First, as an intro, a quote from Utilitarianism - Wikipedia:
This formulation makes a lot of sense to me. However, a clear implication of this utilitarian reinterpretation of Christianity is the fact that, if true, this should be testable empirically. This utilitarian reinterpretation of Christianity presupposes that it is in fact possible to experience levels of utility way beyond any possible local maxima that can be attained through sinful habits. In fact, under a Christian worldview, sinful habits only operate at the level of the "flesh", you can only get so far by maximizing "fleshly utility" through them. However, if Christianity is true, then God exists and the spiritual realm exists, and so it's very likely that the global maximum of the utility function can only be attained and experienced by tapping into the spiritual realm somehow. That is, if you want to reach levels of utility beyond anything the flesh can offer, you need to get in touch with the supernatural dimension somehow, empirically, in real life. For example, I've heard testimonies of people claiming that they have experienced the supernatural presence of God, which is an experience so extraordinary that its "utility" makes all the pleasures of the flesh pale and look like trash in comparison (example).
Question: Is there a method/algorithm to attain and experience (empirically, in real life) levels of "supernatural utility" (global maximum) way beyond all the suboptimal "pleasures of the flesh" (local maxima), under an utilitarian interpretation of Christianity? Is there an algorithm to maximize the Christian utility function and empirically observe palpable results of this utility?
So, I had the following thought. What if Christianity can be described as a specific kind of utilitarianism? If we think about it, in Christianity the whole point is to pursue the maximization of God and God's creation's utility function. Under a Christian worldview, God has created everything in such a way that certain states are preferable over other states. So there must be some sort of utility function that allows God to compare different states of affairs and decide that X is better than Y. Thus, we can frame all sorts of sinful habits (e.g. addictions, drugs, alcohol, food, sex, inappropriate content, gambling, greed, etc.) as "sins" because they lead to suboptimal utility (mathematically speaking). More formally, we could frame Christianity as an optimization problem, and say that sinful behaviors lead people to get stuck in local maxima of God's utility function, and that people who get stuck in these local maxima are unable to escape and are ignoring and missing out on a whole unexplored subspace of God's utility function that leads to the global maximum.In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.[1][2]
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is, in some sense, to maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as:
That property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness ... [or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.
This formulation makes a lot of sense to me. However, a clear implication of this utilitarian reinterpretation of Christianity is the fact that, if true, this should be testable empirically. This utilitarian reinterpretation of Christianity presupposes that it is in fact possible to experience levels of utility way beyond any possible local maxima that can be attained through sinful habits. In fact, under a Christian worldview, sinful habits only operate at the level of the "flesh", you can only get so far by maximizing "fleshly utility" through them. However, if Christianity is true, then God exists and the spiritual realm exists, and so it's very likely that the global maximum of the utility function can only be attained and experienced by tapping into the spiritual realm somehow. That is, if you want to reach levels of utility beyond anything the flesh can offer, you need to get in touch with the supernatural dimension somehow, empirically, in real life. For example, I've heard testimonies of people claiming that they have experienced the supernatural presence of God, which is an experience so extraordinary that its "utility" makes all the pleasures of the flesh pale and look like trash in comparison (example).
Question: Is there a method/algorithm to attain and experience (empirically, in real life) levels of "supernatural utility" (global maximum) way beyond all the suboptimal "pleasures of the flesh" (local maxima), under an utilitarian interpretation of Christianity? Is there an algorithm to maximize the Christian utility function and empirically observe palpable results of this utility?
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