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Pope Francis has died

(www.reuters.com)
916 points phillipharris | 1 comments | 21 Apr 25 08:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.26s | source
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southernplaces7 ◴[21 Apr 25 12:19 UTC] 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.

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BrandoElFollito ◴[21 Apr 25 12:44 UTC] 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.

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1. kelnos ◴[21 Apr 25 15:43 UTC] 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.