Arturo Persenota NORMeOLi - Related discussions from various forums

Making logical sense of Jesus without the Bible:

*A0* - the ‘consciousness problem’ of materialism / *A1* - taking the phenomenon of dreaming (non-shareable simulation created by our conscious mind) as a hint / *A2* - the demonstrated possibility of creating limited shareable computer simulations

=> *B0* - model reality as a simulation instead! 

=> *B0C0* - sciences remain valid tools to uncover the internal configurations and processes of the simulation

=> *B0C1* - the existence of a creator for our simulation is likely and logical 

=> *B0C1D0* - ‘specific subjective purpose’ with creation, and assigning us to it, is likely and logical

=> *B0C1D0E0* - creator’s ‘specific subjective purpose’ maps as the objective human purpose and meaning in life

=> *B0C1D0E0F0* - subjective human purposes are possible but alignment with the creator’s ‘specific subjective purpose’ is what matters ultimately (to the creator)

=> *B0C2* - as in dreams and computer simulations, consciousness enters our simulated reality from the external

=> *B0C2D0* - consciousness is the fundamental building block of reality, not physical material

=> *B0C2D1* - it is futile to search for the nature and origin of human consciousness within the simulation (the brain does NOT produce consciousness, but its activities are the manifestations of consciousness within the simulation)

=> *B0C2D2* - as in dreams, human consciousness can be in a limited awareness, unaware of its originating context of reality

=> *B0C2D3* - our human consciousness existed before joining this reality

=> *B0C2D3E0* - consciousness may be bi-directionally eternal and uncreated

=> *B0C2D3E0F0* - the ‘afterlife’ is likely a given, with no opt-out possible

*A3* - varying misery of assigned human situations / * B0C2D3* - our human consciousness existed before joining this reality / * B0C1D0E0* - creator’s ‘specific subjective purpose’ maps as the objective human purpose and meaning in life

=> *B1* - our level of misery in our life situations can be fairly assigned, proportional to the specific wrongs we committed in our precursory existence / *B0C2D3E0* - consciousness may be bi-directionally eternal and uncreated

=> *B1C0* - our life becomes a place of penance to rectify our precursory wrongs and redeem a lost state

=> *B1C0D0* - the story of ‘fallen angels’ and ‘Adam and Eve of paradise’ are metaphors for the reasons for our penance, not historical events of our current reality

*A4* - humans have free will / *A5* - humans' free will can affect our shared reality and other participants / *B0* - model reality as a simulation instead! 

=> *B2* - the creator is ultimately NOT omniscient with regard to human free will

=> *B2C0* - human and divine existence makes sense

=> *B2C1* - our existence, and what we do with it, make ultimate sense

=> *B2C2* - our decisions are the only factors unknown to (and undetermined by) the creator in our setup / * B0C1D0* - ‘specific subjective purpose’ with creation, and assigning us to it, is likely and logical

=> *B2C2D0* - the creator’s interest in our setup most likely focuses on human decisions / *B0C1D0E0F0* - subjective human purposes are possible but alignment with the creator’s ‘specific subjective purpose’ is what matters ultimately (to the creator)

=> *B2C2D0E0* - the purpose of our reality (the motivation behind the creation) is to enable our evaluation

=> *B2C2D0E0F0* - the meaning and purpose of our human life is to succeed in the creator’s evaluation

=> *B2C2D0E0F1* - human existence is not marginal but supremely important in the eye of the creator

=> *B2C2D0E0F2* - it is most likely that our evaluation is on a single criterion universally applicable to all human situations 

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0* - The criterion of our evaluation is most likely on our alignment with the ‘specific subjective purpose’ of the creator, as demonstrated by our life, given (or despite) our assigned situations / *A6* - human intellectual or material achievements are largely determined by properties assigned by our creator (luck, health, wealth, look, talent) / *A7* - predispositions to love and selfishness are intrinsic in all humans / *A8* one’s assigned situation largely determines classic intellectual and material 'achievements’

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H0* - what we ‘achieve in life’ (intellectually or materially) is illogical and unlikely to be the universal evaluation criterion, as these mostly derive from our assigned situations 

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1* - the alignment of our conviction with love vs selfishness - as demonstrated with our life - is the most likely universal evaluation criterion for our life

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I0* - reasonable doubt about anything beyond our reality is a necessary factor in our evaluation (allowing selfishness to dominate in humans) 

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I1* - love (vs. selfishness) must be the preference of the creator / *A9* - the intervention of the creator in our reality in the limited human form of Jesus - to demonstrate his love for humanity by subjecting himself to our will, and to guide us toward salvation as the purpose of our life - makes supreme sense

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I1J0* - we likely face a loving creator, as opposed to a cruel or uncaring one (the ‘good news’)

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I1J1* - love is the basis of our relationship with the creator

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I2* - evil is not an entity but the property of selfishness we carry in ourselves - the opposite of the creator’s preference - that we need to overcome in life

=> *B2C2D0E0F2G0H1I2I0* - the source of ‘evil’ (temptations of selfishness) in our reality is not creation but each other, and the influences arranged by the creator, to evaluate our alignment

This line of reasoning supports my belief that the creator entered the simulation 2000 years ago as a participating human in Jesus, to demonstrate his love and guide us to our salvation. He underwent the same types of misery he potentially assigns to humans. His intervention was timed so that humanity could pass on this message to those who were meant to receive this help for their salvation.

The message was captured by followers, according to their best abilities, understanding, and failings. And the very human process of arguing, explaining, interpreting, trying to prove it, twisting, misunderstanding, misrepresenting, or seeing the light of its essential message properly, has began. And surely, a lot more people have reached their salvation because of this help, than otherwise.

I would propose a slight twist on the ‘idealist’ explanation of our reality, which actually addresses and accommodates all what Dr Thompson has brought up in this conversation (and potentially everything else neuroscientists would ever discover in the future): and that is modeling our reality as a consciousness-centric simulation.

In this, the brain activity mapped by Dr Thompson and others are simply the ‘manifestation of consciousness’ in our given reality at the most detailed level allowed by the simulation. Also, we exist in this simulation with a set of limitations. Most of these limitations are implemented by having to be inside of our ‘bodies’. But aside from these very personal limitations, we also have the ‘laws of nature’ (a shot to the head WILL end our participation or seriously affect our conscious experience, and so do a myriad of other ‘physical’ influences that are allowed to affect our consciousness through our bodies). Thus, ultimately, this model of reality will have almost the same end results as scientists can confirm through probing the ‘observable reality’ (which is a presentation of the simulation).

The simulation makes the ‘ghost in the body’ problem go away - in a paradigm switch of thinking, consciousness simply enters the system from the external. This, we can illustrate and even implement in computer simulations and our nightly dreams: who would be foolish to start looking for the source and nature of consciousness WITHIN these types of realities, as we KNOW consciousness enters them from the external (that is, if they are not NPCs implemented by the simulation itself)… Thus, even though we can use science to map out and turn into cures all kinds of stuff in the brain, we are still just acting within the allowed bounds of our simulation.

Thus, the simulation model is evidenced as a hint to each of us through dreaming and the possibility of computer simulations (but we can NOT have evidence for BEING in one until we exit it), it accommodates all current and future scientific discoveries, including all of what neuroscience may still uncover, BUT it logically calls for its creator - as it is more likely that a simulation has its creator, then not have one. And there, we have arrived back to belief systems, of which materialism and physicalism are also ones (as they rely on the belief that our observable reality represents the entirety of reality, and that the observer consciousness like us necessarily emerged from certain arrangements of our observable elementary particles or fields - both of which stay unproven).

In a simulated world, the creator of our reality would NOT be a ‘liar’ by letting us conduct ‘fake brain science’, as brain science would NOT be fake - it would be an act that would utilize the proper tool for uncovering and dealing the configuration and workings of our simulation, which is scientific investigation and developments. Everything in our simulated reality IS REAL, as that is what reality IS. Conscious beings need to exist in simulations, and simulations would not exist without their participating conscious beings.

Faith is NOT a reliable path to the truth - I agree; you should NOT rely on faith for which you CAN have evidence, and thus, assess its truth (eg what causes an illness, how does the other side of the moon look like, etc - all about phenomenon that can be observed/measured in our reality), but instead, wait for evidence to be gathered. But the ‘truth’ (the complete scenario of reality as it will ultimately turn out in the end) may potentially end up reaching beyond our observable reality. I mentioned being in a simulation as a valid example, which can not be evidenced from within, until we leave it.

However, if I am not convinced that my observable reality represents the entirety of reality (we are intentionally locked in a box) or that what I can observe can make my observing consciousness up (consciousness can enter our system from the external), I can reason to conclude a belief system that ‘guesstimates’ (deems what makes the most sense, and what may be more likely than others) what this ultimate scenario may be like.

Faith is (or should be) the personal mechanism to ‘deem a belief system to make the most sense’ and/or to ‘deem our belief system’s depiction of our reality to be most likely to turn out as the ultimate truth in the end’. And if you would respond to this as ‘but this is not scientific’, you just described your ‘faith’ in not being in a box, and the ability of your observations to ‘somehow’ make YOU up. So in my eyes, faith remains as a necessity for all of us humans, no matter how you are going about it, and what beliefs you are subscribing to, with regard to the OVERALL truth (not just about your observable phenomenon). And believing only what you can observe (basically materialism) remains nothing but a specific type of faith, a belief system in the end.

Can faith lead people to all kinds of different paths, from which only a single one will be the ‘closest’ to ultimate truth (if you put all possible belief system on a proximity scale to the eventual ultimate truth, a single ONE WILL be the closest to it - we just have no idea in this world WHICH one that may be…)? Hell yeah! But then, smarter people will not have belief systems that can be easily contradicted by our verifiable observable phenomenon, math, or logic..

But the bottom line is, you or anyone will NEVER know with certainty whether their beliefs reach the proximity of eventual truth until it happens to them (or, in case materialism turns out as the truth, NEVER). All faith can do is guide one to live according to a scenario of reality they (consciously or unconsciously) hold as the best candidate for the ultimate truth. Materialism is again, no exception here. It CAN guide people to be able to do whatever they wish with their life, assuming no objective purpose (with some negative conclusions, such as suicide, megalomania, or other horrible acts performed by people who believed ‘with death, all will end, and there is NOTHING beyond’ - and yes, you CAN also list silly or stupid or harmful religious beliefs too as resulting in horrible acts..).

