The "belief" we're in a simulation is more like a interesting idea than something people organize their lives around. Is it possible? Yes. Am I going to praise the great programmer every Sunday? No.

The belief in God in most cases is not just belief in some general higher power but a very specific deity with weird morality, silly mythology and bunch of scam artists behind it.

• I think there's a higher power...
• Ok...
• that got mad at us for eating fruits but then impregnated a lady with itself and pissed us off so that we murdered him and he could say he's not mad anymore.
• ... WTF?

There’s no hypocrisy here.

On one hand, the belief in a god doesn’t just end there. There are beliefs in what that god does and what he has control over. So it’s completely logical to believe that there’s no god (although, as someone else pointed out, it’s also not random arrangements of atoms).

On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist. It’s not a belief. The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests. It’s simply conjecture or hypothesis to explain the “why” of the universe. No one who talks about simulation theory (much less who “believes” in it) pretends that the creator of the simulation is uniquely interested in them and responds to their requests and tells them how to live their life. In fact, that would go against the entire concept of simulation theory.

Religion and religious belief have specific definitions. This feels just as dishonest as people claiming that LGBTQ ideology is a religion or that evolution is a “belief”.

I don't see the hypocrisy. If the universe is a simulation, that wouldn't make whoever built the universe a god. There would be no analytical reason to conclude that, unless we started from the specially-crafted supposition that any being capable of creating something like the observable universe had to be equivalent to God, but at that point, you're just defining your way into theism. If the universe is a simulation, which is not a terribly interesting thought experiment tbh, then it could be a simulation for any reason. The simulators could have been interested in the dynamics of gas and dust dispersion within galaxies and just so happened to create a sophisticated enough simulation that it could simulate the evolution of natural life. If the entire Universe had been "created" (although the point of defining it as a simulation is to point to how it doesn't really exist, ipso facto if God is a simulator, then God is not a Creator in the sense theists mean) to study dust dynamics at the galactic scale, somehow I think theists would be dissatisfied and not feel like they had really found what they meant by "God."

In theory, any type of Boltzman Brain could assemble itself at any time and start processing information, so in theory, a simulation could also be an entirely natural phenomenon occurring in a higher-order reality. The two ideas are different, even though Christians like to claim everyone is a theist and everything is theism even when they aren't and it isn't.

Anyways, the simulation hypothesis is sort of fun to think about sometimes, while "I invoke supernatural powers to explain phenomena I don't understand" isn't all that interesting.

I've literally never met someone who claimed we actually live in a simulation though

They are similar in that neither are scientific theories, as they are equally non-falsifiable. We may live in a universe where it is impossible to see the face of god or a glitch in the matrix by construction.

Given that impossibility, how then could you perform an experiment or make an observation that contradicts the theory? To be reductive, science isn't about proving. It's failing to disprove. If there isn't a set of circumstances in which a theory can be disproven, it isn't scientific.

Unless you are a string theorist. Then you just say whatever the hell you want.

I don't think anyone actually believes the latter except room temperature IQ tech bros. It's mostly just a hypothetical.

Idk what's the exact purpose of this meme but I really do see a lot of similarities between God creating the world and simulation theory. Obviously ST and religion are wildly different in their impact on society and how many people genuinely believe in them, but ST is pretty silly too.

It's just a "what if" scenario, one that's potentially possible but wouldn't change or explain anything if it was true. All you're doing is moving the existential problems up a layer and forgetting about it, it's the same as saying God made us: at the end of the day both the beings in charge of the simulation AND God have to come from somewhere, they live in a "real" universe, and you're not explaining that.

Why can't it be that we simply live in a real universe? That's the simplest answer, the one that requires the fewest assumptions. It doesn't have a convenient, satisfying reason as to why we're here, or how reality came to be, but it's easily the most plausible.

Could (a) god(s) exist? Possibly, it's hard to rule out the supernatural in natural terms since it's SUPERnatural

Could the universe be a simulation? Possible too, but also on of those things that's almost impossible to prove.

At the same time, it could be that your e a Boltzmann brain, and that literally nothing existed before and that your brain just kinda formed together spontaneously with all your memories.

All those are possible options that are over 99% likely to be false, but their cooouuullldd be true.

Point is not to rearrange your life on the off changlce that one of those are true. Especially religion, since religions tend to be "believe our particular god(s) or you go to hell for eternity" followed closely by "if you don't believe our particular god(s) we will help you go to hell right now". Nearly all human conflicts in Earth's history were either based on religion or used religion as a tool to whip up the masses to go kill the others.

There are also hundreds of Gods and over 3000 different religious figures out there and they're all pretty much exclusive or, they all claim to be the right one and the rest is wrong. Bold claim to make when it's all based off goat herders texts that were first abused for a completely different god (hello, Christianity!) and constantly conflicts with each other.

Simulation theory and Boltzman brain ideas are fun to entertain and talk and think about, but they've never been used to control who can love and have sex with who, they've never been a used whereas religion just IS abuse and control in every way possible.

I do not like religion

One of those is a belief and the other is a theory.

One requires the absence of evidence and the other requires evidence.

Are you a farmer? Because you have an awful lot of straw!

Does anyone base their lives and their worldviews around the simulation theory?

We do live in a simulation and I can prove it.
Stick your whole hand up your ass and push the secret eject key.

bad religion bait post is bad

Both are just as unlikely as the other and have as much evidence, I'd find anyone who possesed both beliefs to be weird.

Reading all these comments... People love to judge. ffs let people believe whatever they want. You can disagree with their preferences without declaring them as dumb or misguided. It's even pretty arrogant to dismiss others view of why reality exists when literally no one knows the answer to that.

Makes me miss my old roommate, who didn't believe in God but believed this all could be a simulation. Hope you're doing well buddy, wherever the fuck you've wandered!

honestly, who is this targeting? conspiracy theorists?

It's always the worst people who believe this too. The only interpretation of Simulation Theory that I will even remotely entertain is the one that we're all information stuck on the surface of a black hole, because it's the only one that isn't just there to feed tech bros' god complex.

Dr. Blitz called Simulation Theory religion for tech bros and I can't get it out of my head 😅

Damn theists really are fucking morons, huh?

both have people believe humans are part of a greater design

both include some otherworldly figure either observing or mandating how we live our lives

both reject the idea that maybe we’re just fuckin’ here because we are just fuckin’ here

Love how some people are legitimately proving this meme in the comments.