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Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

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Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#11

Post by samvelst »

mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

The thing I wonder about the most is what their thought process is like. I believe any intelligent person will come to a point where they will question their faith. I'm genuinely curious as to what makes them side with faith.

I know from my own culture that one's personal image is usually the biggest factor when deciding. Atheists are pretty much outcasts in my culture.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#12

Post by SwellJoe »

mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

I went through a phase like that, and I still have to be careful not to let it slip into my judging process. Larry is one of the people who helped me get over it. I've met him a few times now, and he's strikingly intelligent and thoughtful. I've met very few people of that intellectual caliber, in fact, and I've met quite a few famously smart people.

The difference between a brilliant theist and a stupid one is that the brilliant one knows enough to know what they don't know. Larry's religion, while strongly held, is not a small-minded one. The Perl community is strikingly open-minded and diverse (there are many gay folks, at least a couple transgendered folks, a huge contingent of straight men wearing skirts, and all manner of folks who choose to live differently), and Larry not only accepts this diversity, he cultivated it that way. Larry is simply not what most atheists or agnostics think of when they think of "religious person".

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#13

Post by mckoss »

epochwolf wrote: post #9
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

I fail to understand how intelligence and being a theist are inversely related. I've always thought that there were serious limits to what science can prove. There are limits we what we can directly observe and indirect observation is significantly less reliable if you can't duplicate the predicted cause.

I think it takes an amazing disregard for evidence to hold on to being a Christian. We're not really talking about deep mysteries of the universe here. The Christian myth is so obviously false to anyone who takes an even casual look at the historical evidence.

So how is it that the human mind, while being so good at reasoning in one sphere, can be so easily defeated in another.

I have nothing against the culture or ethics of Christianity or Christians. I was raised and hold dear those ethical teachings, myself (well, some of them). It's just that it's historical myths are so obviously false - it literally does baffle me that their belief is still so pervasive in Western society (actually, much more in the US than European society).

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#14

Post by stopmi »

dasil003 wrote: post #10
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

What do you think God is? Evangelical atheists want him to be a straw man poking his head of the clouds Monty-Python-style; but what if God is just a metaphor for everything greater than the reality we are capable of understanding in our tiny carbon-based brains? Do you really want to believe that the only things that matter in life are those that can be hypothesized, measured, and analyzed with physical instruments?…

"that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof"

and why give weight to the ramblings of the religious but not to all schizophrenics?

shouldn't we give both views equal respect without calling to reason?

edit: referring to the "difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences/delusions/hallucinations" symptoms when i said schizophrenics

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#15

Post by doorhammer »

SwellJoe wrote: post #12
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

I went through a phase like that, and I still have to be careful not to let it slip into my judging process. Larry is one of the people who helped me get over it. I've met him a few times now, and he's strikingly intelligent and thoughtful. I've met very few people of that intellectual caliber, in fact, and I've met quite a few famously smart people. The difference between a brilliant theist and a stupid one is that…

One of those things that attracts me to the hacker 'ethos', so-to-speak, is seeing people reaching into disparate and esoteric depths to stitch together seemingly outlandish but uniquely powerful solutions.

I've been just as guilty of being intellectually self-righteous as anyone, but these days I see elitism of any status-quo as completely counter-productive when it comes to inspiring creativity and diversity. That said, it's hard not to slip back into it, heh.

I really enjoyed the article, and while I haven't been a Christian for some time, I'd be totally stoked to meet Larry some day. He sounds like a stand up guy.

Maybe I should start wearing a skirt.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#16

Post by baddox »

stopmi wrote: post #14
dasil003 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think God is? Evangelical atheists want him to be a straw man poking his head of the clouds Monty-Python-style; but what if God is just a metaphor for everything greater than the reality we are capable of understanding in our tiny carbon-based brains? Do you really want to believe that the only things that matter in life are those that can be hypothesized, measured, and analyzed with physical instruments?…

"that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof" and why give weight to the ramblings of the religious but not to all schizophrenics? shouldn't we give both views equal respect without calling to reason? edit: referring to the "difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences/delusions/hallucinations" symptoms when i said schizophrenics

Schizophrenia isn't what you think it is.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#17

Post by mckoss »

dasil003 wrote: post #10
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

What do you think God is? Evangelical atheists want him to be a straw man poking his head of the clouds Monty-Python-style; but what if God is just a metaphor for everything greater than the reality we are capable of understanding in our tiny carbon-based brains? Do you really want to believe that the only things that matter in life are those that can be hypothesized, measured, and analyzed with physical instruments?…

Evidence for the way the world works is all around us. Holding onto faith in creationism and other religion-based myths is holding many people back from understanding what real evidence we have about the world.

If you want to go to the extreme of arguing that using evidence as a justification for believing (or not believing) in something is an act of faith, then I don't think we can have a reasonable argument about anything.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#18

Post by doorhammer »

stopmi wrote: post #14
dasil003 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think God is? Evangelical atheists want him to be a straw man poking his head of the clouds Monty-Python-style; but what if God is just a metaphor for everything greater than the reality we are capable of understanding in our tiny carbon-based brains? Do you really want to believe that the only things that matter in life are those that can be hypothesized, measured, and analyzed with physical instruments?…

"that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof" and why give weight to the ramblings of the religious but not to all schizophrenics? shouldn't we give both views equal respect without calling to reason? edit: referring to the "difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences/delusions/hallucinations" symptoms when i said schizophrenics

If a schizophrenic developed an elegant solution for highly efficient, commercially viable solar-panels, I'd probably listen intently to his views on semiconductors, while politely opting out of the dissertation on talking toast.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#19

Post by stopmi »

doorhammer wrote: post #6
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing that it's relevant whether or not someone believes in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are condescending.

but it is relevant in the scientific community..

if you are religious/spiritual, then you have to believe some phenomena are inexplicable, as they are performed/commanded by some entity we cannot comprehend

it just doesn't usually encourage the kind of inquisitive/iconoclastic/skeptical attitude that scientists need

and if you are doing research, it could also result in confirmation bias

why do you think it is not relevant? you could explain that instead of condescendingly accusing the OP of being condescending.

Re: Larry Wall on religion and Perl culture (1999)

#20

Post by mckoss »

doorhammer wrote: post #8
mckoss wrote: post #3

It never fails to amaze me how otherwise very intelligent and thoughtful people remain stuck believing in God. I must say I can't help feel a little less impressed with people when I learn they are theists.

But seriously. I don't think it's pragmatically relevant. I'm personally what you might call a soft-atheist, and I can tell you that when it comes down to brass tacks, my general disinterest in theism or atheism of any sort does little to inform my coding. It does, however, seem fair to say that if Wall's self-assessment is to be believed, then at least some part of his personality and personal history, which ultimat…

I don't mean to be disrespectful to Mr. Wall. Of course I admire his brilliant creations. I made my statement in the context where those of us that rely on reason and evidence are under attack in popular culture. And people tout lists of brilliant scientists who were also Christians, as though it were proof that belief in Christianity is a reasonable philosophy.

I don't begrudge anyone their own personal beliefs. But say, perhaps, Larry had mentioned that he drew his inspiration from a 5" fairy who was constantly sitting on his shoulder. Would it not give you some pause, and amazment that an otherwise articulate and intelligent man, would have such a strange belief. However interesting or charming that may be, that's how I feel when I hear about taking enduring Christian beliefs well into adulthood.

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