Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wiggs,

Actually it's more "lied about" than "ignored" when he insists that NdGT's conjecture and theism are "identical". What NdGT actually said was:

"Whatever that being is, it very well might be able to create a simulation of a universe."

(https://evolutionnews.org/2016/04/neil_degrasse_t_1/)

If we unpack it we get:

“Whatever that being is…”. So there's no claim of the divine there – a smart alien would do (of have done) just as well.

“…it very well might…”. So it’s just a conjecture – not the certainty of theism.

“…be able to create a simulation…”. So not the simulation then, just a simulation sufficient for us to experience.

“…of a universe…”. So just a universe, not the universe claimed for the god of theism.

A something that at some time may have created a something we perceive as a universe are all that’s necessary and sufficient for NdGT’s speculation. They’re necessary conditions for theism too, but not by a very long chalk are they sufficient ones. 

If though someone wants to reduce his theism to the conditions required for NdGT’s conjecture that's fine by me, but he'd be an awful long way from Christian (and any other that I'm aware of) theism if a mere speculation about a possibly long gone, localised tinkering engineer is what he actually means by “God”.     


 

I think you haven't grasped fully the implications of a few words here.

Let's unpack how this misdirected shall we?

Universe. This is the sort of thing you argue that nothing can be outside. If we are a simulated universe then the simulator is not part of this universe and is independent of it.

If that is not the case and the simulation is part of the same universe then he hasn't created a universe since the information is physically part of his own.

To cut the idea that God creates a universe from which he is independent away from theism is intellectual piracy and little more. It also misdirected away from deism.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I think you haven't grasped fully the implications of a few words here.

Then, as ever, you think wrongly.

Let's unpack how this misdirected shall we?

Translation?

Universe. This is the sort of thing you argue that nothing can be outside. If we are a simulated universe then the simulator is not part of this universe and is independent of it.

One of the various problems with your lying is that you’re so very bad at it. NdGT refers only to “a” universe, not to “the” universe”. Yes, a “creator” would sit outside the universe he’d created, but that would tell you nothing about whatever other universe he may inhabit. 

If that is not the case and the simulation is part of the same universe then he hasn't created a universe since the information is physically part of his own.

Translation?

To cut the idea that God creates a universe from which he is independent away from theism is intellectual piracy and little more. It also misdirected away from deism.

Of course it’s “cut away” from theism because it fails to satisfy many of the conditions necessary for theism, not least the necessity for the creator to be a god.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course it’s “cut away” from theism because it fails to satisfy many of the conditions necessary for theism, not least the necessity for the creator to be a god.

The creator of the universe is de facto God. You have absolutely no warrant or justification to reassigning the word or definition of Creator from theism to whatever it is you have been articulating. That is just intellectual piracy....and suggesting that an idea is good when it is in one's own head but lousy in people one doesn't like is pure childishness.

[Dicky Underpants]

If though someone wants to reduce his theism to the conditions required for NdGT’s conjecture that's fine by me, but he'd be an awful long way from Christian (and any other that I'm aware of) theism if a mere speculation about a possibly long gone, localised tinkering engineer is what he actually means by “God”.     


 

blue

Is all this somehow part of Vlad's "Christian Witness", and he goes on these endless speculative diversions so that he may sometime in the unforeseeable future actually get round to convincing people about the supposed truth of the particular set of doctrines he has signed up to? It does seem to be an extremely long-winded way of getting the 'Christian message' across.
Or maybe he has a boundless desire to be seen to win arguments (a desire which I think will be a long time in being assuaged, judging by his performance here )

[wigginhall]

Well, for Vlad, apparently, God can now be an alien sitting in Alpha Centauri playing with his computer.   Gee, I thought Christian apologetics is becoming desperate, but not this much.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Well, for Vlad, apparently, God can now be an alien sitting in Alpha Centauri playing with his computer.   Gee, I thought Christian apologetics is becoming desperate, but not this much.

No. An alien in alpha centuari would not be independent of the universe and therefore is irrelevant to any discussion about theology, Deology or simulated universeology.

