Hi RGT, it's been a while!

I started a church. Right now I'm the only member. The first service is Saturday April 29 and I hope everyone who reads this thread will attend!

This is 100% serious. It's one of two new projects I'm working on called "operation: do something with your life"

Services are online (for now) but I would like to someday have a physical location and do services in person while casting them live online.

I would love your help in every way, shape, or form.

The music will be almost exclusively classical. If you know the names or composers of songs you love to hear at church, please let me know if they're in this database!

Just any suggestions in general would be great. This should be a lot of fun.

Beliefs of The Church of The Simulation:

• We live in a computer simulation.
• God is a physical being who exists or existed in the real universe who has the ability to intervene in our lives if they choose to.
• ("God" can also refer to the simulation itself if you believe God is dead or chooses to not intervene in our lives.)
• Free will is an illusion.

There may be more that I'm not thinking of.

Service will be pretty similar to your standard Christian service. Here's how I've got it laid out so far:

• Coffee & Donut Time - I will literally drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut while I flap my beak about news, weather, and random crap about technology or The Simulation.
• Affirmations - (ex: Love, Gratitude, Thankfulness, Joy, Peace, Mindfulness)
• Music
• Communion - There will be a ceremony where we do an affirmation and eat a blue tic tac. The nerds will love this.
• Music
• Sermon - Some kind of moral story. I won't be handing down moral lessons. Just transmitting ones other people handed down.
• Music
• Prayer

I have a little preaching experience, believe it or not. I've done two sermons, one I wrote and one I did not write. Both were in a completely full church, at least 200 people, probably 300.

Again, this is 100% real and sincere, despite all of my trolling of RGT in the past. Sorry to anyone I offended or was a jerk to. And I would love your comments or questions!

shouldnt it be a red tic tac?

thank you neeel! i just watched the scene on youtube and wow, i had a very incorrect memory of that scene! yes, the communion ceremony will be done with a red tic tac

If free will is an illusion, do you support the total forgiveness of all past and future "wrongdoings" and would you advocate total anarchy? Or should we all march happily into the Atlantic and give the Simulator the

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no to all

You are not an official religion in the United States until the IRS says you are. Once that stamp of approval is given then you can be taken seriously. Money or mammon and a long history is what defines a church. Until then you are just a one person cult in search of acceptance by the masses. You don't even have a sacred book.

I think your church is crap. It appears to be just moral platitudes wrapped around nonsense with a veneer of ritual to lend it credence to the credulous human herd.

at least his moral platitudes are all positive

I thank you for the support and I look forward to your continued (financial) support in the future!

Does God necessarily live in the real universe, or could it also be a simulation one level higher than ours?

God could definitely be in a simulation one level higher. I read an opinion that said it's unlikely there would be simulations within simulations.

We don't know what the computers or energy sources of the future will be like, but a second level of simulation would put a strain on the computer running the original simulation. The amount of processing power and energy required to run the simulation would already be tremendous. So powering a double simulation might be impossible.

So if God noticed we were on the verge of creating The Simulation, he might be forced to turn off our simulation.

My theory is that we're placed in a convenient place in our universe where the Sun is insufficient for powering the simulation, and everything else is too far away for us to leave, so can't create the simulation if we wanted to, but could if we were somewhere else, maybe a solar system with two suns or a moon made of oil or whatever.

no

this doesn't make any sense

simulating a universe includes simulating simulations

read more about quantum computers and universe simulations

actually, you don't need to understand anything about quantum computers

if you can simulate a universe, then obviously the simulated universe can do the same thing or your simulation is flawed

Hey Sun Tzu!

i'll re-write what i wrote and make each sentence a new paragraph so that you can actually read the words that are there.

i understand that using one single paragraph may have caused you to miss most or all of the words in the post, with the words so close together and such.

it's possible there are roadblocks put in place so we're unable to create the simulation.

God may have put these roadblocks in place because if we create the simulation, it would put a strain on the computer running the original simulation.

i don't know what the computer of the future will be like.

i know nothing about quantum computers, but i do know that any computer will have limitations placed on it by the physical universe.

even a quantum computer as big as Jupiter that's physically plugged in to the sun.

or one as big as the milky way that's plugged in to a black hole.

because i'm a dumb simulated person i could be entirely wrong, hopefully you will explain why instead of just saying "no, now read more about quantum computers."

i wasn't aware that google owns a functional quantum computer! fascinating!

if google has a computer that's 5 atoms big, that means the government has a computer that's at least 50 atoms big, right?

i'm looking forward to the future fleet of cell sized killer bees which will perform espionage by flying into the circuitry of our enemies computers and plugging themselves in.

How can I take part? Link?

Did God create the simulation world we live in?

Isn't everything an illusion not just free will, if we live in a simulation?

https://www.twitch.tv/thechurchofthesimulation

i'll be live next Saturday at 12 Noon PST!

no, one man alone couldn't create the simulation. it would have been developed by a large company or government.

yes, and i'm sure you've heard the famous Einstein quote, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

also, by the way, i'm totally open to the idea of many gods (many real people interacting with the simulation)

Do you believe the beliefs of your "church"?

i find this argument to be very compelling!

The Small Catechism of The Universal Simulation.

Axiom the First:

Since gelato is so much better than regular ice cream, this proves we are currently living in a computer simulation. Italians just can't be that good at both coffee and gelato.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

There are many more axioms but I'll let others fill in the rest. I'm working on my own religion of Zenoism and can't be bothered with a whacked out, silly, and gibberish filled religion that relies on nothing but computers and faith.

The chief problem with simulation arguments is that the inherent argument, that "the universe behaves like information" is flawed. If information is how we observe the universe, then the universe must be seen to behave like information - regardless if it does or not.

An analogy could be a camera. The camera will process the world like pictures, and therefore it can't model the world as anything else - regardless if the world actually behaves like pictures or not. Pictures could still be useful and a neat way to model the world, but the camera will never notice the difference.

(The analogy is slightly flawed, as the camera does not have the ability to evolve its view of the world like humans do - but any new state of modelling will still face the same dilemma).

That isn't to say that the universe does not behave like information. Perhaps it does and perhaps that is why we observe it as such, the problem is that we can't tell the difference.

I think I understand your critique, tame. We can't really know the true nature of the universe because we only have our human lens to view it through. So the universe will always look to us like things we can understand.

The universe being a computer simulation is hardly a scientifically testable hypothesis as it is (though it could be), which is why it currently rightfully belongs under the category of religious belief. I certainly couldn't defend it with any scientific rigor.

A religion is only as good as the truth it contains.