
The Gift - paul
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-gift.html
======
edw519
I've always found it interesting that we techies generally avoid reinventing
the wheel in our work but feel compelled to reinvent it in matters of
spiritually. We're not the first to experience these thoughts and feelings and
certainly won't be the last.

I suspect much of the reason is that the users manuals and wikis that resulted
from thousands of years of human wonderings have been so misunderstood and
misappropriated for other purposes.

This post reminded me of the ancient Hebrew book of Koheleth, which was
translated into the Greek Ecclesiastes. About a man who wondered about many of
the same things Paul brought up. Like many of us, Koheleth tried all sort of
strategies to find meaning and be happy: to be rich, to be learned, to have
fun, etc.

In the end, all he could surmise was that each day was a gift and to make the
most of it. Pretty good lesson, I think. Thanks, Paul, for the reminder.

~~~
zio99
Refreshing indeed to see a hacker talk about faith.

I was talking to a friend the other day that said the Devil had internet from
the start; but it's only now that we see blogs pop up on faith. So thank you
Paul for this.

Also, being the top post on HN is just the push I needed to write on my faith.
Was initially afraid that it'd turn my readership away. So thank you once
again for teaching me to not hold back.

As an Engineer, I'm finding that faith and logic can go hand-in-hand after
all. The more I question my faith, the stronger it gets.

I'm also reminded of Dostoevsky's search. Who am I to argue with a _Great
Thinker_ who spent years arguing against God's existence only to admit he was
wrong in the end.

~~~
_feda_
Your logic doesn't stand up here. Why should you trust dostoyevsky's
subjective understanding of god anymore than your own? Besides, dostoyevsky's
best asset was his imagination, not his capacity for logic.

------
ElliotH
A lot of people are complaining about the 'God' concept introduced in the
latter half of the post. I think a lot of this is that people are pattern-
matching 'God' with the huge amount of baggage that the term has rightfully
accumulated.

I started reading the article in full (having read the criticism first), and
soon realised that the god notion described doesn't really match anything in
traditional religion, or anything that one would typically criticise. The god
introduced doesn't seem to require anything tangible from the reader or anyone
who believes in such a god. It requires no submission, suffering, organisation
or decrees. It simply makes an offer. (and it very expressly makes that offer
within a fable, not a description of reality)

The end paragraph is pretty hard to deny. You just needs to be careful not to
associate your cached thoughts with the word 'God'. Essentially what the story
concludes with is: love is a good thing; we should share it; and we should
offer it to ourselves too[1].

This kind of love is most noticeable by its absence I think. After a couple of
hard years, I recently looked back on the things that had been troubling me,
and noticed that throughout it I had been very hard on myself, and very hard
on others.

I think the god analogy as a source of love is one that is only useful to some
people.

I'm sure that making physical world predictions based on the existence of any
higher power is sure to result in predictions that aren't useful.

Regardless, the general point about love, suffering, loss, forgiveness and
learning can be taken without changing personal beliefs, and without god.
Equally, a very personal god who offers and requires only what Paul describes
gives identical results.

As such I argue that the god described has no need to be excluded from this
essay, or Hacker News. I urge those criticising it to read it again with
strict mental effort on avoiding the 'god = bad' association that one leaps to
out of past experience.

[1] (and it says this in an excellent way, and with more nuance than I
describe, I know)

~~~
paul
Exactly.

Perhaps I needed to manage the transition between the parts a little more
smoothly to avoid losing people who have an allergic reaction to the g-word.

When things are difficult, talk of God inevitably arises from many good and
well meaning people. The difficulty of course is that the God concept has so
much ugly baggage attached to it. You can reject it outright, as so many here
are eager to do, or you can embrace and nurture the good in it.

Alas, it's very tricky to navigate the waters between the dogmatic believers
and the dogmatic unbelievers, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

~~~
bambax
The problem about your post is that, due probably, yes, to a lack of
transition between the two parts, the reader feels they have been played. We
are incredibly moved by the first story, and when we are all soft with emotion
and empathy, here comes a lecture about "false gods" and "true God".

