Artemis, ofcourse.
Codswallop.
Reality doesn’t rely on it being observed or understood.
I propose that it be made mandatory that everyone complete (and obtain a passing grade) in a Philosophy 101 course before expressing ANY opinion on the existence or nonexistence of God/gods. 
Sure, maybe nothing we think exists exists, and we cannot trust any of our senses. So where does that get you?
Assuming that things I see and touch actually are there - and continue to exist when I close my eyes, works for me, and allows me to otherwise live my life. If I’m going to reject all of that, I don’t understand why any particular fairy tale is any more persuasive than any other. I (and most nonreligious folk) don’t understand why the religious believer’s story is any preferable to the believer in the Matrix…
For some reason, religious folk seem to equate their belief with proof. Once you point out that error, you can’t argue with that.
And - what I think is the critical issue - how would you live your life differently if you DID NOT believe in a certain version of reality? I am pretty confident there is no supernatural being. But I try to be what I consider to be a good person, simply because that is the way I believe people ought to act. Nonreligious folk realize that religious belief is superfluous to ethics.
Would the religious person be “less good” if they did not believe in a god? Why, or why not. I’ve often thought it - um - less impressive if someone acts in a certain way in order to obtain a reward or avoid a punishment - whether earthly or supernatural.
No? I know a cat that might (or might not) disagree.
So how can there be trees lying in the forest, if I didn’t hear them fall, eh?
Oh? Who or what is it real to, then? What does “is” mean in such a context?
I’m gonna need you to take that back, elf.
Ignoring your suicidal heresy in favor of the thread topic: I reject the everything-could-be-a-computer-simulation on account of it being bullshit, by which I mean it’s an proposition with no goddamn evidence to support it, by which I mean it’s bullshit. I mean, hell, it’s conceivable that the Martian Manhunter is sitting beside me right now, invisible, waiting for just the right moment to atomize mewith his eye-blasts, but I’m not gonna set the building on fire to prevent him.
Any sufficiently convincing delusion is indistinguishable from reality.
Stranger
Unless you have evidence that what you are caught in an illusion or illusion, it is foolish to assume you are. Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.
Well, if the question is “what if reality is in fact of a radically different nature then how we perceive it or can perceive it?”, then I daresay it behooves the person asking to offer up some idea of what reality actually is and some evidence to support that view, otherwise it’s a waste of time.
Certainly the people who wrote the bible don’t have our knowledge of reality at a micro (i.e. atomic) scale or macro (i.e. galactic) scale, and their god is similarly limited.
Please do show.
Did you ask him what type of god - the biblical bearded Yaweh type, or the mystical Jacob Boehm type ? (Odds on the first one, but you never know).
Right here
No.
Reality, such that it is, is an approximation created by a bunch of neurons in my skull that allows it to interpret the electrochemical transmissions it receives in a useful way.
Ah, but the neurons are part of that interpretation. So it’s an interpretation of itself, based on itself. Queue moaning…
Some people seem to think that Religion is like a “Get Out of Paradox Free” card in Monopoly. Saying that you’re religious no more disproves the Is It Live Or Is It Memorex quandary in which your existence might be no more than someone else’s dream, or Simulacron-3, or The Matrix than it removes the paradox of the First Mover (“Everything has a Mover. There must be a First Mover, and it’s God!” “Then who moves God?”)
Prolly shadows on a cave wall.
I am God. I am telling you that you exist.
Problem solved.
On second thought, I withdraw my take on this. I’m wrong. Meaning is one thing, reality is not dependent upon it.