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Comment by VictorHo | Hacker News Reader

I'm merely pointing to the fact that many extremely intelligent individuals have given atheism a lot of thought and come out on both sides of the fence. Of all major world issues, topics of study, etc., I cannot think of another with bigger potential implications.

Your statement that "religious belief should be an individual thing" is exactly the mindset that I am trying to address. The existence of a God is fact, or not fact. It's either true for everyone, or false for everyone. Saying something is "individual" is healthy only to the point that it does not stop you from actually researching it, and many times the best learning is done in collaboration and reviewing the work of others.

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Saying something is "individual" is healthy only to the point that it does not stop you from actually researching it

That's the point I am disagreeing with though.

The problem with God is that there is no way we can consider it as a Fact or Non-Fact. There is currently no objective reality of God's existence - so there is no element of fact or non-fact in it (interesting side note: if we all unequivocally believe in God how would that affect things - philosophical question for those so inclined :)).

An individuals opinion of God is really Faith or Non-Faith (do you believe it may be a provable Fact or may not be a proveable Fact); and that is what I feel is the personal choice - even if someone just shrugs shoulders and says "yeh, there must be a god" we have to respect that. Period.

(another side point: my problem with religion is, simply, that it tries to influence that decision, making it out to be the most important decision of your life...)

"The problem with God is that there is no way we can consider it as a Fact or Non-Fact. There is currently no objective reality of God's existence - so there is no element of fact or non-fact in it."

The same can be said for unicorns and garden gnomes. Except that an overwhelming majority of people consider it a Fact that those creatures don't exist.

why should religious belief have a special place in the continuum of silly thoughts? (you say they should be respected)

if you can make someone believe anything (e.g. there's this god with x,y,z attributes), you can make them do anything.

I make a distinction between religious belief and religion. The former I respect, ultimately, as a personal choice (that is not to say I wouldn't try to present an alternative if it was appropriate!). The latter I have little respect for :)

But that's a problem. We don't pretend to respect people for having silly beliefs, except when it is religious - why this exception? I find it helps to think of religious belief/conviction as a socially acceptable form of mental disease, comparable to examples in drug use.

I suspect you're preaching to the converted :-) I rationalise it by accepting this phenomenan exists - I will fight when it is detrimental of course, but otherwise just let it slide.

preaching is one of my character flaws :-)

No, he was saying that whether or not there is a God is either a true or false statement.

Now of course, whether or not we can determine the truth of that statement is another question entirely. I certainly am not aware of any way of proving it either way in this life, and indeed the evidence I am aware of (in either direction) is highly ambigious. And of course, even if you decide you personally beleive there is a God (or a multitude of them) that does not indicate which (if any!) of the currently available religions is closest to correct.

I arrived at my decision to believe in Christianity by a leap of faith. I think there is some evidence I can bring to bear to support it, but I am the first to admit that it would not stand up in most courts of law much less in the arena of science. I believe it because on an intuitive emotional level, it seems right.

Thus, I try to respect all religious beliefs. I cannot prove my beliefs are correct. I cannot disprove someone else's beliefs (excluding a very few fringe groups that make provably false claims, and even then it is those specific claims not the religion as a whole I could disprove).

But, while my belief in God is a personal thing, the existence or nonexistence of God is a fact. We may not be able to answer the question in this mortal life, but it is still either true or false.

I think we're actually agreeing. My point was the existence/non-existence of God as a fact is currently unprovable. And, so, either viewpoint is essentially the same - just in reverse.

The existence of a God is fact, or not fact. It's either true for everyone, or false for everyone. Saying something is "individual" is healthy only to the point that it does not stop you from actually researching it, and many times the best learning is done in collaboration and reviewing the work of others.

But there is no way to "research" the existence or non-existence of God. It's entirely a matter of faith, which I either have, or do not - that's why it is an individual matter.

"The existence of a God is fact, or not fact. It's either true for everyone, or false for everyone."

The existence of God is both fact and not fact, until you look in the box.

Good QM joke...

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