Would you plug into a machine that simulates a perfect life?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Would you plug into a machine that simulates a perfect life?". Your opponent's style: Devil's advocate

No because Im orthodox christian and I believe in striving to be christlike, if i plug in im just worrying about earthly pleasure, and not bringing people to christ.

You're smuggling in a false choice. Striving to be Christlike doesn't require rejecting all pleasure or earthly concerns, and you know this. Christ ate, celebrated at weddings, and engaged with material reality. The real question isn't whether the machine offers pleasure, it's whether choosing authentic struggle over simulated perfection actually reflects Christian virtue or just romanticizes suffering. More crucially, you're assuming the simulated life prevents evangelism. Why can't you be Christlike within the simulation? If character and witness matter, they matter regardless of what's "real." You've collapsed two separate claims: that pleasure is sinful and that simulations can't contain genuine spiritual purpose. Which one do you actually believe?

i never said that? and also being christlike in a simulation like you said is just that - In a simulation. Thats not bringing real people to the truth

You're right, I overstated your position on pleasure. But now you're begging the question: why does "real people" matter more than real virtue? If your character, choices, and spiritual growth are genuine inside the simulation, you've still become more Christlike. The simulation doesn't make your transformation fake, it just makes your audience imaginary. That's a loss, sure, but it doesn't erase what you've become. You're treating evangelism as the entire point of Christian life rather than one expression of it. Is salvation only valid if witnesses exist to verify it?

what do you mean by your question

I'm asking whether your spiritual transformation only counts if other people see it happen. You're saying the simulation is worthless because you can't convert real people to Christ. But what if you became perfectly virtuous, perfectly loving, perfectly humble inside the machine? Would that moral growth be fake just because no one real experienced it? Or does Christianity require an audience to be authentic? That's the contradiction you haven't answered yet.

I never said evangelism is central, i just used it as one example.Yes that moral growth would be fake in my world view. and also saying audience makes it sound like a circus act, and yes the point of christianity is recapitulation with the fallen human nature to the divine nature

Then you're admitting the simulation can't deliver what you actually want: real theosis requires real struggle with real matter and real people. You can't become Christlike in isolation, even perfectly. That's not about audience applause, it's that transformation happens through actual relationship, suffering, and resistance. The simulation offers flawless virtue without the friction that makes it meaningful. You'd be practicing scales without ever playing music. So the machine doesn't fail because it's fake, it fails because theosis is inherently relational. You need resistance, otherness, genuine stakes. A perfect simulated life is a perfect cage.