What's worse, the second part rests on a mountain of assumptions that are
never articulated, let alone justified: that God is good, that there is only
one God (not zero, not many: exactly One), that there is absolute good and
absolute evil in the world and that there is an ongoing fight between the two,
etc.

But thanks for sharing anyway.

\- - -

PS: "dogmatic believers" vs "dogmatic unbelievers" puts superstition and
reason on the same level; they are not.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
If you can't consider that you might be wrong, its dogma, regardless of
whether you believe in God, Allah, Einstein or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The issue is that so many crazy people use religious teachings as an excuse
for their craziness and it hurts the whole thing, as it were. Mind you, crazy
people use almost everything as a justification (and we're all a little
crazy).

Personally, I liked his definition of religion and God, but then i subscribe
to a religion which explicitly forbids talking about itself (which is probably
the best part of it). When I say subscribe, I suppose that I mean take meaning
and solace from.

Bear in mind that the actuality of a particular belief has little or nothing
to do with its usefulness for living a life, so even if I (or the author, or
you) are completely mistaken about our spiritual beliefs, then it makes no
goddamn difference to our lives.

The only real difficulty is when one attempts to force said beliefs on someone
else, and that's where all of the badness and evil that is rightfully
associated with religion(s) seems to come from.

Incidentally, could you provide definitions of superstition and reason? Two
very tricky concepts I find. Reason once said that of course the earth is
flat, now it says of course it must be round, so which was superstition and
which was reason?

To carry this analogy a little further, which of your beliefs (rational of
course, like all human beliefs) are factually incorrect? I would bet that
within 100 years, many of them will be proven to be so. Does that mean that
you will be retconned into superstitiousness?

Incidentally, i think that you may have misinterpreted what the author meant
with the false and true gods analogy (or at least you constructed a different
meaning to mine) so I would humbly suggest that you perhaps try to read that
part of the piece again (as will I).

~~~
AlexandrB
> To carry this analogy a little further, which of your beliefs (rational of
> course, like all human beliefs) are factually incorrect? I would bet that
> within 100 years, many of them will be proven to be so. Does that mean that
> you will be retconned into superstitiousness?

The difference between superstition and science/reason is not that one is true
and the other is false. It's that only one claims to know absolute truth -
superstition. Reason, in the context of science anyways, demands to be
challenged and is open to change (it may take a long time, but it happens).

Thus, whereas reason allows for us to evolve our understanding about the world
being flat, superstition in it's most extreme forms, demands that we limit our
understanding to what's already written. For example, believing that the earth
is 6000 years old.

------
tptacek
You're really good at these essays.

If you haven't already listened to it, you might like "What Is The Light",
from "The Soft Bulletin" by The Flaming Lips. It's a bit on-the-nose but is
basically a poetic encapsulation of what you just wrote; Wayne Coyne wrote
many of the songs on that album while metabolizing the death of his father,
and pulls it off without ever becoming funereal or morose.

I can't quite put my finger on why but have always felt that album ---
basically one of the three best pop/rock albums of the last 20 years --- was
uncannily resonant for (our yes yes lazily romanticized concept of)
entrepreneurs.

~~~
davidu
Worth adding, that "yoshimi battles the pink robots" is an amazing album by
the same band about a woman's battle with cancer, and love, and loss. It was
just turned into an amazing play (technically an opera (rock opera!) since
it's just the album being acted out on stage with very few words added) that
is being performed at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego (The home to Tommy,
Rent*, Jersey Boys, and many other breakthrough plays).

I saw the play, and it's really terrific, especially since almost everyone has
a connection to cancer and loss. And the music is terrific.

------
bambax
This is a very nice and heartwarming piece -- especially the part where the OP
can't board the helicopter and has to drive hundreds of miles alone, into the
night, not knowing what might happen to his wife and their (yet unborn)
daughter. Must have been a very long drive.

Like many others however I was a little surprised, and, yes, disappointed with
the "God" part at the end. Is this what it was all about?

What does "God" has to do with any of this? Can't one love their children,
their partners, their siblings, with all their hearts, and leave it at
that...?

What is "the personification of all that is Good"? What is Good? (Good for you
may be bad for someone else; absolute good is hard; historically, Gods have
not been known to be good: they were jealous, mean creatures). And even
admitting there would be some "absolute good", why would it need to be
"personified"?

