authority" whether good or bad.

Money -- Proving that money is just paper and that credit is just a bunch of numbers. Therefore, the fact that people "have faith" in the economy is actually an indication of faith that what comes around goes around, that they are relying on the equal faith of others to believe that their money or credit is worth anything, as again, it's really nothing more than a bunch of numbers on paper. Thus, everyone is actually living on faith anyway.

Time -- Proving that no one really knows what "year" it is either. So again, everyone is living on faith. (In particular, the American government is not supposed to be in the business of religious favoritism, yet the current calendar year is based on the Judeo-Christian calendar, as opposed to the Buddhist, Muslim, or even Aztec calendars. The fact that this has never been challenged on religious grounds, again, shows that on some level, everyone agrees to agree, thus showing a common faith.)

To vote Emily Nghiem for Pope, please go to your nearest Buddhist temple, Catholic church, or Unitarian Universalist fellowship. Write her name in big letters across your prayer request form and drop it in the suggestion box. Once elected, I promise to order Mel Gibson's wife to divorce him and marry someone else. But I can't promise I won't sin after that. -- etn

Andrew Patko - worldruler268@hotmail.com - While we're waiting for gods to enter themselves into the GGC, I would like to propose a few other "extra credit" challenges. Here goes!

1. To prove the possibility of creating all earthly life in a few days, show scientists how to create fully-formed humans using only household materials, à la "The Powerpuff Girls". The scientists must confirm that the creation process does not break any known laws of physics.
2. Flood the world (with water) without killing anyone or shorting out any electrical equipment. The flood must cover the earth for at least one week. Judges must be able to access the Internet during the flood, and verify that worldwide death rates were no higher than normal.
3. Create a non-human animal that can speak English.
4. Kill Teddy Kennedy, the Pope, and Dick Clark.
5. Predict the results of the next NCAA basketball tournament exactly. This must include the winner and final score of each game. Competing gods are not allowed to fix the results in any way.
6. Make a portal linking any spiritual realm with Earth.
7. End all death and suffering for 24 hours. For evil gods, bear in mind that going from this "perfect world" back to our tortured lives will be VERY damaging emotionally.
8. Show us how (god's name here) came into existence. All effects must have a cause, right?