William Benzon’s early life was defined by the industrial gravity of mid-century Pennsylvania—a landscape of steel mills and coal mines. Born in 1947, Benzon reflects that in a different era, he might have been a shaman or a priest. Instead, his metaphysical journey began in a Lutheran Sunday school, where the vibrant illustrations of biblical narratives led him to a precocious ontological conclusion: the world was a movie, produced by God for the sole entertainment of the Baby Jesus.
This childhood cosmology, formed at age six or seven, reimagined existence as a curated spectacle. It was a primitive precursor to modern simulation theory, casting the divine not merely as a creator but as a director, and the infant Jesus as the ultimate spectator. Even then, Benzon grappled with the technical limitations of his model. He was troubled by the geometric dissonance between the flatness of a movie screen and the spherical reality of the earth—a puzzle of dimensionality he admits he is still working through.
The divergent paths of his own family underscore the fluid nature of these spiritual frameworks. While Benzon’s sister eventually converted to Shinnyo-en Buddhism, his own early foray into "cinematic" theology remains a poignant example of how we use the technology of our time to map the infinite. It suggests that our understanding of reality is often limited by the metaphors available to us, whether they are found in a Sunday school book or a modern screen.
With reporting from 3 Quarks Daily.
Source · 3 Quarks Daily