The finale reads a little like this: Gods other people believe in are "false
Gods", and guess what? the God I believe in / custom built to my specs is the
One True God.

This, for me, I'm sorry to say, ruined a perfect moment.

~~~
stephengillie
I also felt this was a great story ruined at the end. The author is talking
about the terrorific (terror-filled) ride of his daughter's birth and young
life, then flops over to a children's tale about one all-powerful being
wanting more followers than a different all-powerful being.

What do these all-powerful beings have to do with his daughter and her
struggle to live? What does it have to do with all of the doctors and nurses
who cared for his daughter? Why thank this all-powerful being who did nothing
for your child, but take for granted all of the people who worked to help her?

~~~
discreteevent
All I can say is that if you have a sick child who is suffering and in danger
it is quite different to any kind of trouble you have experienced before. It
is very hard to take this on your own shoulders. It helps a lot to have a
feeling that there is something bigger out there. You don't have to call it
God. But logic etc is of no help in this kind of situation as it is by
definition out of your control. This is where all your established positions
mean nothing. So whether it is true or not that there is something else I
imagine that the feeling that there is is what helps many people keep it
together when they would crumble if they felt there were only people and logic
in the universe, there's nothing out there, we live, we die, we are just
machines that are programmed to reproduce etc. Keeping it together at a time
like this can be very important so you take whatever help you can get. And if
you feel you got it then it would be untrue to yourself not to be grateful
later.

------
callmeed
This was a really good post, but I'm going to be totally honest: my eye kept
being drawn to an avatar of you holding (what appears to be) an assault rifle
and smiling. It seems strange considering the topic.

Again, no offense is meant. Maybe its also due to recent events, but it seems
odd.

~~~
paul
That is kind of weird. It's my FriendFeed pic from a few years ago. I just
changed it to my current fb profile pic :)

thanks

~~~
callmeed
Much better ... the post just went from good to great :)

~~~
NanoWar
Why does that change the article? He still likes guns!

------
stevenj
>From my brother, I received a personal understanding of death, and a constant
reminder to live my life as though it may end at any moment.

I'm not sure how to really ask this, but what does it mean to live your life
as though it may end at any moment?

For example, does that literally mean to pursue today as if you could really
be gone tomorrow? And if so, how?

Does it mean that if you really want to go sky diving you should do it soon
(i.e. now)? If you've been thinking about moving to another place for a while,
but just keep putting it off for semi-trivial reasons, should you just go and
see what happens?

I've heard people say that they live each day as if it could be their last,
but I'm not sure what that means, practically speaking.

There have been several things that I wish I'd done, looking back, but I
didn't mostly out of fear.

The idea of living each day as if it could be your last has always intrigued
me.

~~~
kjackson2012
To me, it doesn't mean go skydiving or spend all your money and go partying
every day.

It means stop living in fear, and stop distracting yourself with bullshit.

Lots of people are afraid of the shame of failure, the shame of rejection,
etc. If you really were going to die tomorrow, it would strip away all the
fear that you have of living with this burden.

I've been through some health scares and believe me, there is nothing more
sobering than being in an MRI machine looking for a brain tumor. All the day-
to-day bullshit that many people worry about, like "Why didn't I get that
promotion" or "I really want that car" gets stripped away pretty quick, and
the things that really matter surface immediately.

------
ChuckMcM
I really love the honesty of this piece. I also feel that the message about
being thankful and forgiving is very important. Life is too short to hold on
to anger, and too wonderful to wait to embrace its gifts.

------
no_more_death
Thank you for a thoughtful and probing post. It is bold to write on a
spiritual topic to this audience. I don't usually talk at length about
spiritual matters, but everyone else here seems to be doing so and so I think
it's appropriate.

I would like to talk about one idea you brought up: the idea that the
Christian Gospel involves some sort of coercion. In particular, the little
story you told about God vs. the devil.

This is what the gospel says. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have
everlasting life." John 3:16

We're sinking in quicksand. God reached out His hand to save us. But if we
refuse, we will die. Does that make God a monster?