It isn't Christian apologetics since PZ Myers of Antitheism sees this as intelligent design which to him is the very devil itself.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The creator of the universe…

See whether you can work out for yourself where you’ve gone wrong (or just lied) again here.

I even gave you the direct quote from NdGT, so you have no excuse for your blatant misrepresentation.

…is de facto God.

Possibly it could be (I’m assuming that you could ever come up with a coherent definition of the term here) but as no-one has posited the creator of the universe, it’s irrelevant in any case. 

You have absolutely no warrant or justification to reassigning the word or definition of Creator from theism to whatever it is you have been articulating. That is just intellectual piracy....and suggesting that an idea is good when it is in one's own head but lousy in people one doesn't like is pure childishness.

There’s a very good “warrant” and justification. See above.

Perhaps if you worked out the meanings of “necessary” and "sufficient” you’d stop going so badly wrong here?

Look, I’ll even help you with it again:

Air is necessary and sufficient to inflate a balloon.

Air is necessary but not sufficient for people to live.

Vlad "logic": “Balloons and people are therefore identical”.

Can you see it now?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No. An alien in alpha centuari would not be independent of the universe and therefore is irrelevant to any discussion about theology, Deology or simulated universeology.

Wrong again. The alien would be independent only of the universe he'd created that was the one we'd perceive. That's why NdGT used the indefinite "a" rather than the definite "the".

It isn't Christian apologetics since PZ Myers of Antitheism sees this as intelligent design which to him is the very devil itself.

No he doesn't.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Is all this somehow part of Vlad's "Christian Witness", and he goes on these endless speculative diversions so that he may sometime in the unforeseeable future actually get round to convincing people about the supposed truth of the particular set of doctrines he has signed up to? It does seem to be an extremely long-winded way of getting the 'Christian message' across.
Or maybe he has a boundless desire to be seen to win arguments (a desire which I think will be a long time in being assuaged, judging by his performance here )

Is it? Maybe? Could it be? Find out in the next exciting episode of '' NDG Tyson lets the air out of New Atheism''

[wigginhall]

No. An alien in alpha centuari would not be independent of the universe and therefore is irrelevant to any discussion about theology, Deology or simulated universeology.

It isn't Christian apologetics since PZ Myers of Antitheism sees this as intelligent design which to him is the very devil itself.

That's bollocks.  He would be independent of the universe that he created, which is not the one that he's currently in. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Dicky,

Is all this somehow part of Vlad's "Christian Witness", and he goes on these endless speculative diversions so that he may sometime in the unforeseeable future actually get round to convincing people about the supposed truth of the particular set of doctrines he has signed up to?

I’m afraid I have no idea what Vlad thinks he’s achieving and frankly inside the fairground hall of mirrors that’s his reasoning is not somewhere I’d like to be. What I do know though is that he exits a priori any possibility of convincing anyone of anything when his modus operandi consists of misrepresenting or outright lying about the terms he attempts, the quotes he cites, and the arguments of his interlocutors

It does seem to be an extremely long-winded way of getting the 'Christian message' across.

Or maybe he has a boundless desire to be seen to win arguments (a desire which I think will be a long time in being assuaged, judging by his performance here)

Well yes, though he doesn’t seem to have a “message” at all – rather than contribute something positive his is a sort of dull nihilism that consists only of attacking the arguments he doesn’t like, albeit dishonestly. Just attaching "Stalinist" to "secular" is a case in point. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

That's bollocks.  He would be independent of the universe that he created, which is not the one that he's currently in.

Yes, but that's the lie he's attempting: he's jumping from NdGT's indefinite article a creator, a universe etc to his misrepresentation of it as the definite articles of the creator of the universe and hoping no-one will notice.

Trouble is though, people do.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Wiggs,

Yes, but that's the lie he's attempting: he's jumping from NdGT's indefinite article a creator, a universe etc to his misrepresentation of it as the definite articles of the creator of the universe and hoping no-one will notice.

Trouble is though, people do.

