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What I mean when I say illusion is that what we perceive as real is actually not real. Think about it for a second, when you asleep and begin to dream of a huge tarantula chasing after, is your first reaction going to be to question if this is all real. If our minds can create a world in which we are lead to believe it is real than what is the meaning of real.

For example, in lucid dreaming you can do just about anything but the fact still lies that all that you create in there is a mere illusion. An illusion so strong that you can feel pain in a dream or even taste food. So I ask, do you guys think that maybe will in a matrix world

I can't really prove otherwise, but if that is true, maybe this illusion is reality? Why not? For example, if you somehow fell asleep forever, and spent the rest of your life in your dream...would that dream not become your idea of reality? Even if it is not real to us, it would be very real to you I imagine. Same goes here, even if our idea of reality is just an illusion, it is still our idea of reality, making it real enough for us (or me anyway, I can't really presume to speak for the rest of mankind).

I knew it! The world is flat (And Bermuda Triangle is the edge). Scientists are fooling us. Sue them, and NASA.....

I hope everything is an illusion.

You bring an interesting thought to the table. My friend kinda thinks like you. He says living is a dream and death and sleep our us awakening from that dream to cold realitly of the actual world. But he said this while pretending to be philosophical after watching the matrix.

Eistien said that we live in 6 different worlds at the same time and see them in dreams.

Well, there's something in the relativity or string theories that suggest all reality is a hologram projected through a disk. I dunno, it was on Nova or something and I just can't remember. Quantum mechanics is just so batshit crazy...

Any theory with Quantum mechanics involved is now disregarded for other realistic theories. Thank you.

http://xkcd.com/1240/

Matrix world? Unlikely. Not cost effective and we might as well be dead.

Reality is a program? Meh, as long as the computer doesn't shut down we should be fine. Maybe we will develop a kind of carrier virus that will transport us to different computers by awesomeness.

Dreams are real and life isn't? Well I think most of us are screwed for reading endmaster's stories. ^.^

Reality is just a normal place that has this need to find something that explains everything in one swoop? Yep.

Endmaster is reality.

Could be but unlikely 

I can actually control my dreams (via reciting religious scripts funny enough), and I realize when I dream. But sadly I can't do that here. Well, I don't THINK I can, but I actually may...?

Though the idea that we live in a computer simulation built by a God-like humanoid and every action is just due to computer programming was an idea I played with years ago.

If we are all programmed by a god to be a machine.

He programmed me to really hate gods and authority.

Nah, see-- According to my silly idea, all this is just a big Game to watch for 'him'. He's just a computer programmer, and we are simply an 'app' created by complicated programming. He doesn't care what we do, but he watches our petty wars (with generated 'chance' mechanics as well) behind a computer screen.

It's a joke idea, and it amused me at the time :P

Whats the chance I grow wings at random.

In world like that? 'He' would probably program Evolution in, with a .000000000000000001% of a freak-mutation like that happening at all. However, following the "Rules of Earth" we live in, you can't grow them now, you'd have to be a mutated baby who was born with it, though it wouldn't be successful and you'd probably die when born or something :P (once again, calculated)

The real illusion, is that we think we can define the illusion - or is that a delusion?

double post

I guess the reality of it all is that we will never truly know. What if we live an advance game of Sims, think about it though. Each Sim is programmed to be able to do what they want depending on their personalities. I think this debate will continue to puzzle the future generation. But reality also prompts us question if there was a Creator behind all that we see.

Look at the Intelligent Design argument, where some 'scientists' argue that some things in the universe are better understood only if a Creator is behind it. While I fully disagree with this arguememt since its points is based on what science has yet to to understand. The classical example they use is the fact of our existence. How that Earth is in a aright distance from the sun and that the properties of water are so great that it was created for existence.