In my case, I am wagering my life on a scenario where conscious souls share our simulated reality for a very specific objective purpose (science remains FULLY valid and useful WITHIN my model. ). What is ‘worse’, I can not even know with certainty what that purpose is, but I can reason to conclude it based on ‘hints’ in my reality. So what remains for me, is to live my life accordingly.

unfortunately for Aron, even if he can successfully argue for the emergence of life from organic compounds (the origin of life), he is not even near accounting for the observing intelligent consciousness that then has to necessarily emerge from certain arrangements of observed elementary particles. So instead of the god-of-the-gaps, he has emergence-of-the-gaps, with no proof either way. And once we throw in the possibility of being in a shared simulation (that are hinted to us by how our dreams work, and how we ourselves can create simulations in computers), it becomes apparent that this model of reality is vastly superior to materialism, accounting for the origin of consciousness (it enters from the external, as in dreams and computer simulations), and even keeping science as the proper tool to uncover the workings and configuration of our simulation. (and then, we have just arrived to the concept of the creator, which, for any simulation, is more likely to exist than not). More on this theory on 'normeoli’

When trying to model reality, I realized (concluded as incomprehensible) that one valid model - materialism - can not account for the origin and emergence of consciousness from its most elemental building blocks (quantum fields/quarks/molecules). As the observing consciousness is the entity that makes all observations, having a model that lacks the explanation on this most crucial entity calls for replacing it.

Luckily, another model - that is just as good in every way as materialism in explaining our reality - is readily experienced by all of us: when we dream at night, our consciousness creates a ‘simulation’. The simulation model is also demonstrated to be workable and valid in computers. This model can account for the origin of consciousness: it enters from an external context of reality. Also, in this model, the sciences remain the valid tool to investigate all phenomenon within our reality (they are the configuration and processes of our simulation) - so there is no advantage for materialism in this regard.

Little can be reasoned about the creator of our simulated reality, but we do have some hints we can go by. The only factor in the entire setup that is unknown to the creator is how we decide. How we decide reflects on our values we subscribe to, which are the hallmarks of our character. And the criterion that makes the most sense to me to measure our characters on (as universally applicable to each human situation throughout history) is our alignment with love vs selfishness. And if so, we can confidently wager on a scenario where we face a loving creator who wants us to align ourselves with love, rejecting selfishness.

Hence the resemblance to Jesus, who makes sense in this model as “the creator who demonstrated his love for humanity by appearing among us and subjecting himself to our human limitation and ill will, showing us the way to gain our salvation”. This ‘story’ gives me extra confidence that I face a loving creator (as opposed to a malicious or neglecting one) who wants me to align with love, and wants me to return to his presence in this state.

And all this makes our present reality a likely ‘penance’ for a past wrong we - eternal uncreated conscious beings - likely committed before joining this reality. The specific nature of our assigned situations (health, wealth, luck, look) can be the direct and fair consequence of the specific wrong we have committed in our previous existence, resulting in a unique situation we all have to prove our worth, according to the same single criterion of alignment with love. Your ‘belief’ can either help you align with this goal, or inhibit you from reaching this quality - but that is ALL the role of belief.

And before you ask: the only way to prove that you are in a simulation is exiting it - thus, you will find out once you exit. Till then, you are here to prove the worth of your character in the absence of certainty. Makes sense to me..

"does God wants us to believe that he exists?" - very good question; my answer is ‘not really’. God likely made our reality as is to trick us to believe the opposite of this, materialism, as that may lead us to think that ‘we can just do whatever we want with our lives’. Now THAT is temptation - not from the devil, but from God. And this would make our reality as a place of our evaluation - whether we fall for it and become selfish, or live our life aligned with love. And THIS is what God is after, not our belief: whether we can align our life and conviction with love, and reject selfishness, given all our temptations and hardships and suffering. more on this reasoning on normeoli

Once you state that your observed reality must be the entirety of reality, YOU are making the assertion that it is possible to construct your consciousness by arranging your elementary particles. The correctness of atheism depends your ability to prove this. In my model of reality (the simulation), the brain activity you observe in humans is the manifestation of consciousness in the simulation.

Proof (not just observational evidence) is needed to know the WHY and HOW for the emergence of consciousness in order for the physical model of reality to be accepted with confidence. Once you face that you can not prove the necessary emergence of consciousness from specific arrangements of elementary particles/fields (other than observing that this is happening in the simulation) you are left with your consciousness as the most elemental entity of reality, and the simulation model of reality as the next best logical model of reality. This is not ‘wishful thinking’ but a model that solves the ‘consciousness problem’ of the physical model, while keeping the sciences as the proper tool to deal with the reality within the simulation.

The simulation model places the origination of consciousness outside of the simulation. The dream analogy models this well, and can serve as a form of evidence: while in a dream, you accept the reality of the dream as natural, even though the laws of your larger ‘real’ reality are violated. Within the dream your awareness of the total reality is limited, but once you emerge from it, you will have evidence that your dream was a simulated reality, and being aware of your larger ‘real’ context, you can better interpret why things may have happened in your dream the way they did. And the same can be the case for your real life.

Another evidence for the simulation model, is that humans have managed to create limited versions of it themselves in computers, that work along the same principles as the theoretical larger simulation. In these, the consciousness of human players is lent to avatars within the game, where they can observe a different set of laws that govern the reality of the game.

Thus, the simulation model of reality has an explanation for the emergence of my consciousness (it got submerged from a broader context of reality, and will return to it after this phase of existence is over, as in dreams), while also accommodates all the scientific explanations of the physical model (except in regard to the origin of consciousness).

One can imagine someone searching for the origin/cause of avatars' consciousness within a simulated computer game in a few hundred years. While one can find all kinds of rules within the game for how its phenomena work within, it will be futile to apply this ‘game-science’ to find avatar consciousness - as we ‘know’ it is lent to the avatars by its human players who exist in the broader context of reality of the ‘real world’.

My burden of proof for you is not about the existence of a God, but the nature of your consciousness! From my point of view, what needs proving (with mathematical certainty, not by mere observational evidence) is whether, how, and why you can construct consciousness using your material building blocks. Until this is demonstrated, you will be the believer (strictly of your observations); and I have the need to reason onto a model of reality that accommodates and explains consciousness. My path will not be to ‘just imagine something’, but rationally reason to scenarios that are logically more likely than others.

I KNOW what consciousness entails - I am experiencing what consciousness entails as the ONLY piece of my certain knowledge. This knowledge is a lot more certain than any of the information originating in my observations (especially after I concluded that they must be simulated). This has nothing to do with chocolate as chocolate is part of my observed reality, and consciousness is the entity making the observations.

The simulation model logically can not be proven or evidenced from within. You may discard the simulation possibility completely, but remember, you also do not have proof that your physical model can build your most basic entity of your reality - your consciousness. I confidently wager on the simulation to explain my consciousness as the next best theory that I deem the most likely scenario I face. I accept that evidence only applies to phenomenon WITHIN the simulation. My evidence will come to light once my awareness will continue beyond my death.

If my theories reason beyond my observable world, I accept the lack of scientific evidence. What I do need though, is logical likelihood and making sense - and this will filter out all the BS that I could just ‘make up using my imagination’. If my theories make complete logical sense to me and correspond to a sane model of reality that better answer my existential questions, but point beyond the limited box of my observational world, it would be silly, shortsighted, and unwise for me to stay within the box just for ‘the lack of evidence’. (Again, I don’t have evidence of my reality when I dream, yet, I am wise to not think that my dream is the entirety of reality - and I KNOW this from already having been on the other side…)

You are completely not prepared for any outcome other than yours; I am completely fine facing your outcome while preparing for a scenario that I deem to be more likely and to make more sense to me. Now, what on earth is the advantage of your way of thinking - what does that get you that I don’t have? In the old days you could say that you trust in science while other stupid people think magic causes phenomenon. But against my model of reality you do not have this advantage: I also trust science, for the realm where it is the right tool, while choosing to go beyond to find meaning for my existence.

In the first part of my book I rationally reason to reach my philosophical conclusions without relying on any external sources or influences. As I reason beyond the observable physical reality, I wager on logical likelihood of scenarios, as evidence is logically not available. This is not wishful thinking but looking for the scenario that makes the most sense - and it also has nothing to do with whatever my personal context may include. And lacking any evidence, what makes the most sense, I also deem to be the most likely scenario. This is what I wager my life on.

If I asked a conscious chess figure to reason beyond the meaning of its life, it would have to mentally exit the world of the chess board to uncover that it is part of a game between humans, and it will not be able to even entertain this possibility if it only knows where to step and what can hit him. Likewise, science is the tool for the ‘chessboard’, and logical reasoning lets you contemplate your fuller scenario outside of this realm.

Science is not a model of reality; the physical world is, with its theories in physics that go as deep as the smallest observable elementary particles and fields. However, this model fails at establishing how it creates consciousness by staying only on the observational level. It does not work better than my model, as it has absolutely zero answers to existential philosophical questions of the consciousness (that it can not explain). So, though I will not chance reality with my thinking, I can definitely affect my reality in very positive ways by how I relate and think about my reality, and whether I find meaning and purpose in it.

Existing in a simulation is past the jurisdiction of sciences and your reality - necessarily and logically. You need not have many years of education to see the logic in that and not keep demanding evidence for which there can be none - that is, not until you exit the simulation. I am also not particularly happy with the current state of the world, where people believe they are entirely a product of what they can observe. Again, until one can prove and demonstrate how and why certain arrangements of material necessarily give rise to intelligent consciousness, I can not accept that the observing consciousness originates from its observations. The worst thing about this view is that it allows for selfishness to be a common sense way of life - a huge mistake, and a trap in my book.

I am not afraid of death at all. I concluded to wager on the logically most likely scenario though, that my conscious awareness comes from infinity and goes into infinity. What matters to me is the types of (simulated) realities the creator makes or allows me to join. When wagering, I accept the possibility of all other scenarios turning out to be true - and I am quite ready to face this risk. Sometime I think I would prefer total and absolute annihilation over an infinite awareness - but I don’t believe I have a choice in this, and whether I like it or not, my consciousness will go on forever.

But I also envision possible ways that infinite existence could be spent like: I will not have access to all my contexts I participated in all the time. From a default, ‘broadest’ context of reality possible for my kind of being, I may be entering an infinite number of more limited contexts where my awareness of my total comprehension is blocked, then reemerge into the default context, just as with waking from dreams. I know this part is wishful thinking and fantasy. But I was granted such experience in dreams, and I see how this could be a feasible way for us humans (angels) to deal with infinity.

they don’t need to agree on who or what Jesus is, or what God is - they just need to live their life in alignment with love vs selfishness - the evaluation criterion for our lives. Forget about specific beliefs and try to reason what the creator may be expecting of us here.

I reason love to be the most likely bond between the creator, creation of our reality, and us in it (even if we have to endure suffering as part of our penance).

And then there is the story and message of Jesus… and that gives me a good enough confidence that I face a loving creator to live my life with that assumption.

you don’t have to ‘agree’ with others on love vs selfishness - you can reason to conclude that for yourself as the most likely universally applicable criterion for our evaluation that makes sense for all human situations from a possible perspective of the creator

As far as what the ‘truth’ is about these questions, you and I will be unable to tell until we leave the scene of this reality. None of what we are stating is based on certain knowledge, but mere beliefs (yours, if materialism, is the belief that your observable reality represents the entirety of reality and the wager of your unwillingness to think/reason outside of this box of limitation).