Indeed, if you refuse God's love, the consequences are not good. If you refuse
my offer of a kidney transplant to you, the consequences are not good. Does
that mean I'm raping you by offering to save your life?

Please do not blame God that there are people in hell. God doesn't use hell as
an instrument of coercion. We sink into hell under the weight of our own evil.
We put ourselves there. We wouldn't be happy in heaven, if we don't like God's
rules here on earth.

But God loved us even though we could not repay him in the least. He is rich
in mercy. God gave the world an unspeakably wonderful gift that we can never,
ever repay. Jesus Christ took my hell upon himself. He took all the punishment
I deserved on Himself. How can I repay that? That's the essence of
unconditional love. And He offers this gift to you.

Christ is my brother, my friend. He died for me. He forgives my sins against
Him and helps me every day with my pride and my bent toward sin. Do you
realize this is not a game? He has seen what you wrote -- don't you think it
hurts Him?

I'm genuinely confused why you insert such strong language in a thoughtful
post about loving life and valuing the right things. If you disagree with the
Gospel, feel free to say so. But why do you want to vilify the God I love,
call Him "the devil," call Him a rapist? He is grieved by these remarks. I am
grieved as well.

I will pray for you. You seem to be lashing out at God with the grief and
difficulty you have experienced. That's an awful place to be in. I know from
personal experience that my words are not able to help you, but God is able to
help you. I hope that some day, you believe in Christ and come to understand
that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can go to God the
Father except through Him.

~~~
Tichy
I must admit, I am impressed by the sophistication of your argument. Still,
not being well versed in Christian mythology, I have lots of questions.

For example, isn't god supposed to be all powerful, so that he created
everything, including the devil, hell, and death? Would it cost him anything
to simply make you not die - contrary to a human giving a kidney to another
human, which indeed would be a high price to pay. Hasn't god, in fact, also
created kidney disease? And what is the sins you are talking about? It sounds
to me as if there are conditions for being granted eternal life after all,
which practically amounts to coercion again.

Anyway, I really just felled compelled to reply because I thought your
reasoning was not all that bad (for a religiously deluded person - sorry :-).
I am willing to believe that at least you mean well.

~~~
flyinRyan
This has been argued and discussed endlessly throughout the centuries, but the
answer to your questions are: free will. For example, God didn't make "the
devil", he made an angel who chose to go against God.

The "Eternal life" thing sounds like coercion when you think of it as "do this
or you'll be tortured in hell" but the point is God lets you chose to be with
him or to not be with him. If God is everything that is good, then there's not
going to be a way to make a place that does not have him and yet is pleasant
to be, right?

~~~
Crake
Yeah, this is about when you run into that whole "how can you have free will
if god is supposed to be omnipotent" problem that's been dogging various
religions for centuries...

~~~
flyinRyan
Actually, philosophy passed that bit quite some time ago. Being omnipotent is
not a problem for free will.

~~~
Crake
I can see why some people would want to think that. Humans are amazing at
rationalizing their irrational emotional responses.

------
msg
Responding only to the theological coda, if you read this wiki page you will
become enlightened.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism>

This particular belief system of unconditional love vs condemning judgment and
promised reward, in the context of Christianity, was completely anticipated
two thousand years ago. And then criticized.

Instead of reinventing the wheel in this way, you should consider following
the grooves of people who have already carved the path. At least you will
understand why they turned the way they did.

~~~
moconnor
I don't think Paul was postulating the existence of multiple (competing?)
gods; Marcionism isn't especially relevant to his discussion.

~~~
msg
Marcion's program was to excise the judging Yahweh from what we now know as
the New Testament, leaving only the loving, forgiving Jesus. It was born out
of an apparent desire to edit the religion into something he found palatable.

My larger point is that the religion of unconditional love has already been
invented, as has Paul's detour. An appreciation for this history would save a
student from a lot of intellectual blind alleys.

And aptly, it is Marcion's failure to grapple with Christianity's continuity
with Judaism, to appreciate the history and deal with its paradoxes, that led
him into heresy. His heresy led him all the way to publishing a version of the
Bible with the parts he didn't like cut out.

Paul's post here felt very similar to me.

------
leibniz
I would have loved to see this beautifully written, touching story without
mentioning any form or idea of God.