And the funny part about this is that they tell people half truths, they don't tell people its not only the distance from the sun that effect Earth's climate but also its tilt. And the 'special property' of water also known as hydrogen-bonds don't only exist in water but also in other molecular bonds. So guys, do you think our existence is due to a creator?

 

There is a creator. Is anyone with me?

See, I HATE agreeing with you. It's unfortunate.

I agree that there could be a god out there, but I don't agree that he created life as we know it today just like that.

Only if the creator created microbial life through its thermodynamic miracles and as able to consitently form multiple life forms from many multitudes of said cells. It's basically been proven that the mitochondria in cells were seperate organisms at one point, humans would hardly exist without these mitchondria, and thus even those cells must have been evolved from an ancestor cell of sorts, so that they could function well without those things. Give me some cold, hard scientific facts supporting the idea that everything as we know it today suddenly popped up on earth as soon as it was habitable, and maybe I won't find this idea half as stupid as I do now.

Scientists say that there are billions (or more. Trillions, maybe.) possibilities for peoples' DNA. If that is true, then how could the earth and us just be created by itself? A computer can't just appear, no matter how much time goes by. I know I didn't use fancy scientific words like you did, but this is still kind of scientific.

If God didn't create the earth, then who did?

Guess what? I can spell evolution now! Yayyyyy!!!!

I believe in a creator of the universe. Watch a few videos you can find some great theories on how Earth was made.

I wouldn't believe that nonsense, no offense. We all know, no matter how hard we try to prove that it isn't true, that there is only one answer. But you can tell me a video to watch, and I'll watch it if you want.

 

What? If god is so powerful (which ?e is :P) why couldn't ?e make Evolution and the Earth happen via natural means?

I like the idea that god made the universe just to see what would happen. That there are many universes that it made to solve a question that it had. It sounds kind of weird, but it would be interesting.

42

What's the question?

Better make another world just to figure that one out. 

Then destroy it to make room for an Intergalactic Bypass?

No, that was a mistake that costed billions of cash.

toptenproofs.com says: "God and Evolution may sound like an acceptable mix, but this concept of Theistic Evolution, or the belief that God guided a process of evolution during the Genesis Creation does not stand up to science or the Bible. So many Christians have been sold the lie of evolution that they feel they must accept itas truth or else they are somehow denying science. In fact, if you boldly declare that God created the Heavens and the Earth in 6 literal 24 hour days just about 6000 years ago, you will likely be laughed at and accused of also believing the Earth is flat. (By the way, the Bible does not say the Earth is flat. It describes it as a sphere suspended upon nothing, which of course, is true. It also does not claim the Earth is the center of the Universe as Galileo's persecutors believed)

First, keep in mind that God certainly could have used evolution if He wanted to. However, had He have used evolution, the fossil record as well as the rest of the scientific evidence would be different, but also, the Bible would have been written differently. Of the many Biblical evidences that God did not use evolution, let's take a look at just one small example: Adam and Eve. To examine whether God created Adam and Eve through evolution, we need to first examine just how evolution says Adam and Eve would have been created and then compare that to how the Bible says Adam and Eve were created to see if they both can logically be reconciled.

According to evolution, hominids would have been evolving over millions of years, getting a little more “human” like over the years until eventually the first fully human man was born. That's when God would have said “okay, we now have 'man', and I'll call him 'Adam'”. Let's now compare that to how God told Moses he created Adam in Genesis. Genesis 2:7 says “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground”. Here's where a little simple logic is required. How can anyone honestly interpret Adam being “formed from the dust of the ground” to mean “Adam was conceived and born of a part human, part monkey hominid mother”? The Bible then says that God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”. However, if God really used evolution, and Adam was born of a part monkey mother, he would have been alive from the moment of conception. Medical science has now confirmed that a human embryo is a living being long before the nostrils even form. So did God breathe the breath of life into Adam's nostrils as a fetus? If so, was Adam not “alive” as he was developing in the womb up to that point before his nostrils developed?

