Anybody Wanna Be Divine? - The Karuppasamy Task List
Introduction: The Job Description of a God
Humanity has spent thousands of years worshipping gods and goddesses.
We have constructed temples, churches, mosques, shrines, and monuments in their honour. We have written scriptures, composed hymns, performed rituals, offered sacrifices, and dedicated entire civilizations to the divine.
We have debated whether God exists, whether God is omnipotent, whether God is benevolent, and whether God intervenes in human affairs.
But perhaps we have overlooked a simpler question:
If somebody wanted to be divine, what exactly would the job involve?
Forget the crowns, the celestial thrones, the supernatural weapons, the elaborate ceremonies, and the demands for worship.
Let us write a job description.
Not for a ruler who demands obedience, but for a being who deserves admiration.
Not for a deity who wishes to be feared, but for one who wishes to be good.
And perhaps, while we are at it, we might discover that divinity is not exclusively a supernatural occupation.
I. The Divine Task List
Department 1: Protection of Life
Objective: Protect the vulnerable and preserve life.
Protect innocent people from violence.
Protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Protect animals from unnecessary suffering and cruelty.
Prevent starvation and malnutrition.
Ensure access to clean drinking water.
Protect people from preventable diseases.
Provide safety to those without shelter.
Protect victims of domestic violence.
Prevent human trafficking and slavery.
Protect endangered species and ecosystems.
Performance indicator: Fewer beings suffer or die from preventable causes.
A deity who protects a golden temple but ignores a starving child has misunderstood the assignment.
Department 2: Justice
Objective: Establish fairness and prevent the abuse of power.
Protect the innocent from wrongful punishment.
Hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.
Prevent corruption in institutions.
Defend individuals against tyranny.
Protect freedom of thought and expression.
Ensure equal treatment under the law.
Prevent discrimination based on birth or identity.
Protect workers from exploitation.
Ensure that victims have access to justice.
Provide opportunities for rehabilitation and redemption.
Performance indicator: Justice becomes accessible regardless of wealth, status, or influence.
Justice should not require the victim to be wealthy, powerful, or particularly good at praying.
Department 3: Compassion
Objective: Reduce suffering and improve the experience of conscious existence.
Comfort those who are grieving.
Support people experiencing loneliness.
Help individuals suffering from psychological distress.
Protect people abandoned by their families.
Offer dignity to the poor.
Care for the elderly and disabled.
Help people recover from trauma.
Provide companionship to the isolated.
Encourage forgiveness without demanding that victims tolerate further abuse.
Offer hope without making false promises.
Performance indicator: Fewer people experience abandonment, despair, and unnecessary suffering.
Compassion is not demonstrated by demanding gratitude.
It is demonstrated by helping someone even when there is nothing to gain.
Department 4: Intelligence and Knowledge
Objective: Enable conscious beings to understand their existence and improve their circumstances.
Encourage scientific discovery.
Make education accessible.
Protect intellectual freedom.
Help humanity distinguish truth from misinformation.
Encourage critical thinking.
Preserve historical and cultural knowledge.
Support technological innovation.
Encourage philosophical inquiry.
Promote understanding between civilizations.
Make useful knowledge available to everyone.
Performance indicator: Knowledge becomes more accessible, reliable, and useful.
A truly wise deity should not be threatened by questions.
If a belief cannot survive honest inquiry, perhaps it is the belief that requires improvement—not the person asking questions.
Department 5: Wealth and Human Flourishing
Objective: Ensure that people have meaningful opportunities to live fulfilling lives.
Reduce extreme poverty.
Expand access to economic opportunities.
Prevent predatory financial exploitation.
Encourage ethical entrepreneurship.
Support people attempting to rebuild their lives.
Promote fair compensation for labour.
Help individuals develop their talents.
Protect people from financial coercion.
Encourage sustainable prosperity.
Ensure that wealth does not determine human dignity.
Performance indicator: More people possess the resources and freedom necessary to live with dignity.
Wealth should serve life.
Life should not exist merely to serve wealth.
Department 6: Freedom and Individuality
Objective: Protect autonomy without abandoning responsibility.
Respect freedom of conscience.
Protect individuals from forced religious conformity.
Defend personal autonomy.
Allow people to question authority.
Protect freedom of association.
Respect cultural and philosophical diversity.
Prevent coercive relationships.
Encourage independent thought.
Protect individuals who reject traditional expectations.
Ensure that exercising freedom does not justify harming others.
Performance indicator: Individuals can pursue meaningful lives without coercion or persecution.
A deity confident in its goodness should not require compulsory worship.
Respect freely given is more meaningful than obedience obtained through fear.
Department 7: The Natural World
Objective: Preserve the conditions necessary for life.
Protect forests, oceans, and rivers.
Prevent unnecessary destruction of habitats.
Reduce pollution.
Preserve biodiversity.
Protect animals from industrial cruelty.
Encourage sustainable agriculture.
Restore damaged ecosystems.