Firstly the creator of any universe is definitionally the God of that universe since its properties are the same as those required say in deism and theism.
Secondly, you have no warrant to discount a creator for this universe once you have proposed the idea of a creator of any universe.
Finally Bostroms prpoposal of windows in the simulation explains how the creator can reveal itself and how these windows could go misinterpreted.

What you guys seem to be missing is a full realisation of what a universe is and how separate the creator is and the creators achievement.

The stable door here is that the proposal is the same as desists and theists make.

Also and most importantly. The simulated universe theory makes no more claims than that ancient theological proposal. So a Christian creator is neither proved or disproved by the proposal but the divine is enexorably implied by it. I e God or gods.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Firstly the creator of any universe is definitionally the God of that universe since its properties are the same as those required say in deism and theism.

First, that as Wiggs eloquently put it is bollocks. If smart aliens simulated a universe are they gods? If I put a goldfish in its bowl in a room am I a god?

Here’s what Wiki says about how theologians actually describe "god":

“In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and the principal object of faith.[3] The concept of God, as described by theologians, commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), divine simplicity, and as having an eternal and necessary existence. Many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent(perfectly good) and all loving.[”

How many of those characteristics would be necessary would you say for a “something” to simulate a universe. “Supreme being”? Nope. “Principal object of faith”? Nope. “Omniscience”? Nope. “Omnipotence”? Nope. “Omniprescence”? Nope. “Divine simplicity”? Nope. “Omnibenevolence”? Nope.

That is, you’d have so fundamentally to re-define “god” to fit only the conditions necessary for the SU conjecture as to make the term meaningless.     

Secondly, you have no warrant to discount a creator for this universe once you have proposed the idea of a creator of any universe.

Been a while since you attempted the negative proof fallacy. In that case you have no warrant to discount Thor as the cause of thunder once you have proposed the idea of something making those loud noises when there are storms.     

Finally Bostroms prpoposal of windows in the simulation explains how the creator can reveal itself and how these windows could go misinterpreted.

None of which tells you anything about the presence of a “god”.

What you guys seem to be missing is a full realisation of what a universe is and how separate the creator is and the creators achievement.

No-one isn’t realising that. What you’re failing to realise though is that none of that tells you one thing about the presence or otherwise of a god rather than, say, a smart alien.

The stable door here is that the proposal is the same as desists and theists make.

No it isn’t – at least unless you think by the same “logic” that a balloon and a human are the same because both have air as a necessary condition. 

Also…

You can’t have an “also” when everything prior is so readily falsified.

…and most importantly. The simulated universe theory makes no more claims than that ancient theological proposal. So a Christian creator is neither proved or disproved by the proposal but the divine is enexorably implied by it. I e God or gods.

It’s “inexorably”, and no it isn’t. First, SU makes no “claims” at all (it’s just a speculation) so you’ve made a fundamental category error before you’ve even got your trousers off. Second moreover, theism requires many characteristics for the gods it claims to exist (see above from Wiki) which vary according to the version of theism you pick but that the SU conjecture does not require at all.

Oh, and third by the way you keep trying to conflate deism and theism when they’re fundamentally different – a disinterested clockmaker vs a personal god. Both fail your category error problem, but if you want to reduce your religious belief to, “I have a conjecture that a something about which nothing can be said other than that it started the universe I appear to observe” then that’s up to you.

Even by your standards, your latest is a pretty epic fail.           

[Alan Burns]

AB,

As you have returned to logical error (what makes you think the universe is designed for us rather than that we’re adapted to the universe?) and mindless proselytising, here’s some for you in return:

Were babies meant to dies of brain cancer?

Are villages meant to be washed away by tsunamis?

Are burrowing wasps meant to cause blindness?

Was the holocaust supposed to happen?

Were typhus, cholera and diphtheria meat to cause untold loss and misery?

And was the musical mind meat to look for tap dancing leprechauns for the explanation?

See, once you fall into the idiocy and solipsism of thinking it’s all designed just for little ol' ever so 'umble you, then you don’t get just to ignore the bits that aren’t sugar and spice and all things nice.