Given that materialism can not account for consciousness, and thus switching the model of reality from materialism to simulation, the idea of a creator becomes logical and not superfluous. If you ‘love for selfish reasons’ your love is not genuine - and you are not meeting the criterion. However, what kind of guarantees in our reality that you CAN also love genuinely is the ever-present doubt about the afterlife and the supernatural. With this configuration, the creator of our reality can measure where our true alignment is, based on how we life our life, in every possible situation.

The outcome of selflessness may not always be overall beneficial (‘virtuous’) but the creator is not interested in overall virtuous effects or the smooth working of society as an end goal here, but everyone’s conviction and alignment on genuine love, as the criterion to rejoin his presence after we pass this test. And these ARE principles one accepts and lives by, and these are the very things interesting to the creator too in my view.

As far as skewing into a dysfunctional direction, I would list materialism and its effect on making selfishness a logical path for defining meaning on top (the ‘survival of the fittest’, or ‘the one who dies with the most toys wins’ motivations that are over represented in our world) - as the existence of a creator for our simulated reality is logical and self-evident (though not provable or evidence-able).

When you are only willing to deal with ‘falsifiable’ claims, you are limiting yourself to the standard scientific method, which obviously only works to uncover the workings and rules of our observable reality, and can not address anything potentially beyond it - and IF we live in a simulation, it becomes a useless and harmful limitation to in uncovering the reason for our existence within. With this limitation, you will only be able to reach materialism as your end conclusion, with its ‘potential’ ill effects on your worldview (as in the above examples mentioned). As if one disagrees with your arguments for your conclusions on morality, you have no further arguments, and they remain right in their subjective take on life and its purpose (including whatever motivations and goals they hold true for themselves).

It is a misguidance to behave a certain way because you expect rewards or punishments for it - and behavior stemming from such thinking will not be a testament to your true alignment on such values as love or selfishness. However, to see the sense in all of this reality, it helps to form logical arguments about the meaning and purpose of your existence. To me, materialism is a dead end here, where ultimately NOTHING matters or will matter. And I hold this as a very basic human need, one that I am perfectly willing to accept and live by.

I do not accept that very few people reach the level of living by their own accepted principles - I think many do; we may just not be aware of too many of them, as they just live their life unnoticed. In the end, all belief systems held by humans are translatable to principles (including ‘survival of the fittest’ or ‘the fear of retribution from society or a higher power’). I also happen to believe that what became my conclusions (after plenty of critical thinking) is also what the creator is interested in in our setup. What this gives me is more confidence (but still not certainty) that my wager is the right one, not to mention all of my existential questions (and those I heard others asking) answered in a way that makes perfect sense to me.

I do use reason and logic (but not proof of certainty) to reach my conclusions, I have evidence that inclines or hints me toward my concluded scenario, weighing what makes more or less sense to me, and what I deem more or less likely. This way I can confidently eliminate all the scenarios I deem less likely to be the case, or sounding more silly or absurd, or mathematically unlikely (like reincarnation into this world). So this is not science, and not knowledge - these are my conclusions I am comfortable with and can reason for.

it is fine if you think I am incorrect - we will find out who was closer to truth once we leave the scene, but not before.. In the correct order: materialism’s accounting for consciousness - that it is an emergent property of the brain - is unacceptable to me. I ‘think this emergence-of-the-gap argument is incorrect’. Switching to a more logical model of reality - simulation - makes your ‘supernatural’ self-explanatory, and an ‘afterlife’ a natural part of entering and exiting the simulation (illustrated in dreaming).

Whether the creator is loving, uncaring, or evil comes from the beauty present in our world, our predispositions toward love (and selfishness), and the story and message of Jesus. I do not have the reason to work with any other creator-scenario than this - it is either this, or we are all screwed and can do nothing about it. An uncaring creator would equal materialism. And I would simply be a fool to wager my life on that scenario.

I consider your false sense of ‘grown up’ confidence naive and immature. You are assuming a scenario of reality that ultimately has no consequences on what we do with or in our life. I reject your suggestion that everyone who thinks differently to you is ‘childish’.

The lack of meaning about our one and only life comes from your necessary assumption that no memory of it will stay after we die. This makes whatever we do with our life ultimately meaningless (even if we did all kinds of wonderful things for our family and society or humanity or for our legacy). With the fatal extinguishment of your conscious awareness (and ultimately with all humans' consciousness) NOTHING just happened - not to you, and not to anyone else. All existence is simply void and never happened… Think about it for a moment - no legacy, no benevolence matters or mattered. No wonder people holding this assumption are prone to suicide or all kinds of selfish evil deeds, as with their final extinguishment, ‘who cares?’

I consider THIS fatalistic, materialist position as ‘childish’, with potentially extremely harmful consequences. To counter such a world view, your power of your convincing argument is null. I do not ‘start’ with conclusions, as you claim - I reason to reach them after weighing what may be most likely true, and what makes the most sense to me. But I am mature enough to realize that what I observe from my reality is ‘not necessarily’ responsible to self-assemble into my observing conscious self, especially when the alleged evidence that supports this is completely usatisfactory (emergence-of-the-gaps).

What you describe as the physical factors affecting consciousness derive from the nature of being in a shareable simulation. OF COURSE our environment, and our acts in it CAN affect our conscious state: a bullet or hammer to the head, the scents we smell, chemicals and other ‘physical’ phenomenon, the communication we tell each other ALL affect our consciousness. That is because the very simulation is set up to facilitate our meaningful interactions - it is INTERACTIVE! THIS is the facilitation! If the ‘physical’ would not affect our consciousness, we would not have this ‘meaningful interaction’ enabled in our reality…

What would it be like to be in a simulation? The same exact thing YOU experience! So here is your very simple ‘reason’ why the physical SHOULD and NEEDS TO affect consciousness in a simulation… Your second argument ‘no one without a brain demonstrated consciousness’ is also invalid. IF we are in a simulation that was created so WE (conscious participants) can exist in it, then all of ‘us’ would need to carry the same limitations, and all of our consciousnesses would be manifested the same way within the simulation.

This is demonstrated very simply in computer simulations, where all ‘players’ will necessarily have their ‘avatar’ appearances within the game - and you would have no players inside the simulation WITHOUT a corresponding avatar. But, I understand where this comes from: from your limitation of trying to imagine souls as non-material. What I am proposing is NOT this, but a simulation where there is no entity manifested by the simulation other than what is needed for the players' interactions, and there is no ‘physical’ anywhere, as EVERYTHING is simulated.

’Walking' is not ‘mysterious’ in a simulation model at all; it is nothing more than having to learn and live with our limitations imposed on us by the simulation: pain, feeling, sensations, the how the effects of our actions and will are carried out within the simulation. By the way, simulation - which is a valid and demonstrated concept in dreams and computer programs - IS unfalsifiable while you are in it! Yet, it is a very valid model of reality, that you would be foolish to disregard (while there is no foolishness in disregarding the consequences of materialism).

You are also wrong on me being afraid of death - I find this a typical materialist argument against people who think differently (this MUST be their reason to think that way…). I would even sometimes prefer the eventual complete annihilation of my own conscious awareness - I just concluded that most likely it would be an absurdity and an impossibility; so I grew up to ‘live and deal with it’ as an adult…

I am not wagering ‘on something beyond death’, I am wagering on a scenario of reality I exist in right now! And I also realize how much ‘evidence’ is worth: it is a tool that is good for nothing more than probing the internal configuration of our current simulation - nothing more, nothing less.

In the end, I consider your way of thinking as falling for a trap the simulation presents to humans, to make them believe that they are nothing but an insignificant and temporary product of their surrounding, free to define their meaning and purpose any way they like, as in the end, there are no real consequences for it. I expected a bit stronger counter arguments from you..

We can disagree on what we consider childish - nothing more to add.. " The kindness or help, insofar as it was kind or helpful, WILL live on in its consequences for those you were kind to and helped. BUT EVEN IF IT DOESN’T, it is still more meaningful in the moment that you tried." - I do not argue about the value to be unselfishly kind and loving. Your meaning in the moment, when passes without any memory of it remaining, is ultimately irrelevant, as no one will be able to recall it (in your worldview that is). This just means, you can not convince anyone to be this way, if they beg to disagree with you, and instead hold to the ‘survival of the fittest’ or other selfish or sick subjective goals defined for themselves in their life. Nice for you to hold such value though..

"To actually reason what is “most likely true”, you need to know the frequency of each possibility. " - nope; I can state that the Multiverse is more likely to be true than the universe being carried on a giant turtle - because one makes more sense. The same way you can reason that a loving creator is more likely than one who is looking for those who ended up building the highest buildings (where one makes sense, while the other is just a silly notion). None of these are scientific arguments, none of them can be validated in this reality, yet likelihood can be deemed for them by our intelligent faculties.

"You look at what you think are the possibilities, decide which you think is more probable" - when I think of what are the possibilities, I have to use reason to include only those that make sense. “NONE OF THOSE THINGS REMOTELY APPROACH REASON, OR ACTUAL PROBABILITIES IN REALITY.” - I am not after reaching actual probabilities ‘in reality’ as all of these things point outside of our reality. Hence my note that none of these things are ‘scientific’, nor can they be! The actual probability of the Multiverse also can not be assessed in our reality, yet scientists consider them, as they may make sense.

But while we are at it, what are the probabilities of you - with your intelligence - start arranging molecules to the point of demonstrating the necessary emergence of consciousness, and then explaining why this was a necessity? How much time do you think you would need for this task to deliberately do it (versus just test random arrangements till one emerges)? See why I opt to look beyond our observable reality?

"If your claim looks exactly the same whether it is true or false, the claim is silly. You don’t accept any other claims like this. " - I did not state that being in a simulation or being in a material reality IS THE SAME. What I said is that both would LOOK THE SAME from the inside! There are some major differences: one self-assembles you randomly, while in the other, consciousness enters from the external. One may not have a creator, while it is logical for the other to have one. In one, you are free to define your own subjective meaning and purpose, while in the other you are wise to attempt to find out the purpose of its creator in assigning you to it. These are extreme differences - yet, reality inside LOOKS the same..

"If everything is simulated, then nothing is simulated, as you’ve just gutted the meaning of the word in reality." If everything is simulated, then what you observe does not define and constuct YOU the observer, and the reality you see is there UNTIL it serves your interactions, NOT staying into eternity independent of its observers… Yet, your reality stays the same within - hope you get the point here..

" I don’t disregard it [being in a simulation]. I have no evidence for it." - well, that is just silly: how could you have evidence for being in a simulation? It must really be a shitty simulation to have evidence for being in it… And if you do not disregard its possibility, how do you regard it??