Then there's the issue of Eve. The Bible say in Genesis 2:21-22 that Eve was created by God putting Adam into a deep sleep, taking out one of his ribs and creating Eve from that rib. This has incredible spiritual significance throughout the rest of the Bible with regards to marriage, because by making woman from man, she was to Adam “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). God used the way he created Eve to establish marriage as a bond between a man and a woman who would become “one flesh”. Woman came out of man, so when a woman and man are married, “the two become one flesh”. (Genesis 2:24) Jesus even reiterates this creation account and it's significance in Matthew 19:5 and in Mark 10:8. Now compare that to Theistic Evolution which says Eve really wasn't created from Adam, but that instead, she was created in the womb of her part monkey mother, developed into a fetus, was born and raised by her hominid parents, then ran into Adam one day and said “hey, do your parents look as freaky as mine?”

If you believe Genesis can be interpreted to say God used evolution, then you might as well throw out the whole Bible. After all, if “man was made from the dust of the ground” can be interpreted as “man was born from part monkey parents”....or if “woman was created from man's rib” can be interpreted as “woman grew up the child of part monkey parents”....or if “God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being” can be interpreted as “man was already a living being before he even developed embryonic nostrils to breath into”.....then why believe anything the Bible has to say at all? Why take anything Moses said seriously? Or David? Or Solomon? Or Paul? Or Jesus? If interpretation of Scripture can be twisted that far from what it really says, you can twist anything in the Bible to say whatever you want it to. Maybe we should just trust what God told us instead of trying to twist Scripture to fit what we think science tells us.

You may be thinking “but God wasn't going to explain evolutionary science, complex biological structures, genetic mutations and organic transitions to a bunch of sheep herders”. The problem with that logic is that he wouldn't have had to. If God really used evolution, he could have easily explained that to Moses in simple, non-scientific terms. For example, when we read in Genesis Chapter 1 where God described to Moses the creation of the sun on day 4, he didn't get scientifically technical. He didn't tell Moses he created a yellow dwarf star comprised of hot gases containing hydrogen, helium, calcium, sodium, magnesium and iron which burns at temperatures of 11,000 degrees at the surface to 25 million degrees at the core, with a diameter of 900,000 miles, suspended 93 million miles from Earth in one of the arms of the Milky Way galaxy. No, he told Moses “I created a great light in the expanse of the sky”.

In the same way, if God really used evolution, he didn't have to make up some fables like man being created from the dust of the ground, woman being created from man's rib, and so forth. God could have simply said “and God created life in the oceans, too small to see and over long periods of time they grew larger and more complex and changed until eventually they developed into plants, then animals, then man and woman....and it was good”. That's all God had to say. Moses would have understood it, it would be in Scripture today, as recorded in Genesis, and we all would accept evolution as being how God created man. The problem is, that's not how God told Moses he created everything.

It's also important to remember that the scientific evidence for Creation over Evolution is overwhelming when presented with all the facts, and those facts are available in the Top Ten Proofs Evolution is Scientifically Impossible – 2CD Set. You can also get the Top Ten Proofs Theistic Evolution is Not Biblical for many more examples of how Theistic Evolution is not Biblical and that the concept of God and Evolution in the Genesis Creation just do not mix."

How do you explain Monkeys in the New World and the Old World? They're terribly different. Polar bears adapted to get white, strong fur to counteract the cold. Other bears have different coats and other niches.

Why do you get a flu shot every year or-so? How come penicillin doesn't work as well anymore? These bacteria, diseases, organisms, change through the generations. It's undeniable. (And I believe in God, mind-you :P)

 

All your links are to the same site, and that site wants me to buy a cd :P

(this is a reply to tan) oh whoops, those links weren't my links, but ones that I copied and pasted by accedent...

By the way, I haven't gotten a flu shot (or any other) for like seven years and I've never gotten the flu :p and if you beileve in evolution, a book I read will change your mind. But if you believe in evolution and are a follower of Jesus, I don't think that would matter, anyway.

