I'm not sure if it is a religious/non-religious belief but I know I have heard more than one reputable scientist posit we are possibly living in a computer simulation. Did God devise this to see if we are grown up enough to live in the real world?
“Did God devise this to see if we are grown up enough to live in the real world?”
Well, God would have to exist outside of any universe, so none of them would be the “real world” to Him.
Compare God to a person making up stories. We’re the characters in the story. If He makes up a story in which there is a character who made up another story with other characters, then the characters in the first story are still no more “real” than the ones in the “story within a story”.
Better question. do they posit this to avoid confronting the existence of God?