"Where was your life before you were born?" - as in dreams, it happened in its originating context of reality. When you are inside of your dreams, can you reason and conclude that ‘you should really get back to your real reality, as this is getting silly’? Nope; you do that after you wake up to your originating context, your ‘real world’

"At least you admit you have no evidence to believe your weird beliefs." - I do have ‘evidence’ that points me to conclude my belief system, but they are not scientific evidence, or proof: interpreting my dreaming as a hint to what may be going on in my ‘larger’ reality too, the possibility to construct simulations in computers, and my seamlessly ever-continuous awareness that ‘skips’ parts of an objective reality, for example, when I sleep, and others observe me as ‘sleeping’. When adding this to the seeming impossibility of consciousness’s emergence from what I can observe, I am logically leaning toward the simulation model of reality, which solves a whole bunch of existential questions as a bonus too.

To falsify me (or to make me admit that my belief system is likely wrong) all you need to do is demonstrate how and why certain arrangements of building blocks of our reality (molecules) NECESSARILY give rise to intelligent consciousness. Or, as a practical experiment, you can copy me on the molecular level, and let me validate that the resulting object will have the same exact consciousness as I do.

oh, I love when people start calling others names - usually means they are running out of arguments.. To YOU the ‘survival of the fittest’ may mean all kinds of even noble things; but to others it simply means, if they CAN get something, they SHOULD and WILL. Look around in the world! I CAN declare whatever makes more sense to me. If it is about a thing that concerns phenomena within my observable reality, then I would be a fool to do so without evidence or proof. But as we are talking about what we can not know beyond, making sense is just making sense. What you keep forgetting here (and falsely claiming) is me claiming the ‘truth’ or ‘know’ things - whereas, I was clear from the very beginning that all I am doing is reasoning to conclude what makes the most sense to me, with the evidence I have (I listed them to you). These at max can amount to a belief system - which is on the same level as yours, materialism.

In this area of definite uncertainty, what ‘makes more sense’ to one becomes their only navigation about ‘what is more likely to end up being the truth’ and ‘what is more worth wagering on’. I have a very basic expectation about the ultimate unfolding reality, that it is more likely to make sense than not. It is fine if you decide to stop reasoning into this area because of your lack of observational evidence, but I am not comfortable staying there. Call it a gut feeling, an inner drive, or whatever - I need to proceed in my thinking. I consider your position a self-imposed box of limitation, and it can logically lead people to some very bad directions (though good directions, at the discretion of the holder, are also not excluded)

"To know something is POSSIBLE, you have to have demonstrations of them actually existing" - again, your self-imposed box of limitation, and it is not even true in the general sense. The Big Bang is possible, yet you can not ‘demonstrate’ it actually undergoing/existing - you BELIEVE or INFER it happening based on mathematical models. And this is enough. And if someone says the source of it is a giant snake vomiting out everything, you can consider this nonsense, not because of any lack of demonstration, but because of it failing to make sense to you, intelligent being. When I referred to ‘possibilities’, I meant this to be the criterion of selection to consider them for making sense and being likely, NOT an actual demonstrated instance of existence. Hence, I need not worry about fairy lands, turtles, giant snakes, but can consider an abstract creator (esp of a simulation) with motivations that are beneficial, ignorant, or ill-willed towards us, its participants. Hope you see the difference, [insert your favorite name calling here..].

"If you have something in reality that actually points to something outside of reality, you are being completely irrational." nope; you are wrong. The world of my dreams are outside of this reality; the multiverse is also outside of this reality, and math also is outside (beyond) this reality. And if we consider simulations, everything that is outside of the simulated reality IS outside of reality. Again your SIBOL (Self-imposed box…). And this has nothing to do with rationality! you can claim it to be unscientific though - but I am comfortable with that, regarding these things..

"theist that says god exists outside of existence" - I would not say that, though I am a theist. I would say, all reality (all existence) runs within the conscious mind of the creator, where we are eternal, uncreated and sovereign beings - without proof, but with reason to believe so.

"They will admit they are hypothesizing given the evidence at hand, which is not enough to demonstrate the hypothesis. You are not doing that. You are claiming your ideas are TRUE." - you are utterly wrong! What I talk about here is part of my belief system - meaning, it is NOT certain knowledge. I also said that you or I or anyone else are unable to assess what TRUTH will end up being. All we do is take our most convincing guess (to you, only with evidence, to me, my evidence and reasoning that points me to my conclusions) and wager our life on it (ie, live our life according to our concluded belief system and take the risk of being wrong)

"Consciousness is not a necessity." - sorry [insert your favorite name calling here], as YOU exist, consciousness IS a necessity - in fact, you have no evidence to the contrary! Think about it, and think hard! (oh; you fell for the argument that you were put together from what your consciousness can observe?)

"I cannot build a moon either. Yet I can point to the natural one in the sky. The fact that I cannot do something doesn’t prove magic did it." - well, actually, you CAN build moons; you just need the right equipment for it, which you do not yet have. What I said here is that one way you can falsify my claim of consciousness entering our reality from the external is to build it from within from what you can observe! The very basic tenet of your belief system is that what you observe is the entirety of reality - so I am asking you to prove and demonstrate how and why you can build the observing entity itself. Don’t just point to other humans (other observed phenomenon already existing in your reality), fill the gaps of emergence, and understand it, and build it!

"I said both claims look the same. … But since we are in the “inside”, the claim looks exactly the same to us whether true or false. … If there can’t be evidence for the claim, there can be no warrant to believe the claim" One claim is that whether reality is materialist or simulated, both will look the same from the inside. My more important claim is this though: IF we are in a simulation, the creator of the simulation defines the objective purpose for us humans in it (we just don’t know it, but it is present in the motivation of the creator), and IF we are in a materialist reality, there IS NO objective purpose, so you are free to define one for yourself without consequence. These two distinct possibilities DO warrant quite some consideration from us, participants. You just have to do your homework and not be stuck in a SIBOL..

"Natural selection isn’t random." - natural selection is selection of the fittest from random mutations. But what you failed to understand is that I referred to the soup of quarks self-assembling into your consciousness through these random arrangements (and selection). This is emergence-of-the-gaps - and I rather stay with simulation, as that MAKES MORE SENSE TO ME, thus, I consider it more likely to end up being true.

"Since you have no evidence of the creator, you’d literally be able to make up anything that appealed to you and run with it, then call that “reasoning” and “sense.”" - not that this is also what you are doing: you have no evidence of how you can arrange molecules into consciousness either, yet you went with materialism. You have no evidence that there is nothing outside of your observable reality, yet you go with this assumption/belief. Yes, simulation ‘appeals’ to me more than self-assembly into intelligent consciousness, which then has no purpose whatsoever in existence.

"hallmark of a delusion." - the grandest delusion is materialism, the simulation’s fooling of its participants into believing that they are NOT in a simulation, but in a self-enclosed world, where they are free to do whatever they wish, without consequence. Sorry [insert your favorite name calling here], to me your arguments and belief system is pointless - and literally too..

"if you have no evidence for it [simulation], you have no reason to believe it." - oxymoron; you are wise to consider being in a simulation WITHOUT any evidence (as there can not be any). “You are lost in a sea of contradictions and fantasy.” - I hold this to be a better position than you thinking you already figured every.thing you need about your reality, yet clearly falling for your SIBOL Think which one of us is in the position to end up right? You are unable to find out even that you were right (as with your death you cease to exist), thus, can only end up as wrong. Why would I ever consider such position?? What are the benefits of your position over mine?

"Moreover, you already admitted that from within the simulation, you wouldn’t be able to have any evidence that it is a simulation." - being in a simulation is NOT falsifiable; however, my proposed experiment would make me believe that it is LESS LIKELY that I am in a simulation (though still possible). If you copy me and end up with a being with identical molecular structure, and if I can verify that this other being holds an equivalent consciousness to mine, then I consider my theory falsified. Keep in mind that NOTHING is really falsifiable (except in math), as the laws of nature could theoretically change at any moment - they just usually don’t (but this is nothing else than the simulation having its internal integrity in showing us a consistent view, without exceptions)…

"Why am I bothering? Because I love you! lol This is me being kind when literally no one is looking, or will ever look. You deserve to think more clearly that this. Your one and only life is worth that much. Please consider what I’ve said" - and the same exact paragraph goes back to you, unchanged..

Many atheists dismiss the idea of a creator, or any theory that points outside of the observable physical realm (such as existing in a simulation) as unfalsifiable claims, logical fallacies. So now (by popular request) here is a testable, falsifiable formulation of my claim that our consciousness is not material in origin:

If humans manage to create a perfect copy of a conscious human down to the level of quarks, I assert that you would NOT get the same conscious being as the source was. This would be akin to teleportation. I further assert that the resulting arrangement of quarks would NOT amount to an intelligently conscious being at all. (though its implementation is likely complex enough so that it could never be implemented practically, it is theoretically possible).

After dismissing the materialist model of reality because of this ‘consciousness-problem’, I reason that we must be living in a consciousness-centric simulation. This is the next best model of reality, that keeps all the advantages of materialism (namely, the use of the sciences in the realm of the observations). However, logically, any simulation has its creator.

My assertion is about the proof I would need to have to be more convinced about consciousness originating from the material, than otherwise. My experiment IS a theoretically possible way to prove me wrong (and convince me that my model of reality is likely wrong). I don’t see anything dubious here; the bottom line matter is simply a question of which model of reality I am more convinced of, works best, and what would it take for me to switch to the materialist model. You can also entertain and posit what would it take for you to believe that consciousness is NOT material in nature.

My claim stands as I stated: I assert that copying the material structure of an observed conscious being will not get you an equivalent conscious being. You will not be able to create intelligent consciousness by arranging material in experiments. Consciousness is not material in essence and origin. How else can I put it so you can comprehend? You can prove me otherwise (ie. falsify this claim) by performing this task.

For those of us, non-academics, teleportation is simply the ability to transfer an object from location A to location B, without ever being present in between. For teleportation, you would have to make an exact replica of the original object. I stated that it is ‘akin to teleportation’ because copying a conscious biological being down to the level of quarks would be an equally complex feat. In one case the source remains (copying), in the other case (teleportation/moving) the source gets transferred. But I can’t believe I am actually clarifying this to anyone, and I have not even watched a single episode of Star Trek…

Science is nothing but making sense of the observed world. If phenomenon behave consistently, scientists can draw conclusions that will then become the laws of nature. Science has absolutely no jurisdiction with regard to anything that may exist outside of the observed physical reality (except for mathematics). So science is only true within the observed physical reality. Once I box this into a concept called ‘simulation’, science will not be applicable to anything outside of it. It is already non-applicable in my private reality of dreams (that are very much part of the continuum of my reality). So your blanket statement is only valid within a box of limitations.