Oh please, you narcissistic simpleton. Just because you don't get the flu doesn't mean that Humanity has wasted 100s of years of research to find a cure :P (well, sort of a cure anyways)

"If you believe Genesis can be interpreted to say God used evolution, then you might as well throw out the whole Bible. After all, if “man was made from the dust of the ground” can be interpreted as “man was born from part monkey parents”....or if “woman was created from man's rib” can be interpreted as “woman grew up the child of part monkey parents”....or if “God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being” can be interpreted as “man was already a living being before he even developed embryonic nostrils to breath into”.....then why believe anything the Bible has to say at all? Why take anything Moses said seriously? Or David? Or Solomon? Or Paul? Or Jesus? If interpretation of Scripture can be twisted that far from what it really says, you can twist anything in the Bible to say whatever you want it to. Maybe we should just trust what God told us instead of trying to twist Scripture to fit what we think science tells us."

This paragraph is utter nonesense. 

(You're also an idiot since, as we have mentioned constantly, monkeys are NOT our ancestors, but rather from the same branch ithe tree of evolution)

Firstly, Adam and "Eve" (Chava, for those follow the actual names) were made in the Garden of Eden. Guess what also occured there? Carnivores didn't eat animals. A lion slept near the lamb, in harmony. Does that occur in our world? No. 

Maybe we should stop thinking that God specifically said everything literally, and understand that metaphors exist. After all,  what is a day? The sun didn't exist on day 1, or day 2. So.... What does a day mean? Is it literally a night and day? Well, we can think idiotically that it is a real day, or we can use our brain (that god created via evolution), and realize its not literal. 

To add on that, the days of time olden did not consist of 365.25 x 24 hours, and that a day defined to God's eyes would probably many many years.  Evolution would explain us, in a sense that organisms had to be created to adapt to the sea, the land, and the sky before humans were ever around.

I hate you more and more with every letter you type out.

(Back to the topic) To me, it is obvious that reality isn't an illusion because each one of us can interact with one another, and we all have senses to the world around us. We can get hurt, and when we do we feel pain from the thing/person that hurt us, so it couldn't be an illusion.

How can you really know? The only way you're interacting with us all, getting hurt, feeling pain from the thing, is because that's what your (highly evolved) nerves are telling you. What if it's not what it seems? What if we're all brains in jars recieving messages from artificial spines? Unlikely, but how can we really know?

What if, what if. I think you know the truth. I think you know that there's only one explanation. Why not accept that? Why not accept that evolution is false, and there is a God? Read the proof if you need it.

Because there is documented evolution :P

One example: 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080515120759.htm

I never questioned that there was a god, I only questioned that he instantly created everything, Dinosaurs for one. What, did they fail to make it onto Noah's ark? How come they were never mentioned in Eden? Honestly, your "proof" is bullshit, and only slightly more believable than the nearest tabloid.

Actually, I have a religious theory that they were killed in the flood, since God don't want them in the 'New World'. I say this because there IS dinosaurs mentioned in the Talmud, and they had to have gone somewhere.

But yeah, if God wanted to make the world grow slowly, and have Evolution take place... He's god, why not? :P

I wasn't talking about my proof, but the book I read. Wow, could you get more insulting than that?

 If this book you've read is the great all-proving argument-winner you claim it is, then why isn't its flawless logic and brilliance showing up in your arguments? Thus far all I've seen is you spewing nonsense, and not explaining, in any scientific terms, HOW THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY ARE RIGHT NOW, and then providing links that try to twist the words of science enough to show that it is. Honestly, it's a very similar method to the one that was used when the idiots who tried to prove that vaccines caused Autism released their nonsensical studies.

I still recommend 'Climbing Mount Improbable' by Richard Dawkins. I haven't read your book, but I was indoctrinated educated in a similar vein to you. I later came to feel that my education had been... lacking. Specifically, my 'creation science' based textbooks had badly misrepresented actual evolutionary theory.

