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Comment by cconcepts | Hacker News Reader

They challenge my belief and make me think about it in ways I otherwise wouldn't. Miracles are, by definition, hard to believe and are a suspension of testable, repeatable scientific law. Something that, an all powerful God could do if that all powerful God really existed.

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So surely then, the simplest answer is that those miracles did not happen and god is not real?

Curious what your goal is with this comment? Because you seem to be implying that that's a relevant question. Occam's Razor is a useful heuristic, but hardly lays claim to truth. Classical physics is, after all, simpler than quantum physics. Reality is far more complicated.

More complicated than what?

Quantum physics deal with a different kind of phenomena that seems to be random in nature. Macroscopic physics emerge from micro-world, so different scale.

If what you are comparing is classical with relativity, Occam only applies to simplest answer that explain all observable reality. Classical didn't explain enough, so it needed to be corrected by a more complex system.

Well, after all that reading to challenge your views, the original poster came to the conclusion that god is real and Christianity is the religion for them.

I am wondering what the reasoning behind that is.

How is this "surely" the simplest answer? And if it is, since when is the simplest answer the true one?

> How is this "surely" the simplest answer? And if it is, since when is the simplest answer the true one?

Because it doesn't involve the assumption that an all powerful being exists.

So you surely believe the idea we're living in a simulation of some sort is complete bunk?

For now, yes. Neither theory explains anything and both involve the invention of a higher order and have the same prime mover problem.

Any attempt to explain the existence of the universe has a prime mover problem. Either way causality has either been violated, or causality is meaningless outside the confines of the universe.

And none have been proven, so why force it?

None will ever be proven. Any attempts to describe what happened before the first moments of the universe are inherently religion or philosophy not science.

> So surely then, the simplest answer is that those miracles did not happen and god is not real?

The simplest answer is not guaranteed to be the correct answer.

I'm not sure why you are attempting to use Occam's Razor on a person's belief in God and it has the caveat of "usually". 2008 happened because most people accepted the simplest answer, for instance. Simple answers frequently fail in complex situations involving human interaction and a simple acknowledgement that the Bible was written by fallible men who may have misunderstood a few key details and the miracles were metaphorical rather than actual is an equally simple answer.

God isn't about who wrote the right book or got the details perfect, it is about knowing that at the end of the day you should be a good person who loves your fellow man. We will all be judged in the end, even atheists admit as much if they thought through what happens after they die (by their fellow men, if nothing else).

"We will all be judged in the end, even atheists admit as much if they thought through what happens after they die (by their fellow men, if nothing else)."

There's a huge difference between knowing people are going to judge your story (at least the story they think they know about you) and believing some all-knowing being is going to choose where to put your soul based on every single thing you ever did or thought. One idea makes sense and has plenty of evidence to support it, the other is bat-shit crazy.

You keep insisting on a literal interpretation when it is just as likely its metaphorical. (i.e. That your deeds echo through history eternally after you ... which is basically true with recorded history which existed at that time in history. )

Just because you feel other people are "bat-shit crazy" for not sharing your belief system doesn't change the fact the beliefs are based on a valid life lesson.

I'm curious, do you believe everything you read is literally the complete truth without some interpretation being required? Do you believe everything a politician tells you as the literal truth?

"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes." (Newton)

When you are faced with something that can not be explained by the principles you understand, does that mean that the phenomenon ceases to exist ?

So, by that line of thinking - the diffraction of light could not be explained until we had a new theory about light being an electromagnetic wave, so should we have ignored the experimental results altogether, because it's more convenient to what we can understand?

It means you have to keep looking for the answer. Sometimes you have to admit you just don't and/or can't (for the moment) know.

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