My hypothetical creator is not living inside of the simulation it creates. There is no ‘base reality’ and all reality is created by a master consciousness who is able to create shared realities for participants and compel participants to partake in them. ALL reality is simulated in nature to conscious beings, and run not in a computer somewhere, but in the mind of the creator, who has infinite (or close to infinite) capabilities. The creator is uncreated and bi-directionally eternal, and so are we (obviously lesser) conscious beings. The creator likely creates an infinite series of simulated realities for its companions, the audiences of its creations, us. I take my conscious existence in this simulation as evidence of the creator. Consciousness is such a magnificent unexplainable wonder, that it can not extinguish, as it carries all of creation within its memory. So rather than solving NOTHING, I believe I have solved pretty much EVERYTHING that I needed to answer ALL my existential questions.. And you are welcome to disagree with me on any of it.

One thing that HAS been demonstrated in your conscious experience (your only certain knowledge) is how your consciousness can generate a simulation in dreams.

And what has NOT been demonstrated in your conscious experience is how your observations can result in your conscious observing self - so which model of realit is better: simulation or materialism??? This is the very bottom line of making ANY sense. Thus, it is more irrational to go with materialism than with simulation, as your model of reality.

while believing in materialism (and therefore not believing in a God and an afterlife) one can lead a perfectly benevolent life that can be beneficial to others as well, and one may even reach a conviction that the way to live life is to love other humans and reject selfishness, this conclusion does NOT follow logically from atheism or from the belief in materialism.

Thus, believing that with death, that is IT for one’s conscious awareness, one MAY also logically opt to ‘make the most of life in a way that may also negatively affect others’, ‘die with the most toys’, ‘do whatever one can get away with legally’, ‘disregard others in their selfish decisions regularly’, or commit suicide after boredom with life or after living through some misery, or after committing horrendous crimes, assuming that ‘with death, all will be over’.

All these SHOULD be illogical acts when one believes in the continuation of their conscious awareness after death, one is a sane person, and one believes to be facing a loving creator who evaluates their life based on their alignment with love vs selfishness. And one typically goes where their logic/worldview leads/allows them (unless they are weak or foolish)..

To address the world’s problems and cooperate with each other is also the main task on my todo list for my life. Stupidly religious people are a problem indeed, just as those atheists who choose to do whatever they can get away with, as ultimately there is no consequences to their lives. It is nice of you to turn out such a benevolent citizen while facing your imminent complete demise. However, you have no tools to convince the nihilist if they decide differently and choose to remain selfish, out only for themselves. If your model ends up right, you and I will never realize this.

I also have issues with stupidly religious people, and arguments to address their stupidity. And I wonder about the beauty of creation the same way you wonder about the purposeless universe. I marvel about the scientific achievements of humankind the same way you do. My position is of humility: I was given a chance to right a wrong, in a way that would benefit the whole of humanity. And how in the world would trying to figure out the meaning of my conscious existence be arrogant? The arrogance is in NOT trying to do that, but believing that humanity can hope to have all the answers within its presented observations. And if what I concluded makes sense, why on Earth would I keep it a secret?

Secularism will not necessarily get you civility (though I also advocate secularism). Look at all the communist or fascist countries and regimes - I think they easily outdo your religious countries. I think in terms of belief systems. This includes the materialist beliefs of atheism, along with all all other religions. Some of these encourage altruism while others don’t. The materialism of atheism allows and even encourages selfishness to take over one’s life - and this is bad. If you are not that kind of person, I am glad to know. It is all up to the tenets and logic of a belief system and the behavior and intelligence of its adherent. I maintain that my arguments are much more effective against selfishness than yours. There are no better secular arguments if one beliefs ‘the hell with it, I only live once, and there comes nothingness after it’.

It is logical that if one believes there are no consequences for one’s actions and one can get away with something, one will not have anything fundamental in thinking to prevent one from doing so. This is what makes serial killers, mass murderers proceed with their deeds, but some wall-street greedy types are similar. If you think that ‘religious’ figures also did similar acts, I will respond that I do not believe they were believers in an afterlife either. It is also true that there are some really messed up religious beliefs out there that command people to do horrific things - but the essential teachings of Christ is the farthest from those.

You are also a believer: whether you like it or not you believe that your reality is made up strictly of what you can observe in the physical world. Your belief is in materialism’s self-limiting box. Thus, people commit crimes also because they do not believe in things: they do not believe in the afterlife and a creator, therefore they believe that reality is material in nature and it will extinguish with death. It is indeed belief, and a very risky position to hold.

You are entirely wrong with your stick-in-the-sky analogy. There has never been a stick (or a carrot) in the sky - those will be applied in the afterlife! That is why in this world, bad things can happen to good people, good things can happen to bad people, and all other variations - there is no automatic regulating mechanism in this reality to punish the bad and reward the good, and it makes perfect sense in this evaluation setup. This enables you to believe and behave as you wish. Sticks and carrots will be applied after you have lived your life as you wished..

The essence of the New Testament is ‘love thy neighbor as you love yourself’, the main commandment of Jesus to humanity. It is misguided to conclude anything else to be this essence. Naturally, people wrote, read and concluded all kinds of other stuff in the Bible too (especially when forcing the OT together with the NT). But this is an insincere attempt to arrive at the essence of the NT, analogous to getting lost in the details while missing the main point of this story of the past.

The immoral doctrine you mention is misguided and wrong: till you die, you have the chance to genuinely regret your wrongs, ask for forgiveness, and rectify them. Once you are on this path, you may reach your salvation, even if your life ends prematurely before you could complete your rectification. However, to bank on regretting later in life and keep doing wrong deeds is insincere and calculated, and it includes the grin on the face of ‘yeah, I managed to take full advantage of the system’, and the creator’s evaluation will see through such moves.

NOTHING will get you ‘off the hook’, other than aligning your conviction with love and living a life that proves this! Belief in the divinity or the resurrection of Christ is not a shortcut to salvation - one still has a life to align and prove this! The belief that faith along will save one is grossly misguided!

There is nothing immoral about the creator giving humanity a chance to rectify a past wrong and redeem themselves (never mind what were the other alternatives for those sinners) - I am clearly not an equal to the being who arranged my reality and put me here! And if he compels or condemns me to whatever reality (never mind the possibility that I volunteered to take part), I will just have to take life as was assigned to me, as I have no choice in the matter.

What I read in the Good News of the story of Jesus is that the creator of my reality who assigned/compelled me to participate loves humans and wants them to succeed to rejoin his presence. This is the story I face in the 21st century. And what I need to do to pass this evaluation is to align with the value of love - his preference - vs selfishness. What a terrible request from a cruel creator - how dare!? …

the key you are missing is that the creator can NOT know how we will decide in our life with certainty (open theism) - it is up to our true free will (apart from him being able to ‘guess’ how we will decide based on knowing our character and our circumstances, and statistically being able to expect the rough number of failures - just as we can in similar situations). Thus, we CAN prove him wrong on how we will decide - which is the entire point in our existence here by the way

of course he is NOT omniscient! That would remove the meaning from the entire setup! He does not know with certainty how conscious beings will decide. He is also not omnipotent: I conclude that he can not create or destroy consciousness, which is THE basic elementary entity of reality - he can only assign them to different realities he creates (which is plenty of ability in my book..)

yup; and I disagree with those Christians. And I disagree with the authors of those bible sections. And the discussion is NOT necessarily about the bible, but “Why did God create people who would reject him?”. I have a theist belief system that also holds Jesus to be the creator appearing among us in a human form - yet, I can easily discard most parts of the Bible (the entire OT, and large parts of the NT that are not about what could have been the essential message of Jesus). I call this ‘distilling the essential message’ from among all the crap and misguidance that has been packaged with it.

I justify distillment of the meaning of any text by my right to make sense of it and critically evaluate how that applies to my belief system. In any given text I may have sections I agree with and others I disagree with.

I do not ‘cherry pick what I want to be true’ or what I like, but evaluate what I deem to be correct, making sense, and fitting or adding to a scenario of reality I deem philosophically likely to be close to the ultimate truth. In the case of the NT writings, ‘evidence’ is of little or no use in trying to assess the applicability of the text to my life.

WHAT would you be looking to get evidence for? Miracles? Those do not matter philosophically, and I do not rely on them. Historical accuracy? Those also do not matter when trying to determine ‘who Jesus could have been and what could have been his message’. The kind of evidence you are referring to would be relevant for Christians who depend on miracles like the resurrection as the cornerstone of their beliefs - but not for me.

What I am looking for is content that contributes to elements in a belief system. Belief systems are there to answer existential questions and guide one’s life. In this sense, historical accuracy will not contribute. It does not even matter whether Zoroaster or Jesus existed or really said or done certain things for me to determine whether the message their story presents to me in my current life is right on target about the meaning and purpose of life or not. The only thing that will matter to me is the message making sense or not, whether it contributes to or changes my belief system, and whether it answers my existential questions about the meaning and purpose of my life or not.

Do you need evidence of the real person of Buddha to evaluate the teachings of Buddhism? I don’t. The same with Jesus. But I tell you, after I distilled the essence of the NT and thrown away all the stuff that resulted from the misguided interpretations of their authors, what I was left with made perfect sense to me. And on the busy street of my life, that is EXACTLY what I needed to give me confidence to walk through the traffic: the confidence that I face a loving creator who wants me to gain my salvation, and who guided me to reach it by loving others and not being selfish.

we are not in this reality to expect a nice and cozy suffering-free environment arranged for us by the creator. Our reality is a place of penance that is a likely consequence of a past wrong we likely committed before joining this reality (thus, we were NOT created in this reality). In addition, as we are not necessarily ‘good people’, we cause extra suffering onto ourselves, which can not be prevented by the creator, as we have free will.

The only hints we can go by that may increase our confidence (not knowledge or certainty) that we may be facing a good loving creator are our own predispositions to love (and to selfishness at the same time, to different degrees), and the story of Jesus, that is IF we look at him NOT as the Jewish Messiah who fulfilled the ungodly horrors and silly prophecies of the Old Testament, but as the creator who subjected himself to our will and took on our full human limitations in Jesus, to demonstrate his love for us, and to guide us to reach our own salvation (and NOT doing the saving instead of us or any other silly Christian interpretation).

And the way to reach our salvation is NOT through belief in anything (including him being God or him ‘saving’ us), but through reaching a conviction that is aligned with his preferred value of love (vs selfishness) and prove this alignment by living our life accordingly. This is the criterion that makes the most sense, that is universally applicable to all human situations throughout history, and is a logical perspective of a creator who gave us - fallen angels (or Adams and Eves) - a chance to serve our penance and prove our worth to rejoin his presence by realigning with love. more on normeoli dot info

You are getting your image of who that God must be like from the OT - a grave mistake, of course. That document was written by Jews, for Jews, about the Jews, and there is no universally applicable message in there for everyone - thus, it is an invalid belief system (not to mention not making much sense either).

