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Comment by sdegutis | Hacker News Reader

For a long time I've been pretty worried about my mortality. But ever since I became a Christian a couple years ago, I've been much more at peace about it. Not all the way (yet?), but much more than before. I highly recommend looking into Christianity to anyone else feeling that same fear.

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I hate to break it to you, but religion is just a ruse to help people come to grips with their mortalities. It's extremely unlikely beyond belief that there is any notion of heaven or hell in this universe.

I don't want to start a religious war. I just don't want you to be let down when you're on your deathbed 30, 40, 50, 60 years from now.

As a Christian, I would agree that there is no heaven in this universe. God is out of place and time.

What does that even mean? Making up meaningless deep-sounding statements doesn't really further any argument. Here's some I just made up:

"We shouldn't fear death any more than an unborn baby fears birth. Death is our true birth."

"Everyone has faith. The only difference is that some people try to define faith, while others let faith define them."

"The world absolutely runs on discoverable physical laws - no exceptions! But my freedom comes from knowing God is those laws."

Assume the universe is not just computable [1], but actually computed, that is, running as a virtual machine under a hypervisor.

How do we detect the presence of the hypervisor and break out of virtualisation? [2]

Bonus: What is the name of the sysadmin?

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pill_(software)#Other_uses

Sounds like you are ready to start your own church.

Thanks for your sympathy. But I've done my homework. Jesus did actually rise from the dead. Research it and you'll come to the same conclusion. I don't have many books on it, but I'd probably start with Handbook of Catholic Apologetics[1] by Kreeft and Tacelli.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Catholic-Apologetics-Reasoned...

We did research it, but don't worry, your insults don't affect us much anymore.

My insults? I didn't insult anyone. Why do you think I did?

In retrospect, this comment does sound kind of rude, although I meant no harm. I shouldn't have posted it at 3am, but I can't delete it now. So all I can do is say "I'm sorry".

belief systems are tools for living in the world. If it is a ruse that helps them live their lives happily and with purpose, then it is a useful ruse. I myself had a lot of fun with discordianism.

Respectfully, I would instead recommend secular Buddhism and mindfulness for dealing with emotions related to your own mortality. I believe it to be a healthier alternative without the need for a belief in god, an afterlife, or any superstition.

I recommend the writing of Jon Kabat-Zinn and Stephen Batchelor.

This approach of "pick what works best for you" only works if it's actually true. Christianity claims that it is objectively true, for all people, regardless of whether they believe it. So it's not like a Christian can just change to a religion that "fits" them better on a whim.

Secular Buddhism doesn't make any supernatural claims which means it's completely compatible with Christianity. That's why it also works for atheists.

Emphasis on the secular - traditional sects of Buddhism can have gods, reincarnation etc. It may be clearer to say mindfulness instead of Buddhism as that has religious connotations. It's medically recognised for handling stress.

I recommend The Little Schemer

I find it strange people can die knowing about Jesus but not lisp and somehow think they are enlightened :)

Oh, they are enlightened! They know they can learn Lisp in Heaven. :)

As for Python...

I seem to remember that it was the snake that got every one in trouble in the first place...

Obligatory xkcd cartoon: http://xkcd.com/224/

For anyone interested in rational arguments for believing in Christianity, I recommend the Handbook of Christian Apologetics[1] by Kreeft and Tacelli.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Christian-Apologetics-Peter-K...

Thanks for sharing this link. As a lifelong Catholic, as well as a biologist and software developer, I have often thought my background in this particlar area was not what it should be.

As a fellow Catholic, I would instead recommend The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics[1] by the same author. It's basically the same book, but with an additional ~40 pages about Catholicism. I admit they're not the best apologetics for Catholicism out there, but it's not much of a price difference. Also, this is the one I have.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Catholic-Apologetics-Reasoned...

I have gone the exact opposite path, from a life pretty entrenched in Christianity, to skepticism, to a conclusion that led me towards hard atheism. I feel like I am sure there is no supernatural creator, and the only love we receive is from people. I now thank people for their good, not God, and get angry at them for their bad, not at Satan. Religion starts off by lifting your responsibilities, and that is the worst part in my opinion.

That said, it has improved my outlook on death too. I think there is no point worrying about an inevitable event that has no consequences other than the disappearance of a, maybe loved, person.

No one knows what you feel, and no one ever has come back from it. That makes death pretty unconsequential, as there is NOTHING you can do about it.

