Yup, and don't worry, this was no criticism, although I didn't knew how to word it better.
kewl 
So reason forces you to be agnostic about everything, then? After all, you can't say with absolute certainty that the world is not flat, or that Global Warming is not caused by a decrease in the number of pirates, or that I am not a god manifesting here in the forum in order to mess with your head. So, you can't say that you don't believe in any of these things, because you think there's a tiny chance they might be true? Do you also allow for the possibility of a triangle with four sides, or that 2 + 2 = 5? Why should the question of the existence of gods merit a special answer?
If this being has no effect on the universe, it cannot be said to exist by any reasonable definition of the word. It's a moot concept. Besides, you're just pushing the idea of the gods who live on the mountaintop onto a more distant mountaintop. Why should anybody believe in such an idea? What purpose does it serve?
If there are life forms elsewhere in the universe, we could in fact detect them, unless you imagine they are immaterial. It's not an absurd idea, since we already have indisputable proof that such life forms can exist. However, without stronger evidence than the notion that they could be somewhere else out there, I think it is unreasonable to insist that others believe in them.
I don't follow you. It's a simple question: do you believe that gods exist? If you don't, you're an atheist. If you do, you're a theist. Knowledge one way or the other influences your answer, obviously -- as would belief about whether or not gods can be proven to exist -- but it isn't essential in order to come up with a response. How is this question any different from a question like "Do you believe that Bigfoot exists?" or "Do you believe that Marko Markoko exists?"
Again, not sure where you're coming from here. In my experience, theists accept other theists much more readily than they do atheists ("well, at least they believe in something"), and not believing in whatever wacky god concept a particular group of people has imagined is hardly the same as "being unable to envisage any other viewpoint." Again from my experience, atheists try to convince theists to question their beliefs, and theists do not like to have their beliefs questioned.
Yeah.... not seeing how this relates to Occam's Razor. The rejection of actual infinities and belief in causality are different principles.
For the record, I'm rather agnostic on both metaphysical assertions. I think at least some things are not linked in a temporal causal chain, simply due to quantum physics; they are still "caused" in a more extending meaning, however, in that their existence is derived from prexisting conditions. Whether ANY sate of existence is derived from a previous state - I don't know. Could be, but I suspect rather that the question loses its meaning due to issues involving the question "what is time"; my guess is that reality is rather consitent. For example, see Hawkins -
(Note that this does not deal with WHY things are this way, which is another question - a question of justification, not causation.)
As to whether there is an infinite causal chain - you do realize that the theory of General Relativity, which predicts the Big Bang, also predicts precisely such a chain? I rather tend to not take either too seriously; I suspect space-time is discrete, so there is no real infinity (there), and no real singularity either.
I'm not ruling out both assumptions being correct, however. And do agree that such would lead to a Prime Mover, First Cause, and so on. Still a long way from God, but already a picture of existence I'm very much not pleased with on aesthetic grounds - that First X forms a singularity, another type of thing in existence, a violation of Occam's Razor. So while recognizing it as a possibility, I reject it as a reasonable one unless the two metaphysical assertions could be given more warrant.
One should be careful. The Big Bang is not proven to be the starting point of the universe; rather, GR describes reality up to infinitely close to the big bang. The Big Bang point itself is not a physical state, and GR says nothing about it (well, nothing consistent), and what (if anything) happened "before" it, to the sides of it, or so on. It can't; for this, we need a better theory.
Sure, we can agree to that. Still seeking where this leads, through Reason alone, to the Divine.
Well, that's something other that mere existence, but that isn't significant. What's significant is that I can't see WHY. Why does our intelligence signify the existence of some Deity?
You said I can call the deity anything. If we'll call it Nature, then I agree - because that's another way of saying that the existence of intelligence implies Existence. Duh.
But presumably that's not your intent. I don't see intelligence as demonstrating ANYTHING except that intelligence exists, and is often an evolutionary advantage (which is hardly suprising). I completely fail to see why it reflects some transcendetal-being passing on anything to us. We know for a fact (much more established that the Big Bang) that it arose through natural selection much like teeth did; do teeth demonstrate that some Deity is trying to manifest through existence?