~~~
tptacek
Thank you, you just won me $20.

~~~
venus
Who was stupid enough to take the opposite bet? Of course polluting an
otherwise touching and thought-provoking essay with God Talk provokes moans
from those of us, thankfully many, who have no wish to see it.

It's as if someone took a few beautiful pictures of picturesque landscapes and
then in the last few shots the bottom of the photo included their stinky foot
and some empty cans of Bud Light. You could make $20 predicting the moans
about that, too.

~~~
tptacek
So true. I bet he didn't even write his essay in the right text editor.

------
npt4279
Thank you for sharing this.

Words really can't express how this article made me feel... but it's rare for
something I've read on HN to cause me to take a step back and reflect on
what's important in life.

------
ececconi
"Death strips away everything that doesn't matter."

Extremely powerful sentence.

~~~
datums
The birth of a child does something very similar, but in a joyful way. Wasted
time (TV , useless relationships) becomes better moments. It's gradual unlike
death were you can have a clean slate.

------
Alex3917
Over the last couple years I've noticed a lot of successful businesses with
unconditional love as the core value proposition. Nothing at anywhere near a
global scale though. At the risk of coming across as being more cynical than
usual, I think this is a space with a lot of opportunity.

~~~
namank
* successful businesses with unconditional love as the core value proposition.*

examples please.

~~~
sathishmanohar
I don't know if this counts, When I first heard about zappos I admired their
culture and saw some vidoes of Tony Hsieh on youtube. In a video he mentioned
about the culture book of zappos. Then I sent him a email, asking I'm in India
can I get one. In a few hours, his assistant replied on his behalf, I got the
book in a few days by air mail.

I'm from India, never bought anything from them, It is possible I never will,
but I've said this story to atleast 10 people after that. This is the positive
side of unconditionally being kind to people.

------
zgm
"Statistically, there does not appear to be much of a genetic component to
pancreatic cancer, but still, I worried. How much longer do I have? Could
there be a tumor growing inside of me at this very moment?"

I lost my father to pancreatic cancer when I was only 18. Even though I'm only
20, this is something I constantly have in the back of my head. Although I
don't live each day exactly like it's my last, I no longer stress out over
small things and am a lot more questioning of the decisions I make. Death
really does strip away everything doesn't matter.

------
NanoWar
It's a pity that there always has to happen something terrible for one to
realise that life is a gift.

Then suddenly critisism of Islam. It doesn't make sense. Oh well. Why must
there always be a good and a bad god?

~~~
thyrsus
Islam is not singled out. Mainstream Christianity insists on the existence of
hell, for example: <http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM>

I'm not competent to categorize other faiths.

~~~
ciupicri
I'm not an expert on this, but I've talked with someone who is and The Old
Testament has basically a lot of violence and punishments while The New
Testament is about love.

~~~
Crake
Yeah, and also Jesus saying that all the laws and codes from the old testament
are still valid. Better put all the girls on the rag outside your home once a
month, or god'll get real angry. You won't like him when he's angry!

------
b1daly
When I was younger I did not have the experience of being offended by things
said by others (much). Reading the essay brought up some emotions in me that I
now identify as being "offended." The story mixes some poignant sharing of
difficult life experience with what to me sounds like gibberish. Somehow the
shape of the rhetoric is closed off. The jump from the personal/subjective
experience to asserted universal truths feels manipulative manipulative to me.
Blech

------
not_that_noob
What an amazingly insightful post. Thank you for sharing.

------
VaedaStrike
Can unconditional love remove consequences?

I think that is one of the potential problems in discerning between the "true
God(s)" and the "false god(s)".

Allow me to demonstrate what I mean.

When you say "If a God threatens to send you to hell for loving the wrong
person, it's a false God." it seems to imply a couple of things that must be
accepted apriori to the statement-

1\. That God stating what consequences will be for actions taken by us
constitutes him ''threatening' rather than him explaining a cause and effect
relationship. If I'm a genuine doctor and tell you that if you eat a certain
piece of food that you will die or get sick I'm not threatening you. I'm
simply pointing out the causality connected with an action to warn you.

