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Ask YC: Are you religous?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#61

Post by gscott »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #37

meh, I think religion in this context is merely morality side-taking. morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind, I can see the appeal of taking a shortcut. I myself have struggled with the balance between objective and subjective morals. I take an evolutionary psychology approach to why humans behave how they do, but that doesn't answer what we should do. I think this question is very relevant to ha…

> morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind

With religion morality is supposed to be the norm. For Christians, Jesus feed the hungry not because it made Jesus feel good but rather to model "normal behavior". This goes on with Jesus saving the woman from stoning, the son coming back to his father and his father forgiving him (for demanding his inheritance early and blowing it on hookers), and so on.

Morality in the real world (without religion) is an excercise in making yourself feel good (and feel you are "better then others") without any self-examination.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#64

Post by silentbicycle »

paulgb wrote: post #46
rrf wrote: post #15

Alternate theory: The Internet is a dangerous idea – cf Raganwald last post. Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. Second, I’d suggest that the average hacker puts reason before faith, so is less likely to believe in a supernatural creator.

> Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. I think this is too cynical a view of religion. Most religious people I've known value truth as much as any atheist, and would know it if they were the subject of this sort of idea control. I know ther…

Agreed. With religion, as with many things, people with loud extreme opinions make for good tv, and tend to be vastly overrepresented in the media because of it.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#65

Post by Prrometheus »

BenS wrote: post #57
Prrometheus wrote: post #16

Why do you care? If you draw any generalizations from the replies on this forum, then you are committing every statistical fallacy in the book. As for your hypothesis, the Hacker News community is built around Hacker News and not religion or the lack thereof, so I find it hard to see how it fits in. I would agree that online communities built around religion are of little interest, but only because I find the subject…

I wasn't really looking to conduct a survey, I was just hoping to get a few opinions. True, hacker news is not about religion, nor is it a good way to conduct statistically signifcant surveys, but it's still nice to hear what people think. I could think of lots of explanations for the shortage of religious sites...and I was looking for some opinions. A few possibilities include (A) there is no shortage of sites, i'm…

Your point makes a LOT more sense now that you put it that way. Titling your post "Are you religious?" probably isn't a good way to get people's thoughts on why there is a perceived poverty of religious websites. You will notice that most of the responses on this page are about people's personal beliefs and not about their thoughts on religious websites.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#66

Post by silentbicycle »

gscott wrote: post #61
nazgulnarsil wrote: post #37

meh, I think religion in this context is merely morality side-taking. morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind, I can see the appeal of taking a shortcut. I myself have struggled with the balance between objective and subjective morals. I take an evolutionary psychology approach to why humans behave how they do, but that doesn't answer what we should do. I think this question is very relevant to ha…

> morality is one of the great unsolved dilemma's of our kind With religion morality is supposed to be the norm. For Christians, Jesus feed the hungry not because it made Jesus feel good but rather to model "normal behavior". This goes on with Jesus saving the woman from stoning, the son coming back to his father and his father forgiving him (for demanding his inheritance early and blowing it on hookers), and so on.…

Not all religious authority rests on any sort of divine command. In buddhism* , morality is based on the idea that it's immoral to do some things (primarily: kill, steal, engage in sexual misconduct, lie/slander, and consume intoxicants that cloud judgement) because they tend to increase the amount of suffering in the world.

* Which may or may not be considered a religion, depending on how you define things; it's not necessarily theistic, for example.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#67

Post by ajkirwin »

I'd say that I am spiritual, in that I have an interest in the enrichment of the body and the mind, but I am not religious in any way, shape or form.

Infact, I am something of a militant atheist, but I am a very moral person. I would happily tolerate religions of all types, if only they would tolerate me and mine. But, as they won't.. then neither shall I.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#68

Post by mattmaroon »

Prrometheus wrote: post #16

Why do you care? If you draw any generalizations from the replies on this forum, then you are committing every statistical fallacy in the book. As for your hypothesis, the Hacker News community is built around Hacker News and not religion or the lack thereof, so I find it hard to see how it fits in. I would agree that online communities built around religion are of little interest, but only because I find the subject…

A person's religion says a lot about their epistemology, which in turn says a lot about them. You have to pick and choose your friends somehow (this is not unnecessary meddling) and there are few more substantive ways.

I'm a non-militant atheist, so I generally don't "look down upon" religious people or feel it's my duty to convert them. But I also have a hard time really relating to anyone who is willing to base their morality or political/life decisions on such silly things as the Bible (see http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/... for explanation) or logically unsound principles with no factual evidence. Their epistemology is just too different from mine.

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#69

Post by ericb »

paulgb wrote: post #46
rrf wrote: post #15

Alternate theory: The Internet is a dangerous idea – cf Raganwald last post. Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. Second, I’d suggest that the average hacker puts reason before faith, so is less likely to believe in a supernatural creator.

> Religions would probably prefer to keep followers away from the web and in a place of worship, where there is more direct idea control; therefore would be less interested in devoting resources to developing websites. I think this is too cynical a view of religion. Most religious people I've known value truth as much as any atheist, and would know it if they were the subject of this sort of idea control. I know ther…

I'm not sure militant is the right word--seems like that would be adopting the nomenclature of the religious. I've never had an atheist knock on my door and try to convert me. I think the term militant comes out because believers sometimes find non-belief threatening in and of itself.

Most religions have, built into them, a meme for spreading (evangelizing) themselves. There is no such meme for atheism to spread itself. The idea is to put atheism on a more equal footing. Being open about atheism counters conformity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

Re: Ask YC: Are you religous?

#70

Post by mattmaroon »

xlnt wrote: post #30

Few hackers post that they are religious on left-leaning social news sites is different than few hackers are religious.

I would be willing to bet that the average hacker is significantly less religious than the average American, if any of the terms in that sentence could be defined and then measured.
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