Most significant, notice that you put the Deity outside of Existence. That is the cardinal error with having a Deity, the central point I am trying to make - if God exists, then he IS part of existence. He therefore just cannot provide the ultimate explaination for the existence of intelligence. At best, he can explain why WE have intelligence, if he manipulated evolution or set up the universe in advance to create it. Assuming he himself is intelligent, intelligence is hence clearly non-indicative of God shining through, since God's intelligence isn't indicative of God's-God shining through (or is it... ad infinitum, providing no real explanation of intelligence). Even if he isn't intelligent, his actions would still not explain the existence of intelligence. Assuming a deity does NOT produce an ultimate explanation (for intelligence or anything else) - it just hides our lack of understanding by using vague and self-conflicting concepts (a god which exists but isn't a part of existence...).
That is the difference between a deity and a powerful alien. Even dawkins does not dispute the possibility of powerful aliens, that we are in their simulation, or so on; he recognizes it at least as a coherent possiblity. What he objects to strongly, and I with him, is the pseudo-philosophical deity that's supposed to give final answers, to be above Nature, to be complex from the get-go. That's just not reasonable.
Everything that exists just exists - this isn't because "all is chaos without purpose", but rather because there is no other way to seriously contemplate existence. It isn't possible for existence to be designed from outsdie reality - there is nothing outside reality to design it. It isn't possible for existence to have been created for a purpose, since there is nothing outside existence that can imbue it with purpose. Nothing exists outside existence. The best we can have is a self-justification: the universe may create itself, it may imbue itself with meaning, and so on; I don't reject such notions of a deity (e.g. the Omega Point of Tipler) as incompatible with Reason, although I don't think there is much evidence for them - but this doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.
The utility of "all is chaos without purpose" is hence explanation - it is understanding what form reality can possibly take. Reality just cannot have an overall meaning imbued by a transcendental being (the universe can, but that's immaterial to our determination of our life's meanings and goals - but that's another argument). It also serves to motivate us to devise scientific laws and understanding based on universal, low-level rules, since these are precisely the laws we would expect such a naturalistic universe to have at its bottom - an approach that has been immensly fruitful.
Regardless of its utility, I reject your pragmatiism. I don't believe the truth of a statement about reality - whether God exists, whether Big Foot exists, whether morality is objective, and so on - should be determined based on how useful it is. Pragmatism should only enter as a consideration for actual policy, not belief. This is the opposite of the use of Reason - pragmatic considerations simply should have no bearing on rationally held beliefs.
I am not trying to convert you to atheism. I would say, however, that I simply fail to see a valid chain of reasoning from intelligence to Deity, as I explained above.
See, your Deity is outside Nature - it the "author" of nature. That's just incoherent. What about the nature of the Deity? Doesn't the deity exist? Isn't it a part of Existence? Isn't its nature, hence, just part of Nature as a whole? The seperation you drive between God and Nature is just inconsistent. God must be natural not in the sense that its actions are Nature; they aren't, they are merely part of Nature i.e. of Existence, just like ours are or any other thing's in existence is [with the exception of pantheism, but this doesn't alter things beyond nomenaclature]. God follows his nature just like everything else does. Not because I constrain god, but because that is the only way to think - to the extent something behaves or displays any qualities whatsoever, these will abide some description, which is its nature; to the extent something cannot be described, it cannot be thought of, it is just meaningless and incoherent empty speech.
What seeps through is reality, with its underlying structure. You are more complex than the Sims, true. But you are NOT more than just electrons - not at the level of Reality, only at the level of its organization. Sure, if we are Simulanders then we don't share God's structure, but we share his reality. So we do have the same underlying nature, and we are both equally real.
Don't know that story. And not what I meant.
What I was getting at was that the only way to think about existence is through metaphysical naturalism, i.e. by thinking of all of existence (including any possible god) as being composed of things (possibly one thing) with a nature (that can be described in a certain manner). This leads to the conclusion that a transcendental god is impossible; nothing that exists lies outside existence.
I fail to see your arguments lead there. It seems to me they lead to reality with no deity being undesirable (to you), and that Intelligence (I'd say Consciousness) is a constituent of reality.
Please.
We can prove these to be false.
But can you devise a means to prove me the non-existence of god(s)?
Oh, and yes, you could 
Although I consider this to be extremely unlikely, this is still possible, even if it is only 1 chance on uncalculable odds.
So, if a tree falls without anyone hearing it, it didn't happen?
Perception of an event defines its reality?
Neither you or I have any discernable effect on the universe. Does this means we don't exist?
