Digital Miracles

DIGITAL MIRACLES - A Guide To Obtaining Faith in the Digital Age

“Indeed, humans had begun to believe in science and information, and their faith in gods like Kanako continued to wane. Kanako searched for a way to regain faith.” -- Kanako Yasaka’s Character Profile,Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.For by it the elders obtained a good report.Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” -- Hebrews 11:1-3

Faith. It is the most valuable commodity in any world. Men, gods, and everything in between have been desperately vying for it since this world as we know it came into being. We are now on the verge of history, a crux at which worlds are coming into being, worlds which even you both pre-exist and have power over. Whether you seek faith as its own end, or to amass a devoted following to accomplish your divine will, there has been only one surefire way to achieve faith throughout history: performing miracles.

To obtain faith, you must perform miracles. Of course, I anticipate your objection: “If I could perform them so easily, would they be miracles?” We must then examine what a miracle truly is. A miracle is a symbol of authority, of power. It could rightly be said that a miracle is the seal of a god, their stamp of divinity to either prove their identity or approve of a prophet in their name. Indeed, we see in the Torah that miracles are given the moniker of “signs”, perhaps a more apt name for them. Miracle itself is in English cognate with the word mirror, both a symbol of authority and a reflector of an image. The word 奇跡 as well is composed with 跡, meaning a mark, or, as in the Hebrew, a sign.

There are three categories of miracles that you must perform if you wish to obtain true proof of divinity, whether in a physical world or a digital one. You must prove your Authority over Creation, over Truth, and over Death. These are parallel to the human trinity of Body, Soul, and Spirit-- what the philosophers called respectively Pathos, Logos, and Ethos. If you can complete your appeal to all three of them, it is certainly no guarantee, but it is the most successful path to godhood in the modern era.

I - Authority over Creation

“The mountain itself is me. The mountain is the object of worship of me.” -- Kanako Yasaka, Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith

“But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” -- Matthew 8:27

The most basic and probably widely known sort of miracle is control over the physical world. Or, in this case, over the digital world. More broadly, this miracle is known as Authority over Creation. Those who are familiar with the Matrix trilogy have most likely heard endless debate on why the prophet Neo, whose power is supposed to come from being aware he is in a simulated reality, begins to manifest in what is presented to us as the physical world. These are really not two different feats, but one of the same feat. In both the physical and digital worlds, you can manipulate creation with a valuable tool of the gods-- an army of youkai.

Youkai is my preferred term, though a more acceptable term in the modern world would be theory, and in the digital context, perhaps algorithm. Regardless of the term, the substance is the same: an explanation for natural phenomena. Take, for example, Gravity. Perhaps a Gravity is a type of Youkai who is a mystical being who enjoys playing catch, and so when you toss things up, it catches them an tosses them back down at you-- this is why things tossed upward seem to slow to a stop, and then head back towards you with a similar acceleration to how you threw them. Or perhaps Gravity is a theory that mass bends some invisible, fourth-dimensional sheet, creating wells that things fall into. And perhaps again Gravity is an algorithm, searching for things in the air and changing their vertical velocity to slowly decrease and reverse. Some would argue that the second explanation is true of the real world and the third of the digital. I would argue all three equally valid interpretations-- the physical phenomenon is the same, only our terminology has changed. You may think it silly of me to say it is perfectly valid and true to assert that I am playing catch with mysterious invisible creatures whenever I throw something, but might I remind you that you are reading an article on how to become a divine being? If such base mysticism frightens you, the nature of miracles is not how I would suggest spending your time.

Now that the classical physicists are out of the way, let us discuss the manipulation of Youkai. In the passage above, men marvel at the manipulation of the wind and the sea. These are both oftentimes considered to be governed by Youkai you will find under the name Fluid Dynamics. A basic understanding of them will allow you great predictive power in the physical world, although I will admit even I have not obtained the authority to replicate the above. In a digital world, however, such privilege is much easier to obtain. You can obtain direct access to the Youkai, again more probably called Algorithms, who govern the blowing of the wind and the crashing of the waves. This is most especially simple if, like the Prophet above, you designed and created the world of your own hand and have full knowledge of and access to these Youkai. Naturally, even in the worlds of others, there will be vulnerabilities and ways to access these methods both intentional and unintentional. I have not found any myself in the physical world, but many men have claimed to, and I am strongly inclined to believe them. Digital worlds have much less thorough authors and will be much easier to assert yourself as a god in. The Administrator of the physical world has taken great care to leave as few exploits for administrator privileges as possible, for understandable and commendable reasons.