Many people have taken the route you've described, and their stories are usually the same. They finally found reason (maybe at 8 or 12) and realized all the "obvious, gaping holes and flaws" in Christianity.

But very few people have gone from atheist to Nicene-creed-believing Christian in their adult life, which I did. This seems so backwards, don't you just wonder what their reasoning was? I do.

Of course I wonder which path you went through, it is the point of this discussion, and for all the rampant no-holds-barred religion bashing HN usually sees, this is still an above-average forum for this kind of discussion.

I would really like to hear about that, with the only rule that neither of us should try and convince anyone else, and all we say is to be taken strictly personally.

I will start by saying that I actually went through the realization that I had no evidence or need for the supernatural about 1 year ago, at 35 and counting, after reading The God Delusion and then starting my own research path across philosophy, theology and science. I feel like I have reached a conclusion, albeit just a personal one.

I was raised somewhere between theist and deist, with only the belief that there is some "God" and if you're good you go to Heaven, otherwise Hell. That was it. Before my digits were yet two, I started reasoning about all of this on my own, and came to my own conclusions on them, which were basically uninformed. In my teenage years, I experimented with atheism and settled on agnosticism.

Just a few years ago in my middle-adulthood, I turned to "God and Jesus" in a desperate attempt to keep sanity during really hard times (my wife and kids and I were in the brink of homelessness, with no job and almost no cash, 9000 miles away from home). I really believed it was a mental coping mechanism, but I didn't care at that point.

Our situation resolved, and I ended up returning back to my agnosticism. But existential panic attacks sent me searching more fervently for an answer. I reached out to a non-denominational (i.e. Protestant) pastor, telling him that I wanted to believe in Christianity, but I couldn't violate my integrity, knowing that it's incompatible with science and history.

He gave me a book called The Reason for God[1] which demonstrated that Christianity doesn't conflict with science, and that the Resurrection of Jesus is historically true and accurate as presented in the Gospels. When I finished reading it, I chose to become a Christian.

Eventually, as I kept researching different denominations, I settled on Catholicism as the most likely to be correct. For other Christians curious how I could come to that conclusion, I would recommend The Catholic Controversy[2] by St. Francis de Sales.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Reason-God-Belief-Skepticism/dp/15...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Catholic-Controversy-Defense-Faith...

How do you "experiment" with atheism? Just saying to yourself "I'm now an atheist" and seeing how that feels? It doesn't sound like you ever had solid rational and empirical reasons for choosing atheism, and indeed that is the only kind of atheist that I've ever heard of turning to the supernatural.

Atheists like me are atheists not because the quality of life it provides, but because there's no empirical evidence that there's any truth to any of the supernatural claims ever made. We understand that faith is a choice of last resort when no other evidence is available, and that faith is a really bad way to come to conclusions. Atheists like me understand our inherent biases, we seek to ask questions in a way that there can be a negative answer. There is no such negating answer to "what would convince me there is no god" and that alone, in the absence of any kind of empirical evidence for the existence of a supernatural entity, should be enough to not be a believer.

The truth is whatever the truth is, and I want to believe reality no matter how it makes me feel. If it feels good to believe in magical things that care about us but those magical things aren't real then I don't want to believe in them.

The litany of Tarski is useful:

If the box contains a diamond,

I desire to believe that the box contains a diamond;

If the box does not contain a diamond,

I desire to believe that the box does not contain a diamond;

Let me not become attached to beliefs I may not want.

By "experiment" I mean I started questioning whether or not it was true, debating with my peers about it (either for or against).

I ultimately settled on agnosticism because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If there was a God who chose to never reveal (or even hint at) his existence to humanity, it would be incorrect for a person to be an atheist. Since that's a legitimate possibility, it makes more sense to be agnostic than atheist.

So what evidence did you eventually find to turn to God if it's not a feelings/faith based thing?

If it could be explained in a HN comment, I think there would be many more Christians in the world. That's why there are whole books written on the subject. The only one I still own is The Handbook of Christian Apologetics[1][2] so that's the only one I can recommend.

But it does require some faith, just not blind or unreasoning faith, as most people seem to think.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Christian-Apologetics-Peter-K...

There's no other kind of faith. Faith literally means "belief without evidence."

That's not my definition of faith. But let's not get hung up on semantics and disagreements about definitions.

The point I was making is that there is a good deal of evidence, but it also requires a little belief in something that you can't absolutely prove.