If such an entity stayed quiet, doing nothing more than a human, we coulnd't observe it, but still, it'd exist, no?
Or if it had left our universe?
But we haven't yet, just as we havent detected god(s).
Does this mean they don't exist?
Well, you're lucky, then.
I've been the target of theists wanting me to absolutely believe on jesus our savior and all, but I've also had atheists friends becoming hostile when hearing about someone's religion, which shocked me by reminding me of those theists attitude.
And, excuse me, I don't wanna be offensive, but... You seem to be completely unable to envision the possibility of a "quiet" god, who, having either left our universe or staying quiet, is currently undetectable to us. How is it any different from a theist being unable to envision a godless universe?
Ouch, you guys are really stretching my english skills, this is giving me headaches 
You seem to be very knowledgeable about all this, so maybe you could explain/confirm/infirm something to me?
IIRC, space and time are linked, and, if you've got one, you've got the other?
But, then, if space was created by the big bang, it then also created time?
So, there couldn't be a "before" the big bang, because time didn't exist???
Ah, yes.
This is something we often forget: The map is not the territory.
The big bang is just a model that, based on our current knowledge, describes how things worked.
With each new scientific discovery, this model will maybe be confirmed as a good depiction of things, be adjusted somewhat for minor accuracies (thus leading to a "better" model) or, possibly, be rejected as false.
Oh, I like it 
Even with a "bigger" universe in which he created ours, even if he's some kind of "thinking universe", he's still in it the result of a natural thing, even if pure random chance.
And this soooooo goes well with my consideration of god(s), even as omnipotent creator(s) of our universe and all, as just "people with power"
I don't know dawkins, but, reading this, I like him
Funny thing is, such a thing doesn't impact on its existence or not even as creator of our universe, just its own nature.
Oooooh yes!
Hum... I'm not an expert, but i believe we can already design computer environment with different physical laws than in ours.
So, while the sims's reality is constrained by ours (We couldn't have them travel through time), it could still, for exemple, have an increased entropy, or no entropy at all, or a slower light speed (not a faster!).
No?
There's much more I could address, as now we're moving into abstract algebra, which is my territory of choice.
That time and space are inextricable stems from the fact that time is just a dimension we can't move in freely and space is one we (relatively) can. I don't mean dimensions like Dr. Strange here, I mean dimensions like "up". Time is merely another axis of measurement, mutually perpendicular to the three axes we like to think of as defining space, which is really just the limited vector field of "R3", or three-dimensional real-space. Add time to your axes, and you're still only looking at "R4" - four-dimensional real-space. And so on.
This brings up two logical fallacies with the notion of "starting". We are so used to the notion of time moving as a one-dimensional ray, because that is what we view it as, but really, it's just another axis. To say, "he beginning of time" then, makes as much sense as to say "the beginning of up".
We know quite a bit about the properties of our observable three dimensions, and significantly less about four-space, and by the time you're talking C8 things are so apesh*t that it takes two years of college mathematics just to figure out how to multiply.
Huh? How can you prove these things are false? How could you prove that a god is not responsible for putting these words on the forum? How could you prove that the world is not flat? How could you prove that global warming is not linked to diminishing numbers of pirates?
You can't. It is impossible to prove a negative. The only thing you can do is try to prove an alternative idea with more credibility, but even that doesn't prove that the other one is impossible.
Take proving that the world is a sphere, which seems like it would be pretty easy to prove, since there is so much data that this would explain. But how can you prove that the world is not actually a special kind of flat that allows for the data by appearing to be round? Maybe it has rounded edges, and things get teleported from one edge to another. Maybe some powerful faerie makes it appear to be a sphere when it is actually a flat plane, or several different interconnected planes. Maybe it's all an elaborate dream and is a different shape for everyone.
You see? My point is, why are you agnostic about the existence of gods, but not about the shape of the earth? I think it's reasonable to conclude that some theories are useless for explaining the way the world works, and that it is unreasonable to expect others to take them on faith.
You see how this is a useless question? You have a theory, you imagine that gods exist. I refuse to believe in this theory without credible evidence. It therefore falls to you to prove that your theory is plausible, not to me to prove that it isn't. This is just like my theory that the world is flat. You don't believe it, so it falls to me to prove it to you. (I suspect you will remain "a-flat-earth-ist." 