Thank you for correctly pointing out that we do not live in a perfect world.
If we did live in a perfect world, there would be no need to search for God, because we would have found Him.
The fact is that humans can recognise that our world is not as we would like it to be.  We all know that there could be a better place.
Some of us know that there is a better place.

[floo]

Thank you for correctly pointing out that we do not live in a perfect world.
If we did live in a perfect world, there would be no need to search for God, because we would have found Him.
The fact is that humans can recognise that our world is not as we would like it to be.  We all know that there could be a better place.
Some of us know that there is a better place.

Are you really saying that in order for people to find god they have to suffer? If that were true, it doesn't say anything good about its personality.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

First, that as Wiggs eloquently put it is bollocks. If smart aliens simulated a universe are they gods? If I put a goldfish in its bowl in a room am I a god?

Here’s what Wiki says about how theologians actually describe "god":

“In monotheistic thought, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and the principal object of faith.[3] The concept of God, as described by theologians, commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), divine simplicity, and as having an eternal and necessary existence. Many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent(perfectly good) and all loving.[”

How many of those characteristics would be necessary would you say for a “something” to simulate a universe. “Supreme being”? Nope. “Principal object of faith”? Nope. “Omniscience”? Nope. “Omnipotence”? Nope. “Omniprescence”? Nope. “Divine simplicity”? Nope. “Omnibenevolence”? Nope.

That is, you’d have so fundamentally to re-define “god” to fit only the conditions necessary for the SU conjecture as to make the term meaningless.     

Been a while since you attempted the negative proof fallacy. In that case you have no warrant to discount Thor as the cause of thunder once you have proposed the idea of something making those loud noises when there are storms.     

None of which tells you anything about the presence of a “god”.

No-one isn’t realising that. What you’re failing to realise though is that none of that tells you one thing about the presence or otherwise of a god rather than, say, a smart alien.

No it isn’t – at least unless you think by the same “logic” that a balloon and a human are the same because both have air as a necessary condition. 

You can’t have an “also” when everything prior is so readily falsified.

It’s “inexorably”, and no it isn’t. First, SU makes no “claims” at all (it’s just a speculation) so you’ve made a fundamental category error before you’ve even got your trousers off. Second moreover, theism requires many characteristics for the gods it claims to exist (see above from Wiki) which vary according to the version of theism you pick but that the SU conjecture does not require at all.

Oh, and third by the way you keep trying to conflate deism and theism when they’re fundamentally different – a disinterested clockmaker vs a personal god. Both fail your category error problem, but if you want to reduce your religious belief to, “I have a conjecture that a something about which nothing can be said other than that it started the universe I appear to observe” then that’s up to you.

Even by your standards, your latest is a pretty epic fail.         

To suggest that this idea has not appeared in monotheism, deism, Polytheism for centuries is historical revisionism on an industrial scale.

So given then that this is an idea found in any theism or Deism. You haven't a case.
So even if we ignored that and managed to limit the damage to polytheism or deism, Bostrom then doubly messes up your argument with the idea of windows.

Weirdly enough PZ Myers and myself are lock step over the wrongness of your argument.

This isn't about theology which will carry on it's great academic work as normal.

This isn't about science since there doesn't seem to be anyway of proving SU.

This is about what is a reasonable idea. If it is reasonable to propose a creator of any universe deserving of the definition. Then that doesn't become an unreasonable idea just because it was thought up by bronze age goatherders. That would be the Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag of the Genetic fallacy or some fallacy.

If it is a reasonable idea then The age of the 'No reason for god or gods'  is over.

Aloha Oi, Aloha Oi.

[Gordon]

Thank you for correctly pointing out that we do not live in a perfect world.

Perhaps because 'perfection' is so imprecise as to be meaningless.

If we did live in a perfect world, there would be no need to search for God, because we would have found Him.

Which is an example of you begging the question, again.

The fact is that humans can recognise that our world is not as we would like it to be.

True: I'd like more jazz and less folk music (in fact zero folk music would be better) - doesn't sound like much more than my personal preference though and others might disagree.

We all know that there could be a better place.

Which sounds like an example of reification.

Some of us know that there is a better place.

You just think that, Alan: you don't know it.

