Of all the things people choose to believe, or not believe in, few are as deeply debated, questioned, and contemplated as the concept of God. Yet we never seem to agree on who He is, where He is, or whether He even cares about us.
Hundreds of religions, confessions, and thousands of churches of different styles and names all point toward something divine. The only things that make all of this so different and antagonistic are minor differences in how we understand this unknown in human terms and the cultures we grow up in. It all stems from childhood indoctrination. If you are born in a Muslim country, you remain Muslim, most of the time. If you went to church as a child in a Catholic country, you are stamped as Catholic until the end of your days. If you are born in an Orthodox Christian country, it is almost guaranteed you will never change that attachment.
You know this all too well, don't you? Religion is a matter of indoctrination, and a culture where you were born. Do you see what this suggests? The diversity of religions suggests that every tradition expresses only a partial human interpretation of a reality that transcends culture. Our beliefs are a reflection of a deeper reality, one that cannot truly be captured in words but can be expressed through symbols, songs, clothing, rituals, and traditions. Across thousands of cultures and millions of human beings, each with their own ego, people have given that reality different forms.
Another thing we will never agree on — or even come close to discovering the truth about — is where God actually is. Is there any geographical location for Him in this vast universe? Is He somewhere in space, in time, or beyond both? Is He outside the boundaries of the physical universe altogether? Does the question even make sense if God is not another object inside the universe?
Can you genuinely picture a divine being existing beyond the material world? Across this unimaginable expanse of stars and galaxies — so vast that the human mind can barely grasp it — is He still guiding your life, every moment, across trillions upon trillions of kilometers of cosmic emptiness?
But there is one thing we can be sure about. As Albert Einstein famously said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible”.
Yes, we can comprehend at least a few glimpses of the truth about this universe. Perhaps the most obvious thing we have come to understand about this reality is the unimaginable vastness of the cosmos — and its cold, silent emptiness.
You see, this is where the pitfall lies. If we assume that God operates according to logic and reason, it becomes almost impossible to understand why He would create so much empty space filled with galaxies, stars, and gases. From a purely human engineering perspective, the observable universe appears vastly inefficient if its sole purpose were to host us.
It is like digging an entire ocean just to have enough water to cool yourself on a hot summer day.
And you are right—it is impossible to comprehend why He would do this. If He truly acted according to reason and logic, He would never have created a universe like the one we observe. Even for an omnipotent being, expending such immense cosmic energy and allowing billions of years to pass simply to populate this tiny rock called Earth with souls seems beyond comprehension.
We know that the universe is governed by reason and logic because those principles are woven into its very fabric. They are the language of His engineering. Just as we rely on logic to create and design, He would also employ the most rational and elegant solutions.
If you truly believe He is infinitely intelligent and faithful to His own principles of reason, then surely He would have chosen a far more efficient approach. Rather than creating an unimaginably vast physical universe, He could simply have created the appearance of such vastness.
Yes, He would create an illusion for us — a game in which you experience this world exactly as if it were a physical reality. He would create the impression of an unimaginably vast material universe, convincing you that, somehow, somewhere, this immensity could eventually produce life as we know it — all without a designer. If you believe that random events unfolding across this vast cosmos are enough to explain our existence, you may come to embrace atheism.
This game is not what we would call a computer simulation, because its underlying principles go far beyond anything we understand as a computer.
But it is a computation within the reality of information, where we are not merely static figures in the game. We are active participants in that computation.
Because we also participate in defining that reality, through the parallel, multithreaded computations of souls — each one a reflection of His presence. What we call consciousness may be His eyes, the way through which He experiences and feels His own creation.
One might say, "Oh boy, this is far too complicated. Why not simply accept that we live in a material world, immersed in the vastness of an indifferent universe filled with countless things scattered through empty space"?
We do not always accept what is simpler. No. We seek to embrace what we believe to be true.
The truth is that empty space could never be governed solely by laws that were invented long before we confirmed them, or reduced to marks on a page through a few strokes of simple mathematics. Information itself — of which we are a part — does not seem to be something that can simply emerge from lifeless matter alone. Synchronicity, meaningful coincidences that appear to extend far beyond statistical expectation, and other forms of meaningful order cannot arise on their own unless we are, in some way, interacting with the deeper structure that underlies and holds reality together. The quantum world itself demonstrates phenomena that seem impossible without the involvement of measurement and awareness, and raises profound questions about measurement and the relationship between physical reality and information.
Because you, appearing from what seems like nothing, cannot simply disappear back into nothingness.
Absolute nothingness has no properties, no potential, and no capacity to generate, sustain, or experience existence. What we perceive as “nothingness” must, instead, be an unknown something — a reality beyond our current ability to perceive or understand. That underlying something is not separate from who we are; it is the foundation from which human existence arises.
If so, that hidden foundation from which we emerge may also be the foundation to which we ultimately belong.
Written for the YouTube channel by S. V. Chekanov.
This is the full transcript of the YouTube video “The God We Imagine and the Reality Beyond” in the Scientific Neo-Romanticism style created by the Designed World channel using the book “ The Designed World of Information: Unveiling the Incredible Realm Beyond ”, by Dr. Sergei V. Chekanov, 466 pages, ISBN: 9798990642836; Hardcover 9798990642843, eBook ISBN 9798990642829; Book webpage: https://ermislearn.org/designed-world/