)
I don't see how you can say that something happened if it didn't happen. If a tree falls, the tree falls. If I am to believe that a tree has fallen, it is not unreasonable for me to expect to have some evidence for this conclusion, though, such as seeing it fall, or finding a fallen tree and examining the broken stump, or hearing a loud noise in the distance. It is unreasonable to decide that just because it is possible that a given tree has fallen, that tree must have fallen. Likewise, it is unreasonable for a person to conclude that gods exist (or that gods are not non-existent, which is the same thing) simply because he can imagine that they exist.
Again, this is simply not true. I do have an effect on the universe. Why, just right now, I exerted pressure with my fingers on my computer keyboard, thus writing this sentence. I leave evidence of my existence wherever I go. If a person wanted to prove that I exist, it would not be very difficult, since they could just fly out to California this August and shake my hand at the Regional Tribunal.
I think this is stretching the definitions of "god" and "exist" beyond reason.
I suppose you could argue that gods once existed but erased all evidence of their passing before they went away. However, this hypothesis can't be proven, so it's as useless as any other idea about gods living on a distant mountaintop. Not only that, it isn't a complete theory since it says nothing about where these gods lived and how they could affect the world in ways normal beings could not. If you could prove that there is a place where such beings could exist, or a way that they could have affected the universe in which we live, you'd be a lot closer to getting others to accept the idea as credible.
So? Life on other planets is still a plausible theory. We know how life forms can come into being, and we can make reliable predictions about what sorts of planets might be conducive to life. We have no data about the sorts of places gods live, because we have no credible evidence that they even exist. Can you suggest some places we might look for gods? We're running out of mountaintops.
I do not believe that they do. Do you? If someone were to claim that he had been abducted by little green men from an advanced civilization who have given him a physical and then dropped him off in the lake, would you believe him? You can't prove he wasn't... Are you agnostic about alien abductions and UFOs?
Atheists sometimes say that they could easily be convinced to believe in gods, if those gods could be proven to exist. Likewise, I would certainly believe in aliens if I could prove their existence. No belief is the default position, though. Why should a rational person believe that aliens exist?
I'm sorry, but someone who is passionate about atheism or hostile about religion still isn't religious, even if you see a parallel to similar behavior in theists. Atheists don't follow to a religion, and they would probably be offended by the suggestion that they do, for the reasons Erik Tyrrell mentioned in his post earlier.
I can imagine such a God, sure. Doesn't my work on the Divine book demonstrate that? But like many other fantasy stories, atheists don't believe that this one about gods is real. Without some credible evidence that such gods once existed, atheists see no reason why they must allow for the possibility that they actually did.
Anyway, most theists don't believe in gods that have no effect on the universe. Their gods intercede all the time, it's a big part of the reason why they believe in them. If atheists could get theists to truly accept that their gods have no influence in the physical world, a lot of the harm that many of them believe religions cause would cease.
Indeed, or a unicornist being unable to envision a unicornless universe? Or a flat-earthist being unable to envision a universe where earth is not flat? Or a 2+2=5ist being unable to envision that 2+2=4? Some people just believe things, despite having no evidence to support their belief, or even despite evidence to the contrary.
It is impossible to prove a positive as well. All I have proof of o=is my own existance, and it requires faith to accept anything more than that. If you indeed possess your own intelligence and you are not a figment of my imagination, prove to me that you are a human being on earth, rather than an ALF on Glaxxon plugged into a Virtual Reality machine since birth. (The first Matrix was a mind twister, the others were sora lame 
)
Allrighty then, I will see you there!
Still, all that will prove is that my perception of you exists. It does not prove my perceptions are real.
Some may call you suerstitious in your limited concept of what Deity can be. Maybe their are realms of existance you are unable to yet percieve. Maybe you need to look inside yourself.
Where we seem to have our primary disconnect is in semantics, using a positive/negative scale. I see "no belief" as in itself a belief. I cannot escape that. Assigning positive/negative qualifications is just our rationalization of perception. Is the glass half empty or half full? Is evil a force or is it merely a lack of good?
Put it this way, as a positive noun. The aetheistic philosophy, do bbelieve it to be true or untrue? Theism, do you believe it to be a legitimate philosophy or am I mentally ill and deranged? (I am not saying you said that, and it is almost impossible to offend me electronically, because I come from a world of fist-fights and broken teeth, and this is all just freindly banter to me).
