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Comment by gunapologist99 | Hacker News Reader

I am deeply sorry for your loss. Your Mom sounds really awesome, and this sort of passphrase is really smart.

But, "proof" of God's existence in this way would eliminate the need for faith. Conversely, you also cannot prove that God does not exist, making it a faith, of a sort, in both directions.

Truly, faith is a choice: you choose if you are going to have it (or try to have it), or not.

And thus not having faith is also a choice -- it's an implicit, and sometimes explicit, rejection of faith; and, thus, God.

So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that message from your Ma, as awesome as she sounds; if she is wrong, and there is no heaven, then you will never receive that message; and, if she is right, as I deeply and humbly believe, you will also never receive the message because that would eliminate the need for you to make a decision, personally, to have faith or not.

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Well. All I know is this.

I was a weird kid, and my mom protected me. I grew up on a farm in a pretty rural area. When I was between my sophomore and junior year in high school, my dad wanted me to work on the farm, to make me a man, or whatever. I wanted to go to science camp for the summer. Ma, put her foot down, and I got to go to science camp.

I dunno about the god stuff. I am not holding my breath on the message. But, I am lighting her candle.

That's all I got to say on it.

I see love like this as a sign of a loving God, in itself. Thanks for sharing.

I see love as a sign of good.

And good is also relative. Mom is a smart egoist. She takes care of her genes.

> And good is also relative. Mom is a smart egoist. She takes care of her genes.

You might not even notice it (and sadly perhaps most won't), but by mentioning a pet theory, you are, perhaps unwillingly, on the way of denying her her choice and existence.

Seems petty to me, pun intended.

Denying who's choice and existence?

The point is pretty simple: dad has a traditional image of how men are supposed to be, mom sees her son isn't the typical man. Mom protects her son by standing up for him. Mothers protect their children all the time in nature. Why do they do this? Because they take care of their genes. Its their offspring. Do they always do this? No, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they fail, given the circumstances. For example with regards to abuse. Of course there is free will involved in such.

If anything, I am insulting males here, because they regularly act like dumb egoists, selfish, short-sighted, such as in this case.

I applaud smart egoism, as its a long-term win-win. And it isn't always the easy or obvious choice.

Existence has nothing to do with any of this. If anything, I am honoring her influence (past existence, as there's no proof for existence of ghosts etc).

You had a special mom, thanks for sharing.

>But, "proof" of God's existence in this way would eliminate the need for faith. Conversely, you also cannot prove that God does not exist, making it a faith, of a sort, in both directions.

Does anyone actually believe this? What religion's pitch is "just trust me bro"?

> Does anyone actually believe this? What religion's pitch is "just trust me bro"?

Yes they do. Not really -- the pitch is more than that. Personally I believe the standard is we need _some_ evidence (not necessarily to the level of scientific journals) to claim something exists. If there's no evidence, it's as good as not existing.

The evidence for Christianity is more like this:

The historical contexts in which the NT & OT Characters existed (including Jesus) did not have a scientific world view, but they did have a story telling tradition which handed down stories as the closest thing to "fact" in the time period.

We have a collection of copies of documents written by some people about a guy[1].

Then when it comes to is the content of the documents true, that's more where people are leaning on your own experience (contemporarily), or shared collective experience (moreso in the past). It seems to be true enough that many people find value, and experience something they believe they otherwise would not experience when interacting with their religion/faith. One can dismiss it as the placebo effect, but I'm not sure that's entirely fair to be so ready to dismiss so many people's experiences when we also see so many other fields which rely heavily on subjective experience (such some medications, marketing/advertising, arts etc) ...

[1]: https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/node/1754

>The historical contexts in which the NT & OT Characters existed (including Jesus) did not have a scientific world view, but they did have a story telling tradition which handed down stories as the closest thing to "fact" in the time period.

So did the ancient Sanskrit (Hinduism, Buddhism) Greek (Hellenism) and Nahuatl (Azctec) written cultures. Their cosmologies and moral systems are totally at odds with one another, let alone Christianity or Judaism. The pitch for all of them is essentially still, "just true me bro." The more recent variants of Christianity alone are often cosmologically and morally incompatible, sometimes violently. We don't have a full picture of historical "original" Christianity as the Apostles are claimed to have practiced. And then there's Islam, which being newer has arguably more historical documentation than any of the aforementioned faiths. So, which to choose?