Sadly, the authors of the NT - being also Jews to the core - positioned Jesus as the fulfillment of their prophecies and promises, and then some extra stuff. This was a major mistake (already recognized by Marcion of Sinope in the first century), a grave misunderstanding, or simply a marketing ploy to gain Jewish followers. But one can, and needs to see through this effort in trying to assess the essential message - because otherwise, you may end up throwing out the baby with the bath water.. (the perfect indication of this is from Paul, when he gets pissed off with the Jews and ‘threatens’ to turn to the gentiles instead..

One should not just follow blindly the text and try to figure out what the original authors must have meant in their writings, but rather, what could have been the essential message of this whole text, given the obvious failings in understanding, consistency, and right guidance. Once you see through this, you will end up with a few brilliant indicators that may even have originated from Jesus himself, and not just from the authors' propaganda efforts. Such parts are love as a single commandment overruling everything else, the camel and needle’s eyes story about the rich, and the very prayer that Jesus allegedly taught us (among some other stuff as well)

So once you filter out all the obvious BS, you are left with some rightly guided and philosophically sound picture of the creator’s subtle intervention in our reality to demonstrate his love for humanity by willing to undergo the human limitations and conditions, his willingness to subject himself to our will - all to convince us that we face a loving creator who wants us to return to his side (which we must have lost bc of our own past failures, likely before we were condemned to participate in this reality), and to guide us how to do that (gain our salvation by aligning our conviction with love (vs selfishness), and living our life as a proof of this alignment.

I love the observable reality as much - if not more - as you do, and I enjoy it to the fullest. it can not be replaced with anything else, as we are in it to live our lives - which can not be escaped (unless you get the silly idea - fueled by materialism - that ending your life will also end your reality)

I model our reality as a simulation that was created by the conscious mind of the creator (similar to how our consciousness created our daily dreams). Thus, our consciousness enters our reality from an outside, originating context of reality (as in dreams or in computer simulations). It makes the most sense to me that our souls were NEVER created - they are the fundamental blocks of reality, going into eternity, joining different types of realities created by the creator consciousness.

It is not about any ‘capability’ to ‘wipe away’ past sins; sins have to be regretted, and then rectified - there is NO other way to redeem their effect. Our present reality is a place of penance, and your assigned situation (health, wealth, luck, look) is your sentence. In your assigned situation you have the chance to redeem your sinful alignment (alignment with selfishness) by reaching a conviction aligned with love, and proving this with living your life accordingly.

It makes no sense to ‘wipe away sins’ from anyone’s perspective; what does make sense to me is to let us redeem it, and for this, this life was given, under the conditions we deserved.

you are not paying any attention: “the way to reach our salvation is NOT through belief in anything (including him being God or him ‘saving’ us), but through reaching a conviction that is aligned with his preferred value of love” - if the billion hindus, cave men, atheists reach a “conviction that is aligned with his preferred value of love” they CAN reach their salvation. Belief is only a tool that MAY get you to the right alignment, or may not.

you will never ‘verify’ beliefs before leaving this existence (dying), yet, it IS worth going with a belief system that makes the most sense to you. This is not science, as the domain reaches outside of your observable reality. But since things WILL turn out one single certain way in the end, it IS worth to take your best guess at what that scenario may be. TO me, belief in materialism (that it represents the entirety of reality and that what I can observe can make up my observing consciousness' is not convincing. So I rather model reality as a simulation, which has been demonstrated to work and be a valid model in comp simulations, and which I experience daily in my dreams. And I am fine turning out wrong in the end - I take that risk with a smile.

’salvation' for sure is NOT observable in our reality, as no one reaches their salvation until they complete their life and end up being judged accordingly

the nature of ALL realities are simulated, meaning being created by the conscious mind of the creator. They are as ‘real’ as can be, ethers for our meaningful interactions. At least this model can account for the most crucial entity that materialism can not: your observing intellingent consciousness that is YOU and ME

nope; I do not believe the creator knows in advance how we will decide (other than what we can also do: statistically guess how one might decide); I also do not believe the creator can create or destroy consciousness (which I believe to be the elementary entity of reality), only assign them to different types of simulated realities.

I do not believe in ‘reincarnation’ as the buddhist do (back into this reality, perhaps even as an animal) which is mathematically not possible, but I do believe consciousness to be eternal and uncreated, attending different types of realities. Perhaps there is a single default reality (heaven/paradise/being in the presence of the creator?) from which we get to spend (perhaps countless, perhaps only one) time in penances/evaluations like this one, which logically would have their consequences (as all evaluations do).

this is definitely not ‘Christianity’, but I did conclude that my interpretation on who Jesus was and what his essential message must have been aligns perfectly with my philosophical conclusions - so I believe my interpretations, and reject the traditional Christian ones, where they differ.

who says the bible should be such book, and even if they do, why should YOU care? It is more apparent that you were given the intellect to think and evaluate for yourself, instead of blindly following beliefs out of loyalty or ignorance.

The world being ‘full of good, bad and neutral’ does not necessarily mean that its creator is necessarily such and such, as it depends on the ROLE of this reality. I concluded that given the characteristics of this reality, the best model of reality is simulation. It is more likely that it has its creator than not. And if so, the only unknown to its creator is how the assigned participants (conscious humans like us) decide. Going further, our reality then must be a place of penance for a wrong we have committed before - this would justify the variations in our assigned situations, and the misery each situation comes with.

But penance is not the only role here; a chance to decide the right way or the wrong way (as the only unknown to the creator in our simulation) may mean that we are in an evaluation. And the most likely criterion of evaluating our decisions must be our alignment with love vs selfishness (as it is a universally applicable criterion for all human situations, and all the rest are more or less a direct function of our assigned situations, such as health, wealth, look and luck).

So so far, we are beings who were NOT created in this reality, but have brought our package from somewhere else (in the simulation model, from the outside context of reality, that by the way, strangely mirrors being fallen angels or adams and eves ourselves), and as a consequence were were cast out of our default place in the presence of the creator (heaven/paradise/whatever else you name it) into this imperfect reality that has suffering as serving our penance, but still having a chance to rectify ourselves by proving with our lives that we align with the preferred value of the creator, love (vs selfishness).

So instead of having to contemplate ‘multiple gods’ of different religions, what you are facing is a very few basic scenarios as viable models for your reality: 1. materialism (you self-arose from a soup of quarks and you will extinguish soon, without any purpose and meaning, so just live your life any way you see fit); 2. a creator who does not care about its creation (basically the exact same scenario as the first one); 3. a creator who is malicious or takes joy in watching our suffering (this scenario I concluded to be less likely, and even if true, not much you can do about it). 4. a creator who cares about us in its creation, and how we will ‘do’ (this one is backed by the alleged testimony of the creator himself in appearing in our human limitations among us and subjecting himself to our ill will - the exact situation each of us have to face here - all to guide us back to his presence, which we have to achieve by realigning our values with love and living life that way).

The rest of the possible situations are just plane old silly in my book, but I am happy to delve into their details if asked. Given these choices, it is a no brainer for me which one to wager my life on, and risk being wrong.

All these questions on ‘why does God need to create?’ or ‘why did he create our reality full of evil and suffering?’ can be answered easily and logically by assuming that our conscious existence PREDATES our appearance in this reality. Then, our life here can be A CONSEQUENCE of what happened to us in our previous existence. And our assigned accidental circumstances (sickness, wealth, luck, looks) can be viewed as ‘assigned justly’ to match our specific circumstances that predate our existence here.

This way, God can remain just and loving: we are spending our time here as a penance for a wrong we have committed before our life, and we are getting a chance here to prove our worth, to rejoin our ‘paradise lost’ or our ‘place in heaven’. Also, God did not create the evil that is within our world - we have brought that into this reality within our sovereign selves (that predates this reality), in our predispositions. And ultimately, that we are in this reality to prove that whatever wrongs we have committed before, whatever leanings and influences we have to go through in life, and whatever temptations we are assigned to face, our primary task is to (re)align with love, in order to rejoin the presence of the loving creator.

Thus, God did not create ‘evil’ (selfishness), and he created this realty out of his love, to be a testing ground for our realignment toward his preferred value, love, away from the evil that got us assigned to this reality, selfishness. Yes, the creator IS needy - he loves us and yearns for our company, which we can fulfill if we prove to align with love. Love is the binding of all of reality.

Several straightforward steps in reasoning (for more detail you can search for my name to find my site): the issue of consciousness, the phenomena of dreaming and the possibility of computer simulations led me to model reality as a consciousness-centric simulation.

This model works at least as well as materialism (scientific compatibility WITHIN), but allows me to reason forward to its creator (as it is more likely to have one than not). And then we immediately arrive at an objective purpose for humanity, as that becomes ‘the best alignment with the purpose of the creator in assigning us to participate in this simulation’. Now we just need to reason to conclude what that purpose may then be (without certainty of course).

My predispositions to love and selfishness led me to conclude that our alignment on this scale must be the only unknown (and therefore interesting) factor for the creator in our reality (everything else is kind of determined by him, like how healthy, lucky or talented you are born, etc). So this criterion (love vs selfishness) can be universally applied to all human situations in history.

Forget about belief in certain religions - that can not be what interests the creator. There are almost as many belief system variations as there are humans (each having a unique interpretations consciously or unwillingly). And why would what we accept at face value matter to the creator - that would just be plane old silly from his perspective.

Also, if God was looking for obedience, he would have made his power perfectly clear (so we would all be foolish NOT to obey him). But this is not the case - we have reasonable doubt and the lack of certainty regarding anything that is beyond our observable reality.

My seamlessly slipping into and out of my nightly dreams (with the hours in between that go completely unnoticed/non-existent as far as I am concerned) led me to conclude that conscious awareness must be ever continuous from the perspective of the self. And my limited awareness in my dreams led me to the likelihood that this may also be the case on the grander case of my reality: I am spending my time here and not knowing the exact context/reason of it from within, but can regain this context once I exit it.

Our precursory existence can also be backed with an alternative interpretation of such texts as the Adam-Eve story (not as our ancestors, but ourselves) or the fallen angels that were cast out of heaven for doing something wrong. If taking these stories as hints of what caused our assignment into this reality, then the picture is almost complete (but of course, NOT according to their traditional interpretations).

And last, but not least, the conclusion that we may be facing a loving creator (as opposed to a neglectful, evil or non-caring one) is backed by none other than the story of our creator allegedly entering our reality as a human, undergoing the misery and limitations of our reality (as opposed to staying as a mighty powerful overlord), subjecting himself to our will to the point of allowing us to kill him - in Jesus - all to demonstrate that we face a loving creator who urges us to reach our salvation (return to our default reality) by realigning with love.

In other words, I take my distillation of what the essential message and entity of Jesus might have been as aligning and backing my conclusions. Naturally, I had to compensate for the obvious obfuscations, misinterpretations and misleadings by the authors of the NT - mostly of tying him to the OT as the Jewish Messiah, what he accomplished for us with his intervention, and what authority structure he may have intended for the followers to have.