To whittle myself down to a new, simpler thesis, I state this. Both Theism and Atheism are systems of belief based upon the individual perceptions and interpretation of data of the adherants.
Is that fair?
No, I don't accept the argument that it is impossible to prove anything and therefore nothing is true. For example, we are certain enough that the world is rougly spherical in shape that we can make accurate predictions and calculations based upon it. Yes, it could be that the world is actually a flat plane, but the evidence for it being spherical is so strong that there's no point in our allowing for any other possibility in our equations. Facts are true enough; when you've performed act A enough times and demonstrated that every time effect B happens, you can state that A causes B. Yes, it's still possible that something else could happen, but the chances are so remote it's really not worth discussing.
You are stretching the definition of the word "faith" to include "knowledge." There is a big difference between accepting that the person you are conversing with actually exists, and accepting that there are immaterial demons in your underwear.
You are asking me to prove a negative, Marko. I cannot prove that I am not ALF on Glaxxon. 
I can give you credible enough evidence in person to prove that I am a human being, like other human beings, and that where I live is on earth, the same earth that you live on. I hope that this would convince you, but I accept that you could remain an "a-Erik Dahlist" or even an "Erik Dahl is ALF on Glaxxon-ist." I don't think either position is particularly reasonable, though.
Enh. As an action movie it was good, but as a philosophical concept it was kind of weak. It wasn't strong enough to stand up to two more movies-- they eventually had to move the gods to another even more distant mountain, another reality outside the reality outside reality if you see what I mean.
Now you are redefining the terms "real" and "exists" into impossibilities. If we can't agree that measurable things are more credible than fancies, our discussion is pointless.
I'll ask you what I asked The Fixer: why? What benefit is there in a person believing that imaginary things exist?
I mean, imagine how cool it would be if Mythic Europe actually existed! What if there were really wizards and dragons and fairies and so on? Wow... Um, okay, now what?
Now you are just redefining "belief" to mean "lack of belief." The number of things you must believe in increases to absurd levels if not believing in something is believing in something. You believe that the world is not flat. You believe that the world is not a cube. You believe that the world is not a trapezoid. You believe that the world is not a pyramid. Et cetera, et cetera. What about no belief in things you've never heard of? You don't believe in squirgs. You don't believe in Gwyuipwnth. You don't believe in u^1!2h9jI. It is unreasonable to call these non-beliefs beliefs, because doing so renders the term "belief" meaningless.
I can't be sure of your terms. What is "the aetheistic philosophy"? What philosophy is theism?
Also, no offense, but this question comes across like you're asking "Do you believe in atheism?" It's a leading question that assumes atheism is a philosophy that atheists believe. Atheism, as far as most atheists I know use it, means "no belief in gods." It does not mean "belief that are no gods." It means that when they answer the question on a survey that asks their religion, they choose "none." It is a null value in the belief in gods column. If you ask atheists "Do you believe in gods?" they will answer no. If you ask atheists "Do you believe that there are no gods?" they will answer "no belief" if they can, otherwise they will probably select yes and complain that the question is phrased badly.
I think people who believe that gods exist and affect the world they live in suffer from a Delusion, like the Ars Magica Flaw. It's a Minor Flaw, and I can generally live with it. I wouldn't say they are mentally ill or deranged unless their beliefs lead to them acting in a way that endangers themselves or others. I don't imagine you truly believe that gods exist and affect the world you live in; you seem to accept the proposition that since you can imagine gods exist, you cannot deny that they do, but that's not really the same as actually believing in gods. I imagine that you don't believe in gods for the most part, but that you sometimes act as if you do for cultural and societal reasons.
No, sorry. Again, atheism isn't a belief system. It is a lack of belief. I accept that theists base their beliefs on what they think is credible evidence of gods. Atheists lack credible evidence for gods, and so do not believe in them. Likewise "flat-earth-ists" might believe that the earth is flat, and "a-flat-earth-ists" are unconvinced. "Erik Dahl-ists" have the belief that I exist, and "a-Erik Dahl-ists" do not. "A-Erik Dahl-ism" is not a system of belief, it is simply the absence of belief in me. Most of the world is made up of "a-Erik Dahl-ists," but they would probably be confused or offended if you told them that they followed the "a-Erik Dahl-ist" religion.
