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Comment by danislu2 | Hacker News Reader

This is the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.' 'But, says Man, this is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not be chance. It proves you exist, and, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' 'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and vanishes in a puff of logic. 'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing

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You forgot the attribution: Douglas Adams, "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" series.

> and without faith, I am nothing.

Care to elaborate? I think virtually all religions believe that God existed before humans and therefore existed when no one had faith in God.

Well there's a thing.

You are of course correct but for a decent discussion of the issues around religion, I'll direct you to "Small Gods" by Sir Terry Pratchett. I don't think it is considered a classic by fans but for me I think it is close to being one of the great critiques about religion. If nothing else it is a damn good page turner.

It’s from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

From this and other similar works such as Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods or Neil Gaiman’s Ameeican Gods, deities pop into existence from the pure belief of people. It’s a great literary conceit.

And also a very old one;

Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.

Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592.

(Still, Small Gods is one of the best revisions of the topic!)

But that's what I don't understand. Either God 'A' who is believed by Religion 'X' exists or doesn't exist. If 'A' exists, then even if 'X' didn't believe in 'A', 'A' would still exist. (At least assuming that 'X' is a subset of all religions that I know) If 'A' doesn't exist then 'X' believing in it doesn't make 'A' exist anymore.

I can't think of any religion where pure belief of people cause deities pop into existence. Unless of course you are calling the fact that people talk about the deity as popping them into existence. In that case, you can say that JK Rowling caused Voldemort to pop into existence (how evil of her).

Well yes, if you assume that gods are real and reveal themselves to the world they created. Then you go down he dreary path of prime motivators etc. That’s no fun.

If on the other hand you start with the premise that there is a magical world created somehow then lesser gods can exist and cease to exist for all manner of reasons. We can apply it to the real world in the context of cultural memes. J.K. Rowling didn’t cause Voldemort to pop into existence, the fans of the books and those who got hysterical over depictions of witchcraft did.

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