With regard to ‘reincarnation’, I take a different view. I see no reason or logic pointing to us keeping to appear in this same reality (simulation), and see no sense whatsoever as appearing as other life forms (animals, for example). This reality has a finite internal end (the scientifically estimated end of our world’s ability to support life), so the process of reincarnation can not be going on forever within this reality. I also reject the pointlessness of the logical attitude, that ‘sure, I may fail to reach nirvana this time, but so what - I will try it next time’, not to mention the description of what nirvana may be.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲.

Temptations for humans to sway from aligning with love - the preferred value of the creator - can come from two external sources: other humans, and the observable phenomena arranged for us by the creator. Of the second type, by far the most potent one is the suggestion of materialism/physicalism/naturalism emanating from our setup.

There is nothing wrong with modeling reality with materialism per se. It is a valid model that works exceptionally well in uncovering the workings of our reality (the ‘laws of nature’) to our benefit. The issue is with what materialism allows us to infer next: the belief that our observable reality represents 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮, and that there is nothing beyond it.

But even this conclusion may not be harmful. The problem comes from the next logical steps: that therefore, 𝙬𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙖, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮. Namely, the conclusion that our consciousness - that makes all the observations to begin with - is also nothing but an emergent property of our observable and measurable quantum field fluctuations in the end.

And while materialists are eager to point out that they live a benevolent life WITHOUT any belief in any Gods or a reward in an afterlife, the fact remains that 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝘾𝘼𝙉 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙚. Materialists can logically believe that even the memory of their legacy will eventually extinguish without a trace - if no sooner, than when our Universe can no longer support life.

And then, 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚, 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚, 𝙬𝙝𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚, 𝙞𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙖𝙭𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚!? Why not just do anything I can get away with, anything that is ‘legal’, to maximize my pleasure? These are all ‘right’, ‘equivalent’, and logical goals and motivations emanating from materialist beliefs. And indeed, we can witness the effects of such behavior throughout history, whether the perpetrators claimed to be ‘religiously guided’ or not. Their way of thinking and motivation is just another subjective take on meaning and purpose, happening side by side with those who think differently.

In the end, we can interpret 𝙩𝙝𝙚 “𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙧 𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙢 𝙖𝙨 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙛” 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙨𝙚𝙩 𝙪𝙥 𝙗𝙮 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙫𝙨. 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨. Our setup is perfect for this scenario: 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙩𝙝𝙪𝙨, 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙙𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙪𝙧𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙪𝙥 𝙖𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚, 𝙞𝙛 𝙬𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣𝙚.

Only in such a setup can the creator measure our true alignment with his preferred value - love. And when we wake up to our originating context after our death, we can face the results of our evaluation - 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙪𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙣 𝙥𝙪𝙧𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚, 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙪𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 (what our ‘objective’ purpose, meaning, and motivation we could not ascertain during our life ought to have been), 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚.

Deemphasizing the resurrection of Jesus, while focusing on the real miracle.

Most, if not all Christian churches and denominations hold that “𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗶𝗻 𝗝𝗲𝘀𝘂𝘀’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻” is a cornerstone pillar of their faith that is a necessary condition for one’s salvation. Not so with NORMeOLi, which does not 𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑦 that his resurrection took place, but places the emphasis somewhere else.

The strongest quote they use to back this is from 𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟱: "14 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩. … 17 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘦; 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘴. ".

However, it is worth noting its immediate context: “12 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥? 13 𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥. … 16 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥.”.

In the fuller context, even the word from Paul becomes not an urging for belief in Jesus’s resurrection, but 𝗮𝗻 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲! And indeed, this is the only way Christian - or 𝘢𝘯𝘺 - religious teaching makes any sense, as otherwise, we would simply have materialism and the conclusions that stem from its belief system (that the observable reality fully represents the entirety of reality).

Thus, “𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯” should become an urging for us to believe in the continuation of our conscious awareness after our death - 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦. This belief can make us more receptive to the idea of a loving creator who gave us a chance - in our life - to earn our salvation.

And the creator entering our reality in the human form of Jesus, subjecting himself to our will out of his love for us, and undergoing the kinds of sufferings and death we have to face during our life - all in order to urge and help us in reaching our salvation - becomes an entirely convincing narrative, even without all the miracles mentioned in the New Testament writings, including his resurrection.

One reaches salvation not by believing in the resurrection of Jesus, but by 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 (the preferred value of the creator) and not selfishness (its opposite, what ‘evil’ really is).

The ‘real’ (and only) miracle we should focus on in the Bible is the creator’s demonstration of love for humanity by partaking in our reality in our limitations (in Jesus) and subjecting himself to our will.

He did so to show us the way to reach our salvation (vs. ‘saving us via his sacrifice’): by aligning our conviction with love vs. selfishness and living our lives accordingly, despite the difficulty or trickiness of our assigned situations in life. If your belief system can help you ‘get there’, great! If not, you may want to reconsider it…

Subjective or objective morality?

Is there an objective moral standard applicable to all humans, or is morality ultimately subjective to individual preferences and beliefs? Can we know about it with certainty? Where does it originate? The usual immediate answers from both sides of the typical spectrum (materialism and religions) are: “𝑛𝑜, 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑, 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠, 𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑” or “𝑜𝑏𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠”.

Most people are probably familiar with the typical arguments of both sides. So here I only cover the NORMeOLi perspective: objective morality DOES exist, and it directly derives from the motivation of the creator in assigning humans to this reality, BUT people can not identify moral truth with certainty during their life. Thus, as part of their free will, people can decide what morals they subscribe to, and these choices will all be subjective.

According to the NORMeOLi wager scenario, all humans will be judged according to the same evaluation criterion: their alignment with love vs selfishness, as demonstrated in their life. Accepting and living according to this scenario will also remain a subjective choice all the way till we exit this reality and realize the proximity of our belief system to the unfolding ultimate truth. It is at this point that we will be able to face how far the subjective choices of our life ended up from divine preference, from fulfilling the purpose of our life.

Thus, 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 ‘𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏’ 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆 (wake up to our originating context of reality) and face the evaluation of our life. During our life, all we can do is make our subjective choices in hope of ending up as close as possible to divine preference.

What is the evidence that quantum mechanics is not related to consciousness?

https://qr.ae/prab3Z

Using NORMeOLi’s model of reality - of reality as a consciousness-centric simulation - the problem this post addresses becomes fairly simple: all reality is arranged (simulated) to serve as an ‘ether’ to conscious interactions. Holding this view, consciousness becomes the fundamental entity in reality, and not its observations (the physical reality it observes).

According to both materialism, AND the simulation models, outcomes of our fully deterministic and calculable world could theoretically be calculable (provided we would have the almost-infinite knowledge about its current state, and infinite computing power).

That is, until the point consciousness appears, and chooses to alter the physical reality with its now-incalculable and unpredictable decisions: the simple decisions to build a city somewhere on a planet or blow an asteroid off its course will forever carry the effects of conscious decisions in the otherwise-deterministic landscape.

Scientists subscribing to a physicalist worldview try to account for this by ‘splitting universes’ upon each conscious decision (of the Many-World interpretation) or the weirdness of ‘collapsing wave-function’. Whereas in NORMeOLi (holding simulation as the model of reality), conscious decisions are natural factors in the simulation, that alter its reality - after all, ALL of the simulation’s reality is there to accommodate the interactions of conscious beings.

Thus, one can wonder who is getting closer to the ‘cognitive dissonance’ mentioned many times by hard-core materialists, when rebuking those who dare to think outside of the self-imposed box of limitations of our observable (and thus, evidence-able) reality.

For those who desperately seek evidence/proof for anything they are willing to consider?

https://youtu.be/W39kfrxOSHg?t=2935

Decoding the Brain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7QBnuF6dHg&t=3698s

A fresh event where top scientists were invited to present the latest developments in the efforts to decode the brain. In the end, the host asks the question we should all be interested in, the cornerstone of whether we live in a simulation or not, whether there is a creator or not, whether there is anything beyond a materialist universe or not. And the conclusion is NOT a definite YES to physicalism.

A simulation model of reality is simply a better model than materialism.

Jesus brought not peace but a sword.

"34 𝘋𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘩; 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥. 35 𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳-𝘪𝘯-𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳-𝘪𝘯-𝘭𝘢𝘸" - an often-quoted passage from the NT (𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘄 𝟵) used by those who like to point out “𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦” of the NT. So here, I would like to offer the NORMeOLi interpretation of this passage.

The purpose of the creator’s participation in our reality in a human form was not to bring peace and end our suffering here on Earth but to help us succeed in attaining our salvation. The evaluation of life continues for each human in their assigned (and assumed-fair) settings, and our penance has to be fulfilled.

The only difference that came with the creator’s intervention in Jesus was the good news humanity received, that 𝘄𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. The sinful condition of humans (inherited from their previous existence, that caused them to live here) DID NOT CHANGE - 𝗝𝗲𝘀𝘂𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 ‘𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗲’ 𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴!

This good news, of the creator’s love for us, IS our “sword” (weapon) we can use to gain the strength needed to reach salvation in the assigned situations of our life. Thus, no violence is implied in this message. And this sword (a weapon, or a great help) is needed indeed (by most of us), as humans' evaluation goes on as before throughout history.

Loyalties to family or otherwise can not outweigh or redirect one’s path to salvation; in this case, one should be clear about which way to proceed with decisions.

Why there is evil and suffering in our world?

The problem of evil and suffering - how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God?

1. the creator is not omniscient with regard to the free will of conscious beings (does NOT know how a sovereign, free-willed conscious being will decide with certainty).

2. conscious beings are eternal and uncreated entities, just like the creator. The creator creates the realities lesser conscious beings can/are made to participate in.

3. the creator does not create “evil”. Evil is not an entity, but the opposite of the preference of the creator - love - which is selfishness.

4. our reality is not meant to be a paradise without any suffering; we have lost that due to our choices and actions in our precursory existence before we were made to (or were invited to) join our current reality.

Thus, our existence here is a penance for a past wrong, to begin with (making us all sinners at birth already). This explains the need for our suffering, which is assigned by the creator in our accidental situations. We can assume that one’s amount of suffering is related to the magnitude of wrong for which one is here for. (Yes, this assumes that we all deserved the amount of suffering we encounter in our accidental circumstances, hopefully fairly. This is separate from the suffering we have to endure due to the free will of other conscious humans).

Thus, our reality is a penance for a past wrong assigned to us fairly, and also a chance to rectify this wrong and rejoin the presence of the creator, provided we managed to realign our life with love and resist selfishness (the root of all evil, and the opposite of the basis of the relationship between conscious souls and the creator). We all have lost paradise/were cast out of heaven, so we are advised to get with the program in our current reality and realign our souls with love, to regain it.

Modeling reality - two possible logically valid choices.