BY the way, if you have time, check the link in NS's Hairy Houdinis thread - it would be interested to get your take on those resourceful orangutans.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Thank you for correctly pointing out that we do not live in a perfect world.

What I actually pointed out (and you ignored) was that you’d committed a basic logical error in assuming the universe was adapted to suit us rather than the other way around.

Here’s Christopher Hitchens from his exchange with Al Sharpton:

“I was nine when I thought I saw through it when my biology teacher told me that God was so good as to have made vegetation green because it was the colour most restful to our eyes. And I thought, “Mrs. Watts, this is nonsense.” I knew nothing about chlorophyll or photosynthesis, nothing about the theory of evolution, nothing about adaptation, nothing of the sort. I just knew she’d got everything all wrong.”

If CH could work that out when he was nine, why can’t you as an adult do the same thing now?

If we did live in a perfect world, there would be no need to search for God, because we would have found Him.

That’s a non sequitur and it's begging the question – it just concludes with what it assumes in the first place. Fitting two fallacies into one short sentence is an achievement of some kind I suppose, but it does you no favours here at all. 

The fact is that humans can recognise that our world is not as we would like it to be.  We all know that there could be a better place.

Some of us know that there is a better place.

First, you don’t “know” that at all – the bar for knowledge is set higher than just asserting something to be so. Rather you just believe it as an article of personal faith.

Second, the point rather was that, if you think there’s a god of the omnis, he could (and should) long since have made it a “better place” anyway.   

Incidentally, he was on fine form that day. The rest of the quite is well worth reading too:

“And, of course, the argument against faith, against religion, falls into two essential halves, not necessarily congruent, but I believe congruent: the first is it’s not true. Religion comes from the infancy of our species—I won’t say race because I don’t think our species is subdivided by races—infancy of our species when we didn’t know that the earth went around the sun, we didn’t know that germs caused disease, we didn’t know when we were told in Genesis you’re given dominion over all creatures that this did not include microorganisms, because we didn’t know they were there, so we didn’t know they had dominion over us.

When diseases broke out it was blamed on wickedness, or sometimes on the Jews, or if it was by Jews on the Amalekites, or as you will. We didn’t know anything about the nature of the earth’s crust, how it was cooling, earthquakes, storms, all of this were a mystery. Well, we are, at least to that extent, a reasoning species. Even a conspiracy theory is often better than no theory at all. The mind searches for form, we’re now stuck with the forms that we found in our infancy, in our primitive, barbaric past. Well, that could be fine, still. No nation can be without mythology or myth or legend.

And there are people who say, “Well, it’s not exactly true. Virgins don’t conceive, ok, bushes don’t burn forever,”—although why that would be so impressive, I’ve never understood—“Dead men don’t walk, and so on and so forth. Ok, alright, it’s not really true. It does come from a rather fearful period of the Dark Ages. But, at least it’s nice to believe it. It teaches good precepts.” This, I think, is very radically untrue. I give in my book the example, which I’ll give you now, of a person very much influential on my youth, and I know on the Reverend’s too, Dr. Martin Luther King. My friend Taylor Branch’s book about Dr. King—I would rather call him doctor than reverend because, I’m sorry to say, I think it’s a higher title of honor—Taylor Branch’s trilogy about him is called Parting the Waters, The Pillar of Fire, and At Jordan’s Edge. And everybody literate here knows the story of Exodus and understands what Dr. King meant when he demanded that his people be free of bondage. But, if you think about it for a second, it’s a very good thing that the good doctor was only using this metaphorically. If he’d really been invoking the lessons of Genesis and Exodus, he would have been saying that his people had the right to kill anyone who stood in their way, to exterminate all other tribes, to mutilate their children’s genitalia, to make slaves of those they captured, to take the land and property of others, to engage in rather long and hideous and elaborate arguments about ox goring, and finally, which is the sentence that ends that—or the verse that ends that section of the book, should not suffer a witch to live (the warrant for witch burning).

