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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

The religion example applies because it is the same phenomenon, but the one that has the most implications for how to live.

The phenomenon is that there is really strong evidence FOR something and really strong evidence AGAINST something. They are incompatible. Yet according to Bayesian reasoning you are like an ass stuck between two bales. You can't make a rational choice as to which is RIGHT, so people wind up picking one based on other reasons.

If you also consider Pascal's wager then that increases the weight on one side. In short you are between two massively compelling pieces of incompatible evidence.

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Assuming that the world exists roughly as we understand it and is coherent and rational, evidence reflects the state of the world. There cannot be strong evidence both for and against something, because all evidence is derived from the same, single, truthful state of the universe. You're misinterpreting one (or both!) pieces of evidence - maybe they're actually weak pieces of evidence, or you're mistaken about one (or both) of them.

The idea that the world is inexplicable by evidence and you must make irrational choices to satisfy your own desire for an explanation is contrary to both science and religion.

This is all before you get to Bayes - this is just about understanding the nature of the world and the nature of evidence and experience.

> There cannot be strong evidence both for and against something,

Of course there can be. Multiple cases exist. Light as a particle and light as a wave.

That's a great example of misinterpreting evidence—to see the evidence that light is a particle as strong evidence that it's not a wave, or vice versa, would be a misinterpretation of the evidence based on the incorrect assumption that it can't be both.

There is a single, coherent thing that light is, which produces the evidence we see. Some of that evidence is consistent with being just a wave, some is consistent with being just a particle, and yes, it's also strong evidence that it's not just a particle and not just a wave. We don't know all the details yet; "both a wave and a particle" is a pretty good approximation given our current level of knowledge, as is "sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle."

But picking the description "It's either just a wave or just a particle depending on how you feel about it, and there's no evidence that will help us because the evidence is contradictory" is wildly wrong and unscientific.

> Pascal's wager

Have you considered the inverse Pascal wager?

That is: the "true" God is a trickster (maybe Devil if you prefer) who has planted Pascal's Wager into our culture. The Trickster God sends people who believe in Pascal's Wager to hell, and sends those who understand this inverse to heaven (including Atheists who were unconvinced of Pascal's Wager). After all, what use does a Trickster God have of people who are so easily tricked?

Now, I'm personally religious. But this isn't here nor there. The point is that Pascal's Wager is an interesting thought experiment, but its often taught from only one point of view. Its not really built upon a strong philosophical foundation at all.

Ultimately, basing your faith on what amounts to a philosophical question from the 1600 without considering its counter-arguments (grown over the many centuries) is a bit of a folly. Of course there are counter arguments, Pascal's Wager is incredibly old.

There is no strong evidence for God except a bunch of belief from people.

That is not quite true. You might think it's not "indisputable" however there is evidence that corroborates many of the Biblical accounts as studied by academics and scholars [0]. Much of this is archeological, statistical, along with a significant amount sociological support as well. There is generally still some level of "faith" involved in religious beliefs (obviously), however it does not mean that those that hold them hold no scientific evidence at all.

It's possible that you have researched for yourself and have some evidence for your "beliefs" presented by your statement. Many people (admittedly on both sides of the fence) have not done much research in this regard, but in my opinion is a valuable exercise, so if you haven't I'd highly suggest it.

[0] The Case for Christ (Lee Strobel), along with The Case for Faith and the Case for a Creator. He was a former atheist who initially set out to prove God did not exist after his wife converted. This is certainly not an extensive list of resources out there, these are just some that I remember off the top of my head.

Strong evidence? Beyond it simply being a collection of historical accounts by historical people, of varying accuracy?

Evidence that corroborates Biblical accounts suggests that those accounts have some basis in fact. Such evidence is orthogonal to the question of whether or not any deities exist.

Oh I do not doubt that some of the stuff in the Bible is true. It is a book about genealogy of course. But that does not prove God in any form. It just proves that some stuff in a book that people wrote happened.

> He was a former atheist who initially set out to prove God did not exist after his wife converted.

Well that's the thing, you can't prove something exists. It doesn't work that way. You can prove it does exist though, and that's how I'm interpreting your statement.

Since you mention Pascal's Wager one could also mention Douglas Adams "'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'". And so if we did prove God exists then you wouldn't need faith which is what is being asked for.

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