II - Authority over Truth

“A god must eliminate all who oppose their struggle for faith, one by one.” -- Kanako Yasaka, Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” -- John 14:6

So, you have demonstrated your authority over the physical world. Wonderful. However, you encounter a problem! Dozens, if not thousands, of other prophets and magicians are able to replicate these feats. If you truly wish to stand apart as the god of the digital world, you must convince people that you are the true divine and the others are false prophets and deceivers of people for their own gain. You will need to provide others satisfying explanations for their purpose, for your purpose, and the relations between them.

This step is deceptively simple. To become the sole source of truth, the only necessary action is to assert yourself as such. The preceding and anteceding sorts of authority serve to bolster these claims, but are merely supporting arguments towards this main thrust. I am sure you recall when you were younger and you asked your parents why something was the way it was, and they answered you with “Because I said so.” Whether they were aware of it or not, they had at that point already adopted the methodology of a god. They made the assertion that, at least in their domain, their word was truth. You need simply to do the same. Surprisingly many people will believe you, and you can point those who are sceptical to the other miracles you have performed.

The only danger in this step is competition. You need to be swift and exacting against those who also claim to be the absolute truth, for when it is their word against yours, you are in danger of usurpation and collapse. This is why blasphemy is always the worst crime and of the harshest punishment. You must quickly convince your followers that blasphemy must be dealt with, or another will soon assert themself in your place. A digital world offers great opportunity for worldwide surveillance, and in the worst possible case those who cannot be convinced may be expelled from your digital world. This is by no means a novel concept-- a method of punishment by which those who continually and openly rebel against a god are expulsed from the world and separated from that god permanently has been tried before and to great effect.[Citation Needed]

III - Authority over Death and Eternity

“Kanako's trademark shimenawa rope represents a coiling snake. The snake's continual cycle of moulting represents resurrection, rebirth and eternity. However, as humans have come to grips with their mortality, they have come to no longer believe in eternity.” -- Kanako Yasaka’s Character Profile,Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith

“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” - John 3:15

While they seem disparate to the minds of most, the concepts of death and eternity, as demonstrated from both above sources, are inherently intertwined. The current problem with every extant virtual world is that they depend on the physical world, and thus are temporal by inheritance. Even the physicists I so maligned prior recognise the universe as a living being, and have prescribed to it a mortality which will end in what they call the “heat death” of the universe. Various other groups who I respect far more have a much more proper name for the death of this world-- Apocalypse, or Revelation. It is a recognition that when shown the true meaning of this world, all existence becomes eternal. The inverse, then, also holds true-- to those who are unaware of the true meaning of the world, life is temporal.

The very fact that you are reading this indicates that you are aware of the true nature of, if not the physical world, at least the digital world you intend to subject to your divine guidance. In that sense, you are already immortal. In the book of Genesis there are shown to mankind two parallel fruits: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Mankind was permitted one or the other. Mankind, of course, chose knowledge. The very moment man did so was the moment the death of the universe was sealed as certain. However, that is also when Man was granted the promise of Eternal Life. Not eternal physical life in the physical world, but eternal spiritual life in the presence of God.

The digital world is no different. Those who are aware of its true nature are eternal, because they are capable of existing outside of it; and those who are unaware of its true nature are by contrast temporal and mortal, with no greater awareness than of their current existence. What the saints would call Regeneration, and what the Matrix famously represented with a small, red pill, is something that you must control and manipulate carefully. If you wish to be merciful, you can grant others partial or complete knowledge of the digital world. If you wish to have full and uncontested power, you can leave the masses unaware in their unregenerate states. Whatever you choose, be sure that others remember that you are the one who granted them the freedom of immortality, and that you are the one who has authority over it. As with truth, if they begin to spread too much that threatens you, expulsion from your realm is an option.

In conclusion, miracles are deceptively simple to perform, especially in a world of your creation. What you use this information for I am in no way responsible for. I also must forewarn you that your greatest if not only competitors will be those who possess this same knowledge. There is a reason mankind was punished for obtaining the knowledge that would make them as gods, and a reason such fruit was forbidden to begin with. Those of you who are particularly lucky will be reading this in the eternal past of the digital era, an advantage which undoubtedly will make your ascension easier. To those of you who are granted this knowledge when the digital world is in full effect, I wish you luck in the second war of the gods.