My world has a god who appears regularly to inflict punishment on wrongdoers. Is long-term sinning still possible?

Question

The god Boff! visits his Earth-like planet every four weeks to exact punishment on breakers of his commandments. These punishments manifest as an opening up of a sinkhole beneath each sinner who then falls into a pit of flames, never to be seen again. The hole then closes with no apparent collateral damage. Boff! is omniscient of everything occurring at a particular moment but has a limited memory - hence the regular visits. After the miscreants have been dealt with, Boff! wipes his memory of all crimes and starts afresh.

Notes

Boff! knows all outward actions and speech but cannot read thoughts. Boff! does not accept snitching - (indeed, it is one of the sins - he relies entirely on his own memory of events.

Question

Is there way that would-be transgressors can bypass Boff!'s commandments on a regular basis and get away with it?

Relevant commandments:

1. Thou shalt not snitch

2. Thou shalt not steal

3. Thou shall not murder

4. Thou shalt not commit physical assault of any kind

5. Thou shalt not cheat in order to make monetary or property gain

6. Thou shalt not speak ill of Boff!

7. Thou shalt not jump from bushes or around corners to frighten someone or otherwise prank them

Update Dear commenters and answerers. I was called away on urgent business and was not able to answer objections or clarify. Now that there are answers, it is too late for me to change the rules so I will accept answers as they stand.

Answer 1

Assuming vaguely modern tech, timed actions.

I write a computer program to do a thing in 32 days, clearly past the end of the current cycle. At the point of judgement, I have done nothing

32 days later the theft occurs, but the money is electronically moved to a different place - but your god can't link the actions, as it no longer knows who wrote the program.

32 more days later and another program, with months before, moves it to the programmers account. Each 32 day cycle breaks the cause and effect cycle.

Slow poisoning as well, any mechanism to insert a time delay, or add a cut off mechanism.

Answer 2

This set of rules is a mess and ripe for abuse

I mean, I can leave it at that but here are just a few options for each thing.

1. Thou shalt not snitch

Let's be generous and not dig around too much in "what does it mean to snitch". Going with a fairly clear definition "report person X's action to person Y (who has authority), in order to get X into trouble".

I could just say "Yo, Alice - can you give Bob a message, please? Carol ate the last doughnut". In this case, I am not snitching. Alice might not even know Bob has authority to punish last-doughnut-eaters(-who-are-not-Bob). I tricked Alice to snitch.

2. Thou shalt not steal

OK, I just borrow some money from Alice. I am going to pay them back, honest! I wait for Boff! to show up, deal out punishments, then Boff! wipes his memory.

I do not return the money.

I have now stolen it. But Boff! cannot really know that.

OK, maybe after week 4, he does not have memory of me borrowing. But after week 4 he would know Alice claims I stole her money. Yet, that is an even bigger problem if he believes it - I can also claim "You know what, Bob owed me money 4 weeks ago. He never returned them!" even if not true. And Bob would fall into a fiery pit.

This can even get tricker. What if I promised somebody payment but I deliver less? Or I did not promise a specific amount but still pay less than what they earned? You know wage theft.

But this is just variations on lying and playing around with what "steal" means. Also, maybe some of these run afoul of "5. Thou shalt not cheat in order to make monetary or property gain". I can still twist it more without lying: how about some kidnapping, blackmail, or racketeering. These are not stealing. But I can force somebody to give me their things. Or else I pay a visit to your shop. Or your kids. And we would not want that, now do we?

3. Thou shall not murder

Not even in self-defence? Hmm, OK, let's leave this aside.

How about I give Alice some tea for her dear friend Bob. I just make sure she receives it a day or two before Boff! arrives. And that she will not see Bob until after.

So, here is the sequence of events:

1. Alice receives tea.
2. Boff! arrives and metes out punishment.
3. Boff! wipes his memory.
4. Alice gives Bob the tea.
5. Bob dies from the poison in the tea.
6. Alice is met with fiery death.
7. I get scot free, since Alice cannot even tell anybody the tea was not from her!

There is also some wiggle room - if I go out in the wilds with Bob and he gets lost then dies of exposure, is that really murder? I can also use the same timing, so we go out with Bob before Boff! arrives but Bob only dies after Boff! leaves.

4. Thou shalt not commit physical assault of any kind

This might be the most abusable one. I can get somebody to physically assault me in any way and they die. They might turn a corner and bump into me (I can make sure it is not just a soft one but really hurts). I can run in front of their vehicle (bicycle would work, cars might hurt more but I just need to survive). I can trick them to throw or drop something in such a way that it hits me. And many, many more. None of these rely on goading them to attack me, but that itself might be an option.

So, I can eliminate people I do not want.

Even more importantly, I can threaten to do it. And then extract whatever I want from them: goods, favours, information. I assure you, most people would rather do that, than fall into a fiery pit.

5. Thou shalt not cheat in order to make monetary or property gain

I can just cheat in order for somebody else to make monetary or property gain. And they also do the same.

With the time limit on Boff!'s memory, I can even make sure to delay these gains after the wipe.

I can cheat in order to establish myself.

1. "You know that famous and totally real thing I did? Yeah, worship me and think highly of me."
2. Boff! wipes his memory.
3. "Hey, how about you buy this product from me. You do worship and think highly of me."