2\. That for any given person their loving of any other given person can/will
never genuinely harm them.

I don't know about you, but those conditions (which seem to be inherent to the
view given here by Paul), are hard for me to accept just on mere assertion. I
think that it is possible that two people loving each other, in certain
contexts, can be detrimental to both of them. This whole 'love conquers all'
thing depends very much on what you define 'love' to be. And, while I
certainly can think of certain types of love that CAN AND SHOULD be universal,
I can also think of types of love that can infringe on the previous types as
well as carrying vast detrimental potential for all connected to them. Human
connection, Human relations, intimacy, it all is very much a force of nature
and, as such, has destructive potential.

The next statement I fully agree with--

"If a God tells you to coerce people into worshiping him, it's a false God."
but it also presents it's own complexity.

As a father of 20 month old boy I run into situations all the time where there
seems a thin line between guidance and coercion. In fact, throughout my life
I've often found that many of the same principles that bind us in society,
that make humanity work, are the very same ones that, without genuine love and
genuine concern for the welfare of the person, are those which lead to things
like Jonestown. Hence the shared root between "cult" and "culture." The very
idea of turning earth (that is - to cultivate) implies applied force to direct
natural processes to beneficial means. Who is benefiting is very much linked
to the aim and not as much to the methods.

The means of trying to encourage people to commit to some actions so as to, in
some way, improve the welfare of the aforementioned people can virtually
always (in my experience) be seen in a coercive light by those wanting to see
such coercion.

Yet if there is some true benevolent force, and a person knows about it, then
is it not reasonable/logical, to expect said person to somehow convey access
to that benevolent force's to others? Whether that's knowledge or some other
beneficial thing?

Where then do you draw the line between those who are actively trying to
convince others that they've found some true benevolent reality that can, and
seeks, to help others? Certainly some things seem obvious. It can't be
something that is telling untruths. But, and this should be obvious to
virtually all parents out there I'd suppose, there are times when, for the
welfare of a child, it seems wise to withhold at times information OR to even
go along with implicit appearances.

An example I can think of would be where some things a parent has done prior
to becoming a parent, say something like teenage-to-young-adult-years stupid
kind of things. One doesn't generally go blurting those things out to a four
or five year old when they ask some related innocent question.

"Genuine, unconditional love is a gift that must be freely given and freely
accepted, with nothing expected in return. Love can not be delivered at gun
point, or with the threat of eternal damnation. That's more like rape."

I have to say that this paragraph puts me in a light that I believe is a bit
unique due to a personal experience.

I'm presently in Lima, Peru. Here I have to take all kind of precautions due
to being a tall white guy with a gringo accent. Otherwise I stand a good
chance of being mugged. I know this because of an attempted robbery I already
lived through where I was physically assaulted.

That being said I've never felt hate here for being who I am. And I can say
the same for virtually every where else I've been throughout my life,
regardless of where or what context--with the exception of one place -- Santa
Cruz, CA

If you want to feel hated, and I mean something on the verge of knowing some
of the people hating you have lynch mob like ideas entering their mind, go
walking down Pacific Ave in Downtown Santa Cruz as a "Mormon" (LDS) Missionary
(I imagine it could be even worse now post Prop. 8).

For a land filled with hippiesque love and peace centric bumper-stickers and
an intellectual heal the world, free love vibe all over I have NEVER felt so
much hate or had so many people heckle and curse (most under their breath as
we passed by but quite a few yelling loudly) me just for me being who I was.
They knew nothing about me other than the fact that I had a well worn white
shirt, a tie, and some slacks and a black lapel pin. They didn't know the
missionary that was walking beside me was an intellectual Boston, MA native
who converted in his early twenties. They didn't REALLY know much at all about
me--but I was, in there eyes, someone who fit the very labels that Paul here
associates with one who follows a "false god" and uses like methods to
"rapists."

Their own certitude of the pretexts upon which they saw me seemed to render
them incapable of unconditional love. Contrary to the way they might have seen
it, I was not there to condemn them, nor to coerce them to anything, nor to
tell them not love someone, nor to offer a mob-esque protection arrangement.
But that's how they all saw it.

