GOD AND SUFFERING AND WHAT IF WE LIVE IN A SIMULATED REALITY?
Why do we have to accept reality? Some say it is because it is bigger than
you and the truth will bounce back. It will overpower. And you never know when
it will strike so you will suffer fear and live under a threat. Is this a moral
duty? Is it rather a pragmatic thing? Both? These are big questions so
think about them.
Many will feel the truth matters for moral reasons. “You shall not lie”. “Lies
lead to more lies. Errors lead to lies too. We end up being untrustworthy.” “You
have to line up to the truth for your own sake for it makes you brave and how
can you look after yourself if say you tell yourself your cancer has just
vanished when it is still there? There are consequences. Bravely facing
something terrible helps you to handle it if even worse comes.”
The universe and my memory and my life need to be real for that to be the case. What if I am in a divine simulation? What if I say to the creator, "Why did you lie?" and get the answer, "I never told you it was real. You just thought it was"?
If my life or even a significant portion of my perception is in fact not real, then what? Then I have to accept the reality that they are faked.
Is life with its sufferings and boring side real? We could be real beings but living in a matrix made by God or some kind of creator. We could be in something along the same lines as a computer simulation. The maker doesn’t need to use a computer to make our life some kind of video game. But you get the idea.
Religion might say that God is a bad designer and bad player of the “Game”. But it says life and what happens to us is real as if that makes it all right. It concludes that a God who is behind a universe where suffering might happen is good but only if it is real. The absurdity of such a claim is astronomical. The hard-faced hypocrisy is shameful. Living in a cruel real world does not make it a good one. It does anything but make God good.
It would make no sense to say that it is wrong to harbour hatred in your heart against an enemy but only if he is real and that it is okay if we wrongly think he is real. Hate is hate. Hate and feeding violent urges is not made okay by having an illusionary victim.
An illusion is a created thing assuming there is a God who makes all things from nothing. Religion cannot say, "God only sends truth. An illusion is not a thing but only the absence of truth. Therefore there is nothing for God to create. God does not create illusions." That is plainly shamelessly absurd - it is sophistry. It is a lie. It is waffle. God makes and sends the illusion.
So if God creates a fake person for you to hate and want to destroy he is one
evil or amoral God indeed.
And we don’t need to be trapped in a video game for life to be a divine game.
What if it is physical, perhaps more like chess with the real board and the real
pieces? And as for the notion that no God would give you an illusionary boring
life, why not? He would not think the same as us.
The way memory remakes what we have experienced and is not accurate is one example of how we are already in an illusion. That is definite.
It has been suggested that if you harm others you need to be put in their situation to fully know what you did. If so, then is Hell about God implanting the experience you inflicted on others on you? That would be the definition of justice. Or so it would seem. But it would remain a dream, a nightmare. You need to be in some kind of similar situation. It being an illusion or simulation of reality would only lead to you thinking, "Is this really a good way to learn? How do I know that the horror I feel is mine? What if it is an illusion itself? What if God put a drug in me? What if God changed my wiring so that I would perceive something beautiful as something satanic?" This illusion requires turning what is neutral or good into something bad. This God makes a mockery of goodness. A dream is a dream. It is not going to help you be a dignified respected being. The perfect justice God promises is one of his lies.
Even if religious conditioning fails to turn children into ardent orthodox believers for life, it still conditions them enough to prop the religion up. Conditioning is very effective at getting them to support and maintain the religious label. Eg you see Catholics who think the Church is full of nonsense still wanting to be called Catholic. Believers might be getting their victims into a faith matrix. Narcissists use neglect as a weapon. If one thinks that God is a mere idea that can help nobody, one will encourage trust in that God.
Much of the Hindu religion says the body and the world are maya illusion. Imagining that we are in a game is thus a trait of one of the world's largest religions.
There is nothing at all that a believer can do to show that if there is a God that the universe is real. If you think there is a reality and it has nothing to do with God then you avoid this doubt at least to an extent. You don't want to take on a theory that makes it worse.
