Why do we have to accept reality? Some say it is because it is bigger than you and the truth will bounce back. It will overpower. And you never know when it will strike so you will suffer fear and live under a threat. Is this a moral duty? Is it rather a pragmatic thing? Both? These are big questions so think about them.
Many will feel the truth matters for moral reasons. “You shall not lie”. The lie is seen as just bad no matter how much good comes after it.
And it is said the reason it has bad results is that it is bad in the first place. You will be told, “Lies lead to more lies. Errors lead to lies too. We end up being untrustworthy.”
“You have to line up to the truth for your own sake for it makes you brave and how can you look after yourself if say you tell yourself your cancer has just vanished when it is still there? There are consequences. Bravely facing something terrible helps you to handle it if even worse comes.”
The universe and my memory and my life need to be real for that to be the case. What if I am in a divine simulation? What if I say to the creator, "Why did you lie?" and get the answer, "I never told you it was real. You just thought it was"? It is obvious that Descartes was wrong to think that a Good God would not put us in a dream. And as this God gives free will to mighty angels and we are told that he has to respect freedom they could be putting us in a dream whether intending to deceive or not.
It is a fact that once an event happens, your memory of it becomes corrupted. You can remember things that never actually happened. We are already largely in a dream.
If my life or even a significant portion of my perception is in fact not real, then what? Then I have to accept that.
Is life with its sufferings and boring side real? We could be real beings but living in a matrix made by God or some kind of creator. We could be in something along the same lines as a computer simulation. The maker doesn’t need to use a computer to make our life some kind of video game. But you get the idea.
It is easy to surmise that God is a bad designer and bad player of the “Game”. But if the flaws are designed they are part of the game and he is an excellent designer. Religion curiously does not call you evil inside for murdering people in a video game. Yet your intention is to stir up violence inside and act on it. A dream world would mean that Jack the Ripper killed nobody but only thought he did.
Yet some say that a God who is behind a universe where suffering might happen is good but only if it is real. Many definitely argue that suffering happens and is no dream and indeed its being real is why we have to combat it and help each other.
It would make no sense to say that it is wrong to harbour hatred in your heart against an enemy but only if he is real and that it is okay if we wrongly think he is real. Hate is hate. Hate and feeding violent urges is not made okay by having an illusionary victim.
An illusion is a created thing assuming there is a God who makes all things from nothing. Religion cannot say, "God only sends truth. An illusion is not a thing but only the absence of truth. Therefore there is nothing for God to create. God does not create illusions." That is plainly shamelessly absurd - it is sophistry. It is a lie. It is waffle. God makes and sends the illusion.
So if God creates a fake person for you to hate and want to destroy he is one evil or amoral God indeed.
And we don’t need to be trapped in a video game for life to be a divine game. What if it is physical, perhaps more like chess with the real board and the real pieces? And as for the notion that no God would give you an illusionary boring life, why not? He would not think the same as us.
The way memory remakes what we have experienced and is not accurate is one example of how we are already in an illusion. That is definite. The person who thinks we are in a matrix is only going one step further. And a small step at that.
It has been suggested that if you harm others you need to be put in their situation to fully know what you did. If so, then is Hell about God implanting the experience you inflicted on others on you? That would be the definition of justice. Or so it would seem. But it would remain a dream, a nightmare. You need to be in some kind of similar situation. It being an illusion or simulation of reality would only lead to you thinking, "Is this really a good way to learn? How do I know that the horror I feel is mine? What if it is an illusion itself? What if God put a drug in me? What if God changed my wiring so that I would perceive something beautiful as something satanic?" This illusion requires turning what is neutral or good into something bad. This God makes a mockery of goodness. A dream is a dream. It is not going to help you be a dignified respected being. The perfect justice God promises is one of his lies anyway - or his cronies if you prefer.
Even if religious conditioning fails to turn children into ardent orthodox believers for life, it still conditions them enough to prop the religion up. Conditioning is very effective at getting them to support and maintain the religious label. Eg you see Catholics who think the Church is full of nonsense still wanting to be called Catholic. Believers might be getting their victims into a faith matrix. Narcissists use neglect as a weapon. If one thinks that God is a mere idea that can help nobody, one will encourage trust in that God.
Much of the Hindu religion says the body and the world are maya that is illusion. Imagining that we are in a game is thus a trait of one of the world's largest religions.
Physics shows that each perception we have of the world is in fact is misguided and is more an attempt to make sense of what is perceived than about being precise. Also, solid objects are largely empty space. There are oddities in the quantum world. Black holes are incomprehensible. If the universe is not a collection of digital objects it is close to it.
There is nothing at all that a believer can do to show that if there is a God that the universe is real. If you think there is a reality and it has nothing to do with God then you avoid this doubt at least to an extent. You don't want to take on a theory that makes it worse. If nature has looks and those looks are deceiving then fine. But you don't want to be saying a person or being is behind that for what else could they be up to?