I found the most condensed essence (also parody) of religious arguments for fatalism in Greg Egan’s Permutation City:
Even though I know God makes no difference. And if God is the reason for everything, then God includes the urge to use the word God. So whenever I gain some strength, or comfort, or meaning, from that urge, then God is the source of that strength, that comfort, that meaning.
And if God—while making no difference—helps me to accept what’s going to happen to me, why should that make you sad?
I found the most condensed essence (also parody) of religious arguments for fatalism in Greg Egan’s Permutation City:
Logically irrefutable, but utterly vacuous...
I would have agreed wholeheartedly with that paragraph two years ago.