I don't want to debate with you; I've done more than my share of religious debates in my life and no longer find any joy in them. I also completely agree that debating definitions is rarely useful. I will point out, though, that nobody claims to have faith that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or that the sky is blue. "Faith" connotes a leap; I understand that as a leap from the evidence to the conclusion, covering a gap that cannot be covered by logical reasoning. It's that leap that I take issue with, regardless of which word you choose to label it with.

You've repeatedly recommended a book of apologetics throughout the thread. If I could make a recommendation in turn: Critique of Religion and Philosophy, by Walter Kaufmann. I think it can give you much to think about, and from a reasonably friendly perspective.

I can't reply to you directly. Why is your faith not blind or unreasoning? Can you give me just one specific example of empirical evidence for God's existence? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm guessing you're going to give me some unverifiable testimony from people who died long ago and expect that to have a person question heaps of contrary empirical evidence. I don't think that works.

And you are resorting to faith because the evidence isn't good enough. The evidence that explain the things that I believe in, like the existence of this computer in front of me, don't require any faith at all.

I've found that you can reply directly by clicking the [link] link, which gives you a reply box.

"The evidence that explain the things that I believe in, like the existence of this computer in front of me, don't require any faith at all."

Not so. You have faith in what your parents told you about the circumstances of your birth. You have no memory of the first year of your life, so it could very well have been made up. But you believe it by faith mixed with reason.

In this case that's not me using faith, that's using a heuristic. A heuristic is a decent substitute for empirical research, but it is not foolproof. We use heuristics to save time. If we had to do empirical research for everything in our lives we would never have time to do anything.

A heuristic is a way to ascertain information quickly. In the case of my birth, there's all kind of evidence to back up my parent's stories including photos, the investment and time spent in raising me. None of this is foolproof evidence, but it's enough to pass my heuristic for this situation. And there are measures I can take to get physical empirical evidence, like a DNA test.

The question of who my parents have can be phrased in this way and have an answer "the people who claim to be my parents are not actually my parents if a DNA test disputes their claims."

Please I encourage you to phrase a question as I have for your belief in God. Something like "I would not believe in God if X were true." Fill in the X.

Following your formula and your DNA example, "I would not believe in God if the New Testament were not true."

That's not right.

Try to the phrase the X with very specific verifiable empirical evidence.

It's a bit ridiculous to make a claim of truth for an entire volume of information. Scientists, for example, don't do this. There are always going to be errors that creep into work. Einstein's has a paper called "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory." Scientists don't say "I would not believe in relativity if Einstein's paper were not true." They give specific evidence. For example, they would say they don't believe in relativity if light from stars didn't bend around the sun. Try something like that.

Here's a good short article on the Resurrection of Jesus[1].

[1]: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12789a.htm

These are all witness accounts from superstitious people who died long ago. Nothing listed is verifiable. This is not good evidence. Witness accounts from dead people should not be enough to discount the mountains of empirical evidence that imply that resurrection after having been dead for three days is not possible.

I disagree. The following document explains my reasoning:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04503a.htm

The explanation given there is sound when it is applied the veracity of historical written records that don't attempt to support the supernatural. It's just about measuring what the more reliable evidence is. Did so and so say such and such to this person and so 500 years ago? Best written records say so, and there are different pieces of records from different people who say so and so we deem it good enough to say it's accurate. That's a totally different ball game than trying to discredit contemporary physical evidence.

You'll find my rebuttal in the books I've mentioned in other comments.

> I'm guessing you're going to give me some unverifiable testimony from people who died long ago and expect that to have a person question heaps of contrary empirical evidence.

Read the related chapter in The Handbook of Christian Apologetics[1] for reasons why the Gospel stories are reliable eyewitness accounts.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Christian-Apologetics-Peter-K...

When it comes to claims that attempt to discount an insurmountable mountain of physical evidence you yourself can verify, there is no such thing as reliable eyewitness accounts, especially not from people who died eons ago. It's obvious you are not applying sound reasoning. Would you say it's sound reasoning to convict a man cleared by DNA tests for murder when there are witness accounts from living people? Think about this maybe. You're applying a wholly uneven standard of importance to one kind of evidence because of faith. And you resort to faith because the evidence is not good enough. You resort to faith because you want to. Given all that we know about the universe, you are clearly making the wrong choice.