When looking at our most elementary observations possible (quarks, quantum fields, and energy), science will never be able to tell you WHAT those elementary observations ARE. It can only give them names and describe their behavior and properties, leaving us with the choice of two possible perspectives to view these findings (and science remains valid in both).

We can either see them as the building blocks of a reality independent from us that make up everything, including our observing consciousnesses (materialism). Or, we can look at them as the most elemental details revealed in our observations presented to us, conscious observers (simulation). In both of these perspectives, science remains valid in naming and describing phenomena. The same names and rules seamlessly fit into a simulation model.

Materialism will make us an accidental byproduct of processes that run completely independent of us and which will ultimately render our existence meaningless. The simulation model will place us at the center of relevance, as the target audience of an ‘ether’ created to enable our meaningful interactions. The choice is down to how we see our consciousness, the primary entity making ALL observations, the existence of which we have our only certain knowledge of.

Of course, a simulation model logically comes with its creator, and it accounts for and carries meaning and consequence for us, conscious observers trying to make sense of our reality. Both models are using and relying on the same set of observations! So what exactly does materialism have over a simulation model, and why would the simulation model be nonsensical or delusional?

And where does the lack of any evidence or proof come into play here? Is there/can there be evidence or proof that the observed reality exists independent of its observers or not? Nope - no matter how counterintuitive this may sound. Both the above perspectives are viable CHOICES. Both lead to a logical, working model of reality and are without proof and evidence of ultimate correctness for the duration of this reality. So the choice is ours (after working out our pros and cons).

Commonly experienced hints we all have supporting the simulation mode of reality.

Everyone has first-hand personal experience during the phenomena of dreaming on how they can seamlessly enter and exit realms of reality where accessing information in one about the other is not possible.

Everyone has first-hand experience of their awareness remaining ever-continuous even while going through periods of ‘unconsciousness’ and seemingly only existing to others (when they sleep or are in a coma).

Everyone knows of memories they had no idea they had until they popped into their awareness after being triggered by other memories (details of movies seen a long time ago).

These experiences have proof-level certainty to the individuals concerned, equaling the knowledge about the existence of the conscious self. Yet materialist atheists believe in the finality and fatality of death over what these proof-level experiences suggest about conscious existence - that death is simply an exit to the originating context of reality. A case of belief in observations overruling first-hand proof-level knowledge and the hints they tell us.

On “religions causing most of the evil”.

When discussing belief systems and confronting materialists/naturalists/physicalists about their beliefs, a common, generalized response often comes up: “religion has been responsible for all (or most) evil during history”, “for good people to do bad stuff, that takes religion”, etc. As examples, they often list historical events, atrocities caused in the name of religion (like the inquisition). They also often cite the Jihadis of Islam, the greed of Televangelists, and the pedophilia and molestation happening in various churches or religious institutions from more recent times. While these and other such events undoubtedly happened, and they were truly horrific, let’s examine how ‘religion’ can be held responsible for them.

Religions are belief systems. An individual’s unique interpretation of any tenet of a major religion already amounts to a different, distinct belief system. So even if one claims to be an adherent of a major religion/belief system, the way one understands and sees its tenets may amount to an already modified, unique version of that religion. This can be caused by as little as not understanding/subscribing to a tenet or understanding it slightly differently from others. Thus, there are all kinds of belief systems out there, representing widely different philosophies, teachings, tenets held by individuals/groups. And one’s unique belief system may not represent a major ‘religion’ in general, even if one considers oneself an adherent of a religion.

People’s behavior, motivations, and thinking are driven by their worldview - whether consciously or unconsciously. Things that are OK/allowed/encouraged (or not) directly follow the belief system’s logic that underlies their worldview. Thus, one can speak of belief systems as the primary causes that allow/encourage/discourage despicable behavior/thoughts/desires/motivations. The next major source of such acts is the ‘weakness’ to adhere to one’s otherwise benevolent belief system. But human weakness is a common theme probably no one debates. Most of the remaining such acts are caused by belief systems that somehow directly or indirectly allow/call for these types of acts to be committed. Typically, they arise from misinterpretations of tenets of major religions (and thus, they amount to separate unique belief systems) or are major religions that will likely end up far from representing the eventual unfolding reality (like those who call for ritual human sacrifices, for example).

Materialism is also a belief system, holding that all of reality is physical. One of its main tenets states that, at the point of death, conscious existence ceases to exist without a trace (except in the memories of others - legacy), and there comes nothing to the individual - memory is lost forever, awareness extinguishes, and everything will be over. During life, an adherent may irrationally care about a legacy they leave behind, but even that is a fickle concept, as ultimately, no conscious beings will remain to recall anything.

The complete extinguishment of one’s consciousness at the point of death logically leads to no real (recallable/experienced) consequences to one’s life. I argue that it is precisely this belief (no afterlife, no consequence) that allows/causes most evil/irresponsible/selfish acts, not to mention suicides. The ability to pull the plug when worse comes to worst and the belief that all will be over with death (no afterlife) is probably the greatest enabler/motivator for the truly sick minds out there to proceed with their deeds.

There are likely plenty of those who believe in NO afterlife, but hide behind the facade of a religion, precisely to get into positions that enable their selfish deeds. Pedophile priests and televangelists out for personal enrichment easily fit this category, and so do all ‘religious’ people assisting in atrocities of any kind. They are simply non-believers acting out their selfish sick deeds under the umbrella of a religion. Either that, or they are simply incredibly weak or foolish to act so, DESPITE believing in their otherwise benevolent belief systems that clearly teach against these types of behaviors.

In the end, there are belief systems that in their logic encourage benevolent/good behavior in people with their teachings/tenets and those that fall short of this. This makes the typical atheists/materialists' claim on religion per se causing evil wrong.

The materialist leap-of-faith.

Something for those atheists/agnostics who make sense of their reality using science and evidence to ponder: when humans gain consciousness, they slowly discover the rules by which their reality works consistently. During this process, they typically end up assessing: “𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 - 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 - 𝘢𝘮 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵”. This effectively makes them 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗽𝗵𝘆 𝗼𝗳 ‘𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺’. Materialism/naturalism/physicalism, indeed, helps most atheists/agnostics make logical sense of their reality.

However, the only thing conscious humans can really assess is: “𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘰 𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨/𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯”. Thus, those atheists/agnostics who make sense of their reality using science and evidence take a much larger 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵 than justified. The missing justification could be fulfilled with proof of 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗻. (And here, observing and mapping brain activity to conscious processes does not equal proof, as those can simply be manifestations presented in their observations.)

Thus, materialism represents a trap in thinking that will prevent one from reasoning about any objective meaning and purpose of conscious existence, only concluding that each human can arrive at one subjectively. Reasoning beyond the observable reality - without evidence or proof, relying on faith to wager on the most likely scenario of reality - is the only way to conclude any meaning and purpose of conscious existence that is to be objectively valid to all humans. And having an objective meaning and purpose for conscious human existence simply makes more sense than not having any, so such reasoning and wagering are quite worthwhile.

Naturally, one will only find out if one’s ‘objective-to-be’ meaning was the right one after leaving the scene (making it a subjective wager during life), but the existence of such a meaning is there to strive to conclude.

Simulation - what it IS, and what it IS NOT.

Existence in a shared consciousness-centric simulated reality most likely

DOES NOT MEAN:

* that human participants other than me are not real - they are sovereign consciousnesses just like me

* that things/objects within are not real - as reality is simulated, ALL that is observable within IS real; there is nothing that is ‘more real’ than things presented by the simulation (except for other conscious participants)

* that it is running on some kind of physical computer device somewhere in some base reality that is physical in nature (by aliens or us in the future, etc.) - think about your dreams as simulations created by YOUR consciousness; similarly, our simulation is likely running in the mind of the creator consciousness

* that there is some kind of infinite regress of simulations running nested simulations - a few tiers can logically accommodate all possible nested realities needed by eternal consciousnesses to participate in throughout infinity

* that simulation conflicts with any of the achievements of sciences or renders them invalid or irrelevant in any way - science remains as THE proper tool to uncover phenomena and the rules and configurations of reality WITHIN the simulation

DOES MEAN:

* that it is more likely to have its creator than not - just makes more sense that way; the available analogies in life (dreams and computer simulations) have their creator too

* that its creator is more likely to have a motivation and intent with its creation and our assignment to it than not - again, simply making more sense than not, especially given the continuous flow of consciousnesses entering it to this day

* that consciousness enters the system from an outside context of reality - it would be futile to search for the origin of consciousness WITHIN a computer simulation

* that conscious existence was not created/did not start out in this reality - most likely, it is an eternal, uncreated elemental entity of reality

* that your existence in this (or any) simulation can be considered a ‘success’ IF it aligns with the intention of the creator assigning you into this reality - you can have plenty of fun flying around in an actual flight simulator, but your time will only be successful if you manage to get your pilots license in the end

* that the creator’s intention with our assignment to this reality determines universal morality within

that the simulation needs only to run when its target audience is present in it

* that the ‘go-live’ time of the simulation may not correspond with the ‘internal beginning’ it points to within - the former is the time the simulation started accepting its target audience; the latter is for the target audience to make sense of the simulation’s internal reality.

* that no objects need to be materialized (need to exist) until they have been observed for the first time - the simulation may dynamically generate/materialize reality as conscious observers choose to observe, at the time of observation

* that observed reality need only to exist at the level of detail that is appropriate to its observation - this means great efficiency and no ‘wasted creation’ on the part of the creator.

* that rather than the extinguishment of consciousness upon death, one will exit back to the originating context of reality - you wake up to where you came from, as it happens in dreams.

* that each simulation a consciousness participates in may limit awareness to a different degree - as with dreams, we may regain awareness of a larger context when we exit this reality

MAY MEAN:

* that the ‘go-live’ time could have happened as recently as a few thousand years ago, while the ‘internal beginning’ time the simulation points to within can be the 13.8 billion or so years science concludes - this may even make both creationists and scientists both ‘kind of’ right as well as wrong

* that everything between the ‘internal beginning’ and the ‘go-live’ time did not actually take place within the simulation - processes that may have been needed to make an overall sense of reality in the future (to maintain internal integrity) could have been ‘fast-forwarded’ in an instant, not needing the 13.7 or so years of actual time to pass

* that at the go-live time (and perhaps at the shutdown-time as well), some participants may not have been ‘regular’ target audience participants, but either system-generated (non-playing) characters or real participants without the roles and responsibilities of the intended target audience members, simply assisting with the setup

* that all non-human participants in the simulation may be simulated, and not active sovereign participants of the simulation - however, as with everything that is part of presented by the simulation, they are still ‘real’.

* that consciousnesses may be going through up to infinitely many simulations, or as few as two or three

that entering finite simulations (where overall awareness is limited) from a default eternal simulation may be a practical, sane way to spend eternity

* that the total sum of consciousnesses in existence is constant during infinity - as they are uncreated and eternal