There are something like 3000 gods, goddesses, devils, demons, etc. that humans have documented over time.

Are some of them the same? Which one is the "right" one? How can anyone rationalize that multiple religions have core tenets to convert people, sometimes with war? Just like I don't want some "trust me bro" person proselytizing to me a new agile software process, I don't want that from any religious person.

I firmly believe someone can lead a moral and ethical life without religions varying rules, ceremonies, etc.

> The pitch for all of them is essentially still, "just true me bro."

My only point was it's a lot more than "just trust me bro" ...

I'm not trying to convince you of anything more than that. Your journey is your own :)

"Collection of copies" Not really copies I'd say, more rewrites of rewrites of rewrites of rewrites.

It seems inherently human to hold faiths/beliefs, even outside of organised religions.

Hell, I consider myself a pretty logical guy, but knowing that opening an umbrella indoors is meant to be bad luck, or seeing faces/creatures in empty shadows at night always makes me second guess myself for a second.

I suppose it's just evolutionary survival mechanisms at play; if the members of your tribe drink from a certain spot and then die, nobody will drink from that spot. If doing the hokey pokey before planting crops always seems to result in a bumper crop then the rest of the tribe will start doing it - for the times where nature does not provide a bumper crop, well, that's why characters like the devil were invented, to explain away those scenarios.

It is worse than that "just trust me bro, or else...".

The moment I grew enough of a brain to rationalize my way out of a toxic, fear-based religion, that's exactly what I did.

And for a long time, I was aspiritual. I've since rekindled my relationship with my spirituality, but I only believe things on my own terms.

The fear of burning in a pit of fire for all eternity never sparked joy for me.

Good for you! Not everyone can make this transition.

> Truly, faith is a choice

I know this is something people say, but I've never found it to be true. I could pretend to believe but deep down that wouldn't make me a believer. If I could simply choose to believe there was something after death I would, it would be a great comfort, but I simply cannot.

Maybe, a little piece of someone lives on in our hearts, memories, things like that. Not magic, just memories of love for someone.

Look. My Ma was sick, and hurting, I held her hand, we pinky swore over something silly, we knew that, it made her smile amongst a lot of pain. I light a candle, and think about all the times she was there for me.

The rest of it? Who cares.

I don't think anyone here wants to diminish your touching story. HN tends to use comments more or less as writing prompts, especially when the discussion veers philosophical.

100%. If my comment was taken as any kind of detraction from the GP's story I truly apologize that was not how it was intended. I think it and the many stories here are meaningful and serve as an important reminder to connect to your loved ones while they are here. My grandparents all died when I was a teenager/early 20s, and I deeply regret that I didn't do more to connect to them while they were here. It's something I still think about, and the only positive is that it's prompted me to reconnect/better connect with my parents who I had kind of drifted away from at the same time.

Your answer here is reinforcing OP's point. It's a choice. You can choose to have "faith" in something or not.

Because you "simply cannot" you've made a choice.

You can choose, and because you cannot, you've made your choice ...

That's a good one!

“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” - Neil Peart, Rush, “Freewill” 1980.

Sorry.. as a fan I couldn’t resist.

I was going to use this! RIP Neil.

Right. The vast majority of people I've ever met "choose" the same religion they were born into (what a coincidence!). Most people don't question. Most people DIE never having questioned. Also, WTF is wrong with people?

Totally agree. To some extent I'm even jealous of believers. It must be nice having that comfort. Not worrying. When I first realized religion was likely complete BS, it took me years to truly accept it and what it means for my life on earth. Which is that, this is it. This is all I got. And that's tough when you thought you had eternity to do whatever you couldn't get around doing on earth.

> And thus not having faith is also a choice

In the same way that not believing in goblins and fairies is a choice.

Goblins aren’t associated with free will though

Neither are Thor or Anubis.

This wouldn't be proof that God exists though... proof of God's existence is probably impossible. I mean, hypothetically, if God exists and is willing to do anything to show us he exists, how would you or I verify he exists?

If we were somehow satisfied, how would we satisfy others? Even photos / videos wouldn't be enough as there'd always be claims they were faked. Photos / videos in combination with some sort of unprecedented global weather phenomena may be the best bet but even then science would be falling over itself to explain what happened and wouldn't just accept that yep, god exists and is responsible for that.