I may not convince you, but again, you are exactly what I thought you were, a person who relies on faith to believe in God. Faith is a bad way to come to believe in things. For example Muslims believe Muhammad was the last prophet, Mormons believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. Both rely on faith, but clearly both can not be right. You would not use faith to answer questions in everyday life, because you would not do well.

The book I mentioned refutes this argument you're making. Why don't you read it?

Why don't you provide a short summary. My opinion right now is that if the book claims that things we can physically verify ourselves about the world are wrong because of a handful of dead people it doesn't sound like a very good book.

I can only think of three reasons you're asking me why I believe in Christianity (or Catholicism).

1. You want to learn more about Christianity for yourself to see if its worth believing in.

2. You just want to have a conversation with me.

3. You want to find my reasoning so you can tear it down and show me how I'm wrong.

I don't believe #3 is true, as I believe you're a better person than that. And I don't see why you'd be particularly interested in doing #2. In which case, you probably just want to learn more about it.

Since you probably just want to learn more about it, I think you'll find that those books contain all the same answers I could give, and they do a much better job of it than I could.

But I just don't have the time to devote to rewriting them in the form of HN comments. I'd rather spend my Saturday reading the Julia documentation (so awesome) and playing with my kids and teaching my son programming.

I'm not trying to do anything malicious but intentions are irrelevant when it comes to truth. It's either right or wrong. If someone really had a good reason for believing in God I'd like to know about it. I am also interested in atheists who later turn to God because I don't comprehend how such a thing is possible unless they were never rigorous in their scepticism or had some kind of terrible psychological trauma. The latter is known to ruin minds. For example starvation makes people irrational about eating, war, giving birth, etc all have psychological effects that can't be reasoned away.

Anyway thanks for answering my questions. Enjoy your weekend.

wrong questions you two banging heads for. Before you go for the ultimate, first, pin down a thing (anything) thats not changing (what, why, how, ...until all questions satisfy you/logically-subside). Atleast you will have a REAL thing to anchor/pivot from. As they say, reality(atheist's synonym for god) is real. God is reality. Real reality is not changing; get your mind established on it, the wisdom unfolds.

I think the conversation went fine.

I should also point out that, after my initial conversion to Christianity, "how I feel about it" is basically not a factor in what I believe.

There are many times when I felt miserable and strongly wished I wasn't a Christian anymore. But I couldn't just choose to disbelieve in something that my research had convinced me was objectively true.

Please don't downvote just because you disagree. Have a discussion if you're comfortable with your beliefs. It would do more good for all involved.

Sorry, I was raised Christian and realized at 12 years old that it was complete bunk. How did I realize that? I read the bible. Literally every day. I read it cover to cover at least 15 times. It contains pearls of wisdom floating in a sea of nonsense. No rational person can read that book cover to cover and remain a Christian. Which is why Christians have bible study groups where they focus on John 3:16 and other pretty verses while ignoring the wackjob parts that make up most of the bible.

But it is pointless for me to even point this out to you so I'll stop here.

The bible makes as much sense as most ancient literature. I read it and compared it to ancient Greek, Roman and Babylonian literature. It's interesting to compare and contrast what values are emphasized over others. The old testament is very into offspring and private property, mainly in the form of livestock. The Greeks are more into glory for its own sake. Gilgamesh is about friendship, civilization vs.nature and trying to live forever.

> The bible makes as much sense as most ancient literature.

I don't see why that's a meaningful comparison. I'm inclined to say, so what?

The bible makes as much sense as most ancient literature.

Key difference is that rational people in 2014 aren't claiming that Zeus may strike you down with a lightning bolt or thinking that Gilgamesh was divinely inspired.

The old testament is very into offspring and private property

Really? It just seems like a mish-mash of things nobody today would find acceptable. It advocates slavery in many places. Example:

http://biblehub.com/genesis/16-8.htm

http://biblehub.com/genesis/16-9.htm

Giving up your virgin daughters for men to do as they want:

http://biblehub.com/genesis/19-8.htm

And then there's this:

http://biblehub.com/ezekiel/23-19.htm

http://biblehub.com/ezekiel/23-20.htm

There is some wacky stuff in The Holy Bible. The New Testament isn't much better. It's a little better. But not much.

What else do you expect? You're not supposed to find most of it acceptable. Why are you surprised when a book that records the fall of man into sin and depravity is both shocking and FULL of stories of man pushing the bounds of depravity? It is brutally authentic and you should be reeling at the accounts of the depths of what mankind has done to himself.