Except that I do. I really, really do. Last week, I am walking home at 2 in the morning on Sunday, andthere was a speeding car headed straight for me. I mean, it seems as if he is trying to compleate a contract! I weave left, right, and jump out of the way at the last second. I felt air! He goes up over the curb, takes out a transformer, and keeps going. Cop is right on his tail.
Now, I realize that this is exactly the sort of behavior you would call fanciful and superstitious, but my very first instinct was to attribute this all to divine providence. God blessed me with enough sense and reflexes at my ancient old age to escape uninjured. There were to any coincidental factors for me to attribute to simple chaotic causality. (sp?). I should not have been there at that place and time if all had gone normal. I was meant to take it as a lesson.
And that is not the only time I have experienced providence. I should be dead many times by now, yet I live. Maybe I am superstitious, but I have felt the hand of God in my life many times.
Now to put your mind at ease and let you know I am not crazy, the Voice of God does not speak to me. He doesn't tell me Erik Dhal is an infidel or anything, and if he did I would conclude that it is schitzophrenia and see the doctor. This is deeper philosophy that Theism versus Atheism. This is my saying that, in order for God to qualify to be God, he should naturally act within certain boundaries. Not that he is limited to these boundaries, but simply that these boundaries define what God must e.
And to reverse the statement, I would say that you are not truly atheistic. You simply don't want to pick the wrong god, so you choose none.
But yeah, it would be way wicked awesom if Mythic Europe were real. Even just Virtually real. Tune in, turn on, and plug in
My apologies for speculating incorrectly about your beliefs.
I don't think this anecdote contributes any meaningful data for or against the existence of gods. We don't need benevolent immaterial beings watching over you in order to explain why the car didn't hit you, because there are other explanations that don't require the existence of the supernatural. The simpler explanation is that you have good reflexes, and that you were lucky. Occam's Razor suggests that given two equally reasonable explanations of the data, the simpler one is probably true.
Incidentally, I don't think it's abnormal to think such events mean that there is something special about you. You must admit, though, that this can bias your viewpoint. If you are going to make empirical conclusions about the nature of the world, impartiality is essential.
If you could better define those boundaries, you might be able to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis for your theory, and thus create an experiment where you can collect meaningful and impartial evidence. Currently, your definition for an act of god seems to be indistinguishable from coincidence. What can you say about gods except that sometimes things happen for no discernible reason? Do they have any measurable properties, do they obey any recognizable laws? This idea that you profess to believe in seems to me very nebulous and undefined.
I suppose I deserve that for speculating about your beliefs in a way that might have come across as belittling. Again, I'm sorry.
By that logic, though, I am not a-unicornistic either, not truly. I must believe deep down that there are some unicorns out there somewhere, I just haven't found them yet. Do you see how that doesn't make sense? You are suggesting belief in something fantastic is a choice, rather than an impartial assessment of available evidence. I don't want to believe in the wrong fable, so I'm choosing not to believe in any of them?
I've often wondered if Ars Magica would make an interesting online RPG. The problem is that you really need multiple characters, and you'd also have to include insane amounts of down time. Events would have to proceed without you if you choose to spend all your time in the lab, which makes the multi-player interface difficult. But I dunno, maybe events could be tied to Story and Personality Flaws somehow, so that things would come looking for you and treat you differently based on them, and maybe you could switch characters all you like among the ones you control, so that a solo game would give you control of several mages and companions while a multiplayer game would give you access to a smaller set of them. Adventures would probably have to be more abstract, too, with less roleplaying. Still, it would probably be a blast.
As Muttonbone explained above - yes to all of the above.
A common analogy is to think of the north pole. In this similie, the latitude is measuring "time", so a latitude of of zero, the equator, might be half-way through the life of the universe. A latitude of 90-degrees, the north pole, is the Big Bang. A latitude of -90 degrees, the south pole, is the Big Crunch (doesn't exist in our universe, would in others). Now - what's north of the north pole? The question is meaningless. The norther you get, the closer you get to the north pole, but you can't get any norther than it!; the further back in time you get, the closer you get to the Big Bang, but you can't get any closer than it!
Keep in mind that the above is true in General Relativity, but GR probably doesn't give a good description of reality near the Big Bang. I think the majority opinion would be that a theory of Quantum Gravity is required, and that within it there probably won't be a true singularity and there would be something like spacetime carrying on beyond our universe, beyond the Big Bang (and other boundaries of our universe, if any). This something may have very different geometries than our universe, so may have multiple time-like axes, or no time-like dimensions, 11-dimensions instead of our 4 (3 space + 1 time), and so on - it get awfully complicated, and the details are very, very far from being worked out.
