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Comment by sergiosgc | Hacker News Reader

> But... there were, are, and will yet be many intelligent people of different religions that, for various empirically-unprovable reasons, feel there is a God - even if they know at an intellectual level that their current church or belief system isn't entirely consistent or correct.

No one should be denied the freedom to follow these feelings, within the boundaries of not infringing on other people's rights and liberties.

Having said that, please accept mass delusions do happen, smart and intelligent people do get caught in them, and so this is no proof of a god. You need material proof, and there is none.

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I agree with most of your comment. However, when you say

> You need material proof, and there is none.

I would like to add the the old adage holds true - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. (Also, this is more for the god as an almighty person in the sky type of case. For a person who considers the natural elements as god, it is simply different)

> I would like to add the the old adage holds true - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Oh but it is - it's not proof of absence but it is evidence. Any piece of evidence must have two sides - if observing A would increase your confidence that B, then observing not A must reduce your confidence that B.

That's like monkeys being observed by scientists behind one way mirrors saying they have evidence that there is no one watching them because they've never seen any scientists. But that would be a mistaken assumption because the scientists intentionally made themselves difficult to observe for the purposes of their research (monkeys behave differently if they know they are being watched).

I think most religious people would agree that God intentionally makes it impossible to verify his existence at a social level via empirical means... but that he does provide evidence of his existence at the individual level by speaking directly to you via spiritual experiences.

> I think most religious people would agree that God intentionally makes it impossible to verify his existence at a social level via empirical means

Funny how that went from an obscure, almost certainly heretical idea to mainstream in such a short time.

It kind of had to, otherwise modern religous belief just falls apart. At this point the only plausible explanation for a religious person why there's no hard evidence of God is that he intentionally hides his existence from us.

Technically only true for formal systems where you can axiomatically define A = not A, which is principally arbitrary.

And to that I say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Christianity has had 2000 years to produce extraordinary evidence. What's the hold up?

An empty grave is, in fact, "extraordinary evidence".

You mean, somebody wrote down "eye witness" accounts many decades after the event occurred (that contradict each other in important ways. Like, which day was Jesus crucified? The day after Passover was eaten (Synoptic gospels) or the day before it was eaten? (John)), that have absolutely no way to be verified. I don't see how that is "extraordinary evidence." Some ancients also claimed to see various pagan Gods, but I'm guessing you don't consider that to be "evidence."

The reverse of that adage holds even truer - absence of evidence is not evidence of existence.

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