In other words, in these books there are the warrants for genocide, for slavery, for the torture of children for disobedience, for genital mutilation, for annexation, for rape and all the rest of it. It’s a very good thing that this is man-made. There are those who say that they wish they could believe and I suppose a decent atheist could say that, if only for a lack of evidence, he wishes he or she could. I can’t be among their number. I’m very glad it is not true that there is a permanent, unshakeable, unchallengeable celestial supervision, a divine North Korea in which no privacy, no liberty is possible from the moment of conception, not just until the moment of death but well after.

I’ve been to North Korea and now I know what a prayerful state would look like. I know what it would be like to praise God from dawn until dusk. I’ve seen it happen. And it’s the most disgusting and depressing and and pointless soulless thing you can picture. But at least with North Korea you can die and you can leave. Christianity won’t let you do that because—I’ll mention another thing about the Old Testament: the Old Testament may have—and any Jews and Christians who like it may like this too—they may have genocide, rape, racism, and all the rest of the things I’ve mentioned, but it never mentions punishment of the dead. When you’re done, when you’re in the mass grave into which you’ve been thrown as an Amalekite, it’s over. Not until gentle Jesus, meek and mild is the concept of hell introduced. Eternal torture, eternal punishment for you and all your family for the smallest transgression.

I have no hesitation in saying this is a wicked belief. I've also no hesitation in saying—and I mustn't trespass on the Reverend’s time—that we don’t need it in two senses. One, it’s wicked and two, we have and always have had, a much superior tradition. We know that Democritus and Epicurus worked out in ancient Athens the world was made of atoms, that the gods did not exist and certainly took no interest in human affairs and would be foolish to do so and would be wicked if they did. We have the tradition that brings us through Galileo and Spinoza and Thomas Paine and Voltaire and Thomas Jeffesron and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, men of great wisdom and insight by all means struck by the awe-inspiring character of our universe, by all means open to devotional music and architecture and poetry, by all means aware of the transcendent. But look through the Hubble telescope if you want to see something that is awe inspiring and don’t look to blood-stained old myths.

Now, “Why now? Why am I doing this now?” people ask. Well, I’ll tell you why now: because in the last few years it’s become impossible to turn a page of a newspaper without being, as the religious would say, "offended." In other words I don’t think I sound self-pitying if I say I’m offended that a cartoonist in a tiny democratic country in Scandinavia (Denmark) can’t do his job without a death threat and that no American magazine or newspaper would reprint those cartoons either to elucidate the question or in solidarity. I’m offended that civil society in Iraq is being destroyed, leveled by the parties of God. I’m offended that people in this country believe that they have the right to advocate the teaching of garbage to children under the fatuous name of Intelligent Design. I believe that we're—[After audience applause] Oh, I thought you’d never clap. Just as I believe that where religion ends philosophy begins, where alchemy ends chemistry begins, where astrology ends astronomy begins and now the people would say, “Well let’s give equal time to astrology in the schools.” It’s nonsense—dangerous and sinister nonsense.

The Pope says, “AIDS may be bad, but condoms are much worse.” What kind of moral teaching is this? And how many people are going to die for such dogma? You see what I mean. So, I just—I’ll be very brief: and end to this, an end particularly to the cultural fringe that says that if someone can claim to be religious spokesman they are entitled to respect. [To Sharpton] I have to say it in your presence, sir: I think that the title Reverend is something people should be more concerned to live down than to live up to. Thank you.”

http://hitchensdebates.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/hitchens-vs-sharpton-new-york-public.html

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

To suggest that this idea has not appeared in monotheism, deism, Polytheism for centuries is historical revisionism on an industrial scale.

Probably would be if anyone had suggested any such thing. As no-one has though, it’s just another of your straw men.

So given then that this is an idea found in any theism or Deism. You haven't a case.

Of course I have – and a robust one too as you’d realise if ever you could work out the difference between necessary conditions and sufficient ones. Why do you keep ignoring the problem?

So even if we ignored that and managed to limit the damage to polytheism or deism, Bostrom then doubly messes up your argument with the idea of windows.

Bostrom does no such thing, as I suspect you know full well

Weirdly enough PZ Myers and myself are lock step over the wrongness of your argument.