The Bible doesn't "advocate" anything by those verses. Surely you wouldn't read a historical account of World War II and be so naive as to say that the book is "advocating" genocide, would you? That would be totally irrational.

To say that God "advocated" mankind's actions because they are recorded in the Old Testament is completely, utterly false and naive. It's like saying two parents "advocate" drug use when they recount the story of their child's drug addiction and how they attempted to bring their child back to being clean. The parents might even have a part in their story where they demanded their child keep the drug habit to the basement, or maybe even offered clean needles in lieu of the potentially infected ones off the street. But to say they "advocated" for that behavior? Hogwash!

No, the motive you are looking for is "merciful allowance, with a loving hope for restoration."

It's so obvious you haven't read the full bible, or even any of the links I gave. The very first link is where "The angel of the LORD" said to go back into slavery. So you blame that on men.

This is why it is pointless to discuss anything with zealots. Your brains turn off for this topic.

The very first link is where "The angel of the LORD" said to go back into slavery. So you blame that on men.

Hmm, what does Genesis 16:10 say, the verse that immediately follows that command? Do you read all your books in such a way that each sentence cannot be linked to the previous or following sentences?

Attempting to restrain or set boundaries (i.e. laws and rules) around man's sinful habits does not mean God was advocating for sin -- in the same way that a parent attempting to set some ground rules around their child's drug habit does not mean they are advocating the drug habit.

I took the same path as you. Forced church when I was younger and then started questioning, and finally was asked not to come to Sunday school anymore. Because the bible says so is simply not an acceptable answer and that is what it all came down to.

Today I usually just avoid religious conversations because most people are not aware that I have been there and done that, and I often know more about their religion than they do. If religion makes someone feel good, great. For me personally, the most vocally religious people I have met have always selfish people who hide behind the veil of Jesus.

Unfortunately you're right, there are many Christians who just like to argue and abuse their "religion" to get their confrontational needs met. There are also many Christians who don't really stand on solid ground in their faith.

But there are Christians out there who know what they're talking about, who know more about their religion than the enlightened ex-Christians and educated atheists do.

You've probably never met one. Most people haven't. Because they don't like to argue or confront people. And they don't force their views down people's throats. Most of the time, they just sit there quietly and pray for those non-believers who other Christians would insult or argue with. They usually only bring it up when they're asked to give account for the reason they have hope, and they do it with gentleness and respect.

You have started arguments and confrontations in this thread, where it really isn't relevant, and you haven't backed anything up, and that makes you look like a bit of a zealot. Maybe consider your own behavior instead of pleading for respect of an idealized Christian (who you pretty obviously intend to be yourself). You aren't a martyr here.

I don't claim to be perfect. But I'm also not shoving anything down anyone's throats. And I don't see how anything I've said on here constitutes arguing. I think you're confusing me with someone else maybe?

There's no discussion to be had. A toddler may feel at ease because someone convinced him his flashlight will fend off the monsters in his closet and under his bed. It helps the kid sleep, but there's no enlightened, meaningful, or useful discussion to be had from that.

If I tell you "I believe in the healing power of crystals and wear them around my neck and it has helped me come to a certain peace with my mortality", you would either say "well, good for you if that helps your mental state cope with things" or "you're fucking nuts". Neither avenue is going to progress, inform, or help anyone.

>I've been much more at peace about it. Not all the way (yet?)

I've been a Christian for 25 years. I don't think you'll ever be completely at peace with your mortality--in the same way that riding a roller coaster is still scary even though you know it's safe.

But I've seen the difference in the way my Christian and non-Christian friends handle death, and the difference is striking.

What would you say the difference is?

For me, as a Christian: hope and gratitude.

They differ in their belief about the deceased's current subjective experience (or lack thereof).

To the religious, death is an illusion. After a short time on the earth, everybody meets up again in the afterlife. It may be sad, but not too sad.

To those who don't believe in an afterlife, death is real. When someone dies, everything about them is annihilated. A lifetime of experiences destroyed; a unique personality deleted from existence, and everyone worse-off because of it.

Sadly, the desirability of an outcome has no correlation with its likelihood.

The universe existed for ~ 14 billion years and did just fine without me. It will probably be good for at least another 14 billion years after I'm gone.

And the funny thing is, I have never lost a minute of sleep over not having existed for those initial 14 billion years.

