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Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Maybe it just comes down to being scared of death and nothing afterward, and wanting there to be more. In my book that might be enough if enough is relevant.
This is getting close to it for me. I think a person can legitimately want to believe something that they don't in fact believe; or want to want something that they don't in fact want. Like, a meta-desire for religion, even though they can't, in truth, claim to believe the religious tenets.
This always seemed quite the metaphysical pickle. Adams seems like an example of it -- scared, probably desperate to believe, but unable to, but willing to make the Hail Mary (no pun intended), just in case. I've wondered for years whether a thing like this can "count", and I know people don't like that phrasing, but to me it's the most honest phrasing that describes a significant swathe of humans on this planet, and is therefore worth tackling directly.
There's a famous cry in the Bible, "I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24) I think many deathbed confessions of faith, even if motivated out of fear, are genuine (but i also can't say that all are). It's also worth noting that the Bible does not shy away from using self-interest as a reason for believing in Jesus. The message of the gospels isn't that you should believe in spite of your self interest. It's that you should believe because believing in Jesus is the best thing for you and your eternal soul.
However, I think a popular misconception is that belief means mere intellectual or verbal assent, but it is much more than that.
I would say, for those with a meta-desire for religion, why not just try it out then? If you're not sure you believe, you can try to dive deeper and spend time with the community, and see if that changes.
It's such a great question!
Here's the relevant bit that is attributed to him:
Did he mean it? He was dying, he knew he was dying, so he probably had more reason to mean in than the rest of us, but like how do you measure sincerity of something like that?
I don't know how good a representation of Christian I am (in the past at least I was quite serious about faith, almost became a Franciscan novitiate...), but I kind of connect this sort of thinking to the idea of forgiveness in general.
If there is such a thing as a sin, and it takes you away from God, and God offers a way back which entails you acknowledging that you sinned and feeling some sense of remorse or not wanting to do it again, then all that is required is wanting to be closer to God. Of course, "wanting to be closer to God" isn't exactly a recipe.
I was wondering similar thoughts to you when I read Adams last note there. My wonder was more along the lines of why did he need to tell the world about it? For me, at least, it cheapens it a little, but maybe others feel it is a "powerful witness."
Maybe it just comes down to being scared of death and nothing afterward, and wanting there to be more. In my book that might be enough if enough is relevant.