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Comment by foxygen | Hacker News Reader

What is so special about reality?

Whenever people say things like this "the universe is too weird not to have been created", I always ask "Weird compared to what? To other realities you have witnessed?"

The safest assumption to make, if you absolutely have to make an assumption at all, is that this reality is pretty average. With no knowledge whatsoever, it's certainly safer than betting it is somehow exotic.

Indeed, this is a variation on the "Watchmaker Analogy." It presupposes that there isn't an alternative explanation to design that can describe how things could be so intricate and complex (Darwinian Evolution provides that alternative explanation). I highly recommend Richard Dawkin's book "The Blind Watchmaker" for anyone wishing to dive deeper on the subject.

Purpose. That there was a purpose for all of this. If we believe there was no purpose for all of this, then what a hopeless thing. I just look at the erasure of Gaza and have become more and more religious, because my god what a hopeless end if this all isn’t saved at the very end. I feel that way about many of today’s ills.

Purpose and hope, even if the answer is utterly magical.

If you're interested in some of the classic intellectual / philosophical arguments for faith (albeit from a Christian perspective) you should check out "Reasonable Faith" by William Lane Craig.

I'm a non-believer, but I do think that is one of the best apologetic books that are out there. It's a bit of a tome and does get a bit slow at points, but I appreciate his attempt at depth and breadth and one can't do that without writing a pretty damn big book. I think everyone should read it (along with books from the other side as well, especially Richard Dawkins (for biology and some philosophy), Bart Ehrman (for Biblical scholarship and some philosophy), Robert Sapolsky (for Neurology/Neuroscience), Lawrence Krauss (Physics), and Robert Wright).

I do wish Craig had reframed from the personal shots he takes at various atheist/agnostic writers (which clearly cross into ad hominem at many points) but he is by far the most interesting defender of faith out there (IMHO). In his defense I think he was playing along with the at times very incendiary approach taken by Dawkin's and many other "new atheists" so it's not like he started the brawl :-). I think he's way too confident in Anselm's Ontological argument, but he has clearly studied it a whole lot more than me so I don't hold a strong conviction there.

Why should there be a purpose?

It’s certainly possible that there is a purpose, but I think it’s more likely that we simply happened to evolve the way we did.

In a vacuum, wars are meaningless. It’s simply humans fighting other humans (and the ones on the front lines might not even want to be there).

> If we believe there was no purpose for all of this, then what a hopeless thing.

That's a huge leap that speaks to your own perspective. It's not some sort of objective fact. That there is no purpose and we are still here is in fact quite beautiful and amazing.

Oh, I know it doesn't prove anything. It is a veritable leap of faith. No one said faith was easy.

You're missing the point. Your conjecture is false. Sure, you never said it proved anything. But that's a different point.

Your entire premise is just completely made up.

You're not even expressing a leap of faith. It's a leap of cynicism that speaks to your world view, not your faith. Faith is not predicated upon a belief that there is no purpose to which otherwise faith supplies. You're just basically playing word salad at this point. And I don't mean that to suggest religious beliefs or faith is word salad. Just what you have offered here in this brief conversation.

Opposite to my view. If there's no pre-ordained purpose, we're free to invent our own. I find that very freeing and hopeful. And a lifetime project.

This is my take. The universe itself only cares that energy is as evenly distributed as possible. We are just a temporary ripple in that slide down entropy.

There is no objective morality, because morality is a human invention. It's important for that exact reason that we make it very good then.

Love strangers. Eradicate poverty. Encourage personal growth. Build society up. Reduce suffering. Stop bullies. Understand.

I can very much relate to this, but I do think it's worth pointing out that this is not at all an argument for the existence of God, merely a motivation for wanting there to be a God.

I actually find a lot of comfort in the Mark Twain quote after he was asked by a reporter whether he fears death given his lack of belief in God:

> “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” --Mark Twain

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