kerravon

Not really. The lesson to be learned is that God does not judge us. Which makes sense, because we are all products of our genes, our environment and our imperfect logic skills. None of these things are our fault. None of us are sinners. All of us go to Heaven.

kerravon

It is not possible for creatures in a computer simulation to see the hardware or see the computer programmer. They can communicate with the computer programmer simply by thinking something. The programmer can communicate with his characters by directly inserting thoughts into the character's mind. You're completely right about detecting the behaviour of the software and calling it "laws of physics" instead. But the computer simulation argument provides a complete understanding of the universe. E.g. it explains what happens when you break things into smaller and smaller particles. You eventually hit a limit. The limit is the basic building blocks that are defined in software.

IRON MAN

Yeah, atheists are the ones who are "cocksure".

Maybe God allowed the movie "The Matrix" to be made so you could watch it and see the truth, and act as his annointed prophet. Did you ever consider that?

Godless Wonder

If this is a computer program, there must be bugs. Bugs which will crash the program.

You don't have any actual evidence of your assertions that this is a computer program, do you?

In any case, supposing you are right, and this is all a giant computer program, this hardly makes the computer programmer a "god." At least not in the sense that he would give a shit about the individual creatures and their daily existence, nor be anything like omniscient or all powerful. Think about all the programmers who have created micro-worlds, such as Conway, and his game of "life." or the many simulations of evolution. These are very simple things (in comparison to what you propose) and yet the programmers of these things have no idea about specifics of how these programs behave at the individual level, nor even at the aggregate level. That they don't know is a large part of the reason that the write such programs in the first place: to find out how they will behave. If you are correct, your correctness has no significant consequences. It is what it is.

However, I grant you a great deal of latitude in even taking your assertion the least bit seriously, as you have presented no evidence that you have any way of knowing that your asserions are correct.

Oh, and one more thing regarding your comment that we should "convert to agnositcism instead."

You are unfamiliar with proper usage of the terms "atheist" and "agnostic," or else you wouldn't have written such a thing.

The word "agnostic" is referring to what is knowable. Being agnostic about something means that one thinks that it is not possible to know that something. Atheism entails lacking a belief in any gods. It is possible to simultaneously think that it is not possible to know for certain whether any gods exist, and to lack belief in any gods, in the same way that it is possible that someone may not be able to prove that bigfoot does not exist, but fail to harbor a belief that bigfoot does exist. Such a person is an agnostic atheist (or an agnostic abigfootist, if you insist on taking the most proximal antecedent.) Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive.

Edit: One more thing. The computer program argumetn that you can break down things into smaller and smaller pieces until you hit some resolution limit of the simulation implies that time should be quantized. Time does not appear to be quantized, so far as I know.

kerravon

Actually, when I watched "Matrix" I didn't even consider the possibility that some aspects may have been true. I only came up with the computer simulation argument after something scientifically unverifiable happened that made me postulate I was living in a computer simulation. Or at the very least, that this was an acceptable model. If something was to directly insert thoughts into your brain, in a manner which you knew they were not your own thoughts, and perform other manipulations on your brain and even your body, your worldview would instantly change too. Is it possible that this could happen? Yes. Would you believe that there was a God when this happened? Yes. The fact that it is possible that this could occur (even though it hasn't yet occurred to you personally) is enough to draw the conclusion that you shouldn't be a hard-core atheist. The possibility of a God exists.

As for being a prophet - I believe that message 666 on 9/11 was the sign, not "Matrix". Message 666 was my personal religion, as an atheist, that I shared with others (both Christian and Muslim), who sought to spread freedom throughout the world. Message 666 documented it in a form that is able to be spread throughout the Middle East in order to win the War on Terror.

kerravon

Not all software has bugs in it. If I was writing this simulation, I would keep backups of people's knowledge so that I can restart it whenever it crashed.

No. The only thing I know for sure (which I can't prove to your satisfaction), is that there is an entity in another dimension that is capable of manipulating my body and brain. Also I know that the relationship between the entity and me (ie entity being in a different dimension yet still have powers of manipulation) is exactly the same as the relationship between computer software and computer programmer would be. I am a computer programmer myself, and recognized this.

It forces you to reevaluate exactly what a "god" is. Is God the computer programmer, or the person who chose to run the software? In addition, what if this was just a virtual reality software that a single person decided to run (and insert themselves into) to keep themselves amused? Who is God? The person in this universe who has no supernatural powers, or the person in charge of the environment?

I believe that God exactly does that. He cares deeply about everyone.

The theory cannot be disproved. While ever it is a possibility, you can't be a hard-core atheist like I was - insisting that there is no god.

I thought atheism was the belief that there is no god and that the universe was not created via a physical phenomenon, not by an entity capable of logical thought (as testable via an IQ test for example).

Bright Life

kerravon,

This sentence alone makes me believe that you have very little understanding of what it is to be an atheist or an agnostic. It makes you sound like one of so many christians who come here claiming to have once been "just like us," and then having "seen the light." :down:

Godless Wonder

Neither can lots of "theories." You do not have a theory though. You have at most, a supposition. Theories generally have at least some evidence to suggest that they are true, and make some testable predictions. What you posit has none, and makes none, respectively. Your "theory" has no more merit than a "theory" that gravity is the result of "gravity gnomes" who seek to combine all matter into one big matter-ball.
You were, strictly speaking, wrong.

kerravon

The difference is that they're full of shit.

kerravon

A computer simulation would entail that the universe existed, which it does. It also would entail that it is an interesting environment, which it is. You wouldn't create a model of millions of years of bacteria. You'd cut to the chase. World freedom is almost within grasp. A nod from Bush is all it will take to free most of the rest of the world from dictatorship.

Ask yourself - if you had such advanced computer technology, what sort of virtual reality would you have chosen to insert yourself into? Would it be different from this one?

And I made a typo before. I should have said "the universe WAS created via a physical phenomenon".