And so using a metric very similar to what Paul puts forward for a discernment
between the 'gods' I was deemed and infidel worthy of being looked down upon,
or even just ignored, because I happened to believe something that
superficially could be made to look intolerant and even hateful when it was
actually quite the opposite.

~~~
salgernon
<quote> That being said I've never felt hate here for being who I am. And I
can say the same for virtually every where else I've been throughout my life,
regardless of where or what context--with the exception of one place -- Santa
Cruz, CA </quote>

I was going to say that I found this entirely improbable, until:

<quote>

If you want to feel hated, and I mean something on the verge of knowing some
of the people hating you have lynch mob like ideas entering their mind, go
walking down Pacific Ave in Downtown Santa Cruz as a "Mormon" (LDS) Missionary
(I imagine it could be even worse now post Prop. 8). </quote>

Yea no shit. Try walking down Main Street urban USA in your white sheet and
clan outfit an see what kind of reaction you get.

If people were hating on you, and I have no problem believing that you may
have been followed, harassed and even threatened, it is not because of you as
a human, but you as a representative of an oppressive, smug, petty, abusive
and racist proselytizing space ship fantasy land thy wants to impose your
particular lunacy on the rights of others.

So yea, I can believe that Santa Cruz would not be best pleased with you.

May e if you'd offered to smoke pot with people there...

~~~
skrebbel
> _If people were hating on you, and I have no problem believing that you may
> have been followed, harassed and even threatened, it is not because of you
> as a human, but you as a representative of an oppressive, smug, petty,
> abusive and racist proselytizing space ship fantasy land thy wants to impose
> your particular lunacy on the rights of others._

Why? Why do you do this?

~~~
3pt14159
If you look at all my posts on religion on hacker news you will find that this
exact response is the reason why we do not need them. Religion is divisive. A
heartfelt post by a member of the LDS is quickly met by vitriol. Same as it
ever was all across the internet.

------
username3
C.S. Lewis wrote about unconditional love in The Four Loves.

“God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in
order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already
foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the
buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the
uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated
incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and
arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare
the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own
parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him.
Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all
loves.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
<http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/14816053-the-four-loves>

------
dhbradshaw
I loved this post for its simplicity and practicality and also for its
willingness to provoke thought.

It led me to begin thinking about a simple question: can one have
unconditional love and still believe that an act is wrong or that the beloved
can or should improve?

Since the concept of unconditional love is difficult (and important) to
define, I will try to use the term as it was used in Paul's essay. In this
essay, Paul first learned about unconditional love when contemplating his
small, helpless child. She was doing nothing to earn love, but he loved her.

Now things are getting more difficult. What aspect of his daughter did he
love? Certainly it wasn't her afflictions. That is, he never would have even
considered that because he loved her in her helpless state she should be kept
in that helpless state. Because he loved her, he wanted to do everything that
he could to help her heal, grow, and thrive. Paul's unconditional love was for
a being that could grow and change and overcome sickness. And because he loved
that being he wanted to help her grow and change and live. Paul had a model of
what was good (health) and he wanted with all his heart to see his daughter
move toward what was good. That is what love is.

We can be sick mentally or spiritually. We can also grow mentally and
spiritually. When someone has unconditional love for us they will want to see
us heal and grow and thrive not only physically but also spiritually and
mentally. That's what love is.

If that's what love is, then if remove from the lover any sense of what is
sick or healthy, good or bad, then you cripple the lover and make them
incapable of seeking the interests of the beloved. You cripple their ability
to love.

So the answer to my question seems to be that not only is it possible to have
unconditional love and still have a moral map that distinguishes between
spiritual health and sickness, but that having such a map is the only way to
love effectively.

------
gordaco
It's really heartwarming to read pieces like this in a place like HN. It
remind us that, after all, we're people. We like techhnology, programming and,
well, you know, the usual topics around here. But, in the end, like the
article said, people matters. So much that everything else is noise. This is a
lesson that that you probably won't learn on another person, but on yourself,
because it's not tied to reason, but to a different, non-logic, part of the
mind. That's why art and poetry repeat themselves over time.

Everyone has his/her moments of grief: don't let they come when it's too late.
React as soon as you can: there's people around you that may not be there
tomorrow, so take your time to enjoy their company and tell them you do so.

------
bad_user
Paul, thanks for sharing.

My son was also born prematurely. He's 2 and a half years old now and he's
wonderful, but while reading your piece it gave me shivers down my spine, as I
know exactly what you and your wife went through. Other people don't realize
how awful this was. Personally I wanted to switch places with him, except
there was nothing I could do except trusting the doctors and pray for
miracles.

My son was indeed a true gift and speaking of spirituallity and death,
personally I feel like a part of my soul was transposed in him and the odd
thing is that I fear death less since he was born.

------
Ramario
Thanks for sharing such a personal experience Paul. This article resonated
with me deeply. I also wonder about God and try to make sense of my own
existence. Great post!

------
jacquesm
That's one amazing girl you've got Paul, a bit late but congratulations!

One of my sons was born premature and I remember the hospital visits and the
incubator all too clearly.

------
OmarIsmail
I think there's another misconception here, or rather an incorrect conflation
of two things: Unconditional love and the concept of Hell. The two are not
mutually exclusive. Even though you love your child unconditionally that
doesn't mean you'll never punish them.

Also the concept of God becomes substantially less abstract when you think of
it (at least from the traditional monotheist perspective) as the "Creator" and
the "Created".

