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    Pope Francis has died

    (www.reuters.com)
    916 points phillipharris | 11 comments | | HN request time: 0.431s | source | bottom
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    southernplaces7 ◴[] No.43751109[source]
    So Pope Francis departs for a meeting with his boss perhaps?

    Jokes aside, he seemed like a genuinely decent human being and enough of a humanist to cast aside some of the drier absurdities surrounding the bureaucracy of Catholic Church administration, and ideology.

    Even as someone who's deep in the skeptically agnostic camp on any questions about supreme creators (after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God) I had more respect for the apparent practical concern for humanity of this pope, particularly compared to the more typical nature of historical pontiffs.

    replies(1): >>43751366 #
    1. BrandoElFollito ◴[] No.43751366[source]
    > after all even a firm atheist can't be absolutely sure there is no genuine God

    Why so? There is no reason for one to exist so not having one is the obvious case.

    We could of course assume anything, that we are av stylization, that the world is a large ice cream, that what we see is not the reality, whatever

    If we go for that, sure, we cannot be sure of anything. But we then must also believe that we may live in a large ice cream.

    replies(2): >>43752126 #>>43753230 #
    2. southernplaces7 ◴[] No.43752126[source]
    >There is no reason for one to exist so not having one is the obvious case.

    It's a usable supposition, sure, and I agree that being asked to prove a negative is silly, but you can't actually be sure that one doesn't exist. It's not the obvious case at all, it's not even all that obvious as a supposition.

    What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense to believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it does to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a mostly unknown nothing.

    I'd say that this more than anything has been responsible for virtually all cultures in history believing in supreme, divine creators of one kind or another vs no historical cultures that I know of believing in the universe springing from random chance and hand-wavey nothingness behind it.

    We could also of course be living in a large ice cream, you can't be absolutely sure that's not the case either.

    Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously powerful and conscious being that created a universe hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot more plausible than being subject to an accidental existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.

    replies(4): >>43752509 #>>43753089 #>>43753331 #>>43753549 #
    3. BrandoElFollito ◴[] No.43752509[source]
    > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously powerful and conscious being that created a universe hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot more plausible than being subject to an accidental existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.

    Why, they are the same to me. None is more probable because none needs to be.

    We can explain some things (until we cannot, and then we look for another model). Some we cannot explain because we do not yet have the appropriate knowledge. Someday we will, or we won't.

    The difference between me and someone who believes in one or more deities I that I can say "we don't know because we are not good enough yet". They need to say "this is driven by god" (for reasons I cannot explain)

    4. Capricorn2481 ◴[] No.43753089[source]
    > What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense to believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it does to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a mostly unknown nothing.

    We would come from nothing in the same way God came from nothing. There's little reason to conclude the universe was ever non-existent.

    > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously powerful and conscious being that created a universe hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot more plausible than being subject to an accidental existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.

    I actually thought you were going to say the first clause is less probable than whatever the second upcoming clause would be, because it sounds so improbably specific and human-crafted.

    I think the belief that we were gifted our cognitive superiority (if that even is something unique to us in the history of the universe) by a divine entity is not meant to be an explanation of where our cognition comes from, but a method of assuaging our guilt. Because if God gave us the tools to debase, kill, maim, and roast ourselves on this rock, then surely it is meant to be, and will add up to something meaningful.

    In fact, it's much more likely giving monkeys the ability to talk was an act of The Devil, not God.

    replies(1): >>43755031 #
    5. kelnos ◴[] No.43753230[source]
    > Why so?

    Because it can't be proven either way. An atheist who claims to know for certainty that there is no god is expressing a religious, faith-based viewpoint. I guess that isn't necessarily at odds with being an atheist, but part of why I'm an atheist is that I try to avoid believing in things that aren't provable and don't fit existing evidence.

    > If we go for that, sure, we cannot be sure of anything.

    We can be sure of things that have been proven using the scientific method. Certainly we can't be 100% sure, because that method is applied by fallible humans. But it's silly to suggest that levels of sureness don't matter; I can be more sure about the idea that we don't live in a giant ice cream than of other things, and that's fine.

    But I think it's true that we can't really be sure of anything... and that's also fine.

    6. amanaplanacanal ◴[] No.43753331[source]
    Most cultures have believed in a multiplicity of gods rather than just a single creator god. This new-fangled monotheism is a relatively modern invention.
    7. Mawr ◴[] No.43753549[source]
    > What's more, superficially at least, it makes more sense to believe in a supreme, essentially divine creator than it does to believe visibly enormous complexity deriving from a mostly unknown nothing.

    It can't make more sense to believe in one entirely made up thing vs another since they're both made up.

    > I'd say that this more than anything has been responsible for virtually all cultures in history believing in supreme, divine creators of one kind or another vs no historical cultures that I know of believing in the universe springing from random chance and hand-wavey nothingness behind it.

    Ascribing rationality to faith is an interesting supposition. It's all based on emotions, such as fear of death, on the side of the believers and greed on the side of belief-providers.

    > Though, the idea of being the creations of a tremendously powerful and conscious being that created a universe hospitable to our use and for our potential given by all our evident cognitive and material tools seems to me a lot more plausible than being subject to an accidental existence in a gargantuan ice cream environment.

    No, it just seems more comforting to you. That doesn't make it any more plausible.

    replies(1): >>43754570 #
    8. tbihl ◴[] No.43754570{3}[source]
    >It can't make more sense to believe in one entirely made up thing vs another since they're both made up.

    It makes sense to believe in Newton's laws, which he made up, even though we know the study of kinematics flowing from them is wrong. We have observed them being wrong. Someone else made up a complicated explanation of why and when Newton's laws are wrong. That guy's theories formed the basis for some incredible stuff that works really well, and he's probably wrong too... but I'll believe them both.

    replies(1): >>43767834 #
    9. 1718627440 ◴[] No.43755031{3}[source]
    > We would come from nothing in the same way God came from nothing.

    That would only be true, if your God is part of the same universe, which by (christian) definition wouldn't be truly God. When you talk about God as the creator of the universe he has also created time and thus causality and other properties of the universe, like that things come from other things.

    10. Mawr ◴[] No.43767834{4}[source]
    Yeah, sure, Newton "made up" the laws. Good one.

    For anyone curious, this is an example of the Continuum Fallacy [1]. Interestingly, that wiki page happens to use Newton's laws as an example:

    "For example, Newton's gravitational theories are "wrong" (they're a rough approximation) and Einstein's gravitation is almost certainly "wrong" too (it doesn't easily blend with quantum mechanics), but it would be a spectacular fallacy to suggest that they are equally wrong because there is such a continuous shading between "makes rough predictions" and "makes more accurate predictions" when it comes to scientific theories. Saying that the Earth is flat is wrong, and saying that it's spherical is also wrong — it's an oblate spheroid, roughly — but both statements do not have the same degree of "wrongness" on a continuum."

    [1]: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy

    replies(1): >>43776010 #
    11. tbihl ◴[] No.43776010{5}[source]
    This is not an example of the 'Continuum fallacy', but you believe it so because you are thoroughly convinced that religious thinking is vacuous.

    Unless you are denying Newton's agency or participation, he made those laws up. That's how articulation of reality works.

    When you make a strong binary conjecture, you invite counterproof. You object to the wording because you find it beneath the dignity of those laws to label it so; on that point, we agree.