God the computer nerd. (Kind of far-out theory)

[jedisonic]

I'm going through kindof a period of doubt about some of my beleifs right now, and here's something I've been speculating on:

What if God is just a kind of programmer, or computer nerd, and the universe as we know it is merely a .exe program running on his pentium 39902593285?

Surely you agree that human logic cannot explain everything. But what if human logic is flawed only because it was programmed incorrectly?

I'm a hobbiest programmer myself, and I've written a game called "InfinitAce" which you can download at http://www.geocities.com/jedi_sonic_1990/cppgames : )
In the game, if your ship collides with an enemy ship, and you don't have sheilds, you explode. The computer basically thinks of your ship as being rectangle-shaped (the shape of the image which represents your ship). So basically, if the corner of your "rectangle" collides with the corner of the "rectangle" that is your enemy, you explode. Since your space-ship isn't portrayed as rectangle-shaped in the game, this can result in rather un-realistic "collision detection".

So what I'm saying is, what if there is a whole different, more advanced level of logic beyond our comprehension, and God is merely a mortal being who lives in that universe and programmed (created) ours? And what if, by "true" logic, everything an athiest believes in actually makes sense, and we cannot comprehend it anymore than the game I wrote can comprehend a circle-shaped UFO, and for the same reasons?


I'm sorry if this is at all out of place, but I felt like getting it out and seeing what other people had to say about it.

--Josh A.

[Jin-Roh]

I thought the same theory back when I was a depressed middle-schooler. You can imagine my shock when I saw the matrix. :smile:

To answer your question though, I think that your hypothesis would be impossible to prove, and difficult to present evidence for. Also, if it was how that change Christian Dogma? Would God cease to be our creator or our savior? Would it change man's nature? Would it affect things like the Telelogical argument for God's existance?

[Xavier]

I actually thought of this the other day when confronted with the fact that one of my "hacker" friends was an atheist...

Isn't there a new theory conserning evolution that says that a coded program is responsible for the process as opposed to natural selection?

I was watching C-SPAN the other day and saw a book talk about how certain leaves use complex fractals to lay out their vein patterns.

I think it certainly is plausable that God would use some kind of program is designing the universe.

I don't claim to know how this idea would change theology. I simply have not had enough education.

Xavier

[Stephen]

I think its one of those things that seems to be only speculative, but can't be proven or disproven.

I will, however, say that theologically, God is spoken of multiple times as ruling, and none of the time is it portrayed that distant.

Also, how would a program-like being, be able to make an eternally significant decision that will actually take them outside of that system? If they truly only existed in the program, then it does not leave rooms for human souls, so it seems that we could not exist outside of the finite "program".

*Off Topic: Welcome to the board, Jedisonic!

Stephen

[jedisonic]

I don't really follow the above post; according to my hypothosis, we're all just variables, or in programmer talk you might say that each of us is an instance of the class "human".

Well, it's cool to hear someone say that they also thought that when they were a depressed middleschooler because guess what I am? A depressed middle-schooler! LOL

I agree with reply #2 about the fact that, no it probably wouldn't have much effect on things one way or the other. Just speculation I guess ;-)