Only if you lie both about what PZ Myers said and about it being wrong.

This isn't about theology which will carry on it's great academic work as normal.

What “great academic work” would that be?

This isn't about science since there doesn't seem to be anyway of proving SU.

Or even of investigating the conjecture, which was Myers’ actual point.

This is about what is a reasonable idea. If it is reasonable to propose a creator of any universe deserving of the definition. Then that doesn't become an unreasonable idea just because it was thought up by bronze age goatherders. That would be the Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag of the Genetic fallacy or some fallacy.

Another of your straw men. The unreasonableness concerns the many and various characteristics theologians attribute to the gods in which they happen to believe. 

If it is a reasonable idea then The age of the 'No reason for god or gods' age is over.

Of course it isn’t for the reasons I set out in my last Reply that demolished you and that for the most part you’ve just ignored. You won’t bother I’m sure, but you might want to start with explaining how you’d get from the necessary condition of the SU conjecture that there was a “creator” to that creator being divine as theism requires.

Good luck with it though.

[Shaker]

Thank you for correctly pointing out that we do not live in a perfect world.
If we did live in a perfect world, there would be no need to search for God, because we would have found Him.

Curiously enough even in this supposedly imperfect world (whatever a perfect one would even mean) many of us have no such "need."

The fact is that humans can recognise that our world is not as we would like it to be.  We all know that there could be a better place.
Some of us know that there is a better place.

Believe, not know.

Again.

[Alan Burns]

http://hitchensdebates.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/hitchens-vs-sharpton-new-york-public.html

As I have said before, it is a great pity that Hitchens used His great gift of intelligence to deliberately pick fault with the Christian religion.  And in doing so he aptly illustrates a deliberate, conscious aim which can only be derived from his God given freedom to choose.

[Shaker]

As I have said before, it is a great pity that Hitchens used His great gift of intelligence to deliberately pick fault with the Christian religion.

To you, Alan, but that's only the child's whine of "Like something that I like!"

Many of the rest of us think it was just great 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

As I have said before, it is a great pity that Hitchens used His great gift of intelligence to deliberately pick fault with the Christian religion.  And in doing so he aptly illustrates a deliberate, conscious aim which can only be derived from his God given freedom to choose.

Ah so you just ignore what he said and instead attack what you think to be his motive for saying it.

What does that say about you do you think?
 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Probably would be if anyone had suggested any such thing. As no-one has though, it’s just another of your straw men.

Of course I have – and a robust one too as you’d realise if ever you could work out the difference between necessary conditions and sufficient ones. Why do you keep ignoring the problem?

Bostrom does no such thing, as I suspect you know full well

Only if you lie both about what PZ Myers said and about it being wrong.

What “great academic work” would that be?

Or even of investigating the conjecture, which was Myers’ actual point.

Another of your straw men. The unreasonableness concerns the many and various characteristics theologians attribute to the gods in which they happen to believe. 

Of course it isn’t for the reasons I set out in my last Reply that demolished you and that for the most part you’ve just ignored. You won’t bother I’m sure, but you might want to start with explaining how you’d get from the necessary condition of the SU conjecture that there was a “creator” to that creator being divine as theism requires.

Good luck with it though.

As interesting in parts as all this is the argument for simulated universe/s has long been articulated as part of theology and belief in God or gods.

The Oxford History of Christianity identifies two possible starting points in any exploration of Christianity. One is identical to that of SU conjecture ( The creator approach) and the other is the salvation approach.

To argue that the former is not part or even an insignificant claim in Christianity or theism or deism or polytheism is plain wrong.

I think we can take it that a feature of your argument is now that this is a reasonable argument but because religion is unreasonable this cannot be a religious argument. Can you spot the problems with that assumption?
Your alternative is specially pleading that it is a lousy argument that becomes reasonable in the hands of a scientist.

You can never though effectively or logically make this a non theological argument other than arbitrarily and by an act that would be the ''Irish success in the Eurovision Song Contest'' of historical revisionism.

Given that, the idea is I feel so philosophically 'productive' the implications should be debated whether you are able to accept is as part of theology or not.