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Comment by dajohnson89 | Hacker News Reader

>"You give them something tangible and clearly valuable, and they give you a vague promise on something you can’t see, and can’t even check if anyone has ever received."

Nice analogy and all, but I find the condescending and disdainful tone towards a widely practiced religious act inappropriate.

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If a factual recounting of the way that something operates sounds condescending, the problem isn't necessarily with the speaker. Try explaining astrology without sounding condescending.

I thought the more serious issue was that it completely ignored the issue of risk: I may have a slight suspicion that someone is noton the up-and-up, but assess that the probability of dihonesty is low enough and either the cost of the indulgence is low enough or the cost of not having one is high enough that it's a net good gamble.

The practice the author was referring too, paying indulgences is (thankfully) not a "widely practiced religious act".

Indeed. Though it unfortunately was widely practiced at one time, the Catholic Church now specifically prohibits money changing hands in exchange for indulgences. Indulgences are still part of Catholic teaching, but can only be obtained via some "good work" such as prayer, scripture reading, etc.

The post does misrepresent what an indulgence is in Catholic teaching. But the indulgence-sellers did that, too.

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