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Notes -
Why not try to make things more concrete?
Bostrom's Simulation Argument is persuasive because it operates off principles we can easily understand.
There's plenty of resources in this universe to conduct computer simulations of whole planets and civilizations, let alone universes with more generous physics
It seems very reasonable that highly advanced civilizations would conduct many simulations of their ancestors for fun or research purposes
Therefore, most existences of pre-singularitarian civilization should be simulated unless
3a. Nearly all pre-singularitarian civilizations get exterminated for some reason
3b. Nearly all post-singularitarian civilizations refrain from simulations
Now this is basically theism with a cherry on top. It really doesn't matter if we're dealing with the server owner or a divine being, they're one and the same from our perspective.
I really dislike the First Mover argument since it just pushes back the problem of what comes first. If the universe needs a cause, why doesn't God? Far better an eternal universe, perhaps operating on a cyclic pattern. Eternity needs no justification or cause. We might be many layers down in a series of simulations inside an eternal universe.
But the arguments explain why the universe needs a cause and God doesn't, so this doesn't seem like a fruitful objection. In particular the basic structure of many cosmological arguments is an inference from contingency to necessity, and the existence of something contingent and actual implies an external reason why it is actual as opposed to not (i.e. a cause), whereas the existence of something necessary does not.
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