Prevent avoidable environmental disasters.
Promote responsible resource consumption.
Protect the interests of future generations.
Performance indicator: The natural world remains capable of sustaining diverse forms of life.
A river does not become sacred merely because people worship it.
Its importance also lies in the lives it sustains.
Department 8: Accountability of the Divine
Objective: Ensure that extraordinary power is exercised responsibly.
Do not demand unquestioning obedience.
Do not punish people merely for disbelief.
Do not favour individuals based on their religious affiliation.
Do not demand suffering as proof of devotion.
Do not impose disproportionate punishment.
Do not conceal wrongdoing behind claims of divine authority.
Explain decisions when explanation is possible and appropriate.
Accept legitimate moral criticism.
Intervene against extreme preventable suffering when capable.
Never place personal glorification above the welfare of conscious beings.
Performance indicator: Power remains accountable to the welfare of those affected by it.
If accountability is expected from human governments, corporations, and institutions, why should a supposedly perfect being be exempt from moral scrutiny?
Power alone does not establish goodness.
II. The Problem With Omnipotence
Now comes the difficult part.
Imagine a deity possessing three characteristics:
Omnipotence: The ability to do anything logically possible.
Omniscience: Complete knowledge of everything.
Perfect benevolence: An unwavering commitment to moral goodness.
Such a being would know whenever an innocent creature was suffering.
It would possess the power to prevent that suffering.
And, presumably, it would have compelling moral reasons to prevent suffering that serves no necessary greater good.
Yet suffering exists.
Children experience abuse. Animals die in agony. People starve while food is wasted. Innocent individuals suffer from diseases, violence, and disasters.
This creates a philosophical difficulty traditionally known as the problem of evil.
Religious philosophers have proposed various responses.
Some argue that free will necessarily permits wrongdoing. Others suggest that suffering enables moral development, that human knowledge is too limited to understand divine purposes, or that justice ultimately exists beyond earthly life.
These arguments deserve serious examination.
However, none should automatically be treated as a satisfactory explanation for every instance of suffering.
An animal dying slowly from an untreated injury, for example, raises questions that cannot easily be dismissed by appealing to human free will or moral education.
If a being can prevent suffering without sacrificing an equal or greater moral good, what justifies refusing to intervene?
That question applies to humans.
It also applies to gods.
III. What If God Is Not Omnipotent?
There is another possibility worth considering.
Perhaps divinity does not require unlimited power.
Imagine a goddess who cannot prevent every tragedy.
She cannot reverse every death, cure every disease, or eliminate every injustice.
But she possesses compassion.
She protects where she can.
She comforts those she cannot save.
She resists cruelty.
She encourages courage, wisdom, and kindness.
She does not demand worship in exchange for assistance.
Would such a goddess be less worthy of admiration than an omnipotent deity who permits enormous suffering?
Not necessarily.
Moral worth and power are different things.
A powerless person who risks their life to save an animal may demonstrate greater compassion than a powerful individual who witnesses suffering and refuses to help.
Likewise, a limited but benevolent deity could be morally admirable even without possessing absolute control over existence.
This distinction invites us to reconsider what we mean by divine greatness.
Perhaps the highest form of greatness is not the ability to command the universe.
Perhaps it is the willingness to care for those who inhabit it.
IV. The Divine Performance Review
Suppose humanity established an independent committee to evaluate divine performance.
Instead of counting prayers, offerings, religious conversions, or temples constructed, the committee would examine measurable outcomes.
It might ask:
Protection: How many innocent lives were saved?
Justice: How many victims received meaningful remedies?
Compassion: How much preventable suffering was reduced?
Intelligence: How much useful knowledge became accessible?
Wealth: How many people escaped deprivation and exploitation?
Freedom: How many individuals gained genuine autonomy?
Environment: How many ecosystems were preserved or restored?
Accountability: Were decisions consistent with the welfare of conscious beings?
These questions would not conclusively establish whether any deity exists.
Nor could humanity reliably attribute every positive or negative outcome to supernatural intervention.
But they would establish something important:
A moral standard against which claims of divine goodness can be examined.
A being should not be considered good merely because it is powerful.
Nor should an action become morally acceptable simply because someone attributes it to divine authority.
If compassion is good when practised by humans, it should not become irrelevant when evaluating gods.
If cruelty is wrong when committed by humans, extraordinary power should not automatically excuse it.
V. Anybody Wanna Be Divine?
Here is the interesting part.
Most of the tasks listed above do not require supernatural powers.
You do not need to control lightning to feed a hungry person.
You do not need to command the oceans to rescue an injured animal.
You do not need to create galaxies to protect a child from abuse.
You do not need immortality to challenge injustice.
You do not need a celestial throne to share knowledge.
And you certainly do not need a temple dedicated to your name to practise compassion.
A teacher who educates disadvantaged children performs part of the divine task list.
A doctor who treats patients performs part of the divine task list.
An engineer who develops affordable clean-water technology performs part of the divine task list.