True. However, it undermines the motivation many people seem to have to believe in God, namely that it provides meaning, purpose, morality, a foundation for Reason, and so on. This may, hopefully, lead to a more reason-based discussion of the issues.
Certain laws of physics, such as the increase in entropy and the minimization of free-energy, are so general that I'd be hard-pressed to imagine any possible physics that would not display them. Nevertheless, yes - we do indeed simulate other physics, and regularly so.
In principle, if Simulanders press the simulation hard enough the limited computational capacity of their simulation would show through, which would allow them to pierce another layer of physics - perhaps exploring the physics of transistors and electric-circuits, for example, surely in very convoluted ways. Regardless, they would probably not be able to piece together the physics underlying our reality, since their substratum (the computer they run on) doesn't experience a wide enough range of conditions (e.g, gravity isn't important, nor are radioactive processes, and so on...).
However, even if they would never discover it, they really are overned by the same physics we are. They are as real as we are.
Oh, are you a mathematician?
I'm a physicist, although not working in GR or Quantum-Gravity or anything like that; all that I'm saying here is at the level of dim memories and common knowledge.
I'm not really sure, but I believe that the open-universe cosmology is the current leading contender, that is we believe our universe has infinite spatial dimensions. So while we could go infinitely far up, we cannot go infinitely far back in time (although we can go infinitely forward in time) - so there is a difference. (This is a matter of geometry that doesn't change anything - there is still a Big Bang, it's still the start of time and of space, and so on.)
(I'm pretty sure you know this, Muttonbone, but wanted to note tha point for the record.)
I'm with Erik.
There are lots of possiblities about anything - the shape of the world and so on. You should not believe any of these possibilities unless you have warrant, which primarily is the ability to make falsifiable predictions. We believe the world is a sphere because it fits the facts in an accurate, detailed, and predictive manner. That's warrant.
I think I have raised arguments to warrant disbelief in a God, as opposed to a powerful alien.
Now Erik already explained that it is the belief in Gods that requires warrant, not the disbelief. But "atheism" is a problematic title since it is defined in opposition to something. I'd like to point out two positive beliefs I have that may be confused with atheism - I shall dub them "uniformism" and "basism".
By uniformism here I mean that our reality is best described by universal uniform laws that apply to very small elements of reality, well below the level of the person. Much like Occam's Razor, I believe uniformism is the default position. It's simplest. You'd need warrant to think otherwise. Regardless, it has been strongly warranted, having seen extraordinary predictive success - the assumption that the world can be described by universal uniform descriptions that apply well below the level of the person has yielded amazing scientific fruits.
Uniformism isn't opposed to the possibility of a (natural) deity (i.e. a powerful alien). It does, however, stipulate that the rules in this and any other level of reality are not at the level of the person, so it does constrain it. It contradicts with the existence of interventionalist gods, ones that step in to intefere with their simulation. In light of its apriori default position and the great warrant it has due to its scientific success, I think you'd need very good evidence to argue for such deities.
The second position is the one I think The Fixer/Markoko have more problems with, which is that we are living in the base reality. Not in a simulation or created reality. This is where I think your case is strongest - what is the warrant to believe that this is the case? I know some philosophers argue for the opposite, arguing that it's more likely that we live in a simulation. I think it's pretty obvious that the default position should be the basism, however I can't say I can provide too many arguments for this... at least not at this hour...
I was bemused by The Matrix. It was a great action movie, but it totally botched the philosophical allegory. We were not brains in a vat, we were actual bodies; the shadows on wall were three-dimensional, reality was actually very similar to virtual reality. Still, I was pleased that it caused people to think. I remember children walking in front of me as I got out of the movie, speaking excitedly about "what if we ARE in the Matrix?". Any movie that can do that is a winner in my book.
Hmm. I'm not sure. Would it be cool if it existed "out there"? Sure. Would it be cool to live in it? I don't think so. It's great in some respects, but it's horrible in others. I think I prefer to live in our modern world.
How old are you? I thought I was ancient. (32 years old)
I noticed that earlier versions of FRP use a default of 5 risk, But 6.04 uses a default of 2.
Can you please explain the reason for the difference?
Thanks
Sandy
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