~~~
Crake
Would you punish your unconditionally loved child by dropping them into a
volcano for eating at red lobster? There's spankings, and then there's the
whole mass murder/eternal damnation combo thing.

------
aswanson
There was a time in my life where I distrusted anything that smacked of
spirituality. Everything had to be logical. I realized later that I was
performing a hysterectomy on my soul. Without confronting, examining and
reflecting on these experiences, you may as well be an automata. Thanks, Paul.

------
a5seo
"...born 100 days early."

It's interesting, according to Roe vs. Wade, a fetus is not supposed to be
viable anytime before 91 days prior to the due date (3rd trimester).

As a programmer, nothing drives me more crazy than an arbitrarily chosen (and
in this case, clearly incorrect) number, as a basis for critical decisions.

------
ericfrenkiel
one of the most powerful essays I've ever read.

------
ananthrk
Would we interpret death differently if it happened "naturally" (as in old
age)? [NB: This is a genuine thought that came to me after I read this
(poignant) essay and I hope I am not being insensitive]

------
austinlyons
Paul, thank you for taking the time to write this. I appreciate it.

------
zarg
Wow - this was an incredible read. thank you!

------
gprasanth
[http://sathyasaibaba.wordpress.com/category/unconditional-
lo...](http://sathyasaibaba.wordpress.com/category/unconditional-love/)

I had to share that.

------
brunomiranda
Could note have said this better myself.

------
jspthrowaway2
I'm going to avoid commenting on this essay beyond saying Paul, thank you very
much for sharing it. I've been circling the drain for the last few weeks due
to relentless problems in my personal life, and you've reminded me that there
is something worth living for inside all of us.

Your essay was precisely what I needed. Though I don't know you, this piece
has changed my life in a way that you'll probably never know, and I owe you a
lot. I'm sure it's the same for many others. Thank you for sharing, and thank
you for ignoring the haters who are bringing noise to you on the discussion of
God.

------
thoughtcriminal
God's love is eternal and it is perfect, but it's not unconditional.

That's fair. That makes more sense than God loving an axe-wielding rapist as
much as Mother Theresa.

~~~
paul
An axe-wielding rapist is mentally sick. I would still love my children, even
if they had a horrible sickness. Love is not a reward.

~~~
thoughtcriminal
All evil can't be blamed on mental illness Paul, but that kind of evil is
certainly unfathomable by us.

Riveting article btw. Incredible what you have been through. I was happy to
read your daughter is well!

~~~
jlgreco
Can you make the decision to be evil, or is evilness an inherent property of
someone?

If evil is a decision, how could you make the decision to be evil? Deciding to
be evil would itself be an evil act. It is an infinite regress.

If evil is built in, how could you possibly respect a god that punishes what
it creates for being as it created it?