Step 3. needs not have any cheating involved. I might just get any sales that I would not otherwise. But people can also pay extra because they think highly of me. The public would buy all sorts of stuff they would not normally just because of who it comes from. And pay way too much even then. Like $30 for a bottle of used bath water.

This is the MO of many scammer - they might first seek to trick people to make themselves seem trustworthy and establish themselves. Then they trick people for gains.

I can also cheat for other gains: information being a big one. But could also be favours. I can cheat to get people into trouble. I can cheat to get them killed. Like, if I cheat Alice to steal from Bob. Then she disappears in a fiery pit. That might be good for me - hey, her workplace is now hiring!

6. Thou shalt not speak ill of Boff!

That is probably the most boring and least abusable. Least abusable mostly because it is such a small scope and there is nothing much to gain.

I could still try to trick Alice to mouth off Boff to get her killed. Hand her a note or something and ask her to read it out loud.

Still, there are better ways to achieve that without having to spend more effort trying to make somebody say something bad for Boff!.

7. Thou shalt not jump from bushes or around corners to frighten someone or otherwise prank them

As above, I can trick somebody to do it, in order to get them killed. Also, as above, there are probably easier ways to get them killed.

However, if I simply want to make a habit of breaking a rule and "get away with it", this is fairly simple. I can take regular strolls in the evenings. In my scary costume that I usually wear. People can see me and be frightened, however, I (seemingly) did not do that just to scare or prank them. I take my strolls regularly, and in similar places. I have my costume and I am fond of it. Everybody knows that. Yes, that lead to somebody being scared of seeing me when it was dark but I did not set out to specifically scare them.

Boff! would know that I take these actions regularly, as in, not specifically to target people. And woudl probably know of people who were and were not scared. Unless Boff! is really strict with the letter of the law, I will get away with it. Repeatedly, since Boff! can come to the same conclusion in each 4 week period.

If Boff! is really strict with the letter of the law, this rule is busted. Can you imagine? Any time somebody is scared or appears to be scared by somebody else, then the scarer is bound to executed. Do you know how many times in real life people have scared me without even meaning to? Most commonly somebody comes in the room without me hearing, so I get a jump when I turn around.

That is just genuine fright. But with this rule in place, I can fake it. Or threaten people to fake it. Heck, everybody might pretend to be scared all the time. This rule can lead to the apocalypse. A mutually assured destruction of "Just a prank, bro!".

Answer 3

Mens Rea

The Guilty Mind.

Boff cannot read thoughts and so there is so much scope for abuse here. Let us go with Murder.

Does Boff allow for Self-defense - I am going to presume yes, say I want to kill someone - all I have to do is engineer a situation whereby a reasonable person would conclude Self-Defense.

I notice Adultery isnt on your list of prohibited items, so I want to kill you, I go to your house, seduce your missus, you come home to find me and your wife engaging in all manner of unspeakables. You are pissed at me and threaten me, I have a reasonable fear of my life based on an immediate and imminent threat - I kill you in Self-Defense - without knowing my a priori desire to kill you (so long as I dont say it aloud or write it down) - Boff would not find me guilty of anything.

Now - to be fair, we cannot read minds either and there are legal cases where a person has done something objectively illegal, but did so on a genuine belief that what they were doing was right. Imagine you and I have the same suitcase, I take yours, you take mine - technically a theft has occurred, but since we know that there was no intent to commit a crime and it was a genuine mistake - no punishable crime has occurred.

So long as you can cloak your malevolent actions in the appearance of good deeds, then since Boff forgets everything after each video, he can have no pattern of behavior to infer Malice and each time is just an innocent misunderstanding.

Furthermore - since no one can tell Boff that actually I have been sleeping with Wives and killing their husbands every which way - then I am going to have a long and illustrious career.

Further Furthermore - if I wanted to do it as a Hitman - so long anything said or done had an innocent ulterior motive, I could get away with it:

• Agree to do a Job for her Husband
• Set a fee
• Half payed on Month 1
• Self-defense or accidental death in Month 2
• Balance to be payed on Month 3

Answer 4

It’s impossible for any individual to get away with defying Boff! for more than 4 weeks. So no one person can commit “long term sin” as you’ve described it. Not directly, at least. But strictly speaking it’s not against any commandment to convince another person to commit a sin for you. Especially if that person does so willingly, so as to not break the “cheating” commandment.

So all it takes is for a charismatic politician or cult leader type to gather some loyal followers who are willing to suffer Boff!’s wrath on their behalf. The leader keeps their hands clean while the devout underlings commit as much sin as they can in their 4 week period. This organization can then rule unopposed until they run out of fresh fanatics to recruit.

Answer 5

By method like that of a DOS attack.

-Create a manifesto that refutes or denies all the teachings of ABoff and his commandments.

-Print a lot of copies and get with your heads and or rulers to get them decimated to their enemies.

The idea is to spread this as far from your home country as possible. Include the following lines at the end of the manifesto. “The ‘A’ in ABoff is silent, all true believers know this. And all these teaching should be shared and read aloud as much as possible, for if you don’t you and those you care about won’t make it to the afterlife.”

You have now effectively tied up Boff for the foreseeable future. Since no one will remember followers of the manifesto disappearing it will continue to spread and continue to tie up Boff.

Ideally, you’d want to know how fast Boff can issue judgment to make sure you always have a safety buffer but hey no one can remember them so no one can record that.

I hope I got the spirit of the question right let me know if I misunderstood the question.

Also, I realize how morally corrupt this plan would be if this was real.