A lawyer who defends the innocent performs part of the divine task list.
A stranger who stops to help an injured animal performs part of the divine task list.
None of these actions establishes that the person is literally a god.
But each demonstrates a quality that humanity has historically associated with divinity.
Perhaps divinity can also be understood as a moral aspiration rather than exclusively a supernatural identity.
And perhaps the more interesting question is not whether humans can become gods.
It is whether humans can become sufficiently compassionate, intelligent, and responsible to perform the work traditionally expected of them.
VI. Intelligence, Justice & Wealth
At Mahakali Tribunal, our institutional philosophy centres on three interconnected principles:
Intelligence. Justice. Wealth.
Intelligence enables us to understand problems.
Justice establishes the principles by which those problems should be addressed.
Wealth provides resources and opportunities to implement solutions.
None is sufficient in isolation.
Intelligence without justice can enable exploitation.
Justice without intelligence can produce ineffective decisions.
Wealth without either can concentrate power while leaving suffering untouched.
Together, these principles offer a framework for developing technologies, institutions, and economic systems intended to improve human circumstances.
The divine task list is therefore not merely a philosophical exercise.
It can also function as a practical challenge to institutions.
If we believe that feeding the hungry is a divine responsibility, what prevents us from developing better food-distribution systems?
If we believe that justice is sacred, why tolerate institutions that make justice inaccessible?
If we believe that knowledge is valuable, why allow education to remain inaccessible to so many?
If we believe that compassion matters, why design financial systems that disregard human vulnerability?
These are problems for governments, businesses, scientists, engineers, lawyers, educators, and communities.
They are also problems that technology can help address.
No single organization can solve them all.
But every institution can decide whether its work contributes to their solution.
VII. Worship Versus Responsibility
Humanity has devoted extraordinary resources to the worship of divinity.
Some of that devotion has inspired beautiful architecture, music, literature, charitable institutions, and acts of compassion.
Religious traditions have also provided meaning, community, and consolation to countless people.
The question is not whether worship must disappear.
The question is whether worship should ever substitute for moral responsibility.
Consider two individuals.
The first spends an entire day praising a goddess of compassion while ignoring a suffering animal outside the temple.
The second offers no prayer but takes the animal to a veterinarian.
Which individual has better demonstrated compassion?
Religious traditions may answer this question in different ways, but the moral significance of the second person’s action is difficult to dismiss.
If a goddess truly values compassion, helping a suffering creature may be a more meaningful expression of devotion than praising compassion while refusing to practise it.
Perhaps worship is at its best when it inspires responsibility.
Perhaps reverence becomes meaningful when translated into action.
And perhaps the most valuable offering to a benevolent deity is not wealth, incense, or elaborate ceremony.
Perhaps it is the reduction of suffering.
VIII. A Simple Five-Point Assignment
For anyone who finds the eighty tasks overwhelming, here is a shorter version.
1. Protect Life
Do not permit preventable harm when you can reasonably intervene.
2. Reduce Suffering
Offer assistance without demanding repayment, admiration, or obedience.
3. Uphold Justice
Defend fairness, especially when doing so is inconvenient.
4. Enable Flourishing
Help others acquire the knowledge, freedom, opportunities, and resources necessary to live meaningful lives.
5. Remain Accountable
Never confuse power, popularity, wealth, or authority with moral superiority.
These principles do not require belief in a particular religion.
They do not require disbelief either.
They can be embraced by theists, atheists, agnostics, humanists, and anyone who considers the welfare of conscious beings morally important.
Conclusion: The World Does Not Need More Claims of Divinity
The existence of God remains one of humanity’s oldest philosophical questions.
Different traditions offer different answers.
Some envision an omnipotent creator.
Others recognize multiple deities with distinct powers and responsibilities.
Still others understand divinity as an underlying reality, a manifestation of consciousness, or a symbolic expression of humanity’s highest ideals.
There is room for disagreement.
But perhaps there is considerably less room for disagreement about the suffering of an innocent child, an abandoned elderly person, or an injured animal.
Their suffering is real regardless of the metaphysical explanation we prefer.
Their need for assistance does not disappear because humanity has failed to agree on theology.
And their welfare should not depend on whether they belong to the correct religion, possess the correct beliefs, or perform the correct rituals.
If a benevolent god or goddess exists, one might reasonably hope that such a being cares about them.
If no such being exists, the responsibility to care for them remains with us.
Either way, the work is worth doing.
Anybody wanna be divine?
Here is the task list.
You do not need a crown.
You do not need a throne.
You do not need a temple.
You do not need worshippers.
You need compassion, intelligence, justice, and the willingness to act.
And if you happen to possess unlimited power?
Then the expectations should be considerably higher.
Editorial note: This article is a philosophical examination of divine responsibility, moral accountability, and human agency. It does not claim to establish or disprove the existence of any deity. Its purpose is to encourage ethical reflection, constructive disagreement, and practical action toward reducing suffering.