I'm not entirely sure how your reply connects to my comment. Are you arguing that death isn't bad? If so, try pointing the argument at someone else:

"The universe existed for billions of years and did just fine without you. It will probably be good for eons after you're gone. And the funny thing is, I have never lost a minute of sleep over your non-existence for those initial billions of years."

It sounds both psychopathic and psychotic.

Are you arguing that death isn't bad?

I'm actually quoting many philosophers and authors that have said the same thing and for which I agree. For example:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/25647-i-do-not-fear-death-i-...

Essentially, it didn't bother you that you didn't exist 100 years ago. Think hard about why it bothers you that you won't exist 100 years from now.

In 200 years, nobody will remember you.

In 1,000 years, it will be as if you never existed. Just like 1,000 years before you were born.

illusion my friend. How certain/confident are you with that belief ? The "I" that you think you are, was different when you are 3yr old, when you are 30yr old, or at present...the way you behaved, reacted to pain(both physical and psychological) have evolved. There is a theory the subconscious (not consciously comprehended) evolves through lives. Its not rebirth (of your PRESENT SELF), in the traditional sense.

"I" at any moment through out your PRESENT life, is illusion (in other words, its constantly evolving, not same or real). If you cant even pin down present life, how can you be sure of past and future.

From personal experience, Christians seem to have a harder time moving on. If your loved one died in a terrible way, you'll still feel the guilt of the accident. On top of that, there will be continuing doubt and guilt, as you imagine your loved one watching you, judging you perhaps, questioning your current actions. Sure, heaven is supposed to be perfect, so that's not a "real" problem. Yet knowing they're still alive somewhere, you can't help but wonder.

Is it fair to be happy again? To love again? To joke about things? What will they think, looking at you continuing "life"? Even 10 years later, in the middle of a family gathering with happiness all around, a shot of guilt - will they be offended I forgot about them this time? That despite saying I never would, I've sorta moved on? How are they doing, anyways? It's joyful for them, but how do they look? Did they grow a bit more? Is their hair still long? What are they doing right now? Again, the answer is to handwave and say it's all magically perfect, and probably time dilation so we'll be dead and up there before they've even gotten through the welcome brochure. Doesn't really stop you from thinking things anyways.

Then they start piling on the "it was God's plan"/"it's for the best"/"there's a higher plan". That's the best answer to the pointless, yet burning desire to know "why?" I find this despicable, although I know many people say it out of good intention - there's really not a whole lot to say, such things fill the awkward silence. But for those that think about what they're saying for more than a second, it comes out to "be happy that a dreadful, evil, event occurred to you; the creator of the universe wishes it so and thus is an honor".

Being able to definitively answer the "why?" question was a major part of my healing. Answer it just like you would any other event; stop chasing something "meaningful" behind it.

OTOH, some people don't analyze things much. They're content to smile and say "he's so happy now, and I'll be joining him soon". This seems somewhat harmless, and might give someone hope in the end of their life, despite it being unrealistic. Sometimes you lie to people make them feel better, even though you're against lying in general.

And I certainly don't begrudge what [most] people do while bereaved - pain sucks and humans should have a basic right to deal with pain. I do find it contemptible to take advantage of their condition and sell them on a "solution".

Edit: I also find it very repulsive to treat death with positive adjectives. To take one of the worst things that plagues humanity, a completely negative experience, and then, because it's inevitable, try to gussy it up and make it not so bad, but something to look forward to.

Same here. Been following Jesus for over 24 years. For the skeptics out there, have a listen to this guy http://waltermartin.com/realaudio.html

It's a website that is desperately in need of a makeover (real player? that still exists?) but when I was a skeptic he was the only guy that gave straight answers, and would admit when he didn't know something. Too bad there are so many false teachers out there today. Makes it confusing for people.

To almost everyone who replied: Were your responses really in the spirit of HN? I don't believe anything I said deserved the condescending tone I received in response.

And what changed? What things stopped worrying you?

If I believed getting killed immediately let to perfect joy, and my family would be with me in a sec and be totally happy, yeah, death wouldn't bother me at all. I'd probably try to get us all into high risk jobs and locales, too.

I've got the peace that a process that's going to segfault has. At least I know the OS will close my sockets for me.

Oh, good Lord! I made my previous comment to you before I noticed you'd thrown this rock at the hornets' nest. Good man! Not that bright, maybe, but with moral courage to spare, and that's a rare pleasure to run across in this degraded age.

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