Proof of my and your existence is impossible in a similar way - we could all be just brains in vats and all external stimuli might be hallucinations (or we could be just GPT-powered chat bots). In fact, I could be a hallucination of yours and you could be my hallucination. While the idea of solipsism is sort of an interesting thought experiment, it doesn't really help explain or predict anything.

As a teenager I remember vividly being jealous of all of the Bible characters who directly saw miracles. I used to complain to my extremely religious family about how they didn’t need the faith that they’re demanding of me.

I assume there are similarities for many other religious backgrounds and texts. I find this a current inconsistency in expectations around current humans and the old and venerated prophets. I’m still a bit that we’re being asked more than those role models.

> But, "proof" of God's existence in this way would eliminate the need for faith.

Okay.

Why does this matter?

Either we believe things because there is some evidence for them, or we do not. Why would the elimination of faith actually be something any human should care about in the slightest?

Excellent point. Why does it matter?

If there is no god, then of course it does not matter at all.

And, yet, here we are, discussing it.

Hitchens’s Razor: That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

But evidence is not proof.

Hitchens made a choice to propagate his own faith system, but what evidence has he presented?

Did he present any historical evidence for the absence of deities, or was it simply an opportunity to have a philosophical debate, or even perhaps get famous and have people fawn over your brilliant arguments, and follow you?

Atheism is not a faith system. It is the absence of faith. Him being a famous orator does not make him a priest.

Logic also does not work this way. You don't prove a negative because it's impossible to provide proof of non-existence (it requires a systemic approach while proving existence requires an anecdotal evidence).

That fact seems to be lost on many atheists, who are very eager to "convert" others to their non-faith - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign (I also wonder why atheists think religious people are worried and unable to enjoy their life - probably because they take the various rules of the various religions more seriously than ~99% of religious people do?).

Atheists aren't a group. It makes no sense to refer to them as a group, they don't in general meet, communicate with each other, or think that not believing in something is an important attribute of themselves that they recognise in others.

Of course for some of them, they will be more conscious of the fact that some people believe in a God, and that they don't. For instance if they grew up with religion and then left it. But that hardly describes all atheists.

Most atheists just don't believe in God in roughly the same way they don't believe in Russell's tea pot. It's not something that comes up very often.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson said: I don’t play golf. That doesn’t make me an agolfist.

Coming from him, that's a surprisingly flawed conflation of "playing" and "believing in".

> it's impossible to provide proof of non-existence

If I claim to have a $100 bill in my wallet and we open my wallet and do not find the $100 bill, that is proof of its non-existence.

You don't "have" a god. You can't have them in your wallet; this example is moot.

Saying "There exists vkhmcdtr" would be a closer example. Now prove me that vkhmcdtr does not exist.

And even there, if you are some flavor of Christian, saying God can be reduced to an object, or an incarnate being, can be akin to blasphemy, because they are not a "Being." They are its antecedent. Which is one of the roots of metaphysics and of course Christian theology.

That's a specific, testable claim. If you claim Buddah or Jesus is in your bedroom that's a testable claim we can prove wrong.

Saying there's a magic invisible sky god is not a testable claim.

"Faith" is a word that encapsulates the concept "belief without evidence is virtuous".

"Religion" is a word that encapsulates the concept "belief without evidence".

It's unsurprising that religions push the idea of faith. It's not generally a valued behavior in any other context.

> she is wrong, and there is no heaven, then you will never receive that message;

or the transmission mechanism is under maintenance or never existing

or the receiving mechanism is broken

or the telepathic basis of that belief system is wrong, as humans do not have telepathy or it is vestigial

or the ability to manipulate this plane of existence is overstated or not available to tenants of a different plane

and so on, as you begin with, if such things were quantifiable then it would not require faith. would be fun to harness the energy from that dimension, or protect ourselves against those creatures given what's recorded about them.

Is it really even that complicated? Putting the execution environment and context in God's hands means I can stop worrying about so many things. For most people this means faith should ideally help them just build something awesome that mostly works.

Its only on the edges that you need to go lower, and that's when you start hitting the bare metal and realize there's something there that makes everything else possible.

IDK

Just going to leave this here.

https://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

This is a very clear summation of the argument for faith. Thank you!

Brothers in Christ let us please, please not use these deeply personal stories of love as a reason to share our apologia

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