 

Yes. You are a complete and total idiot, with an understanding of reality similar to that of a mentally disabled baboon on cocaine and meth. Your presence and your words shame the very organization and theories you are trying to protect, and you believe in lies so easily that it is incredible how stubbornly you resist the truth. If you were a person who I knew in the real, my life would be all the worst just for existing within earshot of you. You are pathetic, disgusting, and a waste.

Is that enough for you?

To be honest I'm pretty sure the insult I invented in the top 10 annoyers in the forums thread outdoes that though.

2. No cussing or insulting other members. Though it's ok to use 'dirty' words on occasion, remember that everyone, including your Mom, could read this. So please, try to keep it clean.

Leedle leedle leedle.

That being said I think he is being down right retarded as well, and currently my beliefs will be held to my self.

Anywho.

-Actually has nothing else to say-

Well this is odd.

Just wondering, are you an agnostic or atheist?

It is scientific, yes, but you're ignoring the fact that God didn't have to create the world directly. He could have just put the rules of reality in place and set off the big bang, decided he'd find a planet that can hold liquid water, and start putting chemicals in the right places. Or he could have made the world directly, and STILL zapped water to create molecules necessary to make proteins, which slowly become cells, which slowly become organisms, which eventually result in the creatures we know today.

You are the reason it is a stereotype among atheists that religious people are stupid. I want you to know this.

Poor choice of words, but, Amen to that.

Oh not you again.

HEY! That was my idea! Shoulda copyrighted it I guess...

No, i'm an atheist. (To answer your end question).

To your first paragraph - why are you listing examples of games that we have created? Logically, there is no reason to think that the universe would be organized by beings so advanced that they could create life into a game similar to our sims. Just because a fictional example used it as a concept or a backstory does not mean that there is any chance whatsoever to it being true. 

You give us being advanced sims as an example, but there is just as much validity behind this example as me using a high fantasy book about purple skinned flying scaled rat dinosaurs who would eventually form human society as an example of how life came to earth (In other words - nonsense. Just because a piece of fiction kind of "clicks" with you does not mean it has any real basis behind it.).

As to the probability of earth existing - a more idiotic question has never been asked. Out of the trillions of stars and hundreds of trillions of planets out there, the fact that only one of them being habitable by human life is what would be suspicious. There should be thousands of planets out there with life on them, it's against the very laws of probability to say otherwise.

The universe has been established as being either infinite or so massively expansive that it would be impossible to quantify it (Or at least, that's the idea i'm getting). Obviously exceptions to the usual rules are going to happen at times.

The best anyone can do on the matter of reality is to wait. Nothing is true unless we brand it as true, and even then it may not be true. So we find stuff to take our minds off finding the real truth, event the most basic actions like eating or drinking - we believe they are the necessities because people in the past have said so and people now say so. Find joy and feelings and things to see and things to be, just to take your mind off that thought in the back of your head that it could all just be for nothing and that it's all useless. So while we wait for the truth, might as well find something to do. Doesn't have to be related to the truth, and it doesn't have to be similar to what others have chosen. The point is there is no way to prove anything, so we do nothing of useful merit, and we live on (if living is true). People have thought of reality before, and always (or so we believe), the conclusion is (even if it's a subconscious conclusion) that there is nothing we can do but wait and see what happens. Someone was waiting one day, and thought that while he waited he might as well find a way of easing people to not think of the truth of reality, so he made a structure and he made beliefs and systems of ways to do things, and people caught on - so everyone just expands on it when all they're really doing is waiting. So while we all wait, let's find something to do - it doesn't have to help anyone, and it doesn't have to be related to you, just finding something to know is enough to keep us busy while we wait. Maybe create something to entertain others. Like a choose your own adventure story, with a million pathways to lead to infinite conclusions, and to enjoy our wait until something happens, even if that something is nothing. :) that's my opinion on reality in a nutshell.

That was the one of the best things you have ever posted. Thank you.

There's also the fact that we never actually see reality. We only see it after it has entered our brains. :D

Old man wisdom right there!

You honestly don't know how long I've thought about this very question...

Depending on the way you are asking this question, it can be answered in different ways.

The dream argument:

Everything in the world is a dream. Everything you have ever seen or interacted with is an illusion that your mind. Deciphered Gilligan's Wake? Illusion. My little pony? All straight from your head. The hundreds upon thousands of people you have interacted with? Nope. All of them, fakes.

The principles behind this argument are simple - When you are dreaming, you almost never think to question the world around  you. Once you do, the dream usually breaks apart, or you gain lucidity and can control the dream. Most people stick to just living their dreams out though. Therefore, the same applies to us, who live in a dream world governed by our own minds and our unwilling-to-realize-it-is-all-fake psyche.

The issue I have with this is also very simple - dreams are necessarily created by our minds. If you're going with this argument, then I have to say that I'm flattered that you think my mind would be both complex and powerful enough to create the world I live in, the personallities I have interacted with, as well as intelligent and expansive enough to create all of the written works I have ever read or examined.

But the truth is, my mind is incapable of such a feat, and as such I cannot accept this.

The Matrix argument:

I suppose this would have either been created or made prominent by the Matrix trilogy. 

Humans are all living out their lives in a world generated by some outside source. Only a virtual or mental projection of yourself is in here, and you are completely unaware that you are in a false world. The world is not necessarily virtual, and technology is not necessarily involved (See: Scientology)

There is no real way to combat this statement (Other than outlining how stupid it sounds), as it relies on the fact that everything in our world is generated by an outside source, and that there is no actual way to prove it to be wrong (save for death, but ain't nobody going to take that risk).

---

I specifically point out these two because you brought them out in your original post. Now i'm going to post my actual thoughts on this topic (Which is asked much more often than you'd think - especially after watching a Matrix movie, while being accompanied by a chorus of "It's true though man" "That kinda makes sense" "Woah, my mind is blown" "Oh my god, maybe...")

This is a question with no provable answer. This does not in any way make it an actual logical query.

Just because someone says "Hey, what if all of the colors we see aren't the same for other people!" And the question is un-answerable does not mean that the question isn't ridiculous. The same applies to such questions about illusory realities.

By necessity, an illusory reality is impossible to find, because if the entire world is fake, then all of the methods that you have learned and that exist to prove such a thing are inherently invalid. This does not mean that contemplating this question is anything more than a sign that you are disappointed with your lot in life and you want something more, but you are blaming a foreign presence about your luck because obviously the world is only acting against you so that you take the lot your reality-masters have given you. But that last part is just my opinion.

Contemplating whether such things are real or not are not a sign of perhaps being able to finally "See through the illusory wall that is holding us back from our true lives". It just means that you are asking a question that has no basis behind it, no real reason to believe in, and that you will keep on asking because it makes you feel unique.

EDIT: I realize that this might have come off as somewhat offensive... but honestly, I get tired of people discussing such ridiculous things in my own life, they are obviously doing it so that they can seem more wise/intelligent/thoughtful than they really are, but they're so obviously just full-of-shit half brain-dead idiots that it physically pains me to remain in their presence while they - a few high-schoolers - act as if they are the first people to ever think that our world might be fake; and behave as if they are men of thought and philosophy (Like those idiots who are always asking "What is love? What is life?"). So sorry, any anger here is probably just being redirected towards this subject, rather than you yourself.
(It doesn't help that this is essentially the "Faith argument" either...)

Bah, they should know by now that love is a chemical reaction that causes physical attraction and/or caring simply paired with the natural human capacity for friendship.

"What is swag?" and "What does the word 'Fuck' really mean anymore